A contending logics perspective on employer branding in a technology service company in Korea

This thesis aims to explore how employer branding in an organization in Korea is understood and constructed by its employees. Three focal research questions are raised: (1) ‘how do employees understand employer branding in the context of an organization in Korea?’(2) ‘which actors are the most influential in the employees’ perceptions of employer branding? and why?’ and (3) ‘how does the organization mediate societal logics and employees’ perceptions as a sensegiver?’ Drawing on a social constructionist approach though semi-structured interviews with employees and managers of a Korean organization, ‘growth obsession’ and ‘immanent individualism’ are identified as contradictory dimensions in employees’ perceptions of employer branding. The coexistence of these contradictory dimensions is understood in terms of contending logics of growth and individualism at the societal level. Employees’ growth obsession shows how deeply employees’ perceptions of employer branding are embedded in the dominant logic of growth. Immanent individualism reflects the coexistence of the growth logic and the alternative logic of individualism, and suggests employees’ agentive capacity in making sense of their organization’s employer branding. This thesis also points out that the organization’s role as a sensegiver is limited, in contrast to the assumption, dominant in the existing literature, of employer branding as an employer-driven strategy. The main theoretical contributions of the thesis lie in extending employer branding literature by illuminating it from the perspective of contending logics. This approach shows how employees’ perceptions of employer branding are tightly coupled with societal logics, and suggests considering the possibility of employees’ agency in enacting or rejecting the implications of these logics. Despite limitations in terms of generalizability, a rich and deep-rooted understanding of employer branding, situated in the context of the organization in Korea, is expected to provide a springboard for a more contextualized approach to employer branding both in the academic area and in practice

News Objectivity and Political Conversation : An Experimental Study of Mad Cow Disease and Candlelight Protest

This study examines how journalistic objectivity in relation to interpersonal communication plays a role in democratic development driven by civic engagement. According to public journalists who candidly express their subjective opinions and contentious arguments in news reporting, the journalistic norm of objectivity has been blamed for causing public cynicism because it deteriorates civic participation. Focusing on the 2008 mad cow disease upheaval, an experiment was conducted to determine whether or not objective reporting actually inhibits political participation and whether or not a news article reinforcing a specific position promotes civic engagement in the candlelight protest. College students were recruited and given two types of news articles as experimental stimuli to measure their attitude towards political protest. The result indicates that the impact of news article types on the subjects' intention to participate depends on their level of conversation with fellow citizens. For subjects who conversed frequently with others on the issue, the objective article enhanced their intention to participate in the protest. The reinforcing article enhanced participation among those who had a low level of conversation with fellow citizens. Therefore, this paper draws implications on the relationship between journalism and participatory democracy

Downward Longwave Radiation Retrieved from MODIS Imagery and Possible Application on Water Resource Management at Turkey Creek Watershed in South Carolina

2010 S.C. Water Resources Conferences - Science and Policy Challenges for a Sustainable Futur

Land Surface Models Evaluation for Two Different Land-Cover Types: Cropland and Forest

Land Surface Model (LSM) is an important tool used to understand the complicated hydro-meteorological flux interaction systems between the land surface and atmosphere in hydrological cycles. Over the past few decades, LSMs have further developed to more accurately estimate weather and climate hydrological processes. Common Land Model (CLM) and Noah Land Surface Model (Noah LSM) are used in this paper to estimate the hydro-meteorological fluxes for model applicability assessment at two different flux tower sites in Korea during the summer monsoon season. The estimated fluxes such as net radiation (RN), sensible heat flux (H), latent heat flux (LE), ground heat flux (G), and soil temperature (Ts) were compared with the observed data from flux towers. The simulated RN from both models corresponded well with the in situ data. The root-mean-square error (RMSE) values were 39 - 44 W m-2 for the CLM and 45 - 50 W m-2 for the Noah LSM while the H and LE showed relatively larger discrepancies with each observation. The estimated Ts from the CLM corresponded comparatively well with the observed soil temperature. The CLM estimations generally showed better statistical results than those from the Noah LSM, even though the estimated hydro-meteorological fluxes from both models corresponded reasonably with the observations. A sensitivity test indicated that differences according to different locations between the estimations from models and observations were caused by field conditions including the land-cover type and soil texture. In addition the estimated RN, H, LE, and G were more sensitive than the estimated Ts in both models

