• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.65-78
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• 2024

This study investigates the correlation between financial constraints and investment activities in Korean logistics firms. A sample of 340 companies engaged in the transportation sector, as per the 2021 KSIC, was selected for analysis. Financial data obtained from the DART were used to compile a panel dataset spanning from 1996 to 2021, totaling 6,155 observations. The research model was validated, and tests for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation in the error terms were conducted considering the panel data structure. The relationship between investment activities in the previous period and current investment activities was analyzed using panel Generalized Method of Moments(GMM). The validation results of the research indicate that Korean logistics firms tend to increase investment activities as their level of financial constraints improves. Specifically, a positive relationship between the level of financial constraints and investment activities was consistently observed across all models. These findings suggest that investment decision-making varies based on the financial constraints faced by companies, aligning with previous research indicating that investment activities of constrained firms are subdued. Moreover, while the results from the model examining whether investment activities in the previous period affect current investment activities indicated an influence of investment activities from the previous period on current investment activities, the investment activities from two periods ago did not show a significant relationship with current investment activities. Among the control variables, firm size and cash flow variables exhibited positive relationships, while debt size and asset diversification variables showed negative relationships. Thus, larger firm size and smoother cash flows were associated with more proactive investment activities, while high debt levels and extensive asset diversification appeared to constrain investment activities in logistics companies. These results interpret that under financial constraints, internal funding sources such as cash flows exhibit positive relationships, whereas external capital sources such as debt demonstrate negative relationships, consistent with empirical findings from previous research.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.54-79
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• 2024

The purpose of this research is to fill the vacuum created by the tendency of bias towards China among the curators of Korean museums who plan exhibitions focusing on Balhae, and to share with researchers in the countries concerned various supplementary research materials that could deepen their understanding of the history of Balhae. These materials are based on analyses of the details of exhibitions about Balhae held in a particular Russian museum and the characteristics of and changes in the museum's operational policy. Thus, this research focuses mainly on the permanent and special exhibitions held by the Far East History Museum and Reserve, whose collection represents the archaeological achievements of Russia regarding the history of Balhae. The first part of the research focuses on the layout of the exhibitions presented by the museum and the museum's operational policy. It reveals that the museum's permanent exhibitions follow a diachronic arrangement of the local history, while the first and second special exhibitions featured exhibits that were selected from the collections of the Russian Academy of Sciences and arranged according to specific themes. It also examines the museum's policy for operating the exhibitions, focusing on the operational rules, the human resources deployed to run them, and the related educational and PR programs. The second part of the research examines such issues as local politics, economy, education and culture related to the exhibitions on Balhae's history, and connects them to the background and development of the exhibitions. This study reveals that the permanent exhibitions were intended to promote historical awareness of the local area by museum visitors, particularly those who visited the exhibitions while the city was hosting important events such as international summits. It also reveals that the museum's first special exhibition led to the promotion of Korea-Russia cooperation on exchanges in the fields of culture and tourism, whereas the second special exhibition involved no PR efforts or related events, which was probably due to the changes that have occurred in the relationship between Russia and its neighboring countries since then. The final part of the study focuses on the characteristic features of the exhibition narratives, and compares school textbooks on local history and history books for general readers with the contents of the exhibitions. The analysis of the narratives based on the development of time shows that the history of the Mohe (or Malgal) tribes has been combined with that of Balhae, while they are treated separately in school textbooks. As regards political history, the narrative was largely focused on officials in Balhae's central government rather than on Mohe warriors in the border areas. The maps of Balhae presented in the exhibitions highlight the importance of accumulating empirical data. As for the exhibition of material cultures, this study suggests that the museums should obtain more archaeological floral and faunal remains related with agriculture and hunting. It also points out that the narrative on the theme of foreign relations deals with the archaeological relics of Unified Silla together with those of the Turkic tribes. As for the theme of philosophy and culture, the narrative focused on the state ceremonies and rituals of Goguryeo, a theme that has attracted little attention among Korean academic circles and which consequently requires further study. In conclusion, this study is meaningful in that it suggests a number of research topics regarding the development of exhibitions and exhibition narratives about the history of Balhae by a prestigious Russian museum that specializes in this subject.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.157-170
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• 2014

Professional coffee shops are trying to increase customers' satisfaction and to invite more customers by providing the differentiated services. The existing researches show that the effects which the physical environment in shops has on customers' satisfaction and word of mouth intention are appealing to people's attention. In comprehensively examining the studies related to the physical environment, they can be summarized into two main perspectives, that is, the direct effect that the physical environment has on customers' satisfaction, quality perception, and other customers' responses (purchase desire, revisit intention, etc.) and the indirect effect that the physical environment has on customers' responses by means of customers' emotion or value perception. This research established 4 hypotheses by sampling 321 customers of those who have visited professional coffee shops, and empirically analyzed them. The empirical analysis carried out the structure analysis of covariance by using SPSS 17.0 statistics package and AMOS 17.0. As a result of the hypothesis qualification, the other hypotheses excluding one little hypothesis were adopted. The one refused hypothesis is that the only symbolism of the environmental elements in shops doesn't influence the customers' emotion positively (+). This is considered as a very unexpected result, and yet many customers who visit coffee shops express the symbols of professional coffee shops using the expressions such as 'bean coffee shop' or 'star coffee shop', but these expressions seem not to influence customers' mind positively in practice.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.45-65
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• 2008

