• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.35-49
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• 2019

This study aims to determine whether the export volume of export country is affected by the strengthening of environmental management level of the importing country depending on the relative technology level of the importing country. To this end, a gravity model was established and the relative size of environmental management level was introduced, and how it affects the export was analyzed according to the difference of environmental management level between Korea and the importing country. The analysis of Korean industry by technology level (based on R&D investment) shows that countries with higher environmental management levels increase exports in both high and low technologies compared to Korea. On the other hand, exports of high-tech industries did not affect export growth in countries with lower environmental management than Korea.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.21-32
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• 2021

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between country-level institutional quality and public debt in the context of Pakistan. The hypotheses of this study were assessed by using the country-level institutional quality data for Pakistan throughout the years from 1996 to 2018. Data came from the World Databank, IMF and Worldwide Governance Indicators databases. For the analysis, ordinary least square, quantile regression and robust regression were employed to assess the factors influencing the public debt. The results of this study indicate that the factors of voice and accountability, regulatory quality, and control of corruption have a positive and significant relationship with public debt, while political stability, government effectiveness, and the rule of law have a negative and significant effect on public debt. Based on the findings, a weak country-level institutional quality poses a substantial market risk as it signals the existence of an unfavorable economic condition that raises public debt. It was also revealed that an improved performance of country-level institutional quality can lead to the improvement of financial market transparency, hence reduce public debt. In contrast to previous studies, the present study will be breaking ground in enhancing public insight regarding the impact of country-level institutional quality on Pakistan's public debt.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2021

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the welfare effects of standards harmonization between technologically asymmetric countries, and to determine optimal harmonization strategies for a country with mid-level technological advancement. Design/methodology - Following Salop's circular city model (Salop, 1979), this study constructs a simple, horizontally-differentiated oligopoly model in which three firms and three countries exist. Each country adopts different compatibility standards and each firm incurs conversion costs for foreign market access due to differences in standards. The conversion costs are related to technology; standards harmonization removes these costs between participating countries. The paper considers three cases: i) no harmonization; ii) harmonization with the more technologically-advanced country and iii) harmonization with the less technologically-advanced country. Findings - The paper first considers a scenario in which all three firms occupy some share of the market in each country. It shows that standards harmonization with both the technologically moreor less-advanced country always increases consumer surplus and social welfare. In addition, the producer surplus will increase if the harmonization partner has a higher technology level, whereas it may decrease if the partner has a lower technology level. It also shows that if most domestic export goods are in sectors with conversion costs above a certain level, harmonizing standards with a technologically more-advanced country should be prioritized. Such strategies, moreover, should be emphasized when there exists a large technology gap among countries. Lastly, the paper considers another scenario, in which harmonization leads to the foreclosure of the non-member firm from the member countries' markets. It shows that harmonization improves the social welfare of a mid-level technology country regardless of its partner's technology. It also shows that the country should prioritize harmonization with the technologically less-advanced country. Originality/value - Though some of the existing studies consider the welfare effects of harmonization, their main assumption is that firms have the same conversion technology. Since complying with standards often requires substantial technological advancement and technical expertise, harmonization of compatibility standards between countries with gaps in technological ability carries different implications. This paper investigates the welfare effects of this harmonization and determines an optimal harmonization strategy while considering technological asymmetry among countries in standards compliance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.41-57
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• 2009

Evaluations of fashion products are often influenced by consumers' knowledge of the country where the products were made in. As globalization progresses, country-of-origin information is widely regarded as a powerful cue on consumers' shopping behavior. The purpose of study was to examine the consumer evaluation of apparel products with uni-national or bi-national country of origin. The effect of price level and gender were also investigated. The empirical research design took 2${\times}$2 factorial design with the country-of-origin coincidence (uni-national vs. bi-national) and price (high vs. low) of gender (male vs. female). Consumers' ethnocentrism and country-of-origin interest were taken into account as covariates in the factorial design. The consumers' evaluation of fashion products was measured in terms of brand attitudes and product attitudes. Data from 514 respondents were analyzed with t-test, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, and ANCOVA. Results of this study affirmed the importance of price information rather than country-of-origin coincidence in brand attitudes and product attitudes. Only for male consumers, interaction effects of price and country-of-origin coincidence had significant eflects on utilitarian attitude. Effects of two covariate variables included in the study were significant for female respondents but not for male respondents.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.53-61
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance-performance analysis for country-of-origin labeling at restaurants. There is a growing concern over food safety as well as interest in the country-of-origin for food ingredients served at restaurants. In this study, the importance-performance analysis for the labeling of country-of-origin at restaurants, revealed that there were significant differences in all 12 attribute items, and the importance was scored higher than the performance in all items. Also, the importance-performance analysis for the attributes of the country-of-origin labeling showed that 'supportive government policies', 'system of controls for violation of the country-of-origin labeling', and 'penalty for violation of the country-of-origin labeling' are included in the second quadrant, which has a high level of importance but a low level of performance.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.59-75
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• 2020

