A Qualitative Study of Divergent Workplace Practices Following <scp>S</scp> outh <scp>K</scp> orea's 52‐ <scp>h</scp> Working Time Reform

ABSTRACT South Korea is known for its strong work‐centric culture, having long recorded some of the longest working hours in the OECD based on its norm of overtime work. Against this backdrop, the 52‐h working time reform, consisting of 40 standard and 12 overtime hours, was introduced in 2018. The current paper is the first qualitative study to document Korean employees' work experiences following the working time reform based on 32 interviews. The findings show that the reform produced divergent organizational trajectories shaped by firms' capacity and willingness to reorganise work. While a small subset of high‐capacity workplaces normalised a 40‐h working week through active organizational measures, most workplaces experienced more limited change, often with unintended consequences arising from reduced overtime without adequate workload adjustment or the displacement of work into informal and undocumented forms. In yet other cases, the reform had little relevance due to exemption, pre‐existing schedules, or structurally unbounded work. By offering an up‐to‐date picture of how policy interacts with organizational culture and practice, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of change and continuity in working time norms following a major policy reform in a hyper work‐oriented context.