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In the first years following the Korean War (1950‐1953), the centrally‐directed economy of North Korea had been larger in per capita income and had grown more rapidly than the more loosely‐controlled economy of South Korea. However, in the absence of rational and strategic economic planning, these advantages soon reached their limits. By the mid‐1970s, South Korea’s two successful five‐year economic plans put it ahead of North Korea. Loss of allies in the early 1990s, consecutive floods in 1995 and 1996, and a severe drought in 1997 caused the North Korean economy to shrink in the 1990s. Thus, while North Korea had gradually reformed its troubled economic system since the early 1990s, these measures were different from market‐oriented reform. However, in July 2002, North Korea began to introduce the most significant liberalization measures since the start of Communist rule in 1948 (French, 2002). This paper discusses the performancde of North Korean foreign trade and offers suggestions for steps toward globalization to be taken by the country.

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.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication covered by the news media is considered as more credible and effective in shaping public perceptions toward corporations than CSR shared by corporations themselves. This is particularly true when CSR is about corporations with social stigma inherent in business practices. This study examines the CSR publicity of stigmatized industries from the journalism lens.

A content analysis was conducted with CSR stories from 2019 to 2020 by USA newspapers (n = 348).

Results of this study showed that the overall volume of CSR from stigmatized industries has decreased, with fewer responses to the recent pandemic. Further, the media brought promotional CSR activities and the business motives behind the activities into focus. Opposing patterns were found for CSR of non-stigmatized industries presented with philanthropic activities based on corporations' social motives to help communities. Similarly, economic and legal responsibilities reflected in the CSR pyramid were more prominently reported for stigmatized industries, and ethical and discretionary responsibilities appeared more frequently for non-stigmatized industries.

Integrating business and media literature, this study enriches scholarly discussions on media processes and effects for CSR communication. This study also provides practical implications for stigmatized industries by highlighting more authentic and careful approaches for CSR communication to earn positive publicity.

This study provides social implications by highlighting the importance of CSR communications through the lens of news media when corporations are socially stigmatized.

Stigmatized industries are known to be active in CSR communication to nullify social stigma surrounding themselves. The authors' findings provide empirical evidence suggesting that not all publicity benefits CSR communication for stigmatized corporations.

Despite the burgeoning interest in corporate universities (CUs), their pragmatic application and ongoing evolution present challenges. This study aims to analyze the South Korean CU landscape from a balanced perspective to draw implications for the sustainable development of CUs.

The study uses a case study method to systematically explore CUs in South Korea by reviewing the South Korean government reports on CUs. The cases of CUs are analyzed based on the holistic model of CUs, which functions as an analytical framework.

By analyzing four groups of CUs, namely, in-house colleges, corporation colleges, technical colleges and in-house college-type lifelong educational establishments, implemented in South Korea, this study draws implications for the sustainable development of CUs, using the holistic CU model.

By analyzing cases of CUs from a new perspective, this study contributes to expand knowledge on CUs and suggests implications for organizations aiming to establish and sustain their own CUs tailored to their specific needs. Furthermore, this paper delves into the support necessary for the successful implementation and sustainable development of CUs, spanning organizational/team, national and individual levels.

During the 1920s and 1930s in the colonial city of Seoul, a group of women called the New Women and the Modern Girls expressed their modern identities by wearing different clothing, hairstyles and make-up; visiting cafés; viewing Western movies; and consuming other foreign merchandise. While these women were admired by many women as being pioneers of modernity, they were severely criticized by others under the pretext that they indulged their vanity without considering the economy of their families and their colonized nation. These criticisms continue in twenty-first century Korea. Based on the striking similarity between the two eras, an understanding of the consumption and the criticisms of the Modern Girls could provide a historical context for understanding women's experiences in the consumer culture of twenty-first century Korea. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

As secondary sources, literature published in both English and Korean was included. Primary data were obtained from articles in Korean newspapers, magazines and print advertisements from the 1920s and 1930s.

The New Women and Modern Girls expressed their modern identities by consuming various fashion goods, including Western-style clothes, make-up and various accessories, adopting Western hairstyles and frequenting modern cafés, theaters and department stores. However, their behaviors escaped the boundaries of the “wise mother, good wife” ideology, and they were severely criticized by those adhering to the neo-Confucianism and Korean nationalist ideology that was deeply rooted in Korean society. Thus, the reputations of the Modern Girls were tainted and the individuals were stigmatized.

This research illuminates the negative aspects of self-expressive consumption, showing how individualistic, identity-driven consumption can be stigmatized in the collectivistic culture of Korea that is rooted in neo-Confucian nationalism.

