• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 2020

Purpose: Strategic management scholars have investigated the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm financial performance, identifying various impacts of CSR activities showing conflicting results. Meanwhile, relatively less attention has been paid to the antecedents of CSR activities. According to upper echelons theory, organizational outcomes are predicted by characteristics of CEOs and top management team members. Corporate social responsibility is a type of organizational outcome influenced by such top leader characteristics and choices. Recognizing the importance of exploring new antecedents of CSR activities, I examine whether CEO humility affects CSR outcomes. Research design, data and methodology: The KEJI index was set as a dependent variable to measure CSR activities. Among the 200 sample companies registered in the KEJI database in 2014, 85 companies were finally selected and analyzed to measure CEO humility, as independent variable. I also examine the moderating effects of firm slack on the relationship between CEO humility and CSR activities. Results: There is a positive relationship between CEO humility and corporate social responsibility activities and this relationship is negatively moderated by firm slack. Conclusions: This paper contributes to understanding positive impacts of having humble CEOs on corporate social responsibility outcomes and recognizes the role of firm slack.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.207-237
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• 2022

As technological changes continue to accelerate every day, meeting the needs of a shifting educational landscape requires leaving an exclusively "in-person" education behind. Gamified learning environments should be carefully designed in light of conflicting studies to suit students' needs. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to draw conclusive results regarding the application of the most commonly used game elements in education, i.e., badges and leaderboards, through a comprehensive analysis of their impact on academic performance in online learning. Review Manager (RevMan 5.4) was used to analyze eligible studies selected from Emerald, SAGE, ERIC, EBSCO, and ProQuest between January 2011 and January 2022. Analyzing 37 studies found that using leaderboards and badges in online education enhanced academic performance when compared to traditional learning without gamification (SMD = 0.39). The badge-only intervention showed a larger effect size (SMD = 0.33) than the leaderboard-only intervention (SMD = 0.27). Badges and leaderboards together exhibited a larger effect size (SMD = 0.48) than individual game elements (SMD = 0.40). The impact of the game elements on academic performance was greater in the humanities (SMD = 0.51) than in STEM fields (SMD = 0.32) and was greater for K-12 students (SMD = 0.63) than for college students (SMD = 0.31). This study contributes to a timely discussion of the use of badges and leaderboards in COVID-19 online learning trends and provides relevant data for designing integrations of online education and gamification models.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.103-114
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• 2023

Purpose: This paper aims to assess psychological heuristics' effectiveness on cumulative returns after significant stock price changes. Specifically, it compares availability and anchoring heuristics' empirical validity due to conflicting stock return predictions. Research Design, Data, and Methodology: This paper analyzes stock price changes of Korean distribution industry stocks in the KOSPI market from January 2004 to July 2022, where daily fluctuations exceed 10%. It evaluates availability heuristics using daily KOSPI index changes and tests anchoring heuristics using 52-week high and low stock prices as reference points. Results: As a result of the empirical analysis, stock price reversals did not consistently appear alongside changes in the daily KOSPI index. By contrast, stock price drifts consistently appeared around the 52-week highest stock price and 52-week lowest stock price. The result of the multiple regression analysis which controlled for both company-specific and event-specific variables supported the anchoring heuristics. Conclusions: For stocks related to the Korean distribution industry in the KOSPI market, the anchoring heuristics theory provides a consistent explanation for stock returns after large-scale stock price fluctuations that initially appear to be random movements.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.53-58
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• 2022

Purpose: Controlling and minority shareholders sometimes have conflicting interests. Controlling shareholders who do not have adequate monitoring can exhibit a strong tendency to maximize their personal wealth. In this case, cash holdings can be the easiest means for them to pursue their personal interests. This study examined whether the largest shareholder's ownership proportion affected the speed at which firms adjust their cash holdings to target levels in Korean distribution and service companies. Research design, data, and methodology: The study uses regression analysis to examine 834 firm-year samples listed on the KOSPI between 2013 and 2018 in the distribution and service sectors. Results: The largest shareholder's ownership is positively related to a firm's cash holdings adjustment speed. That is, the larger the largest shareholder's ownership, the faster the firm adjusts its cash holdings to achieve the target level. Conclusions: This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that the cash holdings adjustment speed in Korean service and distribution companies is affected by the largest shareholder's ownership. As the agency problem between controlling and minority shareholders in Korea is a major issue, minority owners' sensitivity to agency costs may help restrict controlling owners' ability to maximize their personal wealth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.839-849
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• 2023

