• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.119-139
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• 2023

Purpose - This study is the first field study about the insurance market in North Korea. By analysing the information and the data collected from the visit to North Korea, we introduced the most recent change on the insurance market in North Korea and analyzed the impact of the change of economic policy on the insurance market. This study may enhance the understanding the current situation and provide expectations on the future of the insurance market in North Korea. Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on the field study doen in 2018 to Pyeong Yang, the capital of North Korea, The most information was collected from the legal documents, news papers and academic reports. Findings - During his regime from the year of 2012, Kim Jong Eun, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, initiated the drastic change in economic renovation policy in North Korea by shifting the economic system from the commodity economy to the market economy. Due to the policy, the insurance market in North Korea became marginally privatized and the market of life insurance contracts is expected to be increased if North Korea may resolve the political conflicts between North Korea and the United States and its allies in Asia mainly due to its nuclear testing. Research implications or Originality - Until now, very few studies have been done regarding the financial market in North Korea, especially about the insurance market. Our study provides unique information on the insurance market in North Korea because all the information and its implications are based on the field study in 2018.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.61-79
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• 2020

Purpose - This article empirically investigated the effects of the socio-political factor of censorship preconditioning, and organizational support, mediating performance expectancy of public sector officials' behavioural intention to utilise social media in a post-communist country, Mongolia. Design/methodology/approach - This study collected 212 survey data from public sector organisations in Mongolia. Using the Partial Least Squire (PLS) method, this study analyzed the proposal model grounded on the UTAUT model. Findings - There are still communist footprints in the form of censorship, which remained as a negative precondition factor, and this has an indirect negative influence, and organisational support mediates to enhance performance expectancy. Effort expectancy and social influence factors have direct positive influence on the use of social media systems in the government domain of Mongolia Research implications or Originality - This study empirically investigated the model of public employees' intention to examine the post-communist countries' cultural, social, economic, and political systems, government organisational environment of the former communist sphere. The cultural factors, censorship and organisational support, to the existing IT adoption UTAUT model were also identified to test the situation of a post-communist country, Mongolia. This study contributes to the new theoretical involvement with social media by testing a new social media-based third-party intercommunication channel, including intent to use in the public service for post-communist countries. This study practically provides the guidelines to promote social media usage for public sector in the post-communist situation.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.23-44
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• 2022

Purpose - Recent issues such as vessel enlargement, strengthening of environmental regulations, and port smartization are expected to increase costs and intensify competition in the port industry. In the new normal era, when external growth has reached its limit, the efficient operation of ports is becoming indispensable for achieving sustainable growth. This study aims to identify the determinants of inefficiency by examining the cost structure and efficiency of container terminals in Korea and furthermore propose the political implications to derive the maximization of efficiency. Design/methodology - This study estimates the cost function of container terminal operators and identifies the efficiency of container terminals using stochastic cost frontier (SCF) in the first stage. In the second step, the SCF results are compared with the data envelopment analysis (DEA). Last, this paper proposes efficiency determinants on container terminal operation to establish appropriate strategies. Out of the 29 container terminal operators in South Korea, 13 operators participated in the survey. The translog cost function was estimated utilizing a total of 116 observations collected over the 2007-2017 period. Findings - Empirical analysis shows that economies of scale exist in Korea's container ports, which provides a rationale for the government's policy to establish the global terminal operator by integrating small terminal operators to enhance competitiveness. In addition, as a result of the determinants analysis, container throughput, weight of direct employment costs, and labour cost share have positive effects on improving cost efficiency, while inefficiency increases as the length of quay increases. More specifically, cost efficiency improves as the proportion of direct employment costs to outsourcing service costs increases. Originality/value - This study contributes to analyzing the inefficiency factors of container terminals through efficiency analysis with respect to a cost function. In addition, this study proposes the practical and political implications, such as establishing a long-term manpower pool, the application of the hybrid liner terminal system, and the construction of a statistical data system, to improve the cost inefficiency of terminal operators.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2332-2338
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• 2011

The economy of the EU left behind the U. S. economy in many different aspects and the gap is widening. One major reason that promoted the EU's leading position is the ability to continuously advancing industrial technology and therefor secures the EU's leading position through a high level of competitiveness. The role as a powerhouse of the technological development is nurtured by a systematic attempt of the EU commission to stimulate international cooperation. Although the EU is focussing its efforts on international cooperation between EU members states, nonmembers, namely Korea, can benefit from this policy as well and generate win-win outcomes for both cooperating partners. The paper aims in the first chapter to introduce international technological cooperations in general. The second chapter identifies the political approach of both countries towards technological cooperations. The third chapter introduces the research method. In the forth chapter is analyzed a case study of two cooperation projects between Japan and the EU. Finally, implications for Korean policy makers are given.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.53-79
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• 2009

