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The 1997 financial crisis in Asia has entailed significant changes and governance reforms in the Korean banking industry. This study investigates the impact of corporate governance on the risk and return of Korean banks during the 10 years that followed the financial crisis era. In particular, we investigate the ownership structure of banks, the extent of involvement of foreign institutions and investors in ownership and board membership of Korean banks, and the heterogeneity of board structure on bank performance. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership, the extent of external board involvement, and the presence of foreign directors on the board are associated with significantly higher bank returns. Although foreign ownership and the number of outside board directors are associated with lower risk, the involvement of foreign board members is positively associated with risk. The results are fairly robust to a battery of tests and control variables, and offer the first detailed empirical documentation of the Korean banking governance reform and its achievements since 1997.

Upon extending Hoffman and Novak's flow model, this paper aims to delineate the blogging motivations with an emphasis of flow mediation to predict blogging behaviors. Three objectives are to: identify determinant dimensions of blogging motivations, behaviors and flow; investigate the hypothesized relationships between blogging motivations, blogging behaviors with the mediation of flow; and control the moderating effect of individual differences (i.e. blogger and blog reader) to disperse their blogging behaviors.

Using the self‐administered questionnaire, the data (n=432) are collected from students at a public Southwestern university in the USA. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS 7.0 identifies and validates the measurement model prior to examining the hypothesized relationships. To test the hypothesized relationships, structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis is employed in addition to the multi‐group SEM analysis to scrutinize the moderate effects of blog ownership.

The findings reveal that the desire for entertainment, information, and efficiency are the primary drivers for blogging behaviors. Specifically, information‐seeking is the decisive motivation to urge digital engagement and e‐shopping behaviors concurrently. This study concludes that telepresence of flow plays a pivotal mediating role to promote both digital engagement and e‐shopping behavior stirring entertainment and information‐seeking motivations. Interestingly, there are disparities between blogger and blog‐reader groups that entail divergent mediating effect of telepresence.

Given the preliminary nature of this approach, there are some limitations as follows: the convenience sampling limits the generalizability of the research; the individual factors as well as social and cultural factors in a global context need to counter why the majority of internet users do not participate in blogging.

Blogging provides distinctive insight into comprehending e‐consumer behavior explicitly with respect to social networking and information searching behaviors while facilitating a state of flow. This approach allows e‐service providers' and researchers' efforts to be more effective and approachable in comprehending the phenomenon through the application of the appropriate theoretical platform.

Korean educational migrant (kirogi) families have received widespread popular attention due to their ironic form of family that sacrifices the togetherness of a family. Recent trends suggest that this practice is spreading to the less affluent classes and that many such families are heading to ‘new’ destinations, including Singapore. This study examines the transnational schooling and life experiences of Korean transnational educational families in Singapore. It addresses the questions, why did these families choose Singapore? Why did transnational schooling, which parents almost unanimously said that they had organised for the betterment of their children's future, lead to some families getting stuck in the destination country?

Fieldwork in Singapore and Korea was conducted between April 2006 and September 2007. In-depth interviews with both mothers and fathers who have at least one child attending public, private or international schools in Singapore, at the primary or secondary level, were conducted with 18 families. The analysis was conducted using a grounded theory approach and NVivo 7/8.

Although the Korean state's emphasis on international competitiveness and parental aspirations for their children's future upward social mobility were common motivators, Koreans in Singapore were also attracted by the relatively low cost, English–Chinese bilingualism and other ‘family-friendly’ features in Singapore. However, kirogi children had highly contrasting schooling experiences and they met with mixed success in gaining what they expected. Furthermore, many children in public schools faced demotion and other difficulties in their new school environments. Some less affluent families found themselves facing dilemmas of cross-border schooling. This study shows that transnational schooling does not necessarily operate equally favourably for participants from diverse class backgrounds. It also demonstrates that the societal contexts of reception in both the countries of origin and of destination, including the buffering institutions and reference groups and peer culture, are important factors shaping the schooling and life experiences of educational migrant children and in reconfiguring their trajectories.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the sources of inefficiency in the Korean banking sector. The present study focuses on three different approaches: intermediation approach, value‐added approach, and operating approach, to differentiate how efficiency scores vary with changes in inputs and outputs.

The paper utilizes the non‐parametric data envelopment analysis methodology to measure the efficiency of banks operating in the Korean banking sector. The method allows for the decomposition of technical efficiency (TE) into its mutually exhaustive components of pure technical and scale efficiencies.

The empirical findings suggest that estimates of TE are consistently higher under an operating approach vis‐à‐vis the intermediation and value‐added approaches. On the other hand, banks are characterized by a relatively low level of TE under the intermediation approach.