The rapid growth of the Internet has increased the amount of transmission of personally identifiable information. At the same time, with new Internet related technologies, organizations are trying to collect and access more personal information than before, which in turn makes individuals concern more about their information privacy. For their successful businesses, organizations have tried to alleviate these concerns in two ways: (1) by offering privacy policies that promise certain level of privacy protection; (2) by offering benefits such as financial gains or convenience. In this paper, we interpret these actions in the context of the information processing theory of motivation. This paper follows Hann et al.(2007)'s methods to analyze Internet users privacy concerns in Korea and tries to compare the findings. Our research objectives are as follows: First, we analyze privacy concern mitigation strategies in the framework of the expectancy theory of motivation. Subsequently, we show how the expectancy theory based framework is linked o the conjoint analysis. We empirically validate the predictions that the means to mitigate privacy concerns are associated with positive valences resulting in an increase in motivational score. In order to accommodate real-life contexts, we investigate these means in trade-off situation, where an organization may only be able to offer partially complete privacy protection and/or promotions and/or convenience, While privacy protection (secondary use, improper access) are associated with positive valences, we also find that financial gains can significantly increase the individuals' motivational score of a website in Korea. One important implication of this empirical analysis is that organizations may possess means to actively manage the privacy concerns of Internet users. Our findings show that privacy policies are valued by users in Korea just as in the US or Singapore. Hence, organizations can capitalize on this, by stating their privacy policy more prominently. Also organizations would better think of strategies or means that may increase online users' willingness to provide personal information. Since financial incentives also significantly increase the individuals' motivational score of website participation, we can quantify the value of website privacy protection in terms of monetary gains. We find that Korean Internet users value the total privacy protection (protection against errors, improper access, and secondary use of personal information) as worthy as KW 25,550, which is about US 28. Having done this conjoint analysis, we next adopt cluster analysis methodology. We identify two distinct segments of Korea's internet users-privacy guardians and information sellers, and convenience seekers. The immediate implication of our study is that firms with online presence must differentiate their services to serve these distinct segments to best meet the needs of segments with differing trade-offs between money and privacy concerns. Information sellers are distinguished from privacy guardians by prior experience of information provision, To the extent that businesses cannot observe an individual's prior experience, they must use indirect methods to induce segmentation by self-selection as suggested in classic economics literature of price discrimination, Businesses could use monetary rewards to attract information sellers to provide personal information. One step forward from the societal trends that emphasize the need of legal protection of information privacy, our study wants to encourage organizations and related authorities to have the viewpoints to consider both importance of privacy protection and the necessity of information trade for the growth of e-commerce.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.187-197
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• 2009

This paper presents a systematic approach for estimating fragility curves and damage probability matrices for different frequencies. Fragility curves and damage probability indicate the probabilities that a structure will sustain different degrees of damage at different ground motion levels. The seismic damages are to achieved by probabilistic evaluation because of uncertainty of earthquakes. In contrast to previous approaches, this paper presents a method that is based on nonlinear dynamic analysis of the structure using empirical data. This paper presents the probability of damage as a function of peak ground acceleration and estimates the probability of five damage levels for prestressed concrete (PSC) bridge pier subjected to given ground acceleration. At each level, 100 artificial earthquake motions were generated in terms of soil conditions, and nonlinear time domain analyses was performed for the damage states of PSC bridge pier structures. These damage states are described by displacement ductility resulting from seismic performance based on existing research results. Using the damage states and ground motion parameters, five fragility curves for PSC bridge pier with five types of dominant frequencies were constructed assuming a log-normal distribution. The effect of dominant frequences was found to be significant on fragility curves.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.97-125
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• 2009

The main purpose of this study is to provide a new approach to conceptualize and measure distrust based on existing researches concerning trust. One of the traditional approach has viewed that trust and distrust are opposed constructs placed on a continuous measure and that trust has positive impact and distrust has negative impact. But this study tries to test empirically that trust and distrust are independent constructs which can be distinguishable, and that both constructs are ambivalent. In addition, this study also tries to provide empirical test that distrust can have a positive effect on transaction relationship. We analyzed the possibility that both trust and distrust can be distinguishable and ambivalent with various antecedents and consequences of two constructs. We also analyzed the effect of distrust on cooperation and functional conflict in order to manifest the positive role of distrust as a relationship variable. The result for testing hypotheses is as follows: First, all hypotheses for antecedents and consequences of trust are significant, but some of hypotheses for antecedents and consequences of distrust are not significant. Second, both constructs can be distinguishable and ambivalent to some extent as the hypotheses for reputation are significant, which is one of the antecedents of distrust and considered jointly with other antecedents, transaction specific asset and environmental uncertainty. Lastly, the result showed the positive role of distrust that has a positive effect on functional conflict.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.418-424
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• 2010

