• Journal of Consumption Culture
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.143-169
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• 2012

Consumption is the most important cultural keyword in the modern society. This study tried an exploratory comparison of consumer culture of Korea, USA and Sweden in response to the needs on cultural comparison research perspective. Triandis's cultural dimensions were adopted to explore each country's cultural characteristics. A qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted to consumers who lived both in Korea and USA, or in Korea and Sweden, which enabled them to get familiar with each country's consumer culture. The research found that the culture is projected to the consumer culture in a micro domain. The individualism allowed consumers in USA and Sweden to be unconscious of other's eyes. But collectivism in Korea made Korean consumers locked in other's judgement. In contrast, in a macro domain of consumer culture such as donation and pro-environmental consumption, consumption practices were in a dissonance with their cultural orientation, where includes interaction with society and environment. In addition, in a post-materialistic society, symbolism of consumption goods gets weakened and experiential consumption evolves with a transition from mass consumption society to plural culture society. Lastly, consumer culture functions as a creative mechanism of new culture by consumer's reflexive planning, which is one of the clues of an autonomous consumer culture. This study tried to explore the consumer culture of Korea, USA and Sweden as an exploratory trial for the comparison of consumer cultures. To increase empirical consumer culture study, refined questionnaire item pool is to be extracted through various exploratory researches, which can be utilized commonly in various cultures. Moreover, an additional research is in need about a consumer culture in a macro domain and experiential consumer culture in a post-materialism society.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 2020

Recent discussions about a minimum wage increase (MWI) and its influence on the economy have mainly focused on the quantitative aspects, such as labor costs and employment. However, concerning the qualitative aspects, an MWI could have positive effects by enhancing firm productivity and crowding out marginal firms from the market. These positive effects of an MWI can offset, to some extent, its potential negative effects - increasing labor costs and decreasing employment, among others. In this regard we empirically examine the impact of an MWI on firm productivity (total factor productivity). Using firm level panel data from the manufacturing industry in Korea, we calculate the influence rates of a minimum wage by sector and by firm size (number of workers), and analyze its effects on firm productivity. In particular, the production functions of the firms are estimated by taking into account endogeneity among the input factors, in order to resolve the drawbacks of existing studies - underestimating the capital factor coefficient and overestimating the labor factor coefficient. This study finds that the influences of an MWI on wages, employment, and productivity are substantially different across sectors and firm sizes. While an MWI has shown to have positive influences on productivity growth in the manufacturing industry as a whole, each sector demonstrates a different direction of effect, and the degree of productivity change also varies by sector. The impacts of an MWI on firm productivity are generally estimated to be more negative for smaller firms, but in some sectors the effects are found to be positive. In addition, the wage increases resulting from an MWI seem to cause a productivity enhancement across all sectors in the manufacturing industry. The policy implications of this study are as follows. Considering the empirical findings that an MWI causes an increase in productivity in many sectors of the manufacturing industry, it would be desirable to take into consideration not only the negative side effects but also the positive effects of an MWI when designing any future minimum wage policy. Moreover, in spite of there being a uniform minimum wage, this study finds that the diverse influence rates of a minimum wage across firms have different impacts on wages, employment, and productivity across sectors or firm size. This finding could be conducive to discussions about differentiation among minimum wage schemes by sector or firm size.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Sensory Integration
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.59-73
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• 2023

Objective : To examine changes in participation patterns of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in play activities during COVID-19 by reviewing relevant literature. Methods : This scoping review was conducted via five steps. we created a research question and searched for relevant literature published in English through CINAHL, PubMed, ERIC, MEDLINE, Google Scholar and Google search engine. After selecting the literature based on inclusion criteria, data were charted based on 10 items (i.e., author name, journal name, publication year, nation, authors' majors, research method, participant' age and gender as well as quantitative and qualitative results of study). The results were analyzed using descriptive numerical and thematic analyses. Results : After reviewing 437 articles and 152 websites, six articles were included. Theses articles were conducted by experts from various fields and countries. Five themes were highlighted in selected articles: COVID-19 resulted in (1) decreased time of outdoor play, (2) increased play time on screen, (3) increased time spent with family, (4) increased sensory difficulties, and (5) recommendations for services for children with disabilities and during COVID-19. Conclusion : This study suggests telerehabilitation programs about parental behavior strategies in order to solve difficulties in which children with ASD may experience when participating in play activities during disasters. Study results can be used as fundamental evidence to emphasize importance of play activities and to systematize role of occupational therapists and service guidelines for supporting play activities of children with disabilities in disasters.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.131-159
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• 2014

