Sex Differentials in Earnings in the South Korean Labor Market

We examine gender differences in earnings among South Korean workers in 1988 – the year the South Korean National Assembly enacted the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Using the "88 Occupational Wage Bargaining Survey on the Actual Condition," we calculate women's mean earnings as a percentage of men's mean earnings by major industrial category and educational attainment. We find a larger wage gap among clerical and sales workers than production workers or professionals. Generally, the more education a woman has, the smaller the gap between her earnings and those of her male counterparts. Women with a middle-school education have a mean income 53.5 percent that of comparable men, while the female-to-male wage ratio among college graduates is 76.1 percent. We analyze wage differences separately for women and men. Following Ronald Oaxaca's (1973) work, we decompose male–female wage differentials. We also calculate a discrimination coefficient. Our work shows that, all else equal, men earn from 33.6 percent to 46.9 percent more than women with comparable skills. We attribute the difference to gender discrimination.     

SEN,ETHICS, AND DEMOCRACY

Amartya Sen's ethical theorizing helps feminists resolve the tensions between the claims of women's particular perspectives and moral objectivity. His concept of "positional objectivity" highlights the epistemological significance of value judgments made from particular social positions, while holding that certain values may become widely shared. He shows how acknowledging positionality is consistent with affirming the universal value of democracy. This article builds on Sen's work by proposing an analysis of democracy as a set of institutions that aims to intelligently utilize positional information for shared ends. This epistemological analysis of democracy offers a way to understand the rationale for reserving political offices for women. From a political point of view, gendered positions are better thought of as an epistemological resource than as a ground of identity politics v - v that is, of parochial identification and solidarity.     

Value creation from the innovation environment: partnership strategies in university spin‐outs

University spin‐out (USO) companies play an increasingly important role in generating value from radical, generic technologies, but this translation requires significant resources from other players to reach the market. Seven case studies illuminate how relationships with each type of partner can be leveraged to help the firm create value. We find that most firms in the sample are aware of the importance of corporate partners and actively seek to cultivate these relationships, but may not be taking full advantage of the resources available through nonparent academic institutions and other USOs with similar or complementary technologies.     

Body Image and Beliefs About Appearance: Constraints on the Leisure of College-Age and Middle-Age Women

Reducing adolescent substance use is important in South Africa, a developing nation with increasing adolescent substance use, lack of leisure/recreation opportunities, and high rates of adolescent discretionary time. Previous research suggests leisure boredom and adolescent substance use co-occur in this setting. Using longitudinal data from 2,580 South African adolescents as they progressed from the 8th to 11th grade, the current study disentangles the associations of trait and state leisure boredom with substance use, and examines how ability to restructure boring situations moderates those associations. On average, individuals with higher trait boredom used more substances, and on occasions when state boredom was high, the prototypical adolescent used more substances. Although restructuring did not moderate these associations, greater ability was associated with lower substance use independent of leisure boredom. Findings illustrated the importance of considering how trait and state aspects of leisure may contribute to adolescents’ risk behavior and addressed through preventive intervention.     

A Framework for Developing and Testing Financial Capability Education Programs Targeted to Elementary Schools

Concerns about consumers’ ability to manage their finances have triggered a range of proposals, including interventions aimed at elementary school students. The goal of these approaches is to improve lifelong economic decision making, but the evidence supporting their efficacy is thin. In this article, the authors discuss the trend toward elementary financial education and propose a framework for developing evidence-based programs. They emphasize the need for understanding the underlying mechanisms that facilitate the translation of student knowledge into the ability to make sound economic decisions over the life course. The framework illustrates the importance of articulating the intended mechanisms and effects of education programs. This focus on mechanisms will not only facilitate the evaluation of individual programs, but also the synthesis of evidence across interventions.     

Understanding innovation in practice: a discussion of the production and re-production of Nordic Walking

Building on the work of those who have highlighted the role of consumers and lead users we focus on innovations not in products but in what people do. In developing a method of conceptualising the emergence and reproduction of practice we argue that innovation is not a one-off moment but a continuous on-going process. Specifically, we suggest that innovations in practice involve changing combinations of symbolic and material ingredients and of competence or know-how. In addition, we argue that managers, manufacturers and consumers are all variously involved in making and sustaining connections between these defining elements. We illustrate and elaborate on these ideas with reference to Nordic Walking, a form of speed walking with two sticks. First practiced in 1997, it is now a regular pursuit for more than seven million people in over 30 countries and is reputed to be Europe's fastest growing form of exercise. In discussing this case we specify the constitutive ingredients of Nordic Walking and its location relative to other practices that already exist. Our analysis raises a number of general questions. For example, how can managers and manufacturers institutionalise practices that require consumption of the things they make? Is there any fundamental difference in the role of ‘lead’ and ‘ordinary’ users in generating and sustaining innovations in practice? Taking these questions forward, we develop a theoretical position that relativises the conventionally distinct roles of consumers and producers and that represents a novel hybridisation of innovation studies and sociological theories of practice.     

Generic Skills in Audit Education

The academic literature and higher education benchmark statements identify groups of skills that are desirable both for students seeking employment and for employers seeking to recruit students. Professional accounting education pronouncements also stipulate skills that are necessary for an individual to possess in order to act as a competent accountant and auditor. Through a questionnaire survey, this research examines: (i) which of these skills audit and accounting practitioners expect UK universities to teach; (ii) which skills audit and accounting academics believe are important for students to acquire; (iii) which skills audit academics believe that employers require; and (iv) which skills audit academics teach in the UK. Institutional theory is used to develop and interpret this research.     

Responses by Australian auditors to the global financial crisis

We examine the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) on auditor behaviour in Australia. Using a sample of listed companies, we examine whether the GFC impacted the propensity of auditors to issue going concern modifications and increased audit effort as reflected in audit fees and audit reporting lag. Controlling for client characteristics, we find an increase in the propensity to issue going concern opinions during the period 2008–2009 compared with the period 2005–2007 and that Big N auditors responded to the GFC earlier than non‐Big N auditors. In relation to audit effort, we find evidence of increased audit fees during the period 2008–2009 compared with the period 2005–2007. There is, however, no evidence of increased audit reporting lags during the GFC.