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A Study on Implication by Comparing Current Status of Educational Systems between Korea and China in connection with Traditional Medicine of Each Country (한국.중국의 전통의약 교육제도 현황 비교를 통한 시사점 연구)

  • Shin, Hyeun-Kyoo;Bae, Sun-Hee
    • Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.83-95
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    • 2005
  • Arriving in the '90s, the worldwide trend of longing for naturalism and popularity of complementary and alternative medicine in America has caused traditional Oriental Medicine and medicinal plants markets to develop rapidly. And China has been pursuing the globalization policy of Chinese medicine by the initiation of the society of traditional Chinese medicine. Under this situation, it is a time for us to think about in a serious manner whether existing organization and system of Oriental medicine and the department of Oriental medicine at the schools in Korea reflects reality or whether we should turn it to some different direction. The purpose of this research is to compare the educational systems in relation to the traditional medicine between Korea and China, and to seek and look into its implication, and also to make a contribution to further developments and changes of direction for Oriental medicine education in Korea. 1. I investigated carefully the educational system of the colleges of traditional Chinese medicine, and results from this survey revealed that the academic institutions for the medicinal training in China consists of varied systems, such as 7-year program for medicinal training linking with master degree course, 6-year program, 5-year program (more than 90%), 4-year program, and so on, so then China has been raising the specialists in their traditional medicine arena through those varied academic programs. Such an educational system as the department of Chinese medicine in order to educate and produce specialists or pharmacists specializing in traditional Chinese medicine is operated only by Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in terms of 7-year academic program for medicinal major that linked with master degree course, and the rest of schools run 5-year program or 4-year program (more than 90%). And other human resources required for cultivation of medicinal plants and manufacturing herbal medicines are mostly trained at 3-year course colleges or 2-year course vocational schools. 2. In connection with traditional Chinese medicine, there are a variety of departments in the schools in China other than Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology: i.e. Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Tuina, Preclinical Medicine, Pharmaceuticals, Materials of Medicine, Phrenology and Law, Languages and Literature, etc. Therefore, these programs constitute multi academic system and also an appropriate educational base that fits in varied needs of market. Particularly, the university having 7-year program emphasize, English proficiency so that it can be considered that this academic program is a specialized course in order to achieve globalization of Chinese medicine. 3. In Korea, there are only 11 Oriental medicine schools with 6-year program which have been established by the private foundations and 3 departments of Oriental medicine at 4-year university. Therefore, we need to establish varied departments related to branches of our traditional medicine like China. 4. It is necessary to establish varied new departments related to Oriental Medicine that will be able to take a professional role in the course of pursuing the strategic goals such as scientification, globalization, standardization of Oriental Medicine, also that will meet needs of the world alternative and complementary medicine and herbal medicine markets. In order to achieve such strategic goals, we need to organize an academic system that will be different from existing systems and programs, also we are required to research further on the educational and training programs.

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Present Status and Future Prospect on Fishing Industry in North Korea (북한수산업(北韓水產業)의 현황(現況)과 전망(展望))