Corporate rebranding has been evident in the qualitative corporate rebranding studies as an imposed organizational change that induces mixed reactions and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. Corporate rebranding for the established and familiar corporate brands leads to more ambivalent attitudes as these companies represent larger targets for disparaging information. Consumers are found to hold both positive and negative reactions toward companies and brands that they are familiar with. Nevertheless, the imposed change assumption and ambivalent attitude, in particular corporate rebranding, have never been widely explored in the quantitative corporate rebranding studies. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive empirical examination of the ambivalence towards rebrandingrebranded brand attitude-purchase intention relationships. The author proposes that corporate rebranding for familiar corporate brands is a double-edged sword that not only raises the expectation for better performance, but also induces conflicted and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. These consumers' ambivalent attitudes are influenced by both the parent brands-related and general attitude factors which further affect their rebranded brand attitude and purchase intention. A total of 156 useable questionnaires were collected from Malaysian working adults; and two established Malaysian airfreight operators were utilized as the focal parent brands. The study found a significant impact of prior parent brand attitudes on ambivalence towards rebranding (ATR). The parent brand attitudes served as anchors in influencing how new information was processed (Mazaheri et al., 2011; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) and closely related to behavioral intention (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). The ambivalent attitudes experienced were higher when individuals held both positive and negative reactions toward the parent brands. Consumers also held higher ambivalent attitudes when they preferred one of the parent brands; while disliked the other brand. The study also found significant relationships between the lead brand and the rebranded brand attitude; and between the partner brands and ATR. The familiar but controversial partner brand contributed significantly to the ambivalent attitudes experienced; while the more established lead brand had significant impact on the rebranded brand attitude. The lead and partner brands, though both familiar, represented different meanings to consumers. The author attributed these results to the prior parent brand attitudes, the skepticism and their general ambivalence toward the corporate rebranding. Both general attitude factors (i.e. skepticism and general ambivalence towards rebranding) were found to have significant positive impacts on ATR. Skeptical individuals questioned the possibility of a successful rebranding (Chang, 2011) and were more careful with their evaluations toward 'too god to be true' or 'made in heaven' pair of companies. The embedded general ambivalent attitudes that people held toward rebranding could be triggered from the associative network by the ambiguous situation (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). In addition, the ambivalent rebranded brand attitude was found to lower down purchase intention, supporting Hanze (2001), Lavine (2001) and van Harreveld et al. (2009)'s studies. Ambivalent individuals were found to prefer delay decision making by choosing around the mid-ranged points in 'willingness to buy' scale. The study provides several marketing implications. Ambivalence management is proven to be important to corporate rebranding to minimize the ambivalent attitudes experienced. This could be done by carefully controlling the parent brands-related and general attitude factors. The high ambivalent individuals are less confident with their own conflicted attitudes and are motivated to get rid of the psychological discomfort caused by these conflicted attitudes (Bell & Esses, 2002; Lau-Gesk, 2005; van Harreveld et al., 2009). They tend to process information more deeply (Jonas et al., 1997; Maio et al., 2000; Wood et al., 1985) and pay more attention to message that provides convincible arguments. Providing strong, favorable and convincible message is hence effective in alleviating consumers' ambivalent attitudes. In addition, brand name heuristic could be utilized because the rebranding strategy sends important signal to consumers about the changes that happen or going to happen. The ambivalent individuals will pay attention to both brand name heuristic and rebranding message in their effort to alleviate the psychological discomfort caused by ambivalent attitudes. The findings also provide insights to Malaysian and airline operators for a better planning and implementation of corporate rebranding exercise.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_2
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• pp.1651-1669
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• 2023

Sea ice currently covers approximately 7% of the world's ocean area, primarily concentrated in polar and high-altitude regions, subject to seasonal and annual variations. It is very important to analyze the area and type classification of sea ice through time series monitoring because sea ice is formed in various types on a large spatial scale, and oil and gas exploration and other marine activities are rapidly increasing. Currently, research on the type and area of sea ice is being conducted based on high-resolution satellite images and field measurement data, but there is a limit to sea ice monitoring by acquiring field measurement data. High-resolution optical satellite images can visually detect and identify types of sea ice in a wide range and can compensate for gaps in sea ice monitoring using Geostationary Ocean Color Imager-II (GOCI-II), an ocean satellite with short time resolution. This study tried to find out the possibility of utilizing sea ice monitoring by training a rule-based machine learning model based on learning data produced using high-resolution optical satellite images and performing detection on GOCI-II images. Learning materials were extracted from Liaodong Bay in the Bohai Sea from 2021 to 2022, and a Random Forest (RF) model using GOCI-II was constructed to compare qualitative and quantitative with sea ice areas obtained from existing normalized difference snow index (NDSI) based and high-resolution satellite images. Unlike NDSI index-based results, which underestimated the sea ice area, this study detected relatively detailed sea ice areas and confirmed that sea ice can be classified by type, enabling sea ice monitoring. If the accuracy of the detection model is improved through the construction of continuous learning materials and influencing factors on sea ice formation in the future, it is expected that it can be used in the field of sea ice monitoring in high-altitude ocean areas.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.107-145
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• 2004

