• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.51
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• pp.5-28
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• 2002

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issues and the characteristics of the recent social security pension debate in the United States. For the purpose the transforming process from the funded system to the pay-as-you-go system in the 1930s, three alternatives of social security reform proposed by the Social Security Administration in 1996, and the other various alternatives proposed by the politicians, the business leaders and the scholars were analysed. While the alternatives were compared, the critical issues could be identified. The core issues were as follows. First, the individual accounts should be newly made or not? Second, who is the main administrator, government or private investment companies? Third, what is important, the inter-generational and the vertical income redistribution effect or the individual equity in social security pension system? Besides, the different positions of the social forces were also examined. The supporters of privatizing the social security pension, supporters of IA and PSA, prefer the value of equity, the effect of promoting savings, the private management of the social security funds, and the investment of the funds to the private capital markets. The supporters of pay-as-you-go system, supporters of MB, prefer the inter-generational and the vertical income redistribution effect of social security pension, and were convinced that fundamental changes of the systems are not necessary, and the insolvency problem could be overcome through a few reform, for example, increasing the rate and decreasing the benefits.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.209-237
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• 2012

1. Research Purpose Consumers rely on various clues to evaluate their decision to patronize a retail store, and store brand is one of them (Dodds 1991; Grewal et al. 1998). As consumers find ever increasing variety of contact points connecting them to specific store, the value of experiential shopping as a means of increasing store's brand equity warrants greater attention from scholars of retail management. Retail shopping values are credited for creating not only cognitive experiences like brand knowledge but also emotional experiences such as shopping pleasure and pride (Schmitt 1999). This may be because today's consumers place emphasis on emotional values associated with shopping pleasure, lifestyle brought to life, brand relationship, and store atmosphere more than utilitarian values such as product quality and price. Many previous literature found this to be true (Ahn and Lee 2011; Mathwick et al. 2001). This brings forth important research issues and questions regarding the roles of shopping experiential values and brand equity with regard to consumer's retail patronage choice. However, despite this importance, research on this area remains quite inadequate (Hwang 2010). For this reason, this study aims to verify the relationships among experiential shopping values, retail store brand equity and tries to link that with customer loyalty by surveying large-scale discount store shoppers in Korea and China. 2. Research Contents In order to carry out the research objective, this study conducted comprehensive literature survey on previous literature by discussing major findings and implications with regard to shopping values and retail brand equity and store loyalty. For data collection, researcher employed survey-based research method where data were collected in two major cities of Korea (Seoul) and China (Bejing) and sampling frame was based on patrons of large discount stores in both countries. Specific research questions raised in this study are as follows; RQ1: How do Korean and Chinese consumers differently perceive of shopping values regarding shopping at large-sclae discount stores? RQ2: Are there differences in consumers' emotional consumption propensities? RQ3: Do Korean and Chinese consumers display different perceptions of brand equity towards large-scale discount stores? RQ4: Are there differences in relationships between shopping values and brand equity for Korean and Chinese consumers? For statistical analysis, SPSS17.0, AMOS17.0 and SmartPLS were employed. 3. Research Results The data collected through face-to-face survey conducted in Seoul and Bejing revealed appropriate data validity and reliability as a result of exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests, andh SEM model yielding satisfactory model fitness. The result of the study may be summarized by three main points. First, as a result of testing differences in consumption dispositions, Chinese consumers showed higher scores in aesthetic and symbolic dispositions, whereas Korean consumers scored higher in hedonic disposition. Second, testing on perceptions toward brand equity of large discount stores showed that Korean consumers exhibited more positive perceptions of brand awareness and brand image than Chinese counterparts. Third, the result of exploratory factor analysis on the experiential shopping values revealed different factors for each country. On Korean side, consumer interest value, aesthetic value, and hedonic value were prominent, whereas on Chinese side, hedonic value, aesthetic value, consumer interest value, and service excellence value were found salient. 4. Research Implications While many previous studies on inter-country differences in retailing area mainly focused on cultural dispositions or orientations to explain the differences, this study sets itself apart by specifically targeting individual consumer's shopping values from an experiential viewpoint. The study result provides important theoretical as well as practical implications for large-scale discount store, especially the impotance of fully exploring the linkage between shopping values and brand equity, which has significant influence on loyalty. Therefore, the specific implications deriving from the result shed some important insights upon the consumption values based on shopping experiences and brand equity. The differences found in store shoppers between the two countries may also provide useful insights for Korean and Chinese retailers who plan to expand their operations globally. Related strategic implications derived from this study is the importance of localizing retail strategy which is based on the differences found in experiential shopping values between the two country groups. Especially the finding that Chinese consumers value consumer interest and service excellence, whereas Koreans place importance on hedonic or aesthetic values indicates the need to differentiate the consumer's psychographical profiles when it comes to expanding retail operations globally. Particularly important will be to pursue price-orienated strategy in China in consideration of the high emphasis on consumer interests and service excellence, but to emphasize the symbolic aspects of brand equity in Korea by maximizing the brand equity associated with aesthetic values and hedonic orientations. 5. Recommendations This study focused on generic retail branded discount stores in both countries, thus making it difficult to tease out store-specific strategies based on specific retail brands. Future studies may benefit fro employing actual brand names in survey questionnaire to verify relationship between shopping values and brand-based store strategy. As with other studies of this nature, this study needs to strengthen the result's generalizability by selecting respondents from a wider spectrum of respondents.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.76-89
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• 2014