The primary objective was to develop a user-centered mobile health application (app) tailored to the specific health information needs of among immigrant women from diverse backgrounds in Korea.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 immigrant women to gain insights into their health information-seeking behavior. Based on the findings, a mobile app was designed and developed. A beta version of the app underwent validation by an MD and seven expert reviewers who assessed the app for content accuracy and conformance to mobile heuristics. Last, immigrant women (n = 12) evaluated the usability of the app.

The study revealed that the interviewed immigrant women had strong health information needs related to pregnancy and parenting. Most of them used multiple sources to find and verify health information. Language barriers were identified as a major obstacle to accessing and evaluating health information. The results of the user test indicated that the app effectively facilitated study participants' search for reliable health information, meeting their specific needs.

This research extended the literature by addressing the limited availability of mobile apps tailored to the health information needs of immigrant women in Korea.

By incorporating multilingual support and focusing on pregnancy and parenting information, the health app serves as a valuable tool to bridge the gap in health information access and to facilitate the well-being of immigrant women in the country.

The purpose of this paper is to explore structural relationships between quality, destination image, perceived value, tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty with emphasis on the mediating effect of tourist satisfaction on relations between destination image and destination loyalty, and between perceived value and destination loyalty in the context of small-scale sporting events.

Construct validity of the measurement scale was verified by confirmatory factor analysis, factor loadings, average variance extracted, construct reliability and correlation analysis. Reliability of the measurement scale was verified by Cronbach’s α analysis. A structural equation modeling test with maximum likelihood estimation was used to test structural relationships between variables in the proposed model using the responses of 311 participants.

Results showed significant and powerful impacts of: event quality, destination image and perceived value on tourist satisfaction; destination image, perceived value, and tourist satisfaction on destination loyalty and demonstrated; and tourist satisfaction fully mediates relationships between destination image and destination loyalty, and between perceived value and destination loyalty.

The study shows: it is meaningful to include quality and value in tourism destination image-satisfaction-loyalty models; provides empirical evidence that tourist satisfaction fully mediates the relation between perceived value and destination loyalty; and confirms small-scale as well as large-scale sporting events should be viewed as important aspects of marketing strategies aimed at improving quality, image, value, satisfaction and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among demographic factors (gender, age, education, and income), consumer traits (technology anxiety, need for interaction, and technology innovativeness), and intention to use retail self‐checkouts.

A total of 285 usable responses are obtained through a web‐based survey after excluding non‐qualified respondents. Structural equation modeling is developed and tested.

The results of this paper demonstrate that demographic factors only indirectly influence intention to use retail self‐checkouts through consumer traits and thus the authors conclude that individual differences in the use of retail self‐checkouts can be attributed to consumer traits which are determined by some of the demographic factors.

Demographic factors and consumer traits are only included as determinants of intention to use retail self‐checkouts. Therefore, future research could attempt to draw a comprehensive picture of retail self‐checkouts by incorporating other relevant factors.

By classifying individual difference traits into demographic factors and consumer traits, this paper provides more detailed explanations of the relationships among demographic factors, consumer traits, and intention to use retail self‐checkouts.

This paper aims to explore a mediating effect of self-efficacy between individuals’ informal learning and their organizational commitment. Informal learning between individuals is critical in the workplace because sharing knowledge and expertise is directly related to employee’s attitude and organizational benefits such as enhanced performance and productivity. Of the many factors affecting organizational commitment, this research focuses on effects of informal learning and a mediating role of self-efficacy.

To address these research questions, this research analyzes survey data of 317 Korean workers. Through structural equation model analysis, the authors examine how informal learning affects employee commitment to organizations, where individual self-efficacy works as a mediator.

The analysis confirms that informal learning increases self-efficacy, whereas no directly influences organizational commitment. The analysis also demonstrates that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between informal learning and organizational commitment. This study confirms the positive relationship between informal learning and self-efficacy, whereas no direct relationship between informal learning and organizational commitment.

This study has several limitations in terms of methodology. Data collection mainly relied on a survey method, which is a single source and raises the concern of common method bias. Therefore, future studies may use different types of data to solve the problem of common method biases. In addition, the study design was cross-sectional; therefore, it was unable to eliminate the biases caused by simultaneous data. Future studies can adopt a longitudinal design using different time stages to collect data in order to eliminate this bias.

The main reasons for the high rate of informal learning through activities such as on-the-job training, coaching, mentoring and community of practice include the increase in the efficiency of learning and reduction in learning costs by integrating learning and work and the effectiveness of informal learning in terms of improving performance. This research seeks to demonstrate how informal learning in the workplace influences employees’ commitment to the organization through self-efficacy.