• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.175-201
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanism through which youth school-based mentoring program impacts mentees' psychological and school-related outcomes such as self-esteem, self-efficacy, and attitudes toward school. The hypothetical model was assumed that mentors could improve their mentees' developmental outcomes through positive relationships with mentors as good role models and enhancement of help-seeking orientation. To investigate the mediating effect of process-related outcomes, structural equation modeling was used. The 97 adolescents were recruited through referral and random selection from middle schools in Seoul. The result showed that the effects of program participation were mediated by proximal changes in connectedness to role models and development of help-seeking orientation that, in turn, led to facilitate more positive attitudes toward school and academic activity, and improve psychological outcomes. Practice and policy implications as well as further research topics were discussed to aid the search for highly effective mentoring programs.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.51-60
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• 2014

Previous research on loyalty program has verified the factors that influence redemption behavior and the understanding of the mechanism of redemption behavior with academic and practical implications. However, these research has not proven boundary conditions in which the phenomena can be strengthened or weakened- that is, the moderating effect remains unclear. The inclusion of moderating variables can provide a more extensive understanding of the mechanism of this behavior from academic and managerial perspectives alike. Therefore, this current research proposes regulatory focus as a moderating variable, which has received scarce attention in the study of loyalty program behavior, especially individual characteristic variables that, in turn, affect the consumers' purchasing behavior in various ways. Previous research on consumer decision making investigates the differential role of regulatory focus as a series of stages. Regulatory focus theory posits that people depend on the two types of regulatory focus when pursuing goals: promotion focus vs. prevention focus. The former induces tendencies to recognize a goal as a hope and ideal, as something that satisfies the need for accomplishment, and to be sensitive to the presence of a positive outcome of the match and to match the pursuit of goals. On the other hand, the latter tends to regard a goal as the responsibility or obligation to achieve the goal, has a tendency to avoid failure to meet a target, and is sensitive to the presence of the negative consequences that do not reach the target. The following propositions are suggested: 1) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on delaying point redemption speed will be relatively more pronounced for customers with prevention focus. 2) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on large redemption unit size will be relatively more pronounced for customers with prevention focus. 3) The effect of higher accumulation effort level on hedonic redemption ratio will be relatively more pronounced for customers with promotion focus. Therefore, this research provides a moderating variable that has the potential to be used as a reference for market segmentation and affects the relationship between point accumulation effort and three sides of point redemption behavior. On this basis, the direction for the future research on this issue is recommended. Future research could verify these propositions conducting a survey of customers' propensity of regulatory focus in conjunction with the history of the loyalty program of data. This would provide a more realistic effect on the usage behavior of loyalty program consumers by providing useful implications for both marketing practitioners and researchers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.49-73
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• 2013

In this study, the author develops and tests a model that incorporates the mediating effects of two frontline employee psychological variables (emotional exhaustion and intrinsic motivation) based on job demand and resource model. As a form of environmental resource, person-organization fit was proposed as a leading factor of frontline employee boundary spanning behavior through emotional exhaustion and intrinsic motivation. All measures were adapted from or developed based on prior research. Data for the study were collected from a cross-sectional sample of retail bank employees in South Korea. Questionnaires were distributed to 500 frontline employees across several banks. Of these, 322 usable questionnaires were returned. To analyze the data, a structural equation model procedure using LISREL 8.5 was employed. Results show that an employee's perceived fit with his/her organization enhances intrinsic motivation and reduces emotional exhaustion. These mechanisms, in turn, increase the employee's boundary spanning behavior. These results support the notion that person-organization fit should be one of the factors affecting motivation, affect and attachment, and extends such an understanding to a purely service-based environment among customer contact employees. Results also confirms that P-O fit can be viewed as environmental resources, and the JD-R model provides a theoretical base in further studying the antecedent role of P-O fit on frontline employees's boundary spanning behavior through intrinsic motivation and emotional exhaustion. These results suggest that organizations have to do their best to manage P-O fit, be it through employee screening or training and workshops to try and align organization and employee values and objectives. If managers of organizations are positively evaluated by the employees, it will be easier for them to, give things of value to employees, such as sense of direction, values, and recognition, and receive other things in return such as esteem and responsiveness. Consequently, organizational leaders are not only able to manage employee experiences, but also their fit with the organization. Even if a manager cannot control employee P-O fit, this research suggests, that a focus on reducing emotional exhaustion rather than increasing intrinsic motivation seems optimal. This research also supports the idea that motivation has a direct association with a frontline employee's boundary spanning behavior. Even in situations where emotional exhaustion cannot be reduced, organizations may still influence frontline behaviors through motivation.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.31-69
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to identify the organizational characteristics that enhance CRM performances of a company. Based on a review of diverse definitions of CRM performance, this study examines the relationships among CRM performance measures and organizational characteristics. A questionnaire survey of 123 CRM managers of Korean companies was conducted to test the proposed research model, and a series of structural equation modeling identified the strong effects of organizational characteristics on CRM performance. It was found that top management commitment to CRM and a firm's strategic readiness lead to high levels of CRM investment, which, in turn, enhance directly task-related performance and indirectly customer-related performance. This study also confirmed that customer orientation is significantly related to task-related CRM performance and that the variables of CRM commitment and organizational culture may enhance customerrelated performance indirectly through their effects on the task-related performance. However, organizational members' resistance to change was found to have no effects on CRM performance. Overall our research broadly supports the role of organizational characteristics revealed in the CRM literature.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-33
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• 2009