This study examines factors that influence delinquency among adolescents under probation using indigenous psychological analysis, focusing specifically on parent-child relationship. A total 268 adolescents under probation and their parents and 251 high school students and their parents participated in the two studies. In the first study, qualitative results indicate that both groups of adolescents were most likely to trust their parents than any other person and reason for their trust is reported to be based on blood relationship. Similarly, majority of parents of both groups reported trusting their children because of the blood relationship. Parents hope that their children will be sincere a person and will be able to maintain harmonious social relationship. Parents of adolescents under probation were more likely to report disobedience as being most problematic, whereas parents of high school students were more likely report providing social and financial support for their children's education as being the most difficult. In the second study, structured questionnaires were administered to the four groups and the following set of results were obtained. First, in terms of family background, the socio-economic status of adolescents under probation was lower, they are less likely to live with both parents or natural parents, and more likely to have ran away from home than high school students. Second, adolescents under probation are less likely to trust their parents and more likely to view their parents as being hostile. Third, parents of adolescents under probation were less likely to trust their children, more likely to view their relationship as being conflictual and hostile, and feel that they had to sacrifice for their children when compared with parents of high school students. Implications of these results for parent-child relationship and delinquency are discussed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.57-70
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• 2023

The investigation delved into 457 pieces of scholarly work, encompassing articles, published theses, and dissertations from the National Research Foundation of Korea, spanning the period of the 1997 IMF financial crisis up to 2022. The materials were sourced using terms such as 'angel investment', 'angel investor', and 'angel investment attraction'. The initial phase involved filtering out redundant entries from the preliminary collection of 267 works, leaving aside pieces that didn't pertain directly to angel investment as indicated in their abstracts. The next stage of the analysis involved a more rigorous selection process. Out of 43 papers earmarked in the preceding cut, only 32 were chosen. The criteria for this focused on the exclusion of conference presentations, articles that were either not submitted or inconclusive, and those that duplicated content under different titles. The final selection of 32 papers underwent a thorough systematic literature review. These documents, all pertinent to angel investment in South Korea, were scrutinized under five distinct categories: 1) publication year, 2) themes of research, 3) strategies employed in the studies, 4) participants involved in the research, and 5) methods of research utilized. This meticulous process illuminated the existing landscape of angel investment studies within Korea. Moreover, this study pinpointed gaps in the current body of research, offering guidance on future scholarly directions and proposing social scientific theories to further enrich the field of angel investment studies and analysis also seeks to pinpoint which areas require additional exploration to energize the field of angel investment moving forward. Through a comprehensive review of literature, this research intends to validate the establishment of future research trajectories and pinpoint areas that are currently and relatively underexplored in Korea's angel investment research stream. This study revealed that current research on domestic angel investment is concentrated on several areas: 1) the traits of angel investors, 2) the motivations behind angel investing, 3) startup ventures, 4) relevant institutions and policies, and 5) the various forms of angel investments. It was determined that there is a need to broaden the scope of research to aid in enhancing and stimulating the scale of domestic angel investing. This includes research into performance analysis of angel investments and detailed case studies in the field. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the importance of diversifying research efforts. Instead of solely focusing on specific factors like investment types, startups, accelerators, venture capital, and regulatory frameworks, there is a call for research that explores a variety of associated variables. These include aspects related to crowdfunding and return on investment in the context of angel investing, ensuring a more holistic approach to research in this domain. Specifically, there's a clear need for more detailed studies focusing on the relationships with variables that serve as dependent variables influencing the outcomes of angel investments. Moreover, it's essential to invigorate both qualitative and quantitative research that delves into the theoretical framework from multiple perspectives. This involves analyzing the structure of variables that have an impact on angel investments and the decisions surrounding these investments, thereby enriching the theoretical foundation of this field. Finally, we presented the direction of development for future research by confirming that the effect on the completeness of the business plan is high or low depending on the satisfaction of the entrepreneurs in addition to the components.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.77
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• pp.29-46
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• 2024

