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The Concentration of Economic Power in Korea (경제력집중(經濟力集中) : 기본시각(基本視角)과 정책방향(政策方向))

  • Lee, Kyu-uck
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.12 no.1
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    • pp.31-68
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    • 1990
  • The concentration of economic power takes the form of one or a few firms controlling a substantial portion of the economic resources and means in a certain economic area. At the same time, to the extent that these firms are owned by a few individuals, resource allocation can be manipulated by them rather than by the impersonal market mechanism. This will impair allocative efficiency, run counter to a decentralized market system and hamper the equitable distribution of wealth. Viewed from the historical evolution of Western capitalism in general, the concentration of economic power is a paradox in that it is a product of the free market system itself. The economic principle of natural discrimination works so that a few big firms preempt scarce resources and market opportunities. Prominent historical examples include trusts in America, Konzern in Germany and Zaibatsu in Japan in the early twentieth century. In other words, the concentration of economic power is the outcome as well as the antithesis of free competition. As long as judgment of the economic system at large depends upon the value systems of individuals, therefore, the issue of how to evaluate the concentration of economic power will inevitably be tinged with ideology. We have witnessed several different approaches to this problem such as communism, fascism and revised capitalism, and the last one seems to be the only surviving alternative. The concentration of economic power in Korea can be summarily represented by the "jaebol," namely, the conglomerate business group, the majority of whose member firms are monopolistic or oligopolistic in their respective markets and are owned by particular individuals. The jaebol has many dimensions in its size, but to sketch its magnitude, the share of the jaebol in the manufacturing sector reached 37.3% in shipment and 17.6% in employment as of 1989. The concentration of economic power can be ascribed to a number of causes. In the early stages of economic development, when the market system is immature, entrepreneurship must fill the gap inherent in the market in addition to performing its customary managerial function. Entrepreneurship of this sort is a scarce resource and becomes even more valuable as the target rate of economic growth gets higher. Entrepreneurship can neither be readily obtained in the market nor exhausted despite repeated use. Because of these peculiarities, economic power is bound to be concentrated in the hands of a few entrepreneurs and their business groups. It goes without saying, however, that the issue of whether the full exercise of money-making entrepreneurship is compatible with social mores is a different matter entirely. The rapidity of the concentration of economic power can also be traced to the diversification of business groups. The transplantation of advanced technology oriented toward mass production tends to saturate the small domestic market quite early and allows a firm to expand into new markets by making use of excess capacity and of monopoly profits. One of the reasons why the jaebol issue has become so acute in Korea lies in the nature of the government-business relationship. The Korean government has set economic development as its foremost national goal and, since then, has intervened profoundly in the private sector. Since most strategic industries promoted by the government required a huge capacity in technology, capital and manpower, big firms were favored over smaller firms, and the benefits of industrial policy naturally accrued to large business groups. The concentration of economic power which occured along the way was, therefore, not necessarily a product of the market system. At the same time, the concentration of ownership in business groups has been left largely intact as they have customarily met capital requirements by means of debt. The real advantage enjoyed by large business groups lies in synergy due to multiplant and multiproduct production. Even these effects, however, cannot always be considered socially optimal, as they offer disadvantages to other independent firms-for example, by foreclosing their markets. Moreover their fictitious or artificial advantages only aggravate the popular perception that most business groups have accumulated their wealth at the expense of the general public and under the behest of the government. Since Korea stands now at the threshold of establishing a full-fledged market economy along with political democracy, the phenomenon called the concentration of economic power must be correctly understood and the roles of business groups must be accordingly redefined. In doing so, we would do better to take a closer look at Japan which has experienced a demise of family-controlled Zaibatsu and a success with business groups(Kigyoshudan) whose ownership is dispersed among many firms and ultimately among the general public. The Japanese case cannot be an ideal model, but at least it gives us a good point of departure in that the issue of ownership is at the heart of the matter. In setting the basic direction of public policy aimed at controlling the concentration of economic power, one must harmonize efficiency and equity. Firm size in itself is not a problem, if it is dictated by efficiency considerations and if the firm behaves competitively in the market. As long as entrepreneurship is required for continuous economic growth and there is a discrepancy in entrepreneurial capacity among individuals, a concentration of economic power is bound to take place to some degree. Hence, the most effective way of reducing the inefficiency of business groups may be to impose competitive pressure on their activities. Concurrently, unless the concentration of ownership in business groups is scaled down, the seed of social discontent will still remain. Nevertheless, the dispersion of ownership requires a number of preconditions and, consequently, we must make consistent, long-term efforts on many fronts. We can suggest a long list of policy measures specifically designed to control the concentration of economic power. Whatever the policy may be, however, its intended effects will not be fully realized unless business groups abide by the moral code expected of socially responsible entrepreneurs. This is especially true, since the root of the problem of the excessive concentration of economic power lies outside the issue of efficiency, in problems concerning distribution, equity, and social justice.