Intercomparison of Downscaling Techniques for Satellite Soil Moisture Products

During recent decades, various downscaling methods of satellite soil moisture (SM) products, which incorporate geophysical variables such as land surface temperature and vegetation, have been studied for improving their spatial resolution. Most of these studies have used least squares regression models built from those variables and have demonstrated partial improvement in the downscaled SM. This study introduces a new downscaling method based on support vector regression (SVR) that includes the geophysical variables with locational weighting. Regarding the in situ SM, the SVR downscaling method exhibited a smaller root mean square error, from 0.09 to 0.07m(3).m(-3), and a larger average correlation coefficient increased, from 0.62 to 0.68, compared to the conventional method. In addition, the SM downscaled using the SVR method had a greater statistical resemblance to that of the original advanced scatterometer SM. A residual magnitude analysis for each model with two independent variables was performed, which indicated that only the residuals from the SVR model were not well correlated, suggesting a more effective performance than regression models with a significant contribution of independent variables to residual magnitude. The spatial variations of the downscaled SM products were affected by the seasonal patterns in temperature-vegetation relationships, and the SVR downscaling method showed more consistent performance in terms of seasonal effect. Based on these results, the suggested SVR downscaling method is an effective approach to improve the spatial resolution of satellite SM measurement

Agricultural Drought Assessment Based on Multiple Soil Moisture Products

In this study, we evaluated three soil moisture (SM) products (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-2 [AMSR2], Advanced SCATterometer [ASCAT], and European Reanalysis Interim [ERA-interim]) across Australia in four climate zones by comparing against the Australian Water Resources Assessment-Landscape (AWRA-L) SM products from July 2012 to June 2017. The ASCAT SM indicated better performance than other SM products over Australia. To evaluate the applicability and reliability for monitoring agricultural drought, an agricultural drought index, the Soil Water Deficit Index, was estimated from three SM products and compared with three commonly-used drought indices (atmospheric water deficit [AWD], Evaporative Stress Index, and Reconnaissance Drought Index). Volumetric contingency tables were compiled to quantitatively assess the performance of agricultural drought detection using various SM products compared with the AWD. All products had reliable drought detection capability over Australia based on the results of temporal evolution and contingency tables with a mean volumetric hit index of 0.700, 0.728, and 0.787 for AMSR2, ASCAT, and ERA-interim, respectively. The slight incapability of drought detection capability of SWDI in tropical region was low due to the variation in persistence times of moisture in the atmosphere and soil. Except arid zone, in all climate zones, the reliability of SM products for drought detection followed the following order ASCAT \u3e ERA-interim \u3e AMSR2

Satellite Based Downward Long Wave Radiation by Various Models in Northeast Asia

Satellite-based downward long wave radiation measurement under clear sky conditions in Northeast Asia was conducted using five well-known physical models (Brunt 1932, Idso and Jackson 1969, Brutsaert 1975, Satterlund 1979, Prata 1996) with a newly proposed global Rld model (Abramowitz et al. 2012). Data from two flux towers in South Korea were used to validate downward long wave radiation. Moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) atmospheric profile products were used to develop the Rld models. The overall root mean square error (RMSE) of MODIS Rld with respect to two ecosystem-type flux towers was determined to be ≈ 20 W m-2. Based on the statistical analyses, MODIS Rld estimates with Brutsaert (1975) and Abramowitz et al. (2012) models were the most applicable for evaluating Rld for clear sky conditions in Northeast Asia. The Abramowitz Rld maps with MODIS Ta and ea showed reasonable seasonal patterns, which were well-aligned with other biophysical variables reported by previous studies. The MODIS Rld map developed in this study will be very useful for identifying spatial patterns that are not detectable from ground-based Rld measurement sites

Changes in mental health service utilization before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide database analysis in Korea

OBJECTIVES: The present study examined the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on mental health service utilization through a comparative analysis of nationwide data regarding inpatient care users, outpatient visits, emergency department (ED) visits, and admissions via the ED before and during the pandemic. METHODS: Data from approximately 350,000 Koreans diagnosed with mental illness were analyzed in terms of hospitalization, outpatient visits, and ED visits between January 2018 and June 2021. An interrupted time series analysis was conducted to determine the significance of changes in mental health service utilization indicators. RESULTS: The number of hospital admissions per patient decreased by 1.2% at the start of the pandemic and 0.7% afterward. The length of hospital stay increased by 1.8% at the outbreak of the pandemic, and then decreased by 20.2%. Although the number of outpatients increased, the number of outpatient visits per patient decreased; the number of outpatient visits for schizophrenia (3.4%) and bipolar disorder (3.5%) significantly decreased immediately post-outbreak. The number of ED visits per patient decreased both immediately post-outbreak and afterward, and ED visits for schizophrenia (19.2%), bipolar disorder (22.3%), and depression (17.4%) decreased significantly immediately post-outbreak. Admissions via the ED did not show a significant change immediately post-outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: Mental health service utilization increased during the pandemic, but medical service use decreased overall, with a particularly significant decrease in ED utilization. As the pandemic worsened, the decline in outpatient visits became more pronounced among those with severe mental illness