Further analysis on the performance of the Korean banking sector performance will examine the efficiency changes over time by employing the parametric stochastic frontier analysis method. Investigations into productivity changes over time, as a result of a technical change or technological progress or regression by employing the Malmquist productivity index could yet be another extension to the paper.

The findings from this study are essential not only for the managers of the banks, but for numerous stakeholders such as the central banks, bankers associations, governments, and other financial authorities. Knowledge of these factors would also be helpful to the regulatory authorities and bank managers who formulate going forward policies for improved efficiency of the Korean banking sector.

Unlike the previous studies on the efficiency of the Korean banking sector, the paper focuses on three different approaches: intermediation approach, value‐added approach, and operating approach to differentiate how efficiency scores vary with changes in inputs and outputs.

The purpose of this research is to focus on the internationalisation process and experiences of Korean theatre companies. Factors investigated include cultural issues impinging on production values and the roles of entrepreneurial thinking and creativity. An analysis of impacting barriers on performing arts internationalisation is also carried out.

A case study approach was used to investigate the performance and internationalisation activities of five Korean theatre companies that participated in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The exporting of Korean cultural products contributes markedly to the perception and understanding of Korea. Small theatre companies with a tolerance of risk‐taking, together with competencies in creativity and entrepreneurial thinking, can help to minimise the effect of unforeseen problems experienced during the internationalisation of theatre productions.

The in‐depth case study approach adopted here has resulted in the uncovering of data that would not have been unveiled through questionnaire analysis alone. The findings can, however, contribute to future large‐scale surveys of the arts industry.

The issues identified in this study are also relevant for other forms of internationalising artistic productions. The successful combination of artistic ability and the implementation of entrepreneurial competencies, together with the creative use of limited resources, serve as competitive advantages for the arts organisation.

This research promotes a cross‐disciplinary approach to arts marketing in general by encouraging the interrogation of fields such as entrepreneurship, small business marketing and internationalisation research.

This study aims to investigate and analyze the usage patterns of electronic book (e-book) users and their perceptions of e-books from various perspectives. Recently, e-book usage and subscriptions at university libraries in South Korea have significantly increased.

The authors conduct an extensive survey of 959 e-book users at the five major university libraries, which subscribe to the most e-books in South Korea. The survey contains structured questions as well as fields for open commentary to acquire various opinions. The authors also apply diverse analysis techniques, depending on the characteristics of the survey questions.

Since the early 2000s, when e-books were first introduced, there has been a considerable change in perception and increase in usage of e-books at South Korean university libraries. Despite this progress, most functions of e-books are not fully utilized. The authors find the role of the library to be very important, as most users learn about and access e-books through the Web sites of university libraries, not through such portal sites as Google. The remarkable result is that users with higher education more easily recognize and have better experiences with e-book services.

This study draws extensive samples and objective questions compared to previous research. The authors also contrast our research results with the other studies conducted within and outside of South Korea. The research shows the changes and differences in perception and usage of e-books by period and country. More importantly, the authors suggest strategies to boost e-book use based on user demands.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to observe the nature of documentation and the description used in object biographies by an auction house catalogue and an online museum collection database in relation opera costumes. This research aims to discuss the issues of cultural and economic value in relation to objects in the art world, and examine examples of object biographies for opera costumes that are sold at an auction and exhibited in a museum.

The object biographies are compared from an auction house catalogue and the online museum collection database, based on two factors: costumes worn by a famous singer and costumes designed by a famous designer.

This study identified the valuation methods of auction houses and museums, including accounting for the market value and fair value, as well as social and cultural values. The nature of the documentation also clearly shows the different purpose of the object biographies. For auction houses the biography needs to be short and specific as it provides sufficient information and is read out at the auction, while art catalogues can also be used by experts as part of the conversation to understanding heritage value, and will also be viewed and used by researchers, investors, other auction house specialists and art world professionals.

By comparing two institutions, auction houses and museums, this study has shown that the information that is documented and how it is presented in object biographies is determined by the goals of the institutions. These goals may vary or overlap in providing information, demonstrating cultural importance, to be spoken allowed to an audience and make sales, or to educate, conserve and preserve.

This study shows that to some extent museum online databases display their collection removed from cultural context, with an isolated image of the item, and in an organised, digitally accessible manner. A potential implication is that museums should not only digitally catalogue an item, but also provide discussion and the cultural background and significance of the item.

Auction catalogues are written for a specific event (the auction), while the online museum collection database is meant to be a permanent record, which aims to digitally preserve objects and provide access to images and information to a general audience, and further could be edited with amendments or new information when future research or events lead to potential updates.

This study adds to the discourse on approaches to the understanding of costumes as an art object of significance and their potential cultural, economic and heritage value, particularly as represented in the documentation of object biographies.