The main purpose of this study is to find what steps are needed for a system for CO2 emissions trading to be formulated as government policy, using System Thinking approach. First, this paper analyzed Korean newspapers to consider the social issue regarding CO2 emissions trading. There were more articles related to international issues than domestic ones before 2008. This trend, however, became reversed from January 2008, which means that consideration of CO2 emissions trading has been discussed as a domestic social issue from 2008. Second, it analyzed speeches by former president Roh Moo-Hyun and current president Lee Myung-bak. In particularly, President Lee Myung-bak declared "Low Carbon and Green Growth" as a new growth engine and a Korea's vision of the future national development. Third, it examined which government agencies, including departments and committees, are pursuing policies regarding climate change, global warming, and CO2 emissions trading. Most policy has originated in the Ministry of Environment, although policy alternatives have been proposed in other agencies including the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. The study concludes that the political consideration has played a major role in the policy agenda-setting process of the CO2 emissions trading in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.293-306
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• 2013

According to the increase of rural experience, that is important in satisfying needs of green tourism and vitalizing rural economy to use closed school in rural area as experience facility. For using closed school as experience facility, political and institutional assistants are needed in effective equipments and stable operation based on multi-perspective approach and analysis. In this study, we try to evaluate green-tourism accessibility of rural experience facility remodeled from closed school considering regional population and spatial characteristics. In evaluating process, gravity potential model are adapted with considering group size of customer and distance-friction coefficient. Distance-friction coefficient is a function of user restriction which depend on possible activity in each experience facility. Green tourism accessibility of experience facility is calculated with summation of accessibility to each region, and we analyzed it as a group by closed school type and location with application in Chungcheongnam-do. We found a correlation between green tourism accessibility of rural closed school and their income.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.562-583
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• 2010

Regulation theory became a popular framework for economic geography in the mid-1990s but lost favor before it became prominent in South Korea. This paper revisits regulation theory - in both its original (1990s) and the revised (2000s) forms - to consider its applicability to the case of Korean capitalism. We contend that the difficulties in applying regulation theory to Korea are, on one hand, indicative of certain fundamental limitations in the theoretical approach and, on the other hand, useful for clarifying the distinctiveness of Korean capitalism.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.223-223
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• 2015

This research evaluates cooperation in transboundary rivers with special reference to the Great Mekong Subregion (GMS) program in the Mekong River Basin. The benefit sharing approach has been deployed as a theoretical framework to analyze the extent to which the riparian states have achieved cooperation. The river basin governance led by the Mekong River Commission since 1995 has not adequately performed due to non-participation of upstream countries and the lack of law enforcement mechanism. Since the late 1980s, China has undertaken hydropower development unilaterally, thereby triggering discomfort from the Lower Mekong countries. The GMS program has led China to strengthening economic ties with the downstream countries through hydropower development as investors and developers. The program has also supported the establishment of economic corridors, and removal of physical barriers and has paved the way for cooperation in other sectors, such as the environment, agriculture, tourism and energy. There are challenges for further cooperation, including the development gaps between China and the downstream countries, political tensions and environment impacts of hydropower dams in the river basin. The Mekong River Basin shows the possibility of cooperation through benefit sharing. Sharing benefits accrued from the river and beyond the river between China and the downstream countries have enhanced economic ties, thereby consolidating cooperation each another.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.20
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• pp.295-321
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• 2010

The trend of globalization has sharpened the debate on interculturality, which scholars examine from different and often conflicting points of view ('content' vs. 'practice', 'culture-specific' vs. 'universal', 'communication (meta)theory' vs. 'communication practice', 'individual' vs. 'collective', etc.). Whereas all these approaches are necessary to describe the multiple dimensions of interculturality, their dichotomous nature does not help to account for its internal complexity, which cannot be dissociated from the connections that exist among all these dimensions. The difficulty posed by the essentialist interpretations that tend to result from these dichotomies is compounded by the fact that in postmodern debates priority has been given to approaches that emphasize individual or collective agency over structural constraints which have to do with political economy or with cultural and linguistic codes and traditions. This paper aims mainly at suggesting that the dissolution of the boundaries that exist between these approaches should be pursued in order to get a fuller and richer approach to their common object of study. After discussing, by way of illustration, content-based and practice-based perspectives, we suggest that one way of getting beyond these dichotomies consists in focusing on the 'interactional' dimension of interculturality, which means laying emphasis on intersubjectivity and, particularly, on the individual subjects considered as members of different cultural communities who strive to transcend their sociocultural boundaries in order to reach harmonious interactions in a world in which inequality and the de-territorialization of people and cultures are central features.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.851-861
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the specific risks in family small-medium enterprises (SMEs) and explain how they manage these risks to sustain and expand. In Indonesia, family business composes around 95 percent of all businesses and contributes about 80 percent to the country's economy. SMEs contribute approximately 57.8 percent to the nation's gross domestic product. Risk management poses challenges to the family business's survival, as family members do not take actions on risk. The assessment of risk is difficult and family businesses lack the ability to determine risk management priorities, including risk management review processes to evaluate risk, thus leading to family business failures. Applying the case study approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted in seven family SMEs comprising fifteen informants. Additionally, a focus group discussion consisting of three experts is conducted to reaffirm the findings from the interviews, observations, and field notes. The research identified the specific risks and how the family owners strategize to safeguard against these risks such as cash flow deficiency, operations dysfunction, cultural frailty, disharmony, transgenerational entrepreneurship failure, political uncertainty, and unprofessionalism. Comprehending these risks and their strategic decisions elucidated in this research could enable the family owners and key non-family professionals to work hand-in-hand to thrive over the family business risks together. Further avenues of research regarding family business risk management are also suggested in this study.