In this paper, we investigate the influence of factors on the firm, industry, and country levels on the new product development performance (NPD) of manufacturing firms in advanced economies. The resource-based view, industrial organization theory and institutional theory have established that firm-, industry- and country-level factors are all relevant for the NPD of firms. However, little is known about the relative importance of factors at the three different levels across countries, as prior studies on firms' NPD have focused on specific countries and levels of analysis. Our analysis of survey data from 1,437 manufacturing firms in nine advanced OECD countries shows that while firm-level factors are generally better predictors of firms' innovativeness than either industry- or country-level factors, the results strongly differ across countries, indicating that the relative importance of antecedents of innovativeness is country-specific rather than universal.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.55-71
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to establish the causal structural model among brand image and country image associated with consumers' purchase decision of products. The specific objectives were 1) to analyze the effects of brand image on consumers' purchase decision of products, 2) to analyze the effects of country image on consumers' purchase decision of products, 3) to analyze the effects of brand image on country image, 4) to analyze the mediating effects of country image between brand image and consumers' purchase decision of products. The conclusions of this study are as follows: First, companies must have an advantage strategy for brand image along with country image. To this end, a strategy to promote the brand image through various media is effective. Second, it is necessary to find new transformation through the establishment of brand identity at the corporate level so that consumers can have a good impression on the brand image. Third, it is important for companies to make efforts at the level of brand image and country image to provide consumers with information that can increase expectations and actual satisfaction and to build product reputation. In addition, it is necessary to embody brand images and country images into global marketing mix strategies. Fourth, if companies build a brand image that symbolizes a differentiated culture, the brand image can have a positive effect on consumer purchase decisions. Along with this, companies can further increase their positive effects by developing representative brand image contents. Fifth, this study confirmed that the higher the image level of the manufacturing country in a situation where consumers' preferences are diversifying, the more the brand image leads to consumers' purchasing decisions. Therefore, brand managers are required to build a country image suitable for the existing brand image when advertising at the time of product introduction.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.65-81
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• 2020

Under New Climate Regime, countries are trying to enhance environmental regulations to meet international standards. This study is designed to examine the relationship between the relative level of environmental regulation of the importing countries and the export performance at the industrial level. Panel data from 2009 to 2018 was established for 12 top export industries and empirical analysis was conducted. For the analysis method, panel OLS, Hausman-Taylor, and panel GLS were used based on the results of the Hausman verification. The dependent variable is the export performance of each industry. As the independent variables, the relative level of environmental regulation, GDP per capita of the importing country, exchange rate, FTA agreement, and physical distance from the importing country were used. Results show that the relative level of environmental regulation has a negative effect on export performance of semiconductors, displays, special machines, general machines, electric appliances, and home appliances. On the other hand, there are no relationship between the relative level of environmental regulation of the importing country and export performance of automobile, petroleum refining, petrochemical, shipbuilding, and communication equipment industries.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.439-445
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to measure respondent's demographic characteristics, respondent's attitudes toward chicken, and factor influencing on the level of perceived helpfulness of country of origin in predicting the quality of chicken. The data was collected through a consumer survey during the March 2006. A total number of 250 meat consumers living in Suncheon, the eastern part of Chonnam, were randomly selected as respondents. Eleven respondents did not complete the survey instrument, resulting in a final sample size of 239. All estimations were carried out using chi-square, correlation, and logistic procedure of SAS package. The results are as follows. The level of perceived helpfulness of country of origin in predicting the quality of chicken was significantly different by age and occupation of demographic variables, and was significantly correlated with respondent informed of attitude variables. The proportional odds assumption of model was not violated at p<0.05. The effects of income, occupation and respondent informed on the level of perceived helpfulness of country of origin in predicting the quality of chicken. The results from this study could be useful in developing marketing and health promotion strategies, as well as government trade policy.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.496-500
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• 2015

International construction projects are inherently more risky than domestic projects with multi-dimensional uncertainties that require complementary risk management at both the country and project levels. However, despite a growing need for systematic country evaluations, most studies have focused on project-level decisions and lack country-based approaches for firms in the construction industry. Accordingly, this study suggests data-driven approaches for evaluating countries using two quantitative models. The first is a two-stage country segmentation model that not only screens negative countries based on country attractiveness (macro-segmentation) but also identifies promising countries based on the level of past project performance in a given country (micro-segmentation). The second is a multi-criteria country segmentation model that combines a firm's business objective with the country evaluation process based on Kraljic's matrix and fuzzy preference relations (FPR). These models utilize not only secondary data from internationally reputable institutions but also performance data on Korean firms from 1990 to 2014 to evaluate 29 countries. The proposed approaches enable firms to enhance their decision-making capacity for evaluating and selecting countries at the early stage of corporate strategy development.