The Transformation of Korean Life: Demographic Trends and Their Social Implications

Social Indicators Research - This paper examines the major features of demographic transition that Korea experienced during the 20th century in association with changing political, economic, and...     

Economic development in East Asia and a critique of the post-Confucian thesis

Some scholars have put forward what they call a post-Confucian thesis to explain East Asia’s successful economic development. The thesis makes two important arguments: first, that Confucianism has enabled East Asian countries to take a different type of capitalism and a different path to modernity than did the West; second, that Confucianism has been the source of those ethics such as activism, hard work, thrift, and the like that have been conducive to economic development in East Asia. This article calls into question the first argument of the thesis by taking the example of the employment systems in Japan and Korea and showing that Confucianism has not been an important factor in defining their central features. In order to evaluate the second argument, this article investigates two major modernization campaigns in Japan and Korea, claiming that those supposedly Confucian virtues can be better seen as the products of the states’ social engineering for modernization and economic development.

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The Economic Value of Career Counseling Services for College Students in South Korea

This study investigated college students’ perception of the monetary value of career counseling services by using the contingent valuation method. The results of a multivariate survival analysis based on interviews with a convenience sample of 291 undergraduate students in South Korea indicate that, on average, participants’ expressed willingness to pay (WTP) for such services ranged from U.S. $10.22 to $10.54 per hour of individual career counseling. Self‐stigma and attitudes toward counseling had positive effects on their WTP, whereas the year in college and social stigma had negative effects. The results provide policy makers with preliminary evidence of the monetary value of career counseling.     

Factors Impacting Market Occupancy of Non‐profit Human Service Organizations in the Public Social Service Market: Focused on an Individual Level

This study aims to experientially verify which factors of non‐profit human service organizations affect market sharing activities in the public social service market. Due to market‐oriented government policies, non‐profit human service organizations, which used to enjoy stable financial resources, are now placed in a competitive position to provide their services. It is necessary to find out which organizational factors give a competitive advantage to various service providers in competition, including profit organizations, and apply them to the management and operation of non‐profit human service organizations. This is how this study started. Independent variables were organizational characteristics (organization age, total budget, number of employees), externally oriented culture (development culture, rational culture), and organizational structure (centralization, formalization), while dependent variables were the number of vouchers and total profits. Data was collected from 35 community welfare centers, rehabilitation centers, and senior centers (163 respondents) in Busan, Korea. Multiple regression analysis was conducted for data analysis. As a result of the analysis, the number of vouchers was found to be affected by development culture (+) and formalization (?), and total profit from voucher business was determined by organization age (?), total budget (+), and number of employees (+). Based on the results, this study suggests that non‐profit human service organizations should have an externally oriented culture and a flexible organization system to hold more market share in the public social service market.     

A Context‐sensitive Approach to Analysing Talk in Strategy Meetings

The talk of managers in meetings is central to organizational life and crucial to research in strategic management, as well as managerial and organizational cognition, sensemaking and decision‐making. To achieve full understanding, both the text and the context of discussion require systematic analysis, but most approaches treat context as everything that is known and observed beyond the immediate text. This obscures different readings of the text of meetings. To resolve this problem, the discourse historical approach (DHA) to critical discourse analysis is outlined as a framework within which researchers can analyse the text and context of talk in meetings. The primary contribution of this paper is to isolate four ‘levels of context’ as a heuristic framework within which discursive practices, strategies and texts can be located. By making explicit the levels of contextual analysis that are implicit in other methods, and illustrating the DHA using an episode of strategic discussion from a multinational company, this paper shows how researchers can use the approach to analyse the naturally occurring talk of senior managers in meetings, which is arguably the most important but yet under‐explored venue for strategizing.     

Neural Correlates of Conflicting Social Influence on Adolescent Risk Taking

Adolescence is often characterized by heightened risk‐taking behaviors, which are shaped by social influence from parents and peers. However, little is understood about how adolescents make risky decisions under conflicting influence. The valuation system in the brain may elucidate how adolescents differentially integrate conflicting social information. Twenty‐eight adolescents (M_age = 12.7 years) completed a social influence task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Behaviorally, adolescents took more risks only when their parent endorsed risky decisions but not when their peers endorsed risky decisions. At the neural level, adolescents showed enhanced vmPFC–striatum functional connectivity when they made risky decisions that followed their parents’ risky decisions. Results suggest that parents’ decisions may guide youths’ risk‐taking behavior under conflicting influence.     

Conditions of Slope-Rotatability for Third-Order Polynomial Regression Models

In experimental design for response surface analysis, it is sometimes of interest to estimate the difference of responses at two points. If differences at points close together are involved, the design that reliably estimates the slope of the response surface is important. In particular, Hader and Park (1978 Hader , R. J. , Park , S. H. ( 1978 ). Slope-rotatable central composite designs . Technometrics 20 : 413 – 417 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggested the concept of slope-rotatability and studied slope rotatable central composite designs. Until now, many response surface designs including central composite designs have been suggested for fitting second order response surface models. However, we often need to fit third-order polynomial regression models. In this article, we suggest extended central composite designs (ECCDs) to fit third-order models and find the necessary and sufficient conditions for slope-rotatability over all directions in the third-order polynomial models.     

Approximation of fractional Brownian sheet by Wiener integral

In this paper, we consider an approximation of the fractional Brownian sheet by two parameter wiener integral. We obtain that there exists an unique two parameter wiener integral closest to the fractional Brownian sheet.     

Causal attributions of dementia among Korean American immigrants

To better understand conceptualizations of dementia, this study explored causal attributions of dementia among 209 Korean Americans, using a self-administered questionnaire in Korean. Findings show that Korean Americans endorsed various causal attributions. Factor analysis yielded 3 dimensions of their attributions including psychological, physical/environmental, and cognitive/social. Bivariate analyses showed that younger age and higher education were related to more physical/environmental attributions, and younger age was related to more cognitive/social attributions. The study provides an understanding of causal attributions of dementia that practitioners need to understand to provide culturally competent practice and highlights a need to customize public education messages by specific ethnic groups.     

华洋变形的不同世界——栏目解说

世界、国际、全球这样的概念,今日几乎成了从官方到民间的口头禅,国人大都耳熟能详。可是,如果真的放到世界和国际的范围内考察,则不难发现,中国人许多习以为常的概念用法,与各国有别,于情理不合,于实事有异。例如世界史的划分,放眼世界各国,或者根本没有所谓的世界史,只有欧洲