Although the wine industry continues to grow, little empirical research on consumer preferences has been conducted. Thus, our objective was to analyze consumer views on wine attributes. A choice experiment (CE) was designed to detect a marginal willingness to pay for particular characteristics of wine (balance, flavor, color, clarity, and value-for-money). A questionnaire was administered and 286 responses were received. A multinomial logit model was estimated using the maximum likelihood method. The results indicated that balance, flavor, color, clarity, and price were all important to consumers. The CE data revealed that estimates of marginal willingness to pay were 31,899 won/bottle for balance, 23,088 won/bottle for flavor, 3,230 won/bottle for color, and 25,936 won/bottle for clarity. The balance of a wine was most important, and the flavor, clarity, and color were also significant. The results of this work will be of assistance in promoting the domestic wine industry.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.4D
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• pp.345-356
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• 2012

Road pavement requires repetitive maintenance works to maintain satisfactory service level to the public. However, the repetitive maintenance works upon deteriorated pavement structure make negative effects to deterioration speed. It often leads to inefficient use of limited budget. For that reason, the pavements require reconstruction work to recover their original performance. Recently, construction demands in the Korean national highway have already been reached to maximum level, and the aged pavements start to demand much more reconstruction works. However, in the real world, road agencies have often been confused when they determine maintenance design for such aged road sections due to budget constraint. It is because there is no reliable long-term maintenance strategy that supports their decision making. To support their decision making, this paper aimed to suggest the best maintenance strategy considering changing process of pavement performance by repetitive maintenance works. As an analysis method, probability distribution and hazard function to estimate the life expectancy were adopted, and then the results were used for long-term life cycle cost analysis with deterministic or Monte-Carlo method under various scenarios. As an empirical study, the Korean national highway data that has long-maintenance history data since 1986 has been applied. Last, this paper considered quality assurance of maintenance work to improve maintenance quality. These could be important information as a part of long-term maintenance strategy of pavement.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.36-51
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• 1997

Background : Clinical practice guidelines define "systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances" and help to improve patient care. The purpose of this study is to develop a clinical practice guideline for the most effective diagnoses and treatments of benign prostatic hyperplasia based on patient preference and clinical need. Methods : For this research project, extensive literature searches (208 articles) were conducted. As well, critical reviews and syntheses (meta-analysis) were used to evaluate empirical evidence and significant outcomes of the BPH literature. Questionnaires about clinical practice for BPH patients were distributed and consensus meetings were undertaken to grasp variations in clinical practice and to reach agreement on the guideline's development. The guideline was promoted under the sponsorship of the Korean Medical Association and the Korean urological Cancer. Society. For the task, the Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Guideline Panel was composed of multidisciplinary experts in the field. Results : BPH is a disease that affects a patient's quality of life. This Clinical Practice Guideline was developed for the typical man over age 50 with symptoms of prostatism, but with no significant medical morbidities such as diabetes or other known causes of voiding dysfunction, such as urethral stricture or neurogenic bladder. The guidelines detail the relative benefits and obstacles associated with all diagnostic and treatment approaches, including watchful waiting. Conclusion : This guideline provides a cornerstone for our medical association. It represents the most current scientific knowledge regarding the development, diagnosis, and treatment of BPH. It will be revised and updated as needed.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.101-132
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• 2015

National technical qualifications to enhance an individual's vocational skills, the competitiveness of companies and countries have an important function to improve. Especially 'qualifications' will have a signal function to show objectively measure an individual's ability with the 'Education' The "knowledge necessary for the performance of their duties. Technology will gain knowledge about such assessment or recognition is based on certain criteria and procedures." Learning to qualify are being made through a smart learning a lot. Due to the revolution of the Internet in recent years with the development of information and communication technologies are entering into a knowledge society, the importance of information and knowledge. This contemporary smart learning education system is continuing to rapidly growing in pace with the changing time and space constraints, without teaching and learning is taking place. The purpose of this study is the ARCS motivation theory can determine a representative theory of human motivation factors and basic psychological needs dealing with the human nature of the psychological needs Interactivity and immersive learning, and to validate the empirical causality Affecting the continued use of smart learning through fun. Specifically, attention, relevance, confidence in the ARCS motivation, see their effect on the learning flow through the satisfaction we analyze empirically. Through this national technical qualifications smart learner's learning by supporting the implicit synchronization of students in learning are the degree of continued use. Therefore, to achieve the objectives of national technical qualifications and skills through a smart learning can contribute to the activation of the development and certification of course industry.