• Journal of Information Management
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 1997

Led by KIEP, this project to establish an Online Union Catalog System on Northeast Asia is the first such attempt to create a collaboration between social science libraries in Korea. This Online Union Catalog System is seen as a problem solving mechanism, as it helps to maximize efficiency in utilizing labor, finance, and data, by sharing library resources. This study focuses on the process of converting databases in a non-MARC format to a MARC format.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.409-441
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• 2018

This study is a case study about the Valero Energy Corporation, the largest American independent refinery company, examining the characteristics of human resource management as a union avoidance strategy. The main research questions here are whether union substitution strategy differs clearly from union suppression strategy in the context of Valero Energy. Since the establishment in 1980, the Valero had maintained non-union tradition. The typical examples of human resource management in the non-unionized American companies are easily found in the Valero, such as strong CEO leadership, manpower policy emphasizing corporate culture and teamwork, direct communication between company and individual employees, no lay-off policy and no outsourcing policy of HRM, salary level around average of industry and best level of fringe benefits in the industry, non-union tradition and well-functioned alternative dispute resolution system and so on. Until now, based on tremendous growth and profitability, the company have applied union substitution method adopted by good companies as concrete method of union avoidance strategy instead of union suppression method that marginal enterprise prefers.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.7
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• pp.265-292
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• 2001

This paper examines what determines the use of contingent workers in Korean Department Stores. Drawing on internal labor market, transaction cost & agency, and bureaucracy theories, I hypothesize that four factors affect the use of contingent workers: job characteristics, HRM, occupation, and organizational characteristics. Data from a sample of employers surveyed by the author in 1997 were used to test the hypotheses, and analyses showed the following results. First, consistent with job-based perspective, we find that such job characteristics as firm-specific skill and the level of skill significantly affect the use of contingent workers. But job standardization and outcome measurability have no effects of its use. Second, also we find significant effects on the use of contingent workers of such HRM as scrutiny on employee selection and promotion system. The promotion system has expected effect on its use, but scrutiny on employee selection has opposite effect. Third, we find that occupation significantly affects the use of contingent workers, especially the extent of use of contingent workers of sales service is as five hundred times as that of managerial occupation. Fourth, also consistent with organizational-based perspective, we find that the firm's size significantly has positive effects, and affiliate company and labor union have negative effects. That is, the larger firm's size is, the more possibility of use of contingent workers exists, and the possibilities of its use reduce in case of affiliate company and in front of labor union. Finally, we discuss the implications and limits of theses findings.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.117-143
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• 2006

This paper illuminates the patterns of growth and declines in sizes of union membership in metal, chemical, financial, and auto transport sectors in three distinct periods during the last four decades from 1963 to 2003. This paper also calculates union densities in auto assembly, auto supply, and shipbuilding industries of the metal sector, cement, petroleum refining, and pharmaceutical industries of the chemical sector, private banking industry of the financial sector, and city bus industry of the auto transport sector. Such diversities in both sizes of union membership and union densities among sectors and industries turned out to be associated with attitudes and choices of employers and unions in interaction with sector- and industry-specific economic (growth stage and path), institutional (degrees of government intervention), and social (demographic features of employees and prevailing sizes of firms) environment. Such finding shows that theoretical reasonings on sizes of union membership and union densities across sectors and industries in advanced nations are also relevantly useful to analyze the Korean case.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.25-35
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how much continuous investment in human capital contributes to increasing labor productivity at not only individual companies but also at the national level, and causes fundamental as well as increases for labor-management conflicts. The current research aimed to empirically demonstrate the importance of human capital investment and furthermore, based on the effect of human resource investment on labor productivity, also re-examine the role of the Labor Commission as well. Research design, data, and methodology: This study was conducted by the Korea Information Service-Financial Accounting System (KIS-FAS) using representative panel data operated by countries to measure whether long-term investment in corporate human resources affects labor productivity. Results: Two distinctive summarized results of the analysis in the Korea Credit Ratings data showed that there was a high positive correlation between corporate human resource investment and economic performance for a ten-year period from 2009 to 2018. Conclusions: The present study concluded that the role of the labor committee should be effectively formed by the labor as a mediation agency and that the role of the mediation committee members should focus more on how to strengthen the human resources management of the union.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.2
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• pp.141-169
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• 1989