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Case study of Music & Imagery for Woman with Depression (우울한 내담자를 위한 MI(Music & Imagery) 치료사례)

  • Song, In Ryeong
    • Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.67-90
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    • 2008
  • This case used MI techniques that give an imagery experience to depressed client's mental resource, and that makes in to verbalism. Also those images are supportive level therapy examples that apply to positive variation. MI is simple word of 'Music and Imagery' with one of psychology cure called GIM(Guided Imagery and Music). It makes client can through to the inner world and search, confront, discern and solve with suitable music. Supportive Level MI is only used from safety level music. Introduction of private session can associate specification feeling, subject, word or image. And those images are guide to positive experience. The First session step of MI program is a prelude that makes concrete goal like first interview. The Second step is a transition that can concretely express about client's story. The third step is induction and music listening. And it helps to associate imagery more easily by used tension relaxation. Also it can search and associate about various imagery from the music. The last step is process that process drawing imagery, talking about personal imagery experience in common with therapist that bring the power by expansion the positive experience. Client A case targets rapport forming(empathy, understanding and support), searching positive recourse(child hood, family), client's emotion and positive support. Music must be used simple tone, repetition melody, steady rhythm and organized by harmony music of what therapist and client's preference. The client used defense mechanism and couldn't control emotion by depression in 1 & 2 sessions. But the result was client A could experience about support and understanding after 3 sessions. After session 4 the client had stable, changed to positive emotion from the negative emotion and found her spontaneous. Therefore, at the session 6, the client recognized that she will have step of positive time at the future. About client B, she established rapport forming(empathy, understanding and support) and searching issues and positive recognition(child hood, family), expression and insight(present, future). The music was comfortable, organizational at the session 1 & 2, but after session 3, its development was getting bigger and the main melody changed variation with high and low of tune. Also it used the classic and romantic music. The client avoids bad personal relations to religious relationship. But at the session 1 & 2, client had supportive experience and empathy because of her favorite, supportive music. After session 3, client B recognized and face to face the present issue. But she had avoidance and face to face of ambivalence. The client B had a experience about emotion change according depression and face to face client's issues After session 4. At the session 5 & 6, client tried to have will power of healthy life and fairly attitude, train mental power and solution attitude in the future. On this wise, MI program had actuality and clients' issues solution more than GIM program. MI can solute the issue by client's based issue without approach to unconsciousness like GIM. Especially it can use variety music and listening time is shorter than GIM and structuralize. Also can express client's emotion very well. So it can use corrective and complement MI program to children, adolescent and adult.

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A Study on Profitability of the Allianced Discount Program with Credit Cards and Loyalty Cards in Food & Beverage Industry (제휴카드 할인프로그램이 외식업의 수익성에 미치는 영향)