  • Lee, Byoung-Gee;Kim, Jin-Kun;Choe, Jong-Hwa
    • Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.73-82
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    • 1991
  • In recent years, the communication and the trade between the Republic of Korea(South Korea) and the Communist bloc has been activated. The simultaneous entrance of South Korea and North Korea to the United Nations will accelerate the political dialogue and also the trade which is indirectly carried out through a third country at present will be turned into direct way. Fisheries products are also treated as one of the important trade goods and there is a hopeful prospect that the amount of trade will be steeply increased in the near future. Furthermore, there is a great possibility of development up to the joint utilization of fishing grounds or the joint investment in fisheries projects. Concerning such points, since it is very much important to understand the present status of fisheries in North Korea, the author made a study on this field as requested by the Board of Unification, and report a part of the study here. The prominent character of North Korea's ruling sea area is that the sea is completely separated into two regions-the East Sea Region and the West Sea Region-and no continuity exists between them. The East Sea Region locates in the fringe of the biggest fishing ground of the world-the North Pacific Ocean-and very rich in resources not only warm water fishes but also cold water fishes. Especially alaska pollack, Theragra chalcogramma, is caught abundantly in this region. Contrary to that, fishing activity in the West Sea Region seems to be interrupted in winter. Even though some valuable warm water fishes-yellow corvenia, Pseudosciaena manchurica, and hair tail, Trichiurus lepturus, and so forth-come to this region from spring to summer along the coast line of this region for spawning, and vigorous fishing activity is carried out. But the most of them migrate southward to the neighboring waters of Cheju Island for wintering from autumn to winter, and so the fishing activity in this region seems to be interrupted greatly during winter. The total number of fishing boats in North Korea is estimated at 36 thousand and the rate of mechnization at about 70% compared with 99 thousand and 78% in South Korea. North Korea proclaimed an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles in 1977. Specific character of this zone is setting of military boundary zone, up to 50 miles from the base line in the East Sea Region and also it covers whole region of the economic zone in the West Sea Region. Especially in the East Sea Region she set up a straight base line which can not be permissible by the international law. North Korea's statistics on fisheries product has not been announced officially on account of her unique isolationism, but it can be estimated through several data procured. At the first, the amount of fisheries products in the North Korea is reported as about 1.7 million ${\frac{M}{T}}$ by Fisheries Statistics which issued by the FAO in 1987, but a North Korea's trade organization announced the amount as 3.5 million ${\frac{M}{T}}$ in 1988. The former seems to be underestimated and the latter must be an exaggeration. According to Chikuni, who is a Japanese worker for FAO, prepared the unofficial statistics based on the evidence which he collected through the fineries development plan of the FAO/UNDP, and estimated the mean amount between 1982 and 1984 was 2.4 million ${\frac{M}{T}}$ or so. The Board of Unification estimated on the basis of various factors that the amount was 2.2 million ${\frac{M}{T}}$ or so in 1987 and in 1988. This seems to be the most reasonable. To solve the chronic lack of foreign currency, North Korea makes effort on the development of fisheries, and has even aimed fisheries product at 11 million ${\frac{M}{T}}$ by 1993, but this target looks unrealistic under the present circumstances. Somehow, we can exploit her extreme policy which has gone so far as to establish such an excessive and impractical target. Nevertheless this will be helpful to promote the joint development of the fishery activity between South Korea and North Korea.

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Records Culture and Local autonomy (기록문화와 지방자치)

  • Lee, Young-Hak
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.26
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    • pp.63-93
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    • 2010
  • This document illustrates the culture of archives should be improved to get better in local autonomy. In 1994, the municipal elections were held to perform autonomous activities in Korea. It has been sixteen years, since the first municipal election had been held. The local autonomy can be accomplished well, based on the economic independence from the central government and growing awareness of locals. Not only that, if local records were well archived and suitably used, autonomy could be more active. However, since the independence from Japan in 1945, records of the self-government has not been archived well. Not only archives of local government have not been established, but also organization, budget and professional staff have not been arranged well. This brought about local records administration's inactive performance. As a result, numerous number of meaningful records are lost and people are difficult to make out the local administration policy. If the records of local government preserved well, administrative efficiency, responsibility, transparency can be realized in better way. When local officials' work experiences and achievements were on record and referred to a successor of officials properly, administrative efficiency would be highly promoted. In addition, with the well-preserved work records, people are able to see where the responsibility lies. A local autonomous entity might be able to obtain administrative transparency by showing administrative processes and results to locals to the public. In this manner, the premise to archive the records of local autonomous entity is to establish a department which can archive local records and the disposition of professional archivists. According to "the law on public archives management", the governor of a province should discuss with a minister of administration to set up plans for archives' establishment and management. In this way, local archives administration would work well, when not only the department of local records administration is established, but also the department of local archives places local records under their control at the same time. Moreover, based on active records movement, municipal officials and locals would realize the importance of local record and examine local records administration systems. Not only that, when local records are shown to public and utilized properly, the local autonomy would improve a lot.

A Study on Social Security Platform and Non-face-to-face Care (사회보장플랫폼과 비대면 돌봄에 관한 고찰)

  • Jang, Bong-Seok;Kim, Young-mun;Kim, Yun-Duck
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.11 no.12
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    • pp.329-341
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    • 2020
  • As COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the world, more than 45 million confirmed cases and over 1,000,000 deaths have occurred till now, and this situation is expected to continue for some time. In particular, more than half of the infections in European countries such as Italy and Spain occurred in nursing homes, and it is reported that over 4,000 people died in nursing homes for older adults in the United States. Therefore, the issues that need to be addressed after the COVID-19 crisis include finding a fundamental solution to group care and shifting to family-centered care. More specifically, it is expected that there will be ever more lively discussion on establishing and expanding hyper-technology based community care, that is, family-centered care integrated with ICT and other Industry 4.0 technologies. This poses a challenge of how to combine social security and social welfare with Industry 4.0 in concrete ways that go beyond the abstract suggestions made in the past. A case in point is the proposal involving smart welfare cities. Given this background, the present paper examined the concept, scope, and content of non-face-to-face care in the context of previous literature on the function and scope of the social security platform, and the concept and expandability of the smart welfare city. Implementing a smart city to realize the kind of social security and welfare that our society seeks to provide has significant bearing on the implementation of community care or aging in place. One limitation of this paper, however, is that it does not address concrete measures for implementing non-face-to-face care from the policy and legal/institutional perspectives, and further studies are needed to explore such measures in the future. It is expected that the findings of this paper will provide the future course and vision not only for the smart welfare city but also for the social security and welfare system in administrative, practical, and legislative aspects, and ultimately contribute to improving the quality of human life.

