Diaspora Cultural Diplomacy as a Transnational Behavior for Enhancing Ethnic Identity: The Korean Diaspora in the U.S. in Focus

Despite the high recognition of contributions to the homeland, cultural diplomacy by the diaspora has long been overlooked concerning what motivates expatriates to engage in such efforts. To investigate this, the study introduces a socio-psychological model focused on private collective self-esteem, which is central to the diaspora's ethnic identity. The findings from a SEM analysis of the model, based on ethnic Koreans (N = 307) in the U.S., who are members of World-OKTA, the largest Korean diaspora economic network, revealed the following. First, the esteem significantly influenced (β = 0.636) the intention to engage in cultural diplomacy—redefined as a transnational identity-enhancing behavior. Secondly, among the three antecedents of esteem, the perceived reputation of the homeland in the host country was significantly the most salient (0.490), followed by the perception of being discriminated against (-0.252), whereas the perception of the quality of relationships with the homeland government was insignificant (0.097). However, a subsequent analysis of the moderating effects of legal status (U.S. citizens vs. non-citizens) revealed that the overall insignificant perception of relationship quality became significant (0.292) among non-citizens (n = 159). Additionally, the perceived homeland reputation was more than twice as high among U.S. citizens (0.650) compared to non-citizens (0.289). Based on these findings, the study discussed practical implications for governments to enhance the diaspora's perception of their homeland reputation in the host country and to cultivate quality relationships with them.