The functions of urban park including health related benefit and climate adaptation and mitigation are expanding. However, in-depth research and discourse on the equitable distribution of expanded park function has been limited so far. Following research suggests Green Welfare concept to reflect distributive equity and multifunctionality in the process of urban park policy development and execution. This study developed park welfare indices to analyze disparities of neighborhood urban park(NUP) distribution viewed from green welfare by literature review. The findings analyzed through the Correlation Analysis and Cluster Analysis by SPSS 18.0. The results of the study are as follows. First, green welfare is defined as "to receive equitable benefits and participate in the delivery process of green services which are promoting health and securing safety from climate change risks for every citizen by life cycle regardless of socioeconomic status". Second, NUP per person in Seoul indicate meaningful differences by socioeconomic and environmental status of Seoul administrative districts. Park welfare indices correlated to NUP per person were shown population density(negative), percentage of individuals $aged{\geq}65$(positive), percentage of self-reliance of local finance(positive), flood and air pollution vulnerability by climate change(negative). Third, the cluster analysis identifies three significant clusters that indicate differences of park welfare level. Thus, it was found that NUP in Seoul from a green welfare perspective was provided disproportionately. Future urban park policy in Seoul was required equitable distribution of multifunctionality of park beyond quantitative expansion, and priority consideration should be given to park service consumer.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.73-84
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• 2020

The paper investigates the effect of the factors on the disclosure of sustainable development information of enterprises. The research sample includes 120 manufacturing companies listed on Vietnam stock market in 2019. This research uses ordinary least squares (OLS) to address econometric issues and to improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients. The empirical results show that five variables have a statistically significant positive effect on disclosure of sustainable development information of manufacturing companies, including firm size (SIZE), independence of board of directors (BOD), foreign ownership (FRO), return on equity (ROE), and financial leverage (LEV). The results indicate that state ownership (STO) has a statistically significant negative effect on disclosure of sustainable development information of manufacturing companies listed on Vietnam stock market. Besides, the research results also show there is a large difference in the disclosure of sustainable development information between listed companies in Vietnam, those of other emerging economies in the region, and the companies in developed markets. Therefore, this paper provides a new insight to managers and related parties on how to improve the firm's sustainability disclosure to bring benefit for the firm itself and the stakeholders by reasonable decisions about the factors that affect disclosure of sustainable development information.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.17-39
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• 2005

Social solidarity, equity in financing, and efficiency in administration have been core issues in the development of Korean health insurance reformation since 1988. This study is to investigate the trend of administrative cost in Korean National Health Insurance from various aspects. For the analysis of administrative cost, the expenditures of each insurance society and the National Health Insurance Corporation are divided into 4 items of (1) insurance benefit, (2) administrative cost, (3) an agency provision accounts, (4) other expenses, and then they are reorganized. The analyses based on 5 types of the health insurance administrative cost showed that efficiency in administration has been improved generally. We, however, should consider qualitative aspects such as customer's satisfaction with health insurance administration, prompt service, control of unjust expenditure (unjust claims), and provision of medical service including health consultation in assessing efficiency of administration. And, in order to connect the administrative costs of health insurance with efficiency, we need to give a fundamentally new definition, which can contain elaborateness of expenditure in details including the structure and evaluation method of administrative costs. It may be necessary to develop new indicators or analyzing methods hereafter.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.35-42
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• 2019