Most of the theories of collective bargaining outcomes start with a set of economic variables. The economic constraints, pressures, and incentives influence the bargaining power relationship between labor union and employer. In this paper, the critical macro and micro economic variables that need to be considered in analyzing the economic context of collective bargaining power relationship is outlined. The focus is on the role that economic forces play in shaping the results of bargaining, that is the outcome of negotiations. In this study, the elasticity of the demand for labor is introduced as one of the most important economic aspects that influence bargaining power. Unions will be most successful in increasing wages when they enjoy an inelastic demand for labor. If the demand for labor is not naturally inelastic, some institutional arrangement for "taking wages out of competition" must be sought. Inflation, business cycle, and income policy are influential in shaping both parties' goals and expectations as well. In addition to the analysis of the economic variables, the nature of power is diagonized with some introductory notions about its care and feeding before proceeding to the details of the above issues.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• no.39
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• pp.365-393
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• 2008

This research examnied the roles, the strategies and the influence of labor unions on the pension reform. In Italia labor unions were important actors in pension reform politics during 1990s, but in 2004 labor union was excluded from the pension reform. This difference is not only related with diffusion of the leftist party but also the experience of pension benefit retrenchment of the pension reform in 1995 in which labor unions had initiatives. Labor unions choose their strategies, social dialogue or mass struggle, depending on the attitudes of government. After change of government following the failure of the pension reform in 1994 Italian government tried social dialogue. In Dini reform in 1995, laborunions had initiative in making pension reform plan. Labor unions obtained member's approval using membership vote. It had repressed opposition from militant sectors effectively. However Labor unions concentrated on the issues of transition measures and protecting vested rights in seniority pension ignoring problems of contribution evasion of small-firm workers and benefit adequacy of young workers. Even when labor unions leaded social concertation processes and pursued union democracy, labor unions' influences on the pension reform had fundamental limitations.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-34
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• 2013

Labor share of income in Korea has fallen from 90% in 1996 to 79% in 2010. This paper explores the factors driving the movements in the labor share of income based on a panel dataset containing 19 years of data on 18 Korean manufacturing industries. The effects of technical progress, globalization and the bargaining power of labor and capital on the labor share of income are tested for the period of 1991-2009. The main empirical results are as follows. (1) Capital-aug menting technical prog ress measured by capital-labor ratio and R&D intensity has a negative effect on the labor share. (2) Market openness measured by the value of export and import as a ratio to value-added production is found to have a positive impact. (3) Globalization of production measured by inward-FDI and outward-FDI as a ratio to total domestic fixed capital is found to have a negative impact on the labor share. (4) Union density is found to have had a statistically significant effect in 1991-1998. This finding is consistent with the efficient bargain model in which firms and workers bargain over both wages and employment. But union density is insignificant in 2000-2009. This implies that since the financial crisis in 1997, the bargaining institution in Korea has been approaching the right-to-manage model in which firms and unions bargain over wages and then firms set employment unilaterally. (5) Variables for domestic financialization measured by dividend-income ratio and financial-fixed assets ratio have an insignificant effect on labor share.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.57
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• pp.69-83
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• 2012

This paper attempts to explore the development of the media labor movement and its tasks. Due to the unique characteristics of information delivered by media, the media labor movement under the authoritarian regime was oppressed and regulated by the government. As democratization has proceeded, the state's oppression and regulation of media has been weakened. However, media workers should wage the struggle for union recognition and independence of editorship simultaneously. Because media unions as labor market organizations also seek for job security and wage increase, we need to understand both political dimension and economic dimension of union activities in media industry. While state's control over media has been diminished in the late 1900s, competition in media industry has been intensified. As small number of media corporations monopolizes the media market, the ecology of media has been completely transformed. Unions in media industry should respond to the change of the media ecology and should build solidarity among media workers at the same time. The achievement of the public nature of media as a part of democratization and building union federation of media industry as a response to the marketization of media still remain as an epochal task for media unions. Like the case of "Hope Bus" in the strike in Hanjin Heavy Industrial Corporation, solidarity between citizens and striking workers should be strengthened.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.79-108
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• 2017

Using data sets from the Korean Labour and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) for the period 2003-2015, this study shows that wages of nonunion workers are positively related to the percentage of unionized workers in the same geographic region. A 10 percentage point increase in a region's union density is associated with a 4.9 percent increase in the region's average wage of nonunion workers. It is also shown that this positive spillover effect is observed for various subgroups of nonunion workers, including women, youth, low-educated workers, small firm employees, and those employed under nonstandard work arrangements. In contrast, the average wage of union workers is found to respond insignificantly to changes in a region's union density.