• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.699-711
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• 2011

This study is to perform several major analyses to find any differences in the leverage between the pre- and post-period of the currency crisis. Moreover, another aspect is to investigate a financial aspect which has received relatively little attention to the firms and/or industries in the emerging capital markets in comparison to those in the advanced markets. The purpose of this empirical study is to confirm whether or not, it is myth or reality that Korean business conglomerate, chaebol, firms with subsidized financing from government-owned domestic financial institutions in the pre-financial turmoil, may still maintain their higher leverage, even after the crisis. It was found that firms belonging to the chaebol in Korea maintained higher average book-value and market-value based debt ratios, relative to their counterparts not belonging to the chaebol across all of the tested models. There were positive relationships of IND3(=the chemical industry) and Ind5(=the construction industry) to the book-value leverage. This study identified that there were no differences in the explanatory variables included, between the tested models (that is, without and with including the present value of an operating lease) related to each debt ratio. Since the Korean government continue to improve the corporate governance of the domestic firms in terms of accounting transparency and corporate ownership, it would be more efficient, if utilizing this "new" ratio considering an operating lease as an effective measurement of the level of leverage. In terms of the capital structure, it may also be possible for foreign firms to utilize and benefit from the results obtained in this study when operating their new businesses in Korea, given the economic circumstances such as the ongoing progress of the Korea-America FTA or the Korea-China FTA.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.859-882
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• 2011

Since two oil crises in the 1970s, Korea has actively engaged in overseas E&P projects to increase energy diversity as well as its self-development rate of energy resources. Korea's energy self-development rate, an index that indicates the ratio of resources acquired through overseas development compared to direct imports. Currently, Korea is conducting a total of 180 promising overseas oil development projects in 36 countries as of the end of 2010. By now, it has secured a reserve of around 1.63 billion barrels and production of around 176 thousand barrels of oil per day. The self-development rate for oil rose from 2.8% in 2006 to 7.4% in 2010. Not content with these remarkable successes, the korean government is planning to raise its self-development rate in oil to 25% by 2019, by promoting the active participation of Korean companies in overseas oil development projects. This paper is concerned with estimation of the required amount of government subsidies that includes loans and financial support through state-controlled banking institutions in order to reach the target 25% rate by 2019. The estimation results shows that government subsidies of at least 268 million dollars are needed for the current rate of 7.4% in oil. However, the amount sharply increases up to 1.25 billion dollars in 2019 when domestic oil demand rises to 1.02 billion barrels.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.492-506
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• 2008

This paper aims to explore the characteristics of regional network of Korean firms in Dalian City, China, which is focused on social, cultural and institutional characteristics. To achieve this goal, the paper attempts to analyze the supply of raw material and parts, sales and cooperative relations of the firms. Among Korean firms in Dalian City, the characteristic of non-local network can be seen in supply enterprise of raw material, parts and semi products. On the other hand, a tighter local network relationship can be seen in sales. Large companies appear stronger in non-local network than small businesses and small businesses are stronger in local network. In terms of cooperation among enterprises, many firms have networks of joint marketing, joint use of equipments, exchange of techniques and information with the supply enterprise. With the customer enterprise, there is a network in joint marketing and manpower training. Especially, most of the customer enterprises are Chinese ones, which have extensive networks in big cities, such as in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Dalian. In local network, the Korean firms in Dalian cooperate in product development, finance and manpower training with local firms. And in non-local cooperation, Korean firms are active in tech support, information exchange and R&D.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1212-1242
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• 2017

In this study, the effectiveness of the innovative company certification system, which is one of the important means of the SME innovation promotion policies, was examined in terms of technological innovation activity and performance. To this end, we used the results of 'SME Technology Statistical Survey' conducted by the Small and Medium Business Administration and the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in 2013~2015 to compare the innovative SMEs that have received the certifications such as Venture Certification, Innobiz Certification, and Mainbiz Certification with the general SMEs that did not. As a result, it was found that the innovative SMEs have comparative advantage in many detailed indicators related to the technological innovation activity and performance. However, the ratio of external use of R&D expenditure, the number of technology development attempts and the number of successes were not different according to the survey year, so it is necessary to strengthen the follow-up management of the system. On the other hand, the proportion of self-procurement R&D expenditure of the general SMEs was significantly higher than that of the innovative SMEs in all three-year surveys. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate the government funding for the innovative SMEs to be used as a complementary material, not as a substitute for their own R&D investment. In addition, the technological innovation activity and performance of a company were more influenced by the size of the company and the participating industry rather than by the certification, so it is necessary to consider it when establishing the technology innovation promotion policies.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.3870-3881
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• 2015

This study examined one of the contemporary issues on debate to identify any significant financial determinants on the cash holdings of the cheabol firms in the Korean domestic capital markets. Several important findings on the financial characteristics affecting the cash holdings were evidenced by utilizing various methodologies for statistical estimations. Financial or managerial implications with discussion were provided for the pronounced factors such as CASHFLOW, MVBV, REINVEST, and AGENCY. Assuming that the chaebol firms were overall subject to the financial constrains, they may increase or stockpile cash reserves as internal capital for future investment opportunities or repayment of existing debt, rather than external financing burdened by a high cost of capital. Given the on-going controversy on the optimal level of corporate cash holdings coupled with any foreseeable capital transfer among the associated nations through the investment vehicles such the FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) or TPP (Trans-Pacific Pacts), any empirical findings of the study may shed new light on identifying financial determinants which may significantly affect the level of cash holdings for the business conglomerates, the 'chaebol' firms, in the Korean capital markets.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.71-81
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• 2002

