The Dynamics of Employees' Identities in the Organization: Evidence from a Korean Company by Eun-Suk Lee.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-200).This dissertation is about identity and identification in organizations. I analyze the dynamic processes by which individual employees' identities are constructed in a large global Korean company (K-Co) that actively pursues a strong organizational culture and an espoused employee identity called "K-C man." First, I examine selection as the first stage of employees' identity dynamics-how the organization embodies the K-Co man identity through selection process. Data analysis showed that K-Co's selection process is organized to seek a good identity fit between an applicant and the organizationally espoused prototypical K-Co man. I compared the K-Co man identity that the organization pursues at selection with the attributes of the K-Co man identity perceived by the current individual K-Co employees. I found substantial consistency between them, which reveals the significance of selection as an initial reification of the organizationally espoused employee identity. Second, I unpack K-Co's 4-week newcomer training program as the second stage of employees' identity dynamics-how organizational identification is ignited through this early socialization process. Interviews with trainers showed that the organization uses institutionalized socialization tactics intending to impose the K-Co man identity on newcomers, thereby imbuing trainees' organizational identification, and mentor and team are two important socialization agents in this process. However, empirical evidence also revealed that individual trainees do not always react to socialization agents as the organization expected: trainees' organizational identification is achieved mainly through mentor identification, but, contrary to the organization's intention, team identification does not converge into organizational identification. Third, I analyze the employees' identity dynamics at the workplace as the third stage-how organizational identification varies among three occupational groups within K-Co (HR, Engineering, and Marketing). Even within the strong cultural context of K-Co, where the organization intends to control employees' identity work, I found the occupation each individual employee holds induces a significant variation in employees' organizational identification. Data analysis showed that how transparently K-Co's organizational identity is projected on the identities of three different occupations significantly affects each occupation incumbents' organizational identification. I also discuss how organizational tenure blurs this occupational variation in organizational identification, making all employees' identity work organization-focused.Ph.D

Impact of human factors for student pilots in approved flight training organizations in Korea

Statistics for aviation accidents in Korea show that the safety level of training flights is high. However, of the accidents that do occur, more than 80% occur due to human factors. Furthermore, because most causes of human factors-related accidents are “pilot error,” it is important for student pilots who will transport passengers to develop knowledge of safety and skills associated with human factors risk management to mitigate the risk of such accidents. To investigate the human factors that affect safety in training student pilots for flight, this study examined the correlation between events that are associated with accidents, differences according to the pilot’s experience level of flight training, and differences between student pilots who received flight training at approved collegiate flight education centers and those who did not. The study was conducted on human factors, focusing on the SHELL model. Using the SPSS software (ver. 17.0), correlation analyses, analyses of variance (ANOVA), and t-tests were conducted to generate statistical results. Briefly, the results of this study found that a student pilot’s natural ability and equipment in the cockpit are the important factors for safety for pilot on training flights. Additionally, the analysis of the differences between human factors according to the characteristics of student pilots’ groups shows that college student pilots are effected by immanent factors and organizational cultures. To date, there have been no accidents with related human casualties when training at collegiate “Approved Training Organizations” (ATOs) in Korea. However, accidents can occur at anytime and anywhere. Especially human factors, which cause most aviation accidents, have a wide reach and are impossible to eliminate. Because ATO is the starting point to lead the aviation industry of Korea, awareness of risks and initiatives to improve education/training of human factors is essential

Short term outcomes of topiramate monotherapy as a first-line treatment in newly diagnosed West syndrome

PurposeTo investigate the efficacy of topiramate monotherapy in West syndrome prospectively.MethodsThe study population included 28 patients (15 male and 13 female children aged 2 to 18 months) diagnosed with West syndrome. After a 2-week baseline period for documentation of the frequency of spasms, topiramate was initiated at 2 mg/kg/day. The dose was increased by 2 mg/kg every week to a maximum of 12 mg/kg/day. Clinical assessment was based on the parents' report and a neurological examination every 2 weeks for the first 2 months of treatment. The baseline electroencephalograms (EEGs) were compared with the post-treatment EEGs at 2 weeks and 1 month.ResultsWest syndrome was considered to be cryptogenic in 7 of the 28 patients and symptomatic in 21 patients. After treatment, 11 patients (39%) became spasm-free, 6 (21%) had more than 50% spasmsreduction, 3 (11%) showed less than 50% reduction, and 8 (29%) did not respond. The effective daily dose for achieving more than 50% reduction in spasm frequency, including becoming spasm-free, was found to be 5.8±1.1 mg/kg/day. Nine patients (32%) showed complete disappearance of spasms and hypsarrhythmia, and 11 (39%) showed improved EEG results. Despite adverse events (4 instances of irritability, 3 of drowsiness, and 1 of decreased feeding), no patients discontinued the medication.ConclusionTopiramate monotherapy seems to be effective and well tolerated as a first line therapy for West syndrome and is not associated with serious adverse effects

