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South Koreans in the city of Ulsan claim that eating whale meat is a tradition, but what is the role of SMOs in making whaling into a tradition identified with a local identity? In following account of a confrontation that took place in Korea between anti-whaling protesters from Greenpeace and local defenders of whaling, it is shown that tradition is not an inevitable outcome of conserving the past; instead, it is an outcome of mobilization, framing, and choices made by movement participants. Tradition in the whaling town of Ulsan was formed through the encounter between opposed social movements, prompting strategic choices of counterframing, frame bridging, and the dissonance between framing and feeling rules. Through the encounters with transnational activists, the Korean defenders of whaling refashioned themselves as rooted cosmopolitans, utilizing global norms to justify local practices in the name of heritage and tradition.

When corporate governance is effective, new managerial contracts should maximize shareholder wealth. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1993 provides a natural environment to examine the effectiveness of corporate governance. We find that firms affected by OBRAs $1 million cap on non-performance-based compensation experience abnormally high returns around the board meeting and proxy dates when contracts are voted on. These findings are consistent with effective corporate governance and efficient contracting and contrary to expropriation theory. Firms not affected by OBRA do not have a positive stock price reaction to new contracts and increase both cash and bonus compensation.

Due to the scope of procurement in the public sector, public procurement policy has the potential to shape the behavior of market actors and promote the growth of businesses with socially relevant characteristics. This chapter looks at the public procurement process in South Korea as well as the implementation of the country’s e-procurement system. Public procurement is vulnerable to corruption in various ways, and Korea’s KONEPS e-procurement system has reduced corruption in the procurement process by increasing transparency, the persistence of data, and the probability of detecting irregularities. Second, this chapter explores how Korea has increasingly incorporated sustainable procurement principles into procurement policy, attempting to foster innovative and environmentally friendly companies, as well as those led by individuals belonging to socially disadvantaged groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the historical and organizational factors underlying Korea’s successes in public procurement in order to better understand the extent to which currently developing countries can draw upon the Korean case to improve their own procurement policies.

Building on the first cross-national study that had demystified various assumptions about the worldwide use of shadow education two decades ago, we analyze data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment to examine the cross-national pattern of the use of shadow education by families in 64 nations and use improved statistical estimation methods. Focusing on fee-paying out-of-school classes, we find a continued, and likely an intensified pattern of the cross-national use of shadow education in the contemporary world. Approximately about one-third of all 15-year-old students from 64 countries/economies across the world use this form of shadow education. Students of higher socioeconomic status, females, and students in urban areas and general programs are more likely to use fee-paying services, while families and students turn to these services to address academic deficiencies in general. In addition, students from poorer countries more extensively rely on shadow education than students from wealthier countries after controlling for other variables. Students in South-Eastern and Eastern Asian countries are more likely to pursue shadow education than their counterparts in many other regions. Implications of these findings for theories of education and society as well as for educational policy in relation to shadow education are discussed.

This chapter provided systematic and comprehensive analysis on trawl fisheries management and conservation measures in the Straits of Malacca. Detailed analysis is conducted on Malaysian fishery management framework particularly domestic country's trawl fishery status, legal structure, input-control strategies, ecosystem protection plan, pollution, law enforcement, and complementary measures that designed to reduce and prevent overfishing in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Malacca Straits. Gaps and challenges found in existing trawl fisheries literature are presented followed by recommendations for improvement in the management and conservation of trawl fisheries.

It is commonly recognized that the transition to democracy in Korea was associated with economic progress. However, not many scholars have given attention to the role of bureaucracy during the process of democratization, due to the fact that bureaucracy is usually thought of as belonging to politics, not democracy. As a refutation of this general view, first, this chapter argues that bureaucracy has been an important contributor to political modernization. Since the post-1945 period, the ‘ceiling’ strategy, which limits the total number of civil servants, was introduced into the personnel management method and system of checks and balances to limit undue political influence over staffing and to control bureaucratic expansion. Second, through this strategy as policy, the bureaucracy legitimately tried to avoid undemocratic political power by standardized process and allow coordination. The ceiling policy is originally the product of historical context during colonial and authoritarian period, but the bureaucracy utilizes it as the instrument to reduce corruption. The contribution of this chapter is provoking the new insights about democratization from bureaucrat’s perspective which is rarely highlighted.

Initial public offering (IPO) underpricing remains a puzzle after decades of investigation. The stock markets in emerging economies are attractive to international investors but their unique characteristics need to be examined. Chinese stock markets experienced much more significant IPO underpricing than most other stock markets in the world. This paper offers a two-period wealth maximum model to explain the strategic IPO underpricing by state owners. Given the fact that the entire IPO procedure, including IPO price, is regulated and controlled by state owners, we argue that state owners strategically underprice the IPO, because they care less about the IPO proceeds but more about the wealth gain after IPO. The empirical finding of a positive relationship between IPO underpricing and state ownership in Chinese stock market is consistent with the wealth maximization hypothesis of IPO pricing. The paper offers better understanding for IPO procedure of state-owned enterprises in emerging markets.