Stock Market Liquidity And Dividend Policy In Korean Corporations

The liquidity hypothesis predicts a negative relationship between stock liquidity and dividend payout propensity, i.e., a firm will decide to pay dividends to compensate for the liquidity demand of investors. This study comprehensively examines whether the liquidity hypothesis applies to the sample of Korean firms listed in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets. The main results of this paper are as follows. First, the dividend policy in Korean firms does not support the liquidity hypothesis, contradictory to the existing empirical studies. Next, the explanatory power of the liquidity hypothesis is even weaker for the KOSDAQ market, inconsistent with international evidence. Finally, even when we focus on the firm-year observations with non-negligible dividend payments, the liquidity hypothesis does not explain the dividend policy of Korean firms either. Our findings significantly contribute to the literature by robustly confirming the very limited role of the liquidity hypothesis for Korean financial markets. 

Does ESG Performance Enhance Firm Value? Evidence from Korea

We analyze whether a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a significant role in promoting its market value in an emerging market, namely Korea. We employ environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) scores to evaluate CSR performances and examine their effect on firm valuation. We find that CSR practices positively and significantly affect a firm’s market, in line with previous studies on developed countries. However, its impact on share prices can differ according to firm characteristics. For firms in environmentally sensitive industries, the value-creating effect of CSR is lesser than for firms that do not belong to sensitive industries. Specifically, corporate governance practice negatively influences the firm value of environmentally sensitive firms. Further, governance practice significantly promotes market value only for chaebols, while investors do not significantly value governance practice carried out by other firms. This finding suggests the value-enhancing effects of governance structure reformation in the former. This work mainly contributes to the literature by verifying a positive CSR-valuation relationship in emerging markets, which provides substantial policy and welfare implications in markets where governments play a major role in promoting CSR. A stronger valuation effect of CSR in chaebols may present economic background for the intervention of the Korean government in the reformation of chaebol

Development suggestions for promoting Finnish tourism in South Korea through Promoting Destination Image

The objective of the thesis is to develop the digital destination marketing of Finland in South Korean outbound tourism market in order to increase outbound travelers from South Korea to Finland. The author has observed that there is a gap between the general perception of Finland as a tour destination for South Koreans, and the messages that Finland’s destination management organizations (DMO) send out to promote its images. This thesis is written to contribute to the existing body of knowledge in Finnish tourism marketing field, especially in promoting Finland in South Korea. The literature review focuses on destination marketing, particularly Finland’s destination marketing and digital marketing. Also the focus is on tourism destination image(TDI), role of travel intermediaries in destination marketing, and the scale and current trends in South Korean outbound tourism. Report/thesis title Development suggestions for promoting Finnish tourism in South Korea through Promoting Destination Image The study was carried out in the form of semi-structured interviews about Finland’s tourism destination image with 6 expert interviewees. For data analysis, qualitative thematic analysis method was used. The results and findings of the interviews revealed challenges and opportunities in promoting Finland as a tour destination in South Korea. In the result chapter, the author created developmental suggestions for attracting South Korean outbound tourism to Finland. In conclusion, the thesis result is reviewed and summarized, and main limitation of the research is discussed

Effect of Number of Variants of Zirconium Hydride on Grain Growth of Zirconium

The microstructure characteristics of Zr-hydride in Zr are important concerns in metallurgy and nuclear engineering. In particular, it is known that the correlation between hydride and the grain boundary microstructure has a great influence on properties. In this study, a phase-field model was used to evaluate evolutions of the fractions of intra-granular and inter-granular hydride and multi-contacted hydride according to the number of structural variants of δ-hydride in the 3D system. The effect of the numbers of crystallographic variants of hydride on grain growth kinetics was also analyzed. We found that the pinning effect in 3D is minimized when hydrides have one crystallographic variant, which is contradictory observation with the 2D case. With grain structures with comparable average grain radii and quantities, we found that the fraction of the intra-granular and inter-granular hydrides increase as the number of crystallographic variants increases

Is Earnings Quality Associated with Corporate Social Responsibility? Evidence from the Korean Market

Socially responsible firms are believed to behave in a responsible manner to restrict earnings management and thus deliver more reliable and transparent financial information to investors. We test this hypothesis by predicting a higher quality of financial reporting for socially responsible firms in the Korean market. The entire sample analysis provides evidence for the hypothesis in the use of discretionary accruals as proxy variables for the quality of financial reporting. However, our sub-sample analysis indicates that such weak support is driven by a group of environmentally sensitive firms and the affiliates of large family-owned conglomerates, or chaebol. Socially responsible firms are less likely to be involved with earnings management in the group of non-environmentally sensitive industries and non-chaebol affiliates. These firms provide a better quality of financial reporting in terms of both the use of discretionary accruals and real activity manipulations. In line with recent studies, our findings suggest that ethical concerns in producing high-quality financial reports rely significantly on firm characteristics

The Effect of ESG Performance on Tax Avoidance—Evidence from Korea

We analyzed whether a firm’s engagement in socially responsible activities, as measured by environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) scores, influences their tendency to avoid tax in the Korean financial market. We found a negative relationship between Korean firms’ ESG scores and tax avoidance in terms of book-tax income difference during the sample period between 2011 and 2017. This result implies that firms with good CSR performance would tend not to manipulate taxable profits, which is in line with corporate culture theory. More interestingly, this trend has become more apparent for chaebol-affiliated firms, a special type of Korean conglomerate, than non-chaebol firms

Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance: New Evidence from the Korean Market

We examine how corporate social responsibility affects financial performance in the Korean market by examining a new set of data, the ESG score. Using panel regression models, we show that the ESG score is negatively related with a widely used measures of financial performance, ROA and Tobin’s Q, unlike extant studies arguing for the positive relationships. Among the three pillars of ESG performance, the social and governance scores robustly show negative relationships with ROA but the environmental score does not. The consideration of unique Korean governance structure, chaebol , does not change our findings. Our findings generally support the traditional view of corporations but argue against the stakeholder theory