The development of automation technology to reduce human error by minimizing human intervention is accelerating with artificial intelligence and big data processing technology, even in the nuclear field. Among nuclear power plant operation modes, the startup and shutdown operations are still performed manually and thus have the potential for human error. As part of the development of an autonomous operation system for startup operation, this paper proposes an action coordinating strategy to obtain the optimal actions. The lower level of the system consists of operating blocks that are created by analyzing the operation tasks to achieve local goals through soft actor-critic algorithms. However, when multiple agents try to perform conflicting actions, a method is needed to coordinate them, and for this, an action coordination strategy was developed in this work as the upper level of the system. Three quantification methods were compared and evaluated based on the future plant state predicted by plant parameter prediction models using long short-term memory networks. Results confirmed that the optimal action to satisfy the limiting conditions for operation can be selected by coordinating the action sets. It is expected that this methodology can be generalized through future research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2022.10a
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• pp.9-9
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• 2022

The concept of food security has gained increasing attention during the food crisis period between 2006 and 2011. According to the FAO, food security is defined as an access by all people at all times to the food needed for healthy and active life. Achieving food security means that sufficient food is available, food supply is relatively stable, and those in need of food can afford food at a reasonable cost. After a short period of stable food prices the world is facing another food crisis due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion over Ukraine. Food security has re-emerged as an urgent problem to the world. There have been two conflicting opinions about how to achieve food security. Agricultural exporting countries insist diversification of food sources and freer trade on the top of domestic self-reliance. On the other hand, food importing countries emphasize self-sufficiency of major food crops. This study investigates whether domestic agricultural production contributes to strengthening food security. The panel data analysis shows that the increase in food self-sufficiency raises the Global Food Security Index and lessens the probability of food riots, while lower import tariffs (implying freer trade) do not. Some related issues are discussed accordingly.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.8D no.1
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• pp.10-23
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• 2001

Transactions in real-time active databases have the notion of activeness where transactions are generated by external effects and another transaction. In this paper, we propose the multi version concurrency control algorithm for real-time active transactions. A real-time active transaction has a timing constraint in the form of a deadline until which the user wants to complete the transaction, and is characterized by triggering relationships which mean that association between a transaction that triggers the execution of another transaction and the triggered transaction. The triggering relationship is an important factor to resolve data conflicts among real-time active transactions. The proposed concurrency control mechanism resolves data conflicts by considering triggering relationships between conflicting transactions as well as priorities and precedence relationships. The conflict resolution mechanism considers association types of the triggering relationship such as abort and commit dependency, and then resolves data conflicts in favor of higher priority transactions. We also present the experimental results of our algorithm comparing other real-time active concurrency control algorithms.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.71-82
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• 2018

