For global teams
Your qualitative research partner in South Korea
Chainjee works with research agencies, consultancies, and brand teams abroad as their local partner in South Korea. Bring us in for a whole study or for one part of it. Inquiries about research in Korea are always welcome.
What we can take on
You do not need to hand over the full project. Most of our work with teams abroad starts with a single piece.
Study design
We help shape the questions, the sample, and the method for the Korean context, or work from the design you already have.
Recruitment
We recruit consumers ourselves and, for larger samples, through specialist recruiters we have worked with for years. For policy and public-sector studies, we reach senior respondents in government, academia, associations, and business through direct outreach. We handle scheduling, eligibility checks, and incentives.
Moderation in Korean
In-depth interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic visits are moderated by our own senior researchers, Hansun Yang, Ph.D., and Anna Yang. Sessions are held wherever is most convenient for participants, not tied to a single facility. We work from your discussion guide or write one with you.
Analysis and reporting in English
The researchers who were in the room do the analysis. Transcripts are drafted by machine and then checked line by line by a researcher, because automatic transcription of spoken Korean still gets too much wrong. The interpretation is ours: a person reads every transcript and stands behind every finding. You receive an English report, and on request translated transcripts and video recordings.
Surveys alongside
When a study needs numbers as well, we run surveys on our own platform and analyze the data in-house.
Reading the Korean context
Translation is no longer the hard part of cross-border research. The hard part is knowing what an answer means here: what a Korean respondent leaves unsaid in front of others, which words signal politeness rather than agreement, how family, age, and workplace rank shape what people buy and how they explain it.
This is the work we are trained for. Chainjee was founded by Ph.D.s in cultural anthropology, and every project follows that training: participant observation, spending time where people actually live, shop, and cook; in-depth interviewing, staying with an answer until the reasons behind it come out; and holistic analysis, treating a purchase as part of a whole life rather than a single data point. It is the part of a study we most want to be judged on.
For how we think about method and reliability, see our Methodology page.
Where we work
Consumer research
How people in Korea shop, cook, clean, and decide, observed in homes, stores, and streets.
Policy and public-sector research
Voters, citizens, and the people who make and shape policy. We have conducted qualitative research for the National Assembly of Korea and for local councils and public institutions.
Organizations we have worked with include LG Electronics, Pulmuone, the National Assembly of Korea, and the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
How we work with you
One point of contact, in English
You work directly with Hansun Yang, who leads every project. He holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Email, calls, and reports are all in English.
A quick first answer
We reply by the next business day. Tell us the scope, the respondents you need, and your timeline, and we will come back with feasibility, a recruitment approach, timing, and itemized costs.
Confidentiality
We sign your NDA and do not disclose project details.
Questions we often hear
Can you handle recruitment only?
Yes. Recruitment, moderation, analysis, and reporting can each be commissioned separately.
Who actually does the work?
The two moderators named above conduct the fieldwork, and the same people do the analysis. We do not pass moderation or analysis to outside freelancers.
Can you work from our screener and discussion guide?
Yes. We translate and adapt them for Korean respondents and flag anything that will not work here.
Do you cover areas outside Seoul?
Yes. We conduct fieldwork across Korea. For Korean clients we have also run field research abroad, in Vietnam and China.
Start a conversation
Send us a short description of what you need. A few lines are enough.
Contact us