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To investigate shoppers' decision‐making behaviour under conditions of expected and unexpected in‐store price discounts, using mental accounting theory as the analytical framework.

In an experiment manipulating expected and unexpected discounts on electronic organisers and portable audio players, data collected by questionnaire from 240 first‐year business administration students at a Korean university were used to test two hypotheses predicting the ways in which the savings would be used.

Recipients of unexpected discounts tend to spend the savings in store. If a choice of two products is available, the savings are more likely to be applied to the discounted one than the other. Shoppers commit more actively to planned purchases when price discounts are known in advance. The key factor in purchasing behaviour with respect to discounts is the existence or otherwise of predictions. Shoppers' decision‐making in these conditions is, therefore, context and frame dependent.

The experimental subjects were not representative of the general shopping population, and Korea is a distinctive culture. The findings should be interpreted with caution, but are indicative within limits. Aspects of the topic not investigated by the experiment are identified, and future research directions suggested.

Unadvertised discount available at the point of sale offer several potential benefits to retailers, including reduced costs and increased patronage. Pricing strategists need to understand the theoretical basis of customers' behaviour in response to discount offers, for effective planning.

Adds to the body of knowledge relating to crucial aspect of pricing strategy, and has potential applicability beyond retailing.

This study examines the empirical performance of emission allowance option pricing models, concentrating on the EU-ETS markets. For option pricing, we use parameters estimated from option market data whereas few papers in the extant literature use parameters from underlying asset data. As results, it is shown that the most appropriate is the one-factor model in which the EUA logarithmic spot prices follow the mean-reverting process of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type. Also, the addition of jumps is not shown to make any significant improvement in the model performance. These results are quite striking in the sense that existing papers report the addition of jumps is necessary to improve option pricing on the EU-ETS markets. In sum, this paper is meaningful in the sense that it extends the growing empirical literature on the behavior of emission allowance spot prices

The term structure of KTB (Korea Treasury Bond) is empirically implemented and forecasted by the extended 2-factor CIR model. Pearson and Sun model. MLE is applied to estimate parameters. Using KTB prices forecasted by the model, strategies of trading and hedge between KTB, KTF (Korea Treasury Futures) are established. In this article we can see that Pearson and Sun model appropriately explains the term structure of KTB but does not fit forecasting KTB prices. However, the model well forecasts the direction of interest rate moving up or down. Through such a forecast‘ profit via trading KTB and KTF can be realized.

The Western-centric nature of research into corporate social responsibility (CSR) has left gaps in one’s understanding of local culture's role in augmenting or undermining the impact of firms' CSR policies. This paper constructs and tests variables measuring “Confucian values” mediation between Chinese employees' perceived CSR and their job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.

The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling, using data from 311 responses completed by employees at Chinese private companies, located in China's Cheng-Yu economic area (Chongqing and Chengdu).

Chinese employees' perceived CSR had a positive significant effect on job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment). However, perceived CSR had no significant positive impact on organizational citizenship behavior. The authors also found that Confucian values are a partial mediator between perceived CSR and job attitudes and a full mediator between perceived CSR and organizational citizenship behavior.

The results enrich one’s understanding of cultural values in these relationships and suggest further research into how firms and governments in Confucian-based societies can better operationalize Confucian values to argument the firm's and country's CSR identity, thus improving job attitudes and public relations among customers who share this cultural heritage. For non-Confucian societies and foreign firms operating in China, the results encourage searches for Confucian value substitutes, such as trust and education, to incorporate into CSR mechanisms that promote these values among employees. The authors suggest approaches for furthering these agendas.

This article examines the rhetoric of recent civil service reform measures in Korea, their initial implementation, and growing concerns about their sustainability. Civil service reform in Korea was initiated by an enthusiasm for New Public Management (NPM) and public calls for reform. The changes initiated by the Korean Civil Service Commission and other government organizations have sought to encourage openness, competition, flexibility, diversity, and performance-based management. Despite the bold rhetoric heralding the reform initiatives, outcomes have fallen short of expectations, and many civil servants are losing their confidence and esprit de corps. Considering both the initial promise and the ultimate reality of Korean civil service reform, this article investigates problems and limitations confronting the sustainability of these reform measures

Since South Korea gained a substantial degree of political and economic development, the South Korean government has tried to eradicate corruption by introducing institutional frameworks in addition to a number of new laws and institutions. As a matter of fact, the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index score of South Korea is improving over time, but it still far behind other leading countries. The purpose of this chapter is to review the South Korean government's efforts at curbing corruption. This chapter first reviews the development of major anti-corruption infrastructure such as the anti-corruption legislation and the South Korean government's independent agency for anti-corruption, followed by discussion of the development of major anti-corruption measures, the international evaluation on corruption, and the role of civil society in curbing corruption. After that, there is a discussion of policy implications and the conclusion.