Purpose - This study examined the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on employee creativity. Past research has consistently shown that intrinsic motivation is positively related to creativity. Yet conflicting results have been reported about the relationship between extrinsic motivation and creativity. To explore the reason why extrinsic motivation can either help or hurt creativity, we examined the role of contingent rewards as a moderator and tested whether either tangible or intangible rewards contingent upon creative performance significantly impact the relationship between extrinsic motivation and creativity. Research design, data, and methodology - Survey data was collected from employees working for diverse organizations in Korea through online research firm. Only employees who reported their job or organization provided opportunities to use their creativity were allowed to continue the survey. Out of 305 initial responses collected, those with too much missing data were deleted, which finally left 278 responses for statistical analyses. To examine the validity of the measurements, confirmatory factor analysis was first conducted. Next, to test the hypothesized relationships, multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Results - As hypothesized, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation had positive effects on creativity. It was shown that contingent rewards did not influence the positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity, but did significantly moderate the relationship between extrinsic motivation and creativity in a way that tangible rewards strengthened the relationship while intangible rewards mitigated the same relationship. Conclusions - This research enhances our understanding on the relationship between motivation type, rewards, and creativity. Intrinsically motivated employees showed a high level of creativity regardless of whether rewards were expected or not. In contrast, extrinsically motivated employees showed more or less creative behavior depending on whether they were expected to have tangible or intangible rewards. As extrinsic motivation is typically associated with tangible rewards such as pay, promotion, etc., tangible rewards were seen to be more effective in promoting creative performance from extrinsically motivated employees than intangible rewards. Our findings make a significant theoretical contribution to reconcile prior inconsistent findings. Furthermore, they provide useful insights for managers and organizations into developing effective strategies for facilitating employee creativity.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.183-195
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• 2022

Purpose - The study attempted to analyze how the U.S.-China trade dispute affects a highly trade-dependent South Korea. Currently, major domestic and international institutions have issued a number of conflicting predictions that the trade dispute between China and the United States will have a positive and negative impact on South Korea. Accordingly, the present study attempted to analyze using actual data. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis was conducted using actual import and export data from the United States and China and actual import and export data from the United States and China from South Korea. The analysis measured the number and amount of imports and exports by year and month, and the rate of increase and decrease. We also looked at trade dispute days, import and export outcomes and what the impact was. In addition, as a result of the US-China trade dispute, the amount of change in Korea's imports and exports was analyzed. Findings - Empirical analysis shows that South Korea's exports to the United States and China have increased. The analysis results are as follows. First, exports to the United States increased by 5.65% in 2018 and 6.45% in 2019 compared to 2017. Second, exports to China surged 12.34% in 2018 compared to 2017. This increase in South Korea's exports to the United States and its mass exports to the United States shows that South Korea has benefited from the trade dispute between the United States and China. Research implications or Originality - South Korea, which is highly trade-dependent, has been heavily affected by the U.S.-China trade dispute. Various predictions are made about this. The analysis showed that South Korea's export volume has increased. In the end, the effect of the trade transition to the 3rd country did not occur. Rather, the U.S.-China trade dispute appears to have helped South Korea.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.2407-2412
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• 2013

Background and Objectives: Data on associations between soy food intake after cancer diagnosis with breast cancer survival are conflicting, so we conducted this meta-analysis for more accurate evaluation. Methods: Comprehensive searches were conducted to find cohort studies of the relationship between soy food intake after cancer diagnosis and breast cancer survival. Data were analyzed with comprehensive meta-analysis software. Results: Five cohort studies (11,206 patients) were included. Pooling all comparisons, soy food intake after diagnosis was associated with reduced mortality (HR 0.85, 95%CI 0.77 0.93) and recurrence (HR 0.79, 95%CI 0.72 0.87). Pooling the comparisons of highest vs. lowest dose, soy food intake after diagnosis was again associated with reduced mortality (HR 0.84, 95%CI 0.71 0.99) and recurrence (HR 0.74, 95%CI 0.64 0.85). Subgroup analysis of ER status showed that soy food intake was associated with reduced mortality in both ER negative (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.75, 95%CI 0.64 0.88) and ER positive patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.72, 95%CI 0.61 0.84), and both premenopausal (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.78, 95%CI 0.69 0.88) and postmenopausal patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.81, 95%CI 0.73 0.91). In additioin, soy food intake was associated with reduced recurrence in ER negative (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.64, 95%CI 0.44 0.94) and ER+/PR+ (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.65, 95%CI 0.49 0.86), and postmenopausal patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.67, 95%CI 0.56 0.80). Conclusion: Our meta-analysis showed that soy food intake might be associated with better survival, especially for ER negative, ER+/PR+, and postmenopausal patients.