  • Shin, Young Sik;Cha, Kyoung Cheon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.55-78
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    • 2011
  • Recently strategic alliance between business firms has become prevalent to overcome increasing competitive threats and to supplement resource limitation of individual firms. As one of allianced sales promotion activities, a new type of discount program, so called "Alliance Card Discount", is introduced with the partnership of credit cards and loyalty cards. The program mainly pursues short-term sales growth by larger discount scheme while spends less through cost share among alliance partners. Thus this program can be regarded as cost efficient discount promotion. But because there is no solid evidence that it can really deliver profitable sales growth, an empirical study for its effects on sales and profit should be conducted. This study has two basic research questions concerning the effects of allianced discount program ; 1)the possibility of sales increase 2) the profitability of the discount driven sales. In F&B industry, sales increase mainly comes from increased guest count. Especially in family restaurants, to increase the number of guests we need to enlarge the size of visitor group (number of visitors for one group) because customers visit by group in a special occasion. And because they pay the bill by group(table), the increase of sales per table is a key measure for sales improvement. The past researches for price & discount sensitivity and reference discount rate explain that price sensitive consumers have narrow reference discount zone and make rational purchase decision. Differently from all time discount scheme of regular sales promotions, the alliance card discount program only provides the right to get discount like discount coupon. And because it is usually once a month opportunity given by the past month usage level, customers tend to perceive alliance card discount as a rare chance to get. So that we can expect customers try to maximize the discount effect when they use the limited discount opportunity. Considering group visiting practice and low visit frequency of family restaurants, the way to maximize discount effect should be the increase the size of visit group. And their sensitivity to discount and rational consumption behavior defer the additional spending for ordering high price menu, even though they get considerable amount of savings from the discount. From the analysis of sales data paid by alliance discount cards for four months, we found the below. 1) The relation between discount rate and number of guest per table is positive : 25% discount results one additional guest 2) The relation between discount rate and the spending per guest is negative. 3) However, total profit amount per table is increased when discount rate is increased. 4) Reward point accumulation & redemption did not show any significant relationship with the increase of number of guests. These results suggest that the allianced discount program substantially contributes to sales increase and profit improvement by increasing the number of guests per table. Though the spending per guest is decreased by discount rate increase, the total amount of profit per table is improved. It seems the incremental profit by increased guest count offsets the profit decrease. Additional intriguing finding is the point reward system does not have any significant impact on the increase of number of guest, even if the point accumulation & redemption of loyalty program are usually regarded as another saving offers by customers. In sum, because it is proved that allianced discount program with credit cards and loyalty cards is effective to both sales drive and profit increase, the alliance card program could be recommended as strategically buyable program.

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Purchase Behavior of Environment-Friendly Agricultural Products by Housewives in Seoul Area (서울지역 주부들의 친환경농산물 구매행동)

  • Kim, Kyu-Dong;Lee, Jeong-Youn;NamKung, Sok
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.37 no.12
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    • pp.1667-1673
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    • 2008
  • This study was conducted to investigate the purchase behavior of environment-friendly agricultural products (EFATs) and to provide necessary information for planning and executing effective marketing strategies for producers and distributors. The subjects of this study were 306 housewives in the Seoul area over the age of 20. The result of this study showed that once a month topped with 38.9% in the frequency of purchase, vegetables were the highest with 83.3% in the percentage of purchase and the place of purchase most frequented by consumers discount stores (45.8%), but purchases from farmers were the lowest with 3.6%. TV/radio topped the list of information resource with 3.42, followed by family/relatives/friends (3.33) and newspaper/ magazine (3.31). Those surveyed listed sanitary condition/freshness (4.43), safety (4.20), nutrition (4.05), and taste (3.99) as major evaluative criteria for choosing organic food, in order of importance. Finally, consumers seem to be satisfied with the nutrition (3.75), safety (3.71), and freshness (3.70) of the products and they were dissatisfied with the price of the products.

A Study on Implementation of Primary Health Care Delivery System meet to Rural Area in Korea -Village Health Voluntary Worker Development- (우리 나라 농촌지역(農村地域)에 부합하는 1차(次) 보건의료전달체계(保健醫療傳達體系) 정착구현(定着具現)에 관한 연구(硏究) -마을 보건임원(保健任員) 개발(開發)-)

