Cyclicality of markups and real wages in Korea

This paper examines the cyclical patterns of markups, real wages, and labor share for Korean industries. Markup ratio is greater than 1 in most industries. Markups are countercyclical, and real wages and labor share are procyclical. Income distribution effect has more impact on determining markups than price and technology effect.     

Hotel service providers’ emotional labor: The antecedents and effects on burnout

The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents and consequences of two emotional labor strategies (surface and deep acting) in the lodging industry. Variety, duration, and positive display rules are significant predictors of hotel service providers’ deep acting and negative display rules are related to service providers’ surface acting. Employees ohigh in neuroticism are more likely to fake their emotional expressions (surface acting) when dealing with guests and those high in extraversion are more likely to try hard to invoke the appropriate emotions (deep acting). Results further indicate that surface actors are more exhausted and cynical than deep actors and the mediating role of emotional labor between burnout and job and personality characteristics is found to be rather weak. Managerial implications for hotel operators are discussed.     

To be true or not to be true: authentic leadership and its effect on travel agents

This study examines authentic leadership and its impact on employees in the travel industry. Based on previous studies, the study proposes and tests a framework, in which four dimensions of authentic leadership influence two types of trust (supervisor trust and organizational trust), which in turn affect employee burnout. The data were collected by using a survey on travel agents in South Korea. The study finds that not all four dimensions of authentic leadership influence trust and that supervisor trust affects organizational trust. Trust is found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee burnout. The study offers theoretical implications and practical suggestions.     

Exploring the impact of advertising and R&;D expenditures on corporate brand value and firm-level financial performance

A parsimonious framework linking advertising expenditures and research and development expenditures to brand value, and brand value in turn to firm-level financial performance, was proposed and empirically investigated under four data conditions: data form, brand type, financial performance metric, and lag structure. Using pooled data from 125 firms (848 firm-year observations) over the period 1991–2007, 108 path analyses were conducted to compute five path model output metrics. Data on these metrics were then compared for each of the data conditions by means of analysis of variance. Although significant relationships were generally observed among framework variables, study results differed considerably across three of the four data conditions. The principal take-away from the study is that the impact of marketing activities on firm-level financial performance is likely to be in large part a function of the specific research purpose and methodology employed. As such, the take-away has implications when interpreting value-relevance findings, when constructing theories involving market-based assets, and when designing studies to investigate relationships between marketing and financial performance.     

Do board directors affect the export propensity and export performance of Korean firms? A resource dependence perspective

Using the Heckman two-stage method, this study empirically investigates whether board directors’ work experience in government and multinational corporations (MNCs), as well as the proportion of outside directors affects export propensity and export performance based on a sample of Korean firms. We find that the Korean firms with former government officials on the board are more likely to engage in exporting, although there is no empirical evidence supporting export performance. The findings also show that firms with former MNC employees on the board demonstrate higher levels of export propensity and export performance. Similarly, firms with a higher proportion of outside directors exhibit a higher level of export propensity and export performance. These findings highlight the importance of the board of directors in Korean firms’ first stage of internationalization and provide new insights into which type of board members can benefit their firms in terms of export propensity and export performance.