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This paper is a focused examination of the parallel collectivistic and individualistic tendencies of South Korean consumers. The “We-Me” concept argues that the two seemingly countervailing tendencies can actually co-exist. The paper discusses the phenomenon, its underlying causes, and the strategic implications of how to market to such consumers.

The origins of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been widely attributed to the work of scholars, and business managers as well, in North America and Western Europe. Inevitably, however, as the economic interaction of individual firms and entire nations has grown over the past several decades — call it globalization — so too has the concept and the practice of CSR spread throughout the world. It is certainly time to explore how CSR is being incorporated into the practice of business management in other regions and other countries. Therefore, in this chapter we will focus on Asia: specifically on Japan, South Korea, India, and China. It is interesting for academicians to understand how CSR is being absorbed and adapted into the business cultures of these four countries. Perhaps of even greater importance, it is vital that business managers know what to expect about the interaction between business and society as well as the government as their commercial activities grow in this burgeoning part of the world.

For each of these four countries, we will provide an overview of the extent to which CSR has become a part of the academic community and also how it is being practiced and incorporated in everyday management affairs. We will see that there are very significant differences among these countries which lead to the natural question: why? To answer this question, we will use an eight-part analytical framework developed specifically for this purpose. We will look at the history, the dominant religious beliefs, the relevant social customs, the geography, the political structures, the level of economic development, civil society institutions, and the “safety net” of each country. As a result of this analysis, we believe, academicians can learn how CSR is absorbed and spread into commercial affairs, and managers can profit from learning more about what to expect when doing business in this increasingly important region.

This paper examines Korean reserve forces with respect to their missions, roles and utilisation. Korea has a huge standing army of 686,000 and reserve forces of 3,040,000. The Korean peninsular is the last spot of the cold war. In spite of mutual efforts by South and North Korea to keep peace in this region these days, there has been no sign yet to downsize military manpower and equipments by either side. It is generally believed that in the future, as the international security environment and inter-Korea relations change, the size of the standing army will be downsized and the role of reserve forces will increase instead. The Korea Institute of Defence Analyses (KIDA) estimated that the appropriate military strength of Korea be around 500,000 in the year of 2015, 200,000 less than the present size. In particular, the number of draftees will be reduced, while the number of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) will be kept at the present level (Lim, 2001). The reduction of the standing army, as has been observed in other nations, may require proper utilisation of reserves.