  • Koo, Y.C.;Wie, J.H.;Hwang, S.J.;Choi, S.S.
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.12 no.1
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    • pp.13-23
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    • 1979
  • A study was carried out from October 1977 to September 1978 in order to develope health care delively system which will meet to rural area in Korea. For the study objective a model of health care delivery system of Myun (township) area was developed which is adopted the net-work of village health voluntary worker who will play the role of bridge for communication related with health and illness between families or village people and health subcenter, and :he model health care delivery system net-work was set in the area of Soodong Myun, Yangju Gun. which is the rural health demonstration area of Ewha Womans University since 1972. The activities and attitude of 22 village health voluntary workers were observed and analized. during the study period. The results are as follows; 1. For the field activities of village health voluntary workers. a guide line which is described with specific behavioral objectives was developed and used for not only training of the workers but also evaluation of their field activities. 2. During the study period, the number of 971 village people were served primary health care service by village health voluntary worker and the service was classified largely into symptomatic medications (92%) and preventive measures (8%). 3. Comparative percentage of the number of 894 symptomatic cases cared by village health voluntary workers to 5,695 cases of patient treated by Soodong Health Subcenter during the same period was 15.7%. 4. Annual utility rate of village health voluntary worker by Myun total people was 16.1% but utility rate by Rie was varied from 38.2% to 2.8% which shown there were considerable differences in each Rie. In order to settle the village health care service, the obstructive factors of utility should be detected and their counter measure must be taken. 5. As the health need of village people increases, it is expected that the supplement of drug excluding present sit basic drugs is inevitable, but considering the ability of village health voluntary worker, the selection of additional drugs and education, plan should be carefully studied. 6. It is desirable that a financial resource for supplementary purchase of first aid kit, drugs and materials whould be alloted from village public fund like Saemaeul Women's Club fund, which has already practiced in a few villages in the study area. 7. As pointed out by village health voluntary workers, in order to improve the village health, village leaders should be in the center of it and the cooperation of whole village people is a core of healthful village development, and it is reasonable that the health subcenter backs up these voluntary health activities by village people in techniques. 8. It seems effective that a supplementary education for village health voluntary worker be accomplished by a planned education through regular meetings like worker's monthly meeting and irregular post guide when Myun Health Workers can handle the problems found during the round trip of villages. 9. It is desirable that village health voluntary workers, who are recommended by a civil voluntary organization like Saemael Woman's Club, are charged by natural villagc unit, are given a function of village health care service and used through basic education at health subcenter. 10. It is advisable that the village health voluntary worker's service is compensated not by a form of money, but by other way such as an exemption of medical fee of worker herself or her families in health subcenter can be one method. 11. Daily health activities of each village health voluntary worker should be reported to health subcenter by biweekly or monthly in order to get not only for basic data of the program but also for evaluation the program. It is recomandable that the report form should be simple and clear enough for village health voluntary worker to fill it effectively. 12. Village health care service should be developed into a Saemaeul Movement in which village people actively participate. For this, the appointed function of village health voluntary worker should be absorbed into those of living Environment Betterment Section or Family Planning Section of Saemaeul Women's Club or it is desirable that establish a new section, Village Health Promoting Section and make it involve the appointed functions of those sections mentioned above.

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Factors upon revisit and intention of recommendation for dental care service (치과의료 재이용 및 권유의사 관련 요인)

  • Lee, Hyang-Nim;Shim, Hyung-Sun
    • Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.317-326
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    • 2012
  • Objectives : This study aims to examine satisfaction of dental treatment and revisit and intention of recommendation to dental patients and to supply as a basic resource for dental management improvement. Methods : 645 dental patients to dental hospitals in G City were subjects of this study. 27 dental hospitals were randomly chosen per 5 or 6 in 5 Districts. The intention of the survey was explained to 645 patients and it was agreed to have questionnaire survey. Questionnaire survey was carried out for 2 weeks in April 2011. Total 593 were used for the analysis except for insufficient answer sheets. The analysis was executed by using SPSS 18.0 and the results are as follows. Results : 1. The highest figures are as follows: female was 53.29% in sex, 20-29 age group was 44.52%, graduates of university were 38.62%, students were 28.50%, monthly family income with 300-399 million won was 31.70%. As to the treatment, dental caries were highest with 46.21% followed by scaling with 40.81%. As to the number of visit, 39.80% were over 5 times, and as to the opportunity to use, 29.34% answered it because it is close to home. 2. As to satisfaction, male was 4.15, over 60years old was 4.58, self-employed was 4.33, friendship with dentist as opportunity to use was 4.37. And as to revisit intention, over 60 years old was 4.60, over postgraduate in education level was 4.38, self-employed was 4.43, over 5 times visit was 4.32, and fame as opportunity to use was 4.39 which were the highest. As to the intention of recommendation to others, female was 4.24, over 60 years old was 4.65, self-employed was 4.36, friendship with dentist as opportunity was 4.43 which were the highest and showed significant differences (p<0.05). 3. As to patient satisfaction, there were strong relevance between revisit intention and intention of recommendation with 0.769 and 0.744 respectively. And, as to revisit intention, it had significant relation with revisit intention with 0.791. 4. The explanatory power of the regression analysis on the factors affecting revisit intention was 61.20%. The revisit intention was high when the satisfaction of dental hospital was high (${\beta}$=0.767, p<0.001), the number of visit (${\beta}$=0.026, p<0.01), reason for a visit (${\beta}$=0.070, p<0.01), education level (${\beta}$=-0.063, p<0.05) and occupation (${\beta}$=0.078, p<0.05). 5. The explanatory power of the regression analysis on the factors affecting intention of recommendation was 59.9%. The intention was taken patients satisfaction(${\beta}$=0.601, p<0.001), dental hygienist's kindness (${\beta}$=0.218, p<0.001), female (${\beta}$=0.079, p<0.05), reason for a visit(${\beta}$=-0.059, p<0.05), dissatisfaction treat(${\beta}$=0.084, p<0.05), dentist's kindness (${\beta}$=-0.080, p<0.05), age (${\beta}$=0.054, p<0.05). Conclusions : To improve revisit rate of patients, the refurbishing hospital facility, treatment and kindness of dental hygienists and satisfaction of treatment must be improved. And it also needs to accept complaint from female patients in a positive manner, and understand and correct complaints actively from the perspective of patients.