Effect of natural antioxidants on the aggregation and disaggregation of beta-amyloid

Purpose: To examine the relationship between higher antioxidant activity and aggregation or disaggregation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) for 21 plants.Methods: Twenty-nine natural plant extracts and their antioxidant activities were analyzed using DPPH assay. The aggregation and disaggregation of Aβ were analyzed using Thioflavin-T assay.Results: Eleven plant extracts exhibited high antioxidant activities with the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values < 20.0 μg/mL. Furthermore, the plant extracts efficiently inhibited Aβ aggregation with a mean IC50 value of 17.0 μg/mL. However, four plant extracts exhibiting low antioxidant activities (IC50 > 80.0 μg/mL) inhibited Aβ aggregation less efficiently with a mean IC50 value of 75.7 μg/mL. Furthermore, plant extracts with high antioxidant activities were not invariably efficient for disaggregating pre-formed Aβ aggregates.Conclusion: High antioxidant activities were positively correlated with the inhibition of Aβ aggregation, although not with the disaggregation of pre-formed Aβ aggregates. Nevertheless, potent antioxidants may be helpful in treating Alzheimer’s disease.Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, β-Amyloid, Aggregation, Disaggregation, Antioxidant

Attitudes Toward Married Womens Employment in Korea and Japan : Implications from Latent Class Analyses

In this article, we compare attitudes towards married women's employment in Korea and Japan using 2002 ISSP and 2003 KGSS data. In particular, we use the method of latent class analysis to investigate the structure of the viewpoints about wives' economic activities. We find that Japanese women and men are more liberal in their attitudes toward married women's employment than their Korean counterparts. Then applying the method of latent class analysis, we find that Korean women and men can be classified as four and two groups respectively, in terms of their attitudes towards wives' economic activities, and that both Japanese women and men can be divided into three groups. These differences in the structure of attitudes towards wives' labor force participation may be due to a number of institutional differences in the labor force experiences of women, especially, the childcare system and gender discrimination.This work is supported by a Korean Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2003-074-BM0007

Učinak dodataka prehrani acetaminofena i vitamina C na stres i upalni odgovor u korejske autohtone pasmine goveda cijepljene protiv slinavke i šapa - kratko priopćenje

This study evaluated the effect of a combination of acetaminophen and vitamin C (CAV) for reduction of stress and inflammatory responses in calves vaccinated with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine. Twenty-five calves were divided into five groups of 5 calves. The negative control was non-vaccination and non-drug treatment. The positive control, and experimental groups I, II and III were vaccinated with FMD vaccine and treated with CAV at concentrations of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 kg/ton feed, respectively, for five consecutive days post-vaccination. On day 5 post-treatment, serum cortisols and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were significantly decreased in all treatment groups compared with the positive control (P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in serum cortisol and TNF-α levels between experimental groups I and II and the negative control. The results from this study suggest that CAV may be a useful drug for control of the stress and inflammation caused by FMD vaccination in calves.U ovom se radu istražuje učinak kombinacije acetaminofena i vitamina C (CAV) na smanjenje stresa i upalnog odgovora u teladi cijepljene protiv slinavke i šapa. Ukupno 25 životinja podijeljeno je u pet skupina po pet životinja. Životinje u negativnoj kontrolnoj skupini nisu cijepljene i nisu dobile dodatke prehrani. Životinje u pozitivnoj kontrolnoj skupini i pokusnim skupinama I, II i III cijepljene su cjepivom protiv slinavke i šapa i dobile su dodatak prehrani CAV u koncentracijama od 0,0, 0,5, 1,0 i 2,0 kg/toni hrane, pet uzastopnih dana poslije cijepljenja. Peti dan nakon tretmana serumski kortizol i faktor nekroze tumora alfa (TNF-α) bili su znakovito smanjeni u svim pokusnim skupinama u usporedbi s pozitivnom kontrolnom skupinom (P<0,05). Nije bilo znakovite razlike u vrijednostima serumskog kortizola i TNF-α između pokusne skupine 1 i 2 i negativne kontrolne skupine. Rezultati ovoga istraživanja upućuju na to da bi CAV mogao biti koristan u kontroli stresa i upale uzrokovane cjepivom protiv slinavke i šapa u teladi

