Thanatourism or peace tourism: perceived value at a North Korean resort from an indigenous perspective

This paper examines the underlying factors that affected perceived value among South Korean tourists who visited the North Korean Mt Kumgang resort. Results identified emotional, functional and economic values as core elements that directly affected guest satisfaction, which influenced intentions to recommend and revisit. Seen as a peace tourism site when the Sunshine Policy of rapprochement guided inter‐Korean strategy, we argue that the resort project is a heterotopia of comparison combining idealized cultural and contradictory political spaces in one place. Understanding this needs Korean ideas that lead to a thanatourism with an indigenous perspective, which is applicable to other non‐Western thanatourism‐like sites. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding liability of foreignness in an Asian business context: A study of the Korean asset management industry

This study provides an in-depth understanding of the liability of foreignness (LOF) in an Asian business context. Based on previous literature, we distinguish the two distinct cost components that comprise LOF: The cost of foreignness and the cost of multinationality. Whereas the former refers to the costs incurred by foreign firms when they develop location-specific advantages in a host country environment, the latter refers to the costs associated with an MNC’s multinational operation, more specifically, transferring firm-specific advantages from the home country (or elsewhere) and adapting them to a particular host country context. Based on this distinction, we investigate whether and how persistently each of these costs exists in an Asian business environment. Our data on the Korean asset management industry support the presence of both costs, resulting in lower performance increase of foreign firms relative to local ones from utilizing location- and firm-specific advantages, respectively. Furthermore, in our study setting, compared to the cost of foreignness, the cost of multinationality persists longer in the market, suggesting that the latter is more difficult and takes a longer time for MNCs to mitigate than the former. Our results provide important insights into detailed aspects of strategic challenges confronted by MNCs in the Asian business context from which they can derive effective strategic responses.     

Korean inflation during the US military administration of 1945-1948: a further analysis

This paper investigates the dynamic process of Korean inflation under the US military administration using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) incorporating cointegration relations among the variables. The results show that government expenditure shocks are primarily responsible for price movements together with money demand shocks having noticeable short-run impacts. The study also shows that government expenditure shocks are the most important source of fluctuations in each of the other variables investigated. The paper concludes that a reform of fiscal and monetary system is necessary to stop the sustaining process of inflation as well as fluctuations in other macro-variables.     

Sharing health risk and income risk within households: evidence from Japanese data

The question of which household members should consume medical services, and in what quantities, is examined by using Japanese household-level data. Two key concepts are employed, health risk and income risk, and whether family heads or dependants bear these risks investigated. Health risk is the risk that a household member falls ill, while income risk is the risk that future household income decreases. It is found that both heads and dependants make fewer visits to doctors as household size increases. It is also found that only dependants visited doctors less frequently following the reform of the public health insurance system, which raised the co-payment rate of family heads from 10% to 20%. These findings imply that heads and dependants share health risk but dependants bear income risk.     

The work–family interface in Korea: can family life enrich work life?

Using data obtained from 363 Korean civil servants, we examine the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment. Although individualistic Western work–family literature predicts that resources from the family role, both instrumental and affective, will improve the work role by mitigating the negative job stress–job satisfaction relationship, data from collectivistic Korean society show an unexpected opposite effect – an accentuating, not a mitigating moderating effect. Family resources – especially affective resources – may function as an additional work stressor rather than enrich the work role under collectivists' weak identity separation between work and family roles. This study thus reveals the cultural biases in the extant Western work–family literature by showing that the cultural variance in role identity separation/integration may underlie the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment.     

A comparison of different pay-per-bid auction formats

Pay-per-bid auctions are a popular new type of Internet auction that is unique because a fee is charged for each bid that is placed. This paper uses a theoretical model and three large empirical data sets with 44,614 ascending and 1,460 descending pay-per-bid auctions to compare the economic effects of different pay-per-bid auction formats, such as different price increments and ascending versus descending auctions. The theoretical model suggests revenue equivalence between different price increments and descending and ascending auctions. The empirical results, however, refute the theoretical predictions: ascending auctions with smaller price increments yield, on average, higher revenues per auction than ascending auctions with higher price increments, but their revenues vary much more strongly. On average, ascending auctions yield higher revenues per auction than descending auctions, but results differ strongly across product categories. Additionally, revenues per ascending auction also vary much more strongly.     

Injecting demand through spillovers: Foreign direct investment,domestic socio-political conditions,and host-country entrepreneurial activity

This study examines how foreign direct investment (FDI) spurs entrepreneurial activity in host countries. We also investigate why this relationship varies across countries because of domestic socio-political conditions. The findings from our panel analyses of 104 countries from 2000 to 2009 are consistent with our predictions that foreign direct investment positively relates to business creation and this positive effect is strongest in countries with poor institutional support, weak political stability, and low general human capital. Our work provides new insights into how cross-border investments and domestic socio-political conditions jointly influence entrepreneurial activity, especially in emerging and developing economies.     

Effects of hospital leadership,organizational systems,and ESWOS on medical error reduction

One of the major elements of care quality provided by health care organizations is the reduction of medical errors. This study empirically examines the effect of leadership, organizational systems, and employee satisfaction with organizational support on medical error reduction. A set of hypotheses is tested based on data collected from 208 medical staff of hospitals with more than 300 beds in South Korea. Data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis using SPSS 17.0 and Mplus 5.1. One of the major findings of this study was that medical error reduction could be achieved by effective leadership. Leadership and operational efficiency drive reduction in medical errors in the health care industry. The comparison between large- and small-sized quality assurance teams’ roles indicated that there was a significant difference in their effect on medical error reduction. The results of the study shed light on some practical implications for management professionals in hospitals.     

An integrated framework for competency development: perspectives of risk managers in banks

To succeed, business organisations need comprehensive competency development to continuously churn out talent. However, existing approaches are inadequate because they focus on specific technicalities, people and internal firm matters, rather than tackling the issues in a comprehensive manner. We address this deficiency by testing a framework that integrates three concepts—core competencies, dynamic competencies and learning organisation—in an under-researched context: banks’ risk management functions. Our survey of 135 risk management professionals yielded a five-factor framework. The proposed framework guides competency development more comprehensively in that it integrates the three concepts hitherto studied in isolation. It is also systematic and practical given its overarching and expandable dimensions.     

Factor Determinants of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Malaysian Manufacturing Industries: a decomposition analysis

To decompose total factor productivity growth into technical progress, technical efficiency change, allocative efficiency change, and scale efficiency change, a stochastic frontier approach was applied to Malaysian manufacturing data covering the period 2000 to 2004. The results show that total factor productivity was driven mainly by technical progress but was hurt by deteriorating technical efficiency. Scale efficiency and allocative efficiency also exerted significant influences on total factor productivity. The skill and quality of workers were the most important determinants of technical efficiency, whereas foreign ownership, imports, and employee quality underpinned technical progress. The impact of firm size on scale economies differed across industries.