Strategy and Basic Planning for Creating an Urban Agricultural Park -Focusing on Gosangol Village in Daegu City- (도시농업공원 조성을 위한 전략 및 기본계획 연구 - 대구광역시 고산골마을을 대상으로 -)

  • Lee, Jong-Il;Kwon, Jin-Wook
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.45 no.4
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    • pp.23-34
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    • 2017
  • This study focused on a planned site located in Gosangol Village in Daegu Metropolitan City that aims to build an urban agricultural park combining urban agriculture and urban park for the sustainable realization of urban agriculture. Accordingly, this study has significance in two perspectives: firstly, suggesting development strategies to be considered when building an urban agricultural park as a theme park, and secondly, presenting guidelines for spatial programs and facilities to be introduced for actual applications. The results are as follows. Firstly, building an urban agricultural park fills a role as a local community space prompted by the demand-oriented evolution of urban parks, and agricultural behaviors to be incorporated in the theme. In this context, 'building an urban agricultural space focusing on sustainability', 'constructing green space systems focusing on agricultural landscape', and 'structuring leisure spaces for communications in the community' are presented as development strategies. Secondly, key functions that an urban agricultural park should have include production and trade of agricultural products on the production side, soil preservation, resource cycling and green space provision on the environmental side, leisure and experience, community vitalization, education, and social security on the social and cultural side, and entertainment functions, ecological functions, and protective functions as urban park functionality. Thirdly, key facilities needed when building an urban agricultural park include urban agricultural facilities other than park management facilities, landscape facilities, recreational facilities, sports facilities, educational facilities, and convenient facilities, and family gardens as the key facility of the urban agricultural park should be scaled in consideration of various purposes and behaviors of their use. This study has a limitation that the subject site was limited to a specific area but has significance in that it presented a planning model for the spatial structuring of park-type urban agriculture.

Perilla frutescens Sprout Extracts Protected Against Cytokine-induced Cell Damage of Pancreatic RINm5F Cells via NF-κB Pathway (들깨 새싹 추출물의 췌장 RINm5F 세포에서 NF-κB 경로를 통한 사이토카인에 의한 손상 예방 효과)

  • Kim, Da Hye;Kim, Sang Jun;Jeong, Seung-Il;Yu, Kang-Yeol;Cheon, Chun Jin;Kim, Jang-Ho;Kim, Seon-Young
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.27 no.5
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    • pp.509-516
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    • 2017
  • Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton var. sprouts (PFS) is a plant of the labiatae family. The purpose of this work was to assess the preventive effects of PFS ethanolic extracts (PFSEs) on cytokine-induced ${\beta}$-cell damage. Cytokines, which are released by the infiltration of inflammatory cells around the pancreatic islets, are involved in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes mellitus. The combination of interleukin-$1{\beta}$ (IL-1), interferon-${\gamma}$ (IFN-${\gamma}$), and tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ (TNF-${\alpha}$) induced formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Accumulation of intracellular ROS led to ${\beta}$-cell dysfunction and apoptosis. PFSEs possess antioxidant activity and thus lead to downregulation of ROS generation. Cytokines decrease cell viability, stimulate the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and induce the production of nitric oxide (NO). PFSEs prevented cytokine-induced cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. Incubation with PFSE resulted in significant reduction in cytokine-induced NO production that correlated with reduced levels of the iNOS and COX-2 protein expression. Furthermore, PFSE significantly decreased the activation of nuclear factor ${\kappa}B$ (NF-${\kappa}B$) by inhibition of $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ phosphorylation in RINm5F cells. In summary, our results suggest that the protective effects of PFSE might serve to counteract cytokine-induced ${\beta}$-cell destruction. Findings indicate that consumption of Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton var. sprouts alleviates hyperglycemia-mediated oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory cytokine-induced ${\beta}$-cell damage and thus has beneficial anti-diabetic effects.