This research investigates the effect of brand-self identification on brand attachment and brand commitment focusing on luxury brand. Another purpose of this study is to examine how the relationships among brand identification, brand attachment and brand committment are moderated by consumers' regulatory focus. Structural Equation Modeling using 214 questionnaires was conducted to test hypothesized model. The results reveal that perceived luxury brand personality including excitement, competence, and sophistication influences brand-self identification positively, which in turn has a signifiant positive effect on the brand attachment. It is also found that consumers' emotional attachment to luxury brands has a positive influence on the luxury brand commitment while the effect of the brand-self identification on the brand commitment is not signifiant. This finding strongly supports that brand attachment and brand commitment are distinct construct, which confirms the results of the previous studies. In addition, the results show that consumers-luxury brands relationships are moderated by consumers' regulatory focus. This finding explains that prevention-focused individuals who have interdependent self-view respond to the loss caused by relationship break more sensitively compared to the promotion-focused consumers. Finally, based on the findings of this study, theoretical contribution and managerial implications are discussed.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.59-81
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• 2004

Store loyalty is increasingly being recognized as a path to long-term business profitability. Customer contact employees deliver a service firm's promises and create an important image for the firm. A major purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of customer service and product value on store loyalty. In order to test research hypotheses, data were collected through surveys administered to 300 apparel store customers. Two hundred thirty nine usable data were used for the analysis. The findings of this research are as follows: First, a employee's voluntary service(EVS) has a positive impact on interpersonal r elationship, which then affects switching barrier and store loyalty. Second, a employee's regular service(ERS) has an influence on store satisfaction, which in turn affect store loyalty. Third, product value is shown to be a significant antecedent to store satisfaction, which have a direct effect on store loyalty. The study concludes with implications, contributions, and limitations of the research and the empirical findings of this research should be beneficial to marketing practitioners and retailing businessmen in developing effective marketing strategies.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.14 no.1_spc
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• pp.299-317
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• 2008

The school drop-out among the youth has grown to become a serious social problem since about 2000 and calls for an attention to its seriousness. Therefore, this study reviewed the statitistical reports and the previous empirical findings on the school drop-out and integrated to establish a comprehensive understanding of this social phenomenon. The main concepts and terminologies on school drop-out, the current statistics, the possible causal factors and the usual trajectory the youth take after dropping-out of school were discussed to conceptualize the issue. Analyses indicated 12 characteristics of the students who dropped out of school. Those 12 characteristics were restructured according to the ecological conceptual model. The social instability and the financial crisis in the 1990's has eroded the stability of the primary environments of adolescents such as family and school. The family breakdowns from divorce and other reasons weakened psychological and financial support for adolescents. The diminished authority of teachers and school over students exposed conflicts between teacher and students, students' loss of purpose and interest in academic attainment. The adolescents showed emotional reponses like increased level of depression, helplessness, aggression, indicated cognitive reponses such as the loss of purpose and interest in studying, a heightened sense of uncertainty of the future, and behavioral responses like sexual acting out behaviors, and bullying. The unmet psychological needs of adolescents result in run-away and school drop-out behaviors, which in turn progress into juvenile delinquency as the society fails to provide adequate and appropriate guidance and interventions. The intervention strategies at the national level were proposed and the limitations of the study were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-41
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• 2007