Origin, criterion, and mechanism of vortex-core reversals in soft magnetic nanodisks under perpendicular bias fields

We studied dynamics of vortex-core reversals driven by circular rotating fields along with static perpendicular magnetic fields of different direction and strength. We found that the application of perpendicular fields H p modifies the starting ground state of vortex magnetizations, thereby instigating the development of a magnetization dip mz,dip in the vicinity of the original core up to its threshold value, m z,dip cri ???-p, which is necessary for vortex-core reversals, where p is the initial core polarization. We found the relationship of the dynamic evolutions of the mz,dip and the out-of-plane gyrofields hz, which was induced, in this case, by vortex-core motion of velocity ??, thereby their critical value relation ??crihz cri. The simulation results indicated that the variation of the critical core velocity ??cri with Hp can be expressed explicitly as ??cri / ?? cri 0 = (??/ ??0) | -p- m z,dip g |, with the core size ?? and the starting ground-state magnetization dip m z,dip g variable with H p, and for the values of ?? cri 0 and ??0 at H p =0. This work offers deeper and/or new insights into the origin, criterion and mechanism of vortex-core reversals under application of static perpendicular bias fields.open7

Soft x-ray polarizer for optical productions of any orthogonal state of the linear and circular polarization modes

An efficient soft x-ray polarizer that is able to optically convert a linear polarization state to any orthogonal state of not only linear but also circular polarization modes is found by means of numerical calculations of the intensities of individual orthogonal polarization components in reflected waves. Calculation results, using the known linear-polarization-mode based Kerr matrix as well as a newly derived circular-polarization-mode based Kerr matrix, indicate that a +45?? or -45?? linearly polarized incident wave can be readily converted to any orthogonal states of both circular and linear polarization modes, i.e., left- and right-handed circular and s - and p -linear polarizations through reflection, at certain grazing angles of incidence near the critical angle from a simple ferromagnetic thin film of Co (9.0 nm) Si substrate. The intensities of almost pure circularly or linearly polarized reflected waves are about 10% or less in a certain spectral soft x-ray range just below the absorption edges of constituent magnetic elements. The counterpart orthogonal states of the linear as well as circular modes can be rapidly switched simply by reversing oppositely the orientation of longitudinal magnetizations. These results suggest that the orthogonal polarization states of the circular- and linear-polarization modes converted from such a polarizing optical element through reflection can be practically used in probing the vector quantities of element specific magnetizations in multicomponent magnetic materials.open2

Total Reflection and Negative Refraction of Dipole-Exchange Spin Waves at Magnetic Interfaces: Micromagnetic Modeling Study

We demonstrated that dipole-exchange spin waves traveling in geometrically restricted magnetic thin films satisfy the same laws of reflection and refraction as light waves. Moreover, we found for the first time novel wave behaviors of dipole-exchange spin waves such as total reflection and negative refraction. The total reflection in laterally inhomogeneous thin films composed of two different magnetic materials is associated with the forbidden modes of refracted dipole-exchange spin waves. The negative refraction occurs at a 90 degree domain-wall magnetic interface that is introduced by a cubic magnetic anisotropy in the media, through the anisotropic dispersion of dipole-exchange spin waves.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Electroacupuncture Delays Hypertension Development through Enhancing NO/NOS Activity in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Using spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), this study investigated whether electroacupuncture (EA) could reduce early stage hypertension by examining nitric oxide (NO) levels in plasma and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) levels in the mesenteric resistance artery. EA was applied to the acupuncture point Governor Vessel 20 (GV20) or to a non-acupuncture point in the tail twice weekly for 3 weeks under anesthesia. In conscious SHR and normotensive Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats, blood pressure was determined the day after EA treatment by the tail-cuff method. We measured plasma NO concentration, and evaluated endothelial NO syntheses (eNOS) and neuronal NOS (nNOS) protein expression in the mesenteric artery. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were lower after 3 weeks of GV20 treatment than EA at non-acupuncture point and no treatment control in SHR. nNOS expression by EA was significantly different between both WKY and no treatment SHR control, and EA at GV20 in SHR. eNOS expression was significantly high in EA at GV 20 compared with no treatment control. In conclusion, EA could attenuate the blood pressure elevation of SHR, along with enhancing NO/NOS activity in the mesenteric artery in SHR