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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of sentence combining (SC) and sentence decombining (SD) activities on fostering reading comprehension. As a widely used writing activity for enhancing syntactic fluency in English Language Arts (ELA) classes, SC requires learners to combine short sentences into longer and more complex sentences, while SD requires learners to break down a long sentence into the shortest grammatically allowable sentences.

This study assessed the effects of SD and SC in comparison with a control group on the improvement of reading comprehension ability among college students learning English as their second language (L2) in the context of a six-week English language learning program. Participants with overall intermediate English language proficiency were randomly assigned to one of three different conditions: SC, SD and control. Also, a subset of the participants was interviewed after the intervention.

The results showed that SD was more effective than SC or control condition in enhancing syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension, as measured by a standardized English proficiency test. Data obtained from post-study interviews further suggested that only SD was perceived by the participants as having enhanced their reading comprehension.

The present study provides a valuable addition to a body of research on sentence manipulation activities in ELA classes. For those L2 learners who have passed a pre-intermediate threshold level, SD appears to be more beneficial than SC in enhancing syntactic knowledge, which, in turn, appears to contribute to better reading comprehension.

Due to volatile changes and crises in the business environment, frontline service employees (FSEs) are faced with increasing work stressors in the new service marketplace. Of these, customer incivility has been found to negatively affect their work outcomes. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of experiencing an imminent environmental crisis (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic) on the relationship between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting, using pre- and postpandemic samples.

The authors administered two-wave surveys to 276 FSEs (prepandemic sample) in July and October 2019 and to 301 FSEs (postpandemic sample) in March and April 2020.

Moderation analyses showed that the relationship between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting varied between FSEs who experienced the pandemic and those who did not; the relationship was stronger for the postpandemic than the prepandemic sample. There was a positive relationship between work engagement and job crafting; it was weaker for the postpandemic sample.

The deleterious effect of customer incivility exacerbated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the authors did not explore why the pandemic aggravated the negative effect. The mechanism underlying the moderating effect of the pandemic and the effect of more diverse types of incivility should be explored in future research.

It is critical to provide FSEs with instrumental and emotional support to cope with the crisis brought on by the pandemic. Service organizations must monitor customers’ uncivil behaviors to identify their causes and develop interventions to improve service quality. Furthermore, service organizations are advised to enhance the coping capabilities of FSEs by using diverse interventions, such as emotion regulation training, debriefing sessions, short breaks and job crafting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to reveal the moderating effect of the pandemic on the relationships between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting, using pre- and postpandemic samples. This study offers necessary insights to improve FSEs’ engagement at work and enhance their job crafting in the new service marketplace.

The purpose of this study is to examine first, whether there are differences in risk perception between the USA and Korea, second, whether there are differences in risk perception between apparel purchasers and non‐apparel purchasers across countries, third whether there are differences in the effect of risk factors on purchasing intention between the USA and Korea, and, fourth, whether there are differences in the effect of risk factors on purchasing intention between apparel purchasers and non‐apparel purchasers across countries. The findings suggest that there were differences in consumers’ risk perception between apparel and non‐apparel purchasers across countries. In addition, there are similarities and differences in the relationships between risk perception and purchase intention across countries.

This study aims to explore how and when managers' job crafting contributes to their service performance. The first objective of the research was to assess the mediating relationship between franchised restaurant managers' job crafting, work engagement and service performance. Its second objective was to examine the moderating effect of organizational control systems on the job crafting–work engagement relationship.

The authors administered paper-and-pencil surveys to 235 franchised restaurant managers in South Korea. The authors tested their hypotheses via Process 3.5 macro and bootstrapping.

The results confirmed the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between job crafting and work engagement. Furthermore, this relationship was more pronounced when the headquarters used a high level of outcome-based control systems and a low level of behavior-based control systems.

Distinct from studies that have examined service employees' job crafting, this study uncovers the role of managerial job crafting in service performance. The findings contribute to service theory and practice by providing novel insights into the interplay between managerial job crafting and organizational control systems.

This paper examines the comparative corporate performance of logistics companies in Korea, China and Japan. Based on the annual data from the listed companies, the growth rate of Chinese companies has surpassed that of Korean and Japanese companies and has labeled China as the fastest growing economy. How ever, labor efficiency of Chinese firms when calculated by total revenue per employee is the lowest of the three countries. In addition, the profitability of Chinese multimodal logistics companies and sea transport companies is also lower than that of Korea and Japan.

Using Data Envelop Analysis(DEA), the primary results regarding corporate efficiency among Korean, Chinese and Japanese logistic companies are as follows: In the multimodal industries, Japanese firms have revealed the highest level of efficiency, with Korean firms coming in second, and Chinese firms ranking third with distinctly inferior performance. This trend has also been examined in the maritime industries, in which the efficiency levels have been deteriorating continuously. However, in the air transportation industry Chinese companies revealed the highest level of efficiency, which resulted from the business characteristics of the government supported conglomerate companies.

Purpose – This chapter aims to identify and address methodological issues inherent in business group studies, especially within the context of South Korean chaebols, many of which have been exalted as most remarkable cases of business groups.

