• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.273-300
• /
• 2018

In order to analyze the experience of women from the provinces settling in Seoul, the current study conducts in-depth interviews on seven women who are working in Seoul after coming up to Seoul to attend and graduate from university. The results of the interview were analyzed using grounded theory methodology, under which the open coding extracted one hundred ten concepts, twenty-one sub-categories, and eleven categories encompassing them all. Causal condition is 'difficulty of settling in Seoul' and contextual conditions are 'intensification of psychological anxiety', 'reduction in quality of life', and 'continuation of economic instability'. The central phenomenon is 'dilemma of continuing life in Seoul' and intervening condition is 'diagnosis of ten years after coming up to Seoul'. Action/interaction strategies are 'changes in personal life', 'securing economic abilities through a stable job', and 'finding ways to participate in the society', while the result was 'choosing whether to continue living in Seoul'. The paradigm of experience of women from the provinces settling in Seoul proceed from coming up to Seoul for university to becoming independent, adapting to life in the city, experiencing growth and failures, facing challenge and searching for solutions, and conducting self-evaluation and making new choices. The participants reported that they were aware of differences and experienced anxieties as a stranger in Seoul even after living in the city for ten years; the problems they face have become more complex and diverse since when they were in university, and while they launched a career and making money, the gap between them and their peers from Seoul has not closed. The women also express desperation that they may need to leave Seoul to find alternatives to problems caused by accumulated stress and social problems that cannot be solved by an individual. In conclusion, the current study confirmed that efforts by individuals can only have limited effects in helping women from the provinces to settle in Seoul, indicating that detailed policy plans are required to solve social issues in the overall Korean society.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.281-313
• /
• 2019

This paper was written to investigate the narrative traits of Lee Ae-rim's Comic Books. Lee Ae-rim arrived on the scene with the boom of comic book magazines in the 1990s. Although she started her career as a Comic Book writer, she expanded her own area gradually and has been working actively as an animation director as well. The superficial characteristics of Lee Ae-rim's works can be summed up as sexuality, grotesqueness, and fantasy. In other words, Lee Ae-rim's comic books are mainly characterized by the visualization of sexual, grotesque, and fantastic shapes. Lee Ae-rim has faced challenges with her own overwhelming and compelling images like no one else. For that reason, it is true that people haven't paid careful attention to the hidden stories behind her pictures. This paper considers that looking back on the narratives that Lee Ae-rim has been interested in, from early days to recent days, that is to say, the contexts of stories, is a shortcut to reveal a point of contact between her past, present, and future. Especially, this paper focused on the properties of the circulated and repeated stories, the stories ruled by fate and coincidence, and the stories in which elements of fantasy encounter an attempt of violation. As a result, it was found that the narratives of Lee Ae-rim's comic books demand us to face suppressed desires in a new way, by wrapping up the most fundamental aspects of human being in universality and constancy with specificity and grotesqueness. The reason why Lee Ae-rim has continued the avant-garde and omnidirectional works thus far explains what our society suppresses, inversely. Moreover, the narratives of Lee Ae-rim are significant, by being devoted to the right function of art not only to disclose suppressed desires but to satisfy them. Making an in-depth investigation of the narratives of Lee Ae-rim's comic books in various contexts, this research is intended to establish a diversity of Korean comic books, by adding meaning to the creative values of individual writers.

• Journal of Distribution Research
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.49-71
• /
• 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.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
• /
• no.57
• /
• pp.467-505
• /
• 2014

I am working on a series of Korean linguistic studies targeting Ganchal(old typed letters in Korea) for many years and this study is for the typology of the [Safety Expression] as the part. For this purpose, [Safety Expression] were divided into a formal types and semantic types, targeting the Chinese Ganchal and Hangul Ganchal of modern Korean Language time(16th century-19th century). Formal types can be divided based on whether Normal position or not, whether Omission or not, whether the Sending letter or not, whether the relationship of the high and the low or not. Normal position form and completion were made the first type which reveal well the typicality of the [Safety Expression]. Original position while [Own Safety] omitted as the second type, while Original position while [Opposite Safety] omitted as the third type, Original position while [Safety Expression] omitted as the fourth type. Inversion type were made as the fifth type which is the most severe solecism in [Safety Expression]. The first type is refers to Original position type that [Opposite Safety] precede the [Own Safety] and the completion type that is full of semantic element. This type can be referred to most typical and normative in that it equipped all components of [Safety Expression]. A second type is that [Safety Expression] is composed of only the [Opposite Safety]. This type is inferior to the first type in terms of set pattern, it is never outdone when it comes to the appearance frequency. Because asking [Opposite Safety] faithfully, omitting [Own Safety] dose not greatly deviate politeness and easy to write Ganchal, it is utilized. The third type is the Original position type showing the configuration of the [Opposite Safety]+Own Safety], but [Opposite Safety] is omitted. The fourth type is a Original position type showing configuration of the [Opposite Safety+Own Safety], but [Safety Expression] is omitted. This type is divided into A ; [Safety Expression] is entirely omitted and B ; such as 'saving trouble', the conventional expression, replace [Safety Expression]. The fifth type is inversion type that shown to structure of the [Own Safety+Opposite Safety], unlike the Original position type. This type is the most severe solecism type and real example is very rare. It is because let leading [Own Safety] and ask later [Opposite Safety] for face save is offend against common decency. In addition, it can be divided into the direct type that [Opposite Safety] and [Own Safety] is directly connected and indirect type that separate into the [story]. The semantic types of [Safety Expression] can be classified based on whether Sending letter or not, fast or slow, whether intimate or not, and isolation or not. For Sending letter, [Safety Expression] consists [Opposite Safety(Climate+Inquiry after health+Mental state)+Own safety(status+Inquiry after health+Mental state)]. At [Opposite safety], [Climate] could be subdivided as [Season] information and [Climate(weather)] information. Also, [Mental state] is divided as receiver's [Family Safety Mental state] and [Individual Safety Mental state]. In [Own Safety], [Status] is divided as receiver's traditional situation; [Recent condition] and receiver's ongoing situation; [Present condition]. [Inquiry after health] is also subdivided as receiver's [Family Safety] and [Individual Safety], [Safety] is as [Family Safety] and [Individual Safety]. Likewise, [Inquiry after health] or [Safety] is usually used as pairs, in dimension of [Family] and [Individual]. This phenomenon seems to have occurred from a big family system, which is defined as taking care of one's parents or grand parents. As for the Written Reply, [Safety Expression] consists [Opposite Safety (Reception+Inquiry after health+Mental state)+Own safety(status+Inquiry after health+Mental state)], and only in [Opposite safety], a difference in semantic structure happens with Sending letter. In [Opposite Safety], [Reception] is divided as [Letter] which is Ganchal that is directly received and [Message], which is news that is received indirectly from people. [Safety] is as [Family Safety] and [Individual Safety], [Mental state] also as [Family Safety Mental state] and [Individual Safety Mental state].