This study examines factors that influence delinquent behavior among Korean adolescents using longitudinal analysis. A total of 1,012 students completed a questionnaire when they were Grade 6 and 739 students completed a follow-up questionnaire when they became Grade 9. Results of multiple regression analysis indicate that the following variables predicted delinquent behavior of Grade 9 students: Bullying, previous delinquency, experience of punishment, victimization, social efficacy, and moral disengagement. The above six variables have direct and mediating influence of delinquent behavior. Relational factors also influenced delinquent behavior. Social exclusion from friends reduce social efficacy, which increases victimization and which in turn increases bullying, leading to greater delinquency. Parental rejection, social exclusion from friends and hostility from teachers increase moral disengagement, which increases bullying, leading to delinquency. Low academic achievement increases the likelihood of being punished, which increases bullying, leading to delinquency. The results indicate that moral disengagement and social efficacy are mediating factors of delinquency and negative life-events (i.e., social exclusion from friends, rejection from teachers, hostility from parents and low academic achievement) increase the likelihood that Korean adolescents will engage in delinquent behavior. Implications of the results for future research are discussed.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.85-114
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to analyze Russia-Central Asia relations since the launch of the EAEU in 2015 and forecast the future from a structural realism perspective. Bilateral relations have both elements of close cooperation and elements of conflict. Russia and Central Asia, which have the characteristics of an authoritarian alliance, also have a symbiotic relationship in which they have no choice but to cooperate with each other to maintain the regime. Based on this, Russia has made various efforts to reunify Central Asia. Central Asia also has no choice but to cooperate with Russia for its survival, but at the same time, it has expanded its scope of cooperation in the international community to avoid being subjugated to Russia again. However, as China's power expands, Russia's relative weakness, and wariness toward Russia increases after the Ukraine War, the gap in bilateral relations is widening. In particular, as China's influence grows, Russia's nervousness also increases. This is why Putin visits Central Asia and holds active summit talks even during the war in Ukraine. If competition between Russia and China surfaces, there is a high possibility that the international order in Central Asia will become unstable. However, it is still unlikely that the power of Russia and China will reverse in Central Asia. Above all, the security, historical, and cultural connections between Russia and Central Asia are areas that are difficult for China to catch up with. Therefore, a weakening of Russia's influence compared to the past is inevitable, but its superiority is expected to continue. If Russia breaks away from belligerence and transforms into an attractive cooperative partner, there is a possibility that bilateral relations will take an upward turn again. However, it seems unlikely that such changes and innovations will occur under the Putin regime. Therefore, the biggest obstacle to realizing Putin's goal of reunifying Central Asia is Putin himself.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.113-136
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• 2023

Purpose - Global production chains and their impacts on economic growth have drawn extensive attention from researchers. Close relationships among global production chains, export and economic growth have been illuminated, as evidenced by the fast and stable economic growth of East Asian economies. These economies perform various roles within global production chains using offshoring, in which the impact of import on domestic gross output is as strong as that of export. The impact of import on economic growth would depend on whether imported inputs substitute or complement domestic inputs production, which is likely to vary according to individual countries' functions within global production chains. The economic growth of concerned countries would also be diverse. However, little attention has been paid to the impact brought by imports compared to its significance. Design/methodology - The principal methodology used in this paper is structural decomposition analysis (SDA), widely chosen to elucidate the impact of various factors on domestic gross output using input-output tables. This paper extracts trade data of six Asian economies from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) 2016 release that covers 43 countries for the period 2000-2014. The extracted data is then categorised into 37 sectors. First, this paper calculates the Feenstra-Hanson Offshoring Index (OSI) of each country. It then applies SDA to measure the changes in each economy's gross output, export, import input coefficients, and domestic input coefficients. Finally, after taking the first difference from pooled time-series data, it estimates the correlations between imported input coefficients and OSI using the ordinary least square (OLS) method. Findings - The main findings of this paper can be summarised as follows. Firstly, all six countries have increasingly engaged in global production chains, as evidenced by the growing size of OSI. Secondly, there are negative correlations in five countries except Japan, with sectoral differences. Thirdly, changes in import input coefficients are not negative in all six countries, indicating that offshoring does not necessarily substitute for domestic inputs production but does complement it and, therefore, fosters their economic growth. This is observed in China, Indonesia, Korea and Taiwan. Offshoring has led to an increase in the use of imported inputs, which has, in turn, stimulated domestic inputs production in these countries. Originality/value - While existing studies focus on the role of export in evaluating the impact of participating global production chains, this paper explicitly examines the unexplored impact of import on domestic gross output by considering both the substitution and the complementary effect, using the WIOD. The findings of this paper suggest that Asian economies have achieved fast and stable economic growth not only through successful export management but also through effective import management within global production chains. This paper recommends that the Korean government and enterprises carefully choose offshoring strategies to minimise disruption to domestic production chains or foster them.