Applying IUCN Regional/National Red List Criteria to the Red List (Vascular Plants) Published by the Ministry of Environment of Korea (환경부 적색목록(관속식물)에 대한 IUCN 지역적색목록 평가적용)

  • Chang, Chin-Sung;Kwon, Shin-Young;Son, Sungwon;Shin, Hyuntak;Kim, Hui
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.109 no.4
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    • pp.371-381
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    • 2020
  • The Ministry of Environment (ME) is planning to adopt in 2020 the IUCN regional Red List for "Guidelines for listing and delisting rare & endangered species and management of endangered Species System". The ME designated 377 species of vascular plants on the regional Red List. In a previous study it had been suggested that 103 species from this list are candidates for the regional Red List. With respect to a possible Red List, we assessed 59 species (after excluding 34 additional NA species and ten endemic species). These assessments indicated that 16 species are at the "threatened" level. Of those, one species is Critically Endangered, ten are Endangered, and five are Vulnerable. A further four species are classified as Near Threatened, 30 as Of Least Concern, and nine as Data Deficient. We found that most of the assessments proposed by the Ministry of Environment were not supported by scientific data, including quantitative geographic data (over 70%) in Criteria B. In order to determine the endangered species belonging to the orchid family, it is necessary to obtain records of illegal activities or data on overcollection. The current problem with the Ministry of Environment Red List has been the lack of management of scientific data on species showing a trend in decreasing population in the mid- to long-term; thus, there is a lack of critical resources for policy-makers. The ME legally designated categories and assessment, and the lack of expertise in failing to comply with the legal law by itself. The key to presenting an accurate overview of the state of Korean flora is to fill the information gaps with respect to significant geographical and taxonomical biases in the quality and quantity of data. By regularly updating the qualified data, we will be able to track the changes in the conservation status of the flora and inform the necessary conservation policies.

Thailand in 2017: The Resurgence of "Sarit Model" and Thai-Style Democracy (2017년 타이: '싸릿모델'의 부활과 타이식 민주주의)

  • PARK, Eun-Hong
    • The Southeast Asian review
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.213-247
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    • 2018
  • Thailand in 2017 the public sentiment has turned against the military government. The four pledges the military declared immediately after the 2014 coup, restoration of democracy, addressing of divisive politics, eradication of corruption, and stimulation of the economy have all failed. In the same year, however, Thai military junta began to recover it's diplomatic relationship with western countries including US and EU owing to promulgation of the new constitution endorsed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the lavish funeral of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej which was attended by huge number of condolence delegations from around the world including US Defense Secretary James Mattis. Since the 2014 coup, US has sanctioned the country under military junta led by General Prayuth Chan-o-cha for urging them back to the barracks. EU also joined this sanction measures. US signaled change in it's policy when General Prayuth got the chance to visit US and meet President Donal Trump in 2017. General Prayuth Chan-o-cha's military junta could start to restore it's reputation internationally. Domestically, he used absolute powers based on section 44 of the interim constitution, also guranteed in the new constitution. Oversea and national human rights groups have criticized that the interim constitution for permitting the NCPO, Thai military junta's official name, to carry out policies and actions without any effective oversight or accountability for human rights violations. On 1 December 2017, Thailand marked the one-year anniversary of King Maha Vajiralongkorn's accession to the throne as the country's new monarch, Rama X. In the first year of King Rama X's reign, arrests, prosecutions, and imprisonment under Article 112 of Thailand's Criminal Code (lese-majeste) have continued unabated in Thailand. NCPO has continued to abuse Article 112 to detain alleged violators and curb any form of discussion regarding the monarchy, particularly on social media. In this worsening human rights environment General Prayuth Chan-o-cha enforced continuously campaign like Thai-style democracy- an effort to promote largely autocratic 'Thainess' in such a way that freedom of expression is threatened. It is a resurgence of 'Sarit Model'. In the beginning of 2017 Thai military government raised the slogan of 'opportunity Thailand' in the context of 'Thailand 4.0' project which attempts to transform Thai economy based on industry-driven to innovation-driven for recovering robust growth. To consider freedom and liberty as a source of innovation, 'Thailand 4.0' led by 'Sarit Model' without democracy would be skeptical.

