Purpose: Prior studies empirically examine how financial flexibility is related to required returns by using realized returns and considering cash holdings as net debts, but they fail to find consistent results. Conjecturing that inappropriate proxy of required returns and aggregation of cash and debts caused the inconsistent results, this study revisits this topic by using a refined proxy of required returns and separating cash holdings from debts. Research design, data and methodology: This study uses a multivariate regression model to investigate the relationship between required returns on cash holdings and financial leverage. The required returns are estimated using the return decomposition method by vector autoregression model. Empirical tests use US stock market data from1968 to 2011. Results: Empirical results reveal that both cash holdings and leverage are positively related to required returns. The positive relation is stronger in economic downturns than in economic upturns. Conclusions: Three major findings are drawn. First, risky firms prefer large cash balance. Second, information shocks in the realized returns caused failure of prior studies to find consistent positive relationship between leverage and realized returns. Third, cash and leverage are related to required returns in the same direction; therefore, cash cannot be considered as negative debts.

Purpose: Previous studies rarely investigated the effects of the metacognitive reading strategies on reading engagement, particularly in globalized higher education, while those studies examined reading problems and engagement with lower reading level. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the metacognitive reading strategies including global reading, problem solving, and supporting reading on reading engagement that include argentic, behavior, emotional, and cognitive engagement in global learning environment. This study investigated research questions: how do global reading, problem solving, and supporting reading strategies affect argentic, behavior, emotional, and cognitive reading engagement? Research design, Data, and methodology: This study collected data via online survey in globalized learning environment. This study applied statistical analyses, such as factor and regression analyses and ANOVA. Results: The results of this study showed that metacognitive reading strategies had significant effects on student reading engagement while they were reading class materials in English for academic purposes. Conclusions: This study provides managerial implications in higher education by providing better strategies to enhance learning skills in global context. In particular, this study provides implications that the effects of problem solving and supporting strategies could be improved by adopting better management systems in globalized education.

Purpose: North Korea is a very close country geographically and culturally, but the nation has been one of the most secretive countries in the world. However, in recent years, North Korean society has been known to rapidly change its economic environment as well as its diplomatic and political environment. Since the gaining power of Jong-un, Kim in 2012, the North Korean government has implemented a new set of economic policies. North Korea has embraced limited market systems and mechanisms that have become a part of the formal planned economy. This study is concerned with the recent changes in the market and marketing activities of the communist country. It also seeks to gain an understanding of the changing market behavior of North Korean consumers. The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding of the market environments of North Korea and to provide appropriate implications for practitioners and researchers. Research design, data and methodology: Academic access to information that can understand North Korea's reality is minimal. Therefore, this study was conducted based on a qualitative analysis of secondary data. The existing literature on North Korea, related news and reports were the basis of the analysis. Analysis of secondary data related to North Korea was the main methodology of the study. Results: The official ideology of North Korea rejected most aspects of marketing, and yet there were marketing activities in North Korea. This article focuses on the development of market and marketing activities in North Korea during the recent years. This study indirectly confirmed that the market function is being activated in North Korea, and the basic functions of marketing such as advertisement, price, and distribution are being formed. In this process, the activation of the 'Jangmadang(market)' played a significant role. Conclusions: Research shows that North Korea is rapidly developing its own market function. In addition, marketing activities such as advertising and pricing strategies seem to be unprecedentedly active. However, due to changes in the political environment, the future development of North Korea's marketing is still in flux. Efforts to improve mutual understanding through continuous research are required.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present a plan to expand the employment of the elderly in Small business as one of the ways to solve the problem of the supply and demand of the company due to the aging population and the problem of the elderly poverty. Research design, data and methodology: The method of this study is a qualitative research method, and the researcher visited a small and medium-sized company directly and collected data by conducting an in-depth interview with a business owner. The interview period was conducted on a total of 15 business owners from November 5, 2013 to November 18, 2013. Results: First, the reason why companies hire the elderly is because they are suitable people, and the reason why they are not employed is because the elderly are not suitable. Second, it was found that the most recruiting paths continued to work after retirement. Third, the strengths of the elderly in their businesses were diligence, integrity, leadership, wisdom, warmth, and skill. Disadvantages the elderly in their businesses include wanting to be treated as an adult, poor productivity, poor accuracy, and health risks. Fourth, in case of hiring the elderly, they were considering convergence with young employees, and it was suggested that there are no difficulties in being an elderly because the companies hiring the elderly use the elderly according to the characteristics of the elderly. Fifth, It is realistic to actively utilize the employment system after retirement. Sixth, it was found that, unlike young people, it is not easy to recruit people on the Internet, so it is necessary to improve the system. Lastly, some industries clearly distinguished between the jobs of the elderly and the jobs of the young, but in many industries, it was desirable to create jobs for the elderly by harmonizing the main and secondary jobs. Conclusion: Ultimately, the work of the elderly in small and medium-sized enterprises should be reborn as a high-quality job that can solve the poverty of the elderly by working as a regular worker in the enterprise, rather than simply working for the elderly.

Purpose: In the 4th industrial revolution, services that incorporate various smart technologies in the tourism sector have begun to gain popularity. Accordingly, academic discussions on smart tourism have also started to become active in various fields. Despite recent research, the definition of smart tourism is still ambiguous, and it is not easy to differentiate its scope or characteristics from traditional tourism concepts. Thus, this study aims to analyze the perception of smart tourism exposed online to identify the current point of smart tourism in Korea and present the research direction for conceptualizing smart tourism suitable for the domestic situation. Research design, data, and methodology: This study analyzes the perception of smart tourism exposed online based on 20,198 news data from portal sites over the past six years. Data on words used with smart tourism were collected from the leading portal sites Naver, Daum, and Google. Text mining techniques were applied to identify the social awareness status of smart tourism. Network analysis was used to visualize the results between words related to smart tourism, and CONCOR analysis was conducted to derive clusters formed by words having similarity. Results: As a result of keyword analysis, the frequency of words related to the development and construction of smart tourism areas was high. The analysis of the centrality of the connection between words showed that the frequency of keywords was similar, and that the words "smartphones" and "China" had relatively high connection centrality. The results of network analysis and CONCOR indicated that words were formed into eight groups including related technologies, promotion, globalization, service introduction, innovation, regional society, activation, and utilization guide. The overall results of data analysis showed that the development of smart tourism cities was a noticeable issue. Conclusions: This study is meaningful in that it clearly reflects the differences in the perception of smart tourism between online and research trends despite various efforts to develop smart tourism in Korea. In addition, this study highlights the need to understand smart tourism concepts and enhance academic discussions. It is expected that such academic discussions will contribute to improving the competitiveness of smart tourism research in Korea.