Design/Methodology/Approach – After reviewing the theoretical background and the evolution of chaebols, the authors identify methodological issues focusing on the constructs of major interest to researchers, which need careful treatment for enhancing the internal and external validity of studies on business groups in general and chaebols in particular.

Findings – Any sample of business groups must be composed based on accurate definitions rather than conventional lists readily available, in accordance with the research purpose. Identifying and quantifying the strategic and structural characteristics of business groups should be accompanied by an understanding of the various types of economic organizations. The uniqueness of business groups in each country should also be considered, especially in conducting comparative analyses and generalizing research findings. Measuring performance needs more careful attention given the increasing complexity in many business groups. The embeddedness of business groups in a specific society as well as their coevolution with the institutional context urges researchers to employ more qualitative or ethnographic methods.

Originality/Value – The authors suggest alternatives through which we can cope with the methodological issues, and make suggestions for future research. As business groups continue to play a significant role in many emerging economies, continuing efforts to elaborate methods will contribute to improving the value of our scholarly work in both academic and practical dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the structure of strategic investments and the effect of each investment category on business performance in two leading information and communication technology (ICT) countries, the USA and South Korea.

This is a longitudinal comparative study of the relationship between strategic investments and organizational performance of major telecommunication service providers (TSPs) in the two leading ICT countries, the USA and South Korea.

The study found that a sufficient amount of strategic investments in technological innovations is the driving force for TSPs’ business performance. However, strategic investment structures differ among TSPs, depending on their market position, whether the first mover in the market or a follower, and on their country’s market characteristics. Moreover, even though both countries’ TSP markets are oligopolistic in nature, the market is more saturated in Korea and thus competition appears to be fiercer there than in the USA. The stronger oligopolistic market in Korea has lead TSPs to compete primarily on their marketing strategies, while TSPs in the USA do so based on technological innovation.

The findings of the study shed new insights that can help both TSPs in developing their competitive strategies and government policy makers in assuring healthy competitive telecommunication markets in their countries.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explore what leadership characteristics constitute humanistic leadership in the South Korean context. Moreover, this study examines how these leadership characteristics are connected to Korean culture.

Based on the information gathered from semi-structured interviews and other sources, including books, case study articles and news articles, this study captures a more comprehensive perspective of Mr. Kook-Hyun Moon, the former CEO of Yuhan–Kimberly.

The key characteristics of Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership that are identified in this study are: respect for all mankind, benevolence (seeking the greater good), sincerity (building trusting relationships with stakeholders) and continuous learning and innovation (developing self and others). These key characteristics set Mr. Moon apart from other leaders and are connected to the fundamental values and philosophies of Korean culture.

This study contributes to the current leadership literature by identifying and exploring Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership characteristics that enable him to gain respect and contribute to communities and society in the South Korean context. This study also finds that the humanistic leadership characteristics of Mr. Moon reflect three major attributes of Korean culture: the ideology of the Dangun mythology, the principle of Neo-Confucianism in Korea and jeong – an indigenous cultural concept in Korea (these attributes will be discussed in detail in the South Korean values and philosophies section). Such reflection suggests that investigating how humanistic leadership characteristics are connected to local cultural roots is important to enhance the understanding of humanistic leadership.

The objective of this paper is to determine whether international entry‐order strategies by Korean chaebols affect the exit of their foreign subsidiaries.

The sample consists of a set of 61 parent firms and their 500 foreign subsidiaries. The sample includes 27 Korean business groups, called chaebols, and spans 51 markets, during the period from 1999 to 2004. The study employs resource‐ and knowledge‐based views, and is based on the Cox's proportional hazard model.

This study leads to two main findings: in the context of Korean business groups, latecomers in international markets have greater survival rates than pioneers do because latecomers have stronger resource commitments; and, nonetheless, if chaebol pioneers have greater competitive advantages than chaebol latecomers, the pioneers' subsidiaries have better survival rates than do those of latecomers.

The analysis advances order‐of‐entry research by exploring the international order‐of‐entry strategies of chaebol multinationals and their impact on international exit and the interrelationship between the order‐of‐entry and core competencies of chaebol multinationals.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze the effect of the increasing connectedness among financial institutions in the Korean financial market, as it affects the market microstructure in the stock market. Thus this work, first, analyzes the trend and characteristics of connectedness in the Korean financial sector. This work then demonstrates the impacts of connectedness on volatility and price discovery in the stock market.

The entire Korean financial sector is analyzed from January 1990 to July 2015, including the periods of the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. This paper quantifies the connectedness between financial institutions using network methodology. Densely connectedness specifically refers to the cases in which a node experiences strong-lagged return spillover from and/or to itself.

Connectedness is established as an important determinant of stock price discovery. This paper illustrates that connectedness increases on significant economic events such as the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the more densely connected a particular financial institution, the more volatile the stock price and the less accurate the stock price quality.

Understanding the financial system from a network perspective has been on the rise after the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. This work helps regulators and policy makers understand the full implications of introducing new policies that can more closely connect financial institutions.

This paper precisely captures financial institutions’ connectedness by including all types of financial institutions at the micro level. Additionally, this paper links connectedness to market microstructure in the stock market.