The lack of specialties of the existing commercial web search systems stems from the fact that they have no capabilities to extract and gather the meaningful information from each information domain they cover. We are sure, however, that the necessity for the information integration system, not just search system, will be likely to become larger in the future. In this paper, we propose a design and implementation of an information integration system called TIC(target information collector). TIC is able to extract meaningful information from a specific information area in the internet and integrate them for the commercial service. We also show the evaluation results of our implementation. For the experiments we applied our TIC to the international procurement information area. The international procurement information is publicly and freely announced by each government to the world. To automatically extract common properties from the related source sites, we adopt information pointing technique using inter-HTML tag pattern parsing. And through the information integration framework design, we can easily implement a site-specific information integration engine. By running our TIC for about 8 months, we find out it can remove considerable amount of the duplicated information, and as a result, we can obtain high quality international procurement information. The main contribution of this paper is to present a framework design and it's implementation for extracting the information of a specific area and then integrating them into a meaningful one.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.3 s.114
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• pp.245-266
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• 2006

This study aims to explain the emergence of Gangnam Region of Seoul as a new cluster of the Korean film industry in the context of its history of growth, recent development characteristics, and its production system. Statistical analyses of Korean industries and in-depth interview surveys to film producers were conducted. The results of the analyses show that there has been obvious tendency of film makers' move from Chungmuro, a traditional cluster of the Korean film industry, to Gangnam and many births of new film makers in Gangnam. This new cluster, however, is operating on informal networking between film makers and related personnel, not on formalized production system composed of specialized functions and labor market. Therefore, it can be called as loosely-articulated cluster. This form of cluster has much to do with production milieu of Gangnam, such as advantages of obtaining information and consumer trend, diverse atmosphere which makes it easier to meet diverse people, favorable environment to embed creativity and fresh idea, etc. This trend of the film industry to orient a specific area can be explained in conjunction with the uniqueness of the film industry, such as uncertainty, project-based work, generation gap between film makers, participation of large companies or increasing size of investment.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.529-538
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• 2011

Recently, one of the critical issues in Korea is the huge debt and future role of Korea Land and Housing Corporation. In this regards, the purpose of this study is to get implications from other public housing agencies in Asian countries such as UR of Japan, HDB of Singapore and HA of Hongkong. The changes of housing policy since 1960s, business and financial structure of housing agencies in each nation are investigated and compared. As a result, some policy directions can be proposed as follows : review of current mass housing program, relaxing qualifications for public rental housing, promotion of urban renewal projects, reinforcing cooperation with private sector and local governments, more government's support to LH's financing and loss from businesses for public interests and re-evaluation of LH's debt. The contribution of this study is that suggestions to improve housing policy and to alleviate financial problem of LH are based on the actual conditions of public housing agencies in Asian countries where the housing policy implementation system is similar to Korea, not on the theoretical basis.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.11-19
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• 2003

Since B2C(Business to Customer) from which e-commerce had originated was replaced by B2B, e-Business has shown fast growth so fa., Recently, e-Procurement by l:n concept is on the development as self-purchase system associated with their own ERP In many conglomerates in the Korean market. However, in order to vitalize e-Biz in the plant industry, we need to set up e-marketplaces where many sellers and buyers can meet each other at the same time, which has become the essential part for success as an expanded business model. In this paper, we expect that the foundation for e-transformation in the plant industry is set up by developing Purchase Process System and related modules as the prerequisite for e-Biz in the plant industry, and this report will provide an exemplary model for e-commerce. The Purchase Process System consists of 1) e-Purchasing Module that manages bidding and contract information based on quotation inquiry, 2) e-Expediting Module that manages information to guarantee the on-time delivery, 3) e-Certification Module that controls user authentification, 4) e-Basic Module that manages the bulletin boards, Q&A, etc.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.spc
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

Lake Suwa is a natural lake which is well-known for sightseeing and fisheries. It had suffered severe eutrophication during 1960s and 1970s with the occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms and the extinction of some benthic animals. Since 1980 water quality has been improved due to efforts of local government, scientists, and citizens. Of various methods that were attempted to improve the water quality of Lake Suwa biological methods received much attention, because it can improve the lake ecosystem integrity and fisheries in addition to the water quality. The aim of this paper is to introduce the biological methods for water quality improvement that had been employed in Lake Suwa, Japan, and their contribution to the economic benefit of local residents. Until now a significant restoration of water quality has been achieved, but there are insufficient recovery of the sediment and biota due to anoxic hypolimnion of the lake. This study proposed suspended cage culture of bivalves as a feasible method of water quality improvement. Increased grazing by bivalves will contribute to the improvement of water quality and fisheries production, which will contribute both to the ecological restoration and economy of local residents.