An Exploratory Study on the Business Failure Recovery Factors of Serial Entrepreneurs: Focusing on Small Business (연속 기업가의 사업 실패 회복요인에 관한 탐색적 연구: 소상공인을 중심으로)

  • Lee, Kyung Suk;Park, Joo Yeon;Sung, Chang Soo
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.16 no.6
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    • pp.17-29
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    • 2021
  • Recently, as social distancing have been raised due to the re-spread of COVID-19, the number of serial entrepreneurs who are closing their business is rapidly increasing. Learning from failure is a source of success, but business failure can result in psychological and economic losses and negative emotions of the serial entrepreneur. At this point, it is very important to find a way to recover the negative emotions caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. Recently, a strategic model has emerged to deal with the negative emotions of grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. This study identified the recovery factors from the grief of business failures of serial entrepreneurs and analyzed Shepherd's(2003) three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. To this end, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 small business serial entrepreneurs who challenged re-startup to identify the attributes of recovery factors that were not identified with quantitative data. As a result of the study, first, recovery factors were investigated in three areas: individual orientation, family orientation, and network orientation. It was found to help improve recovery in nine categories: self-esteem, persistence, personal competence, hobbies, self-confidence, family support, networks, religion, and social support. Second, recovery obstacle factors were investigated in three areas: psychological, economic, and environmental factors. Nine categories including family, health, social network, business partner, competitor, partner, fund, external environment, and government policy were found to persist negative emotions. Third, the emotional processing process for grief was investigated in three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. Ten categories such as family, partner support, social member support, government support, hobbies, networks, change of business field, moving, third-party perspective, and meditation were confirmed to enhance rapid recovery in the emotional processing process for grief. The implications of this study are as follows. The process of recovering from the grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs was attempted by a qualitative study. By extending the theory of Shepherd(2003), This study can be applied to help with recovery research. In addition, conceptual models and propositions for future empirical research were presented, which can be discussed in carious academic ways.

Effectiveness Enhancement Measures for Local Government Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by Improving Small-scale EIA Institution (소규모 환경영향평가 제도개선을 통한 지자체 환경영향평가 효과성 증진방안)

  • Jongook Lee;Kyeong Doo Cho
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.15-28
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    • 2023
  • In the Republic of Korea, the target project scope of the small-scale EIA is stipulated as the plan area above around 5,000~60,000m2 depending on a type of project and classification of land use. Whereas, the lower limit of the corresponding local government EIA project is generally located above the small-scale EIA's limits, and overlapping ranges exist. This situation has been enlarged since road construction and district unit planning were included as the target projects for small-scale EIA in the "Enforcement Decree of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act", which was partially revised in November 2016, and the current consultation system needed discussion in that small-scale EIA is allowed to be done without gathering review opinions at the local level. In fact, projects subjected to local government EIA but consulted as small-scale EIAs may seem insignificant because of a small number of total cases; however, it is worth paying attention to the fact that a local government may not add a target project due to the small-scale EIA. This study suggested the three policy measures for improving small-scale EIA to enhance the effectiveness of local government EIA: supplementing the institutional arrangements to incorporate the review opinion from the local region in small-scale EIA, giving priority to local EIA for conducing the projects in overlapping ranges with partial amendments on EIA law regarding exceptions to local government EIA, including small target projects (not to be small-scale EIA targets) to the ordinance that are deemed necessary to be conducted as local government EIA. Even though a positive function of small-scale EIA has been confirmed, efforts should be made to improve the situation in which many projects within local governments are consulted without review from the region.

A study on the improvement of distribution system by overseas agricultural investment (해외농업투자에 따른 유통체계 개선방안에 관한 연구)

  • Sun, Il-Suck;Lee, Dong-Ok
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2010
  • Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

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An Empirical Study in Relationship between Franchisor's Leadership Behavior Style and Commitment by Focusing Moderating Effect of Franchisee's Self-efficacy (가맹본부의 리더십 행동유형과 가맹사업자의 관계결속에 관한 실증적 연구 - 가맹사업자의 자기효능감의 조절효과를 중심으로 -)

  • Yang, Hoe-Chang;Lee, Young-Chul
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.49-71
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    • 2010
  • Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

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