Research Purpose : This study originated from a request for education and counseling to reassess the role of middle-aged lay women in the church. The research purpose is to analyze the significance, transformation, and impact of learning participation by investigating how individuals' needs are addressed through a lifelong education program designed as a pilot course. The study aims to examine how middle-aged women who have actively participated in church activities, reflect on their faith, ministry, and life through the church's lifelong education program. Research content and method : The study examines the process in which middle-aged women who have actively collaborated in church activities reflect on their faith, ministry, and lives through church lifelong education programs. The research method involves qualitative research focused on observation journals and interviews. Participants are selected through preliminary interviews based on having over 13 years of church ministry experience and an interest in lifelong education. Data is collected primarily through stories experienced in ministry. The research results are categorized into motivation for participation, learning experiences, and the meaning of participation. Firstly, the motivation for participation was seeking better self through identity restoration and challenges. Secondly, learning experiences were moments of healing and restoration in redesigning oneself. Thirdly, the meaning of participation was relational restoration and expansion. Ultimately, it was found that coaching through church lifelong education facilitated the recovery and transformation of participants' faith and ministry. Conclusion and Recommendation : Church lifelong education through coaching restored and brought about change in the faith and ministry of the research participants. To summarize the meaning of the experience of participating in lifelong learning, it involves: first, 'recognizing the meaning and possibility of one's own development,' second, 'healing and restoration of self-esteem,' third, 'restoration and expansion of relationships,' and finally, 'the discovery of one's true self.' Middle-aged women who have lived a role-centered life rather than focusing on individual faith have a strong desire to live as their complete selves. Therefore, a program should be developed that provides time for individuals to reflect on and diagnose their lives, while also seeking new visions. Therefore, we propose follow-up research with the hope that a variety of coaching-related church lifelong education will be developed and provide practical assistance to numerous lay ministers.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2024

The purpose of this study was to suggest evaluation items and standards for diagnosing the growth status of protected trees designated and managed by the Korea Forest Service. The research results are as follows. First, based on the Cultural Heritage Administration's standards for evaluating the growth status of old trees, which are natural monuments, and related data, items related to the 'growth status of the above-ground part' of the trees were revised and supplemented. Simultaneously new items such as 'location', 'usability', 'artificial cover rate within the crown width', 'soil physical properties', and 'soil chemical properties' were discovered. By combining these items, six items were derived to evaluate the growth status of protected trees. Second, evaluation items made through visual inspection, such as 'tree vigor' and 'leaf color' in the 'growth status of the above-ground part', were replaced with quantifiable items such as measuring the electrical resistance value of the cambium or chlorophyll content. Third, 'artificial cover rate within crown width' was introduced as an item to evaluate the growth environment, and classification criteria for 'soil physical properties' and 'chemical properties' were presented. Fourth, a method to evaluate the health of protected trees was specified by combining 10 above-ground growth conditions, 3 growth environments, and 8 soil environment items. In addition, a record format for diagnosing the growth status was shaped up. The significance of this study is that it proposed an evaluation and recording method for protected trees, which do not have an evaluation system compared to natural monuments, but there were limitations in developing a method that takes into account the importance of each evaluation item. In order to overcome these, research should be conducted to evaluate effectiveness for each item and to replace qualitative evaluation of trees with quantitative evaluation based on scientific data.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.386-396
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of push, pull and push-pull interactive factors for CFMC (Contract Foodservice Management Company)'s internationalization. The study was a quantitative study part in mixed methods (QUAL ${\rightarrow}$ quan) which was mainly qualitative study and quantitative study. Mail survey was carried out for quantitative study. For study subjects, 1,281 persons who completed 'Food Service Management Professional Program' of 'Y' University were selected as a population because the program was mainly for CFMC's workers. The analysis methods used in this study were frequency analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis with SPSS 17.0. Push factors had the saturation in domestic market and the manager's purpose (fac.1) and the investment for internationalization (fac.2). Pull factors had the company's external environment for internationalization (fac.3) and the global network and spread of culture (fac.4). Push-pull interactive factors had the information about foreign market (fac.5), the procedure and budget of overseas expansion (fac.6) and the national network and size of domestic market (fac.7). Internal dynamics factors had the deterrents for internationalization (fac.8) and the enablers for internationalization (fac.9). The result showed that the company's external environment in pull factors had positive effects on the deterrents for internationalization. The global network and the spread of culture had positive effects on the enablers for internationalization. The information about foreign market in push-pull interactive factors had positive effects on the deterrents and enablers for internationalization. The national network and the size of domestic market had positive effects on the enablers for internationalization. The deterrents and enablers for internationalization had positive effects on the level of internationalization, and the deterrents had more effects on the level of internationalization than the enablers did (${\beta}$= .492 > .177).