Purpose - There is little research on the market of foreign infant education materials. So, it is needed to deeply examine the development and preference factors of foreign infant education materials. Therefore, this study presents a future method and model for analyzing the important variables of buying foreign infant education materials. Research design, data, and methodology - The conjoint analysis method and model of this paper is used as follows. Conjoint analysis method is possible to derive the attributes to be analyzed through the model of the preferred factors, and then to derive the sub-attributes of the attributes. Results - This study derived preference attributes between brand benefit, equity (brand image, loyalty, awareness), distribution network (department store, specialty stores, discount store, internet mall), and service quality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy) in infant education materials conjoint model. Conclusions - Since the opening of the education market in Korea, parents have a high education level due to low birth rate. The advantages of the conjoint analysis method have been extended to the study of infant education materials. Based on this, this paper will identify important attributes that are considered in preference of foreign infant education materials and help to establish and implement future marketing strategies.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.440-443
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to classify government regulations and to present the direction of regulation policy in korean construction industry with focus on subcontract or special contractor. The literature research and type analysis are adopted as research method. And the results of this study are as followed. The study has shown the type of government regulations related with subcontract or specialty contractor in korean construction industry. Also, Having shown the institutional function of the regulations in the market. And the study has presented the approach to reform government regulations in construction industry. First, government must recognize not only economic efficiency but also social equity as equivalent policy values. Second, government must evaluate the benefit and cost of policy group as regulations have changed. Third, government must analysis the functions and effects of regulation reform in comparison with existing regulation.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.259-268
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• 2020

The study investigates the association between CEO education and firm performance with a sample of 85 nonfinancial firms listed on the Saudi stock exchange during 2018 applying ordinary least squares method. CEO education is defined by three variables, the level of education, if the degree-granting institution is domestic or foreign, and if the highest degree is in management or other fields of study. Financial performance is measured by return on assets and return on equity. Firm size, age, liquidity and growth are introduced as control variables. The study shows that 58 CEOs of the firms studied are graduates, 38 have obtained their degree from a domestic institution and 44 have a management degree. Graduate CEOs are found to enhance performance. Graduating from a domestic institution influences performance positively. Management degree of CEO does not seem to impact performance. Firm size, liquidity and growth are positively associated with performance. Firm age does not explain performance differences of firms. Results are robust to performance measures. The findings of the study suggest that firms can benefit from a CEO hiring policy that emphasizes on the minimum qualification set as graduation or higher, education from a domestic institution and no undue weight on management qualification.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.64-97
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• 2015

This paper studies a series of capital market promotion policies Korea pursued over a 30-year period during its development era (1960s - 1980s). The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first purpose is to understand the policy approaches Korea took, and the second is to extract lessons that can benefit policymakers in the developing world, where capital market promotion is an important policy goal. There are two key features of Korea's capital market promotion policies. First, the government was actively involved, sometimes indirectly by giving tax incentives to encourage IPOs. However, in other times, it was directly involved by giving IPO orders and threatening those that did not comply. No stock exchange in a developed country has ever experienced such government involvement. Combined with rapid economic growth, this interventionist approached allowed the Korean stock market to experience phenomenal growth over a short period of time. Second, the capital market promotion policies had multiple objectives. One was to mobilize domestic capital for economic development. Another was to lower firms' debt-to-equity ratios. Most interestingly, however, the Korean government wanted to popularize stock ownership, thereby allowing ordinary Koreans to share in the fruits of economic growth.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.153-167
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• 2012

KB Kookmin Card has separated as an independent corporation from KB Kookmin Bank Credit Card Business Group on March, 2011. Ever since, KB Kookmin Card worked to build its own brand identity. The strategic preparation and conscientious implementations made KB Kookmin Card position in consumer's mind with a strong and unique brand image. Its new brand image was rooted in the inherited strengths of reliable and sincere image. However, it faced the challenge to compete in credit card industry in which most competitors had an advanced and sophisticated image. The strengths of KB Kookmin Card were also at the same time their limitations. KB Kookmin Card took a strategy that strengthened the strengths and improved the weaknesses. It focused on the core competence of being a people's sincere life supporter that helps people make savings from everyday events to make a good sum rather than being a lump sum benefit. The brand introduction strategy was implemented in 2011. The implementation focused on the activities that made internal as well as external customers be aware of the brand. Communication programs using a variety of media were executed to attain this goal. In 2012, second phase communication programs were introduced to elaborate the newly established brand image. It introduced many extended products as well as accessory programs which targeted the segments. Also, various CSR activities in many social domains helped consumers and the public to consider KB Kookmin Card an authentic, caring, trustworthy, and consistently-developing supporter in their everyday lives.