A Study on Collection and Usage of Panel Data on On-board Job Taking and Separation of Korean Seafarers (한국선원의 승선과 이직에 대한 패널자료 구축과 활용방안)

  • Park, Yong-An
    • Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.149-163
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    • 2016
  • Seafarers are an essential resource in maritime industries, which provide navigation skills, vessel maneuvering skills and fishing skills in the fishery industry. They also work as a driving force in pilotage, port operation, vessel traffic service, and marine safety. Other areas in maritime services, which rely on seafarer include safety management of ships, supervisory activities, and maritime accident assessment. In these ways, Korean seafarers have contributed to the growth of Korean economy. However, there have been issues of high separation rate, shortage of supply, multi-nationality, multiplicity of culture caused by employment of foreign seafarers, and aging. The present paper finds that maritime officers and fishery officers demonstrate differences in the statistics of on-board job taking and separation: the separation rate of fishery officers is higher than that of maritime officers. The existing data and statistics by the Korea Seafarer's Welfare & Employment Center could be improved by changing its structure from time series to panel data. The Korea Seafarer's Welfare & Employment Center is the ideal institution for collecting the panel data, as it has already accumulated and published relevant statistics regarding seafarer. The basic design method of the panel data is to adopt and improve it by including the information on ratings of maritime and fishery industries, ranks in a ship, personal information, family life, and career goal. Panel data are useful in short- and long-term forecasts of supply of Korean seafarers; demand evaluation of education, training, and reeducation of the seafarers; demographical dynamic analysis on Korean seafarers; inducement policy of long-term on board job taking in harmony with man-power demands in marine industries such as pilotage service; implementation of job attractiveness policy on Korean seafarers; and employment stabilization of Korean seafarers.

Modern Enterprise & ESG Management philosophy of Gaeseong Ginseng Merchant (개성 인삼상인의 근대기업화와 ESG 경영이념)

  • Ock, Soon Jong
    • Journal of Ginseng Culture
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    • v.3
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    • pp.90-118
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    • 2021
  • Gaeseong fostered the conditions necessary for modern capitalism, as huge capital was accumulated through the cultivation and trade of ginseng, which were activities that flourished in the 18th century. During the Japanese colonial era, ginseng merchants were not simply limited to acquiring landowner capital from ginseng trade but actively converted such resource to productive and financial capital, thereby becoming modern entrepreneurs. Ginseng merchants led the joint management and investment of Gaeseong Electric Co., Ltd., Daehan Cheonil Bank, Gaeseong Brewing Co., Ltd., and Songgo Textile Company, founded in the early 20th century. They pursued corporate profits and, as leading individuals of society, spearheaded regional development by supporting educational and cultural projects in Gaeseong. These projects included the establishment of the Gaeseong Commercial School, the publication of Goryeo Times, and the operation of the Gaeseong Jwa Theater. Although liberal economics prioritized shareholder interest, the 21st century witnessed an emphasis on social responsibility among stakeholders asthe major purpose of enterprises. A trend that emerged was ESG (environment, social, governance) management, in which non-financial factors are valued more highly than financial performance. A successful business, which was denoted only by high profits in the past, is now defined by whether a company fulfills its social responsibility. In the early 20th century, the corporate activities of ginseng merchants in Gaeseong reflected entrepreneurship and stakeholder-centered ESG management, which later emerged as essential elements of modern business management. The modern management philosophy ahead of its times stemmed from the regionality of Gaeseong. The political discrimination against Gaeseong residents in the Joseon Dynasty precluded them from becoming government officers, and under a strict social hierarchy, yangban ("noblemen"), the intellectuals of the Joseon Dynasty, were forced to serve as merchants. Son Bong-sang and Kong Seong-hak, aside from being representative ginseng merchants, were both Confucian scholars and writers. The second and third generations of ginseng merchant families who had received higher education abroad returned to Gaeseong to carry on with their family businesses, then established modern companies with capital accrued from the ginseng industry. An analysis of the commercial activities of ginseng merchants in the early 20th century confirmed that these individuals were pioneering entrepreneurs who adopted the ESG management philosophy. In ginseng merchants, one sees a dimension of capitalism with a human face, as with ginseng thatsaves human life.