• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2020

This study investigates the influence of individual blockholder on accounting quality. Prior studies investigating Korean blockholders' influence focus on the influence of controlling shareholders or institutional investors; however, they rarely examine individual blockholders' influence. This paper investigates how individual blockholders in Korean stock markets affect accounting quality of firms listed in Korean Stock Exchange. I analyze individual blockholders' influence on proxies of accounting quality using multivariate regression with hand-collected individual blockholder data. Korean law requires public firms to disclose the list of shareholders having no less than 5% of ownership. From the list of blockholders, individuals who have no explicit personal relation with controlling shareholders were classified as individual blockholders. My empirical results show that firms having individual blockholder(s) use more income-decreasing accruals than those having no individual blockholder. Furthermore, accounting information of firms having individual blockholders(s) is more conservative than that of firms having no individual blockholders. However, the presence of individual blockholder increases the tendency of loss avoidance and earnings management using overproduction and reduction of discretionary expenditure. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting the first evidence of the monitoring role of an individual blockholder on financial reporting of firms listed in the Korean stock markets.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.154-167
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• 2004

The TOC/DBR and Six Sigma are the most attention-getting concepts for managing manufacturing companies in Korea. Using the ideas and methods of the TOC/DBR, companies can achieve a large reduction of work-in-process and finished-good inventories, significant improvement in scheduling performance, and substantial earnings increase. The Six Sigma approach derives the overall process of selecting the right projects based on their potential to improve performance metrics and selecting/training the right people to get the business results. These two concepts have different backgrounds and different viewpoints for production systems. So, if the two concepts collaborate each other, the synergy effects to innovate production systems can be expected. This paper proposes a new approach to implement the TOC/DBR concepts in production systems. This approach uses some concepts of Six Sigma which stresses educations, project approaches (step by step procedure using a Roadmap), and improvement philosophy.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-17
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• 2017

There is a serious information asymmetry between internal managers and outside investors in the process during IPOs. One mechanism that mitigates this information asymmetry is a high quality auditor. Since prior research document auditors' effect on newly listed firms at the IPO year, what has not yet been revealed in previous studies is the behavior of firms and auditors after listing. In this study, we investigate (i) the firms tendency of contracting with Big N auditors, and (ii) the effect of Big N auditors on accounting quality after the years of IPOs. Using a sample of 7,678 (1,892 firm-years of after IPOs, and 5,786 control firm-years) KOSDAQ observations between 2002 and 2012, we find that the likelihood of contracting with Big N auditor lasts only for two years after IPO compare to that of non-IPO control years. Secondly, we find that the effect of Big N auditors on clients' earnings management lasts for a very short period after IPO. These findings suggest that although prior literature argue that Big N auditors reduce earnings management of their clients, at least the period right after IPO, it is not consistent. Our study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, we provide new evidences of firms' auditor selection decisions by investigating years after the listing. In second, as an evidence of accruals reversal, we document decrease in discretionary accruals after IPOs. Third, we find that there is not always a positive relation between Big N auditor and accounting quality by showing the insignificant Big N auditor effect after IPOs. Our results also suggest several implications to IPO related stakeholders. First, to IPO firms, we provide evidences that decisions of hiring auditors affect firms earnings. Also, lead IPO underwriters may consider how these decisions influence future performance. Second, investors may want to use information not only in the preofferings but also after public offerings. Our study insists that auditor hiring decisions affects their own welfare. Finally, accounting standard setters may find these results useful for evaluating how much discretion they should allow corporate managers to hire auditors. In addition, our result casts doubt on auditor designation.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.173-188
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• 2016

The introduction and operation of compensation committee can affect managers' incentive-compensation system. In this context, The purpose of this paper examines whether managers' pay-performance sensitivity is affected by the quality of the compensation committee(compensation committee size, the proportion of outside directors on the compensation committee, the proportion of directors with 2 or more non additional board seats on the compensation committee) To test this hypothesis, we use a sample of 260 firm-year observations between 2001-2013. The results are as follows. Firstly, we find that no significant relevance between the compensation committee size and pay-performance sensitivity. But the proportion of outside directors on the compensation committee and the proportion of directors with 2 or more non additional board seats on the compensation committee is positively associated with both pay-earnings based performance sensitivity and pay-stock based performance sensitivity. Secondly, we find that the integration quality of the compensation committee is positively associated with both pay-earnings based performance sensitivity and pay-stock based performance sensitivity. Overall, our analysis suggests that compensation committee are important mechanism in the design of efficient incentive-compensation system.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.77-82
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• 2018

Purpose - This paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial reporting quality. Corporate social responsibility is a way for firms to take responsibility for the social and environmental impacts of their business operations. Corporate social responsibility is a broad concept that can take various forms depending on the firm and industry. Through corporate social responsibility programs, firms can benefit society. At the same time, firms improve their reputations by increasing engagement in corporate social responsibility activities. However, corporate social responsibility activities are not directly related to profitability, especially for distribution firms. Research design, data, and methodology - 229 distribution & service firm-years between 2011 and 2016 are used for the main analysis. In Korea, Korean Economic Justice Institute evaluates the ethical performance of Korean firms, and the institute annually discloses the scores of top firms. This study uses the KEJI Index scores to measure firm-level corporate social responsibility activities. Discretionary accruals are used as a proxy for financial reporting quality. Discretionary accruals can be used opportunistically, and thus distort the information in earnings. We extract financial data from the KIS Value database. Results - We find that distribution & service firms' engagement in corporate social responsibilities is positively related to their financial reporting quality. First, there is a negative correlation between implementation of corporate social responsibility activities and discretionary accruals. In addition, we find that the coefficient of CSR is significantly negative, supporting our prediction. The result is significant at the 1% level. Conclusions - We examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility activities of distribution firms and their financial reporting quality while most prior studies examine the engagement in corporate social responsibility activities of manufacturing firms. The results of this study show that distribution & service firms engaging in corporate social responsibility activities are likely to maintain high-quality financial reporting.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.59-84
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• 1996

It is generally believed that the medical profession in Korea is an well-paid field along with legal profession. In this vein, the nursing is regarded one of well-paid profession. The actual data, however, reveals that nurses belong to low income bracket. We carefully compare the nurse's earnings with those of other professions. We selected 58 professions, which are similar in vocational characteristics and education background to nurses and conduct a regression analysis to estimate earning functions. Using the estimated coefficients, we project an optimum salary level for nurse, and compare it with the actual salary level. The estimated results show that the nurses are underpaid : their actual salary is less than the optimum level. We provide several explanations for this phenomenon : a tradition based on Confucian value, wage discrimination for women, and wage inequality among hospitals. Undercompensation will result either ratard professional development, or block the motivation for high quality of nursing care. If the current underpaying situation is not improved, a shortage of nurses along with an noticeable decline in the quality of medical services are expected. Therefore an adequate compensation for nurses must be properly assessed and addresed not only be health care authorities but also by legislators. Further research is needed to explain why there is such as wide salary inequality among nurses, and to find what cause it.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.236-248
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• 2021

The objective of this study is to introduce the urban utility concept that combines urban growth and urban disasters in the aspect of a conceptual theory. While many studies focused on the dollar amount damaged from a disaster, it requires adding not just building damages or human body losses but also the quality of life satisfaction. An issue in measuring the quality of life satisfaction needs to introduce a proper mode quantifying it. This study introduces the urban utility change in measuring the negative impacts of a disaster on urban life, which has been rarely investigated. To identify urban utility, urban flooding that is a cross-sectoral agenda and important to both developed and developing countries was adopted to respond to its increased frequency and damages, encouraging governments to focus on flood control policies. By combining a literature review on urban utility and urban growth, this study defined the urban utility concept as a net benefit of a resident with earnings subtracting housing and commuting costs. The theoretical study also explained that urban utility and its components dynamically change as per urban growth and disasters that even reversely affect urban growth. Because the urban utility can be one of the useful indices to appreciate the relationship between a disaster and urban growth, it is highly expected to apply for similar disaster impacts on urban areas, including COVID-19 and various global warming issues.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.352-361
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• 2010

Objectives: This study estimated the annual socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease in 2008 from a societal perspective and using a cost-of-illness method. Methods: Our model employed a comprehensive set of diagnostic disease codes to define food-borne diseases with using the Korea National Health Insurance (KNHI) reimbursement data. This study classified the food borne illness as three types of symptoms according to the severity of the illness: mild, moderate, severe. In addition to the traditional method of assessing the cost-of-illness, the study included measures to account for the lost quality of life. We estimated the cost of the lost quality of life using quality-adjusted life years and a visual analog scale. The direct cost included medical and medication costs, and the non-medical costs included transportation costs, caregiver's cost and administration costs. The lost productivity costs included lost workdays due to illness and lost earnings due to premature death. Results: The study found the estimated annual socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease in 2008 were 954.9 billion won (735.3 billion won-996.9 billion won). The medical cost was 73.4 -76.8% of the cost, the lost productivity cost was 22.6% and the cost of the lost quality of life was 26.0%. Conclusions: Most of the cost-of-illness studies are known to have underestimated the actual socioeconomic costs of the subjects, and these studies excluded many important social costs, such as the value of pain, suffering and functional disability. The study addressed the uncertainty related to estimating the socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease as well as the updated cost estimates. Our estimates could contribute to develop and evaluate policies for food-borne disease.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.374-377
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• 2015

O2O(Online-to-offline) service is the new commerce system form that mixed information search and payment of products and services from online and receipt of goods from offline. O2O commerce combine advantage of existing electronic commerce and redeem the critical point of each commerce circulation method, but earnings model is still lacking compared to development speed of O2O technology. Therefore this study drew common factor applied to O2O service to search success factor of O2O commerce on the point of view as a customer Centered by existing B2C electronic commerce, Mobile commerce, and service quality model of offline commerce included O2O commerce method. Further we suggest O2O success factor model combined new O2O success factor additionally reflecting qualitative research result based on drew O2O success service Quality factor.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.324-338
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• 2021

Background: We hypothesized that the growing demand of Korean workers for work-life balance would change the factors influencing job satisfaction. We sought to verify our hypothesis by conducting a conjoint analysis based on the Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS). Methods: We analyzed the raw data of the KWCS, conducted by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute from 2006 to 2017. To complete the analysis, we counted on a conjoint model of analysis, typically used in the analysis of customer satisfaction. The dependent variable was the satisfaction of workers with their working conditions, and the independent variables were the job quality indicators identified by Eurofound. Results: The factors that have the greatest impact on working conditions satisfaction are summarized as follows: "physical environment" for the first wave, "adverse social behavior" for the second wave, "occupational status" for the third and fourth waves, and "management quality" for the fifth wave. "Earnings" were not a major factor in determining employee job satisfaction, and the relative importance index is decreasing. Conclusion: According to the results of the analysis of the tendencies of Korean workers, the factors that affect the satisfaction with the working conditions have changed over time. It is crucial to identify factors that affect working conditions to assure the health and productivity of workers. The results of this study demonstrate that policymakers and employers are required to attentively consider human relations and social environment at work to improve working conditions in the future.