• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.45-65
• /
• 2017

This study which focused on factors and challenges affecting the decision-making of indigenous corn farmers ascertained the determinants that make farmers decide to engage in and continue corn farming activities in Paracelis, Mountain Province, in Northern Philippines. Determinants of decision and motivational factors of corn farmers were examined based on survey responses of 120 indigenous corn farmers by applying chi-square test analysis. Results showed that there were some decision and motivational factors that were significantly related to specific characteristics of corn farmers and there were also similarities of factors that affected the decision making of farmers in terms of engaging in and sustaining corn farming activities. Among the identified driving forces, financing capability and availability of land area were highly related with farm size and with a farmer's educational attainment. Knowledge or experience and interest in corn farming were also related with educational attainment. All the identified driving forces were found to be unrelated to farmers' age. The motivational factor identified as "personally satisfying" was found to be related with age, educational attainment and years in the farming business. Factors which affected a farmer's decision to sustain corn farming activities ("sustaining" factors) such as availability of different networks is highly related to educational attainment, years in the farming business and farm size while high market price of corn was the only "sustaining" factor linked to educational attainment. Based on these factors and cited problems in corn farming, recommendations were offered to address the issues raised by farmers.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.31-44
• /
• 2020

Purpose: The baby boomers and the millennials, who make up the largest share of the market, are showing the gap in their differentiated cultural styles. The purpose of this study is to study the consumption propensity and purchasing determinants of the baby boomers generation and the millennials generation, which have become a very important key pillar in shaping the market based on the cultural dimension model theory of h(=>H)opstead, and to identify the difference Research design, data, and methodology: In order to verify the research hypotheses, The data was collected from the baby boomers and the millennials using online questionnaires. The pre-test was conducted from October 10 to 12, 2019, and the main survey was conducted from October 15 to 25. A total of 230 copies were recalled, and the final 219 copies were used for the final analysis. Results: The consumption propensity between the baby boomers and the millennials differed in resource saving purchase propensity and impulse buying propensity. The baby boomers showed higher resource saving purchase propensity than the millennials, while the millennials showed higher impulse buying propensity. There was a difference in the determinants to purchasing only in the evaluation factor. Results of gender differences by generation, baby boomers differed in their planned purchase propensity, and women were higher. The millennials generation differed in resource saving purchase propensity and awareness propensity for others, all higher in men. In determinants to purchasing, the baby boomers did not differ in gender, and the millennials did differ in product factors. A canonical correlations analysis of the relationship between the baby boomers and the millennials showed a significant relationship between consumption propensity and determinants to purchasing. Also, the baby boomer generation has the biggest link between impulse buying propensity and evaluation factor. The millennials generation showed the biggest link between resource saving purchase and product factors. Conclusions: This study compared consumption propensity and determinants to purchasing of baby boomers and millennials on the basis of Hopstead's cultural dimension model theory to identify differences between generations, presenting practical and theoretical implications for establishing a correct understanding and specific marketing strategy among generation.

• Management & Information Systems Review
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.53-80
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of the number of bank relationships in Korea. Firm-specific determinants considered here include leverage, size, age, return on asset, investment grade, tangibility, liquidity, R&D expenditure. We estimate the effects of these variables, and compare the results with those from previous studies performed for other economies. Concerning the effects of business cycle, we find that the business cycle is an important factor in determining the number of bank relationships. The number of bank relationships varies over the business cycle, and we notice a counter-cyclical behavior, which means the number decreases during economic expansions and increases during contractions. This result can be interpreted as a result of firms' diversification of borrowings into multiple banks in order to reduce the liquidity risk during the recession. In the subsets, however, the number of bank relationships for large firms is stable regardless of the business cycle. Unlisted firms, non-chaebol, and low credit quality firms which have relatively limited access to alternative sources of financing show counter-cyclical behavior. Finally, such phenomena is not observed in the non-competitive credit market, while they show a counter-cyclical behavior in the competitive credit market.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.39-48
• /
• 2022

Purpose: COVID-19 has negatively influenced the financial performance of restaurant firms. Previous literature suggests that the franchising strategy effectively helps restaurant firms recover from difficult business conditions through various methods for expanding business size and enhancing business efficiency. According to risk-sharing theory, restaurant franchisors may minimize operational risks by sharing the risks with their franchisees. For instance, restaurant franchisors could generate more stable cash flow using franchise fees from their franchisees. However, research on the effect of franchise's risk reduction factor on business performance during pandemic is scarce. Thus, this study aims to examine the positive moderating effect of franchising between COVID-19 and restaurants' financial performance. Research design, data, and methodology: Panel data including financial information and franchising status of restaurant firms were collected for analysis. In order to control for unobserved firm-specific factors, generalized least squared estimation in fixed effects model was conducted. Huber-White robust standard errors were used to deal with heteroscedasticity issues. Results: It was found that COVID-19 pandemic has a negative effect on the restaurants' financial performance such as ROA (return on assets), ROE (return on equity), and PM (profit margins), which confirms the findings from existing literature. More importantly, results show that the degree of franchising has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between COVID-19 and financial performance of restaurant firms. This suggests that more active engagement in franchising may decrease negative impacts of COVID-19 on the restaurants' financial performance. Conclusions: The study supports existing literature related to risk-sharing theory, by confirming that pandemics, such as COVID-19, negatively affect financial performance of the restaurants. Furthermore, it was found that franchising strategy can help lessen negative impacts of pandemics on the firm performance. These findings can contribute to the franchise and restaurant management literature by suggesting the role of franchising in reducing business risks, thereby positively affecting financial performance. Moreover, this study offers business managers of franchisors and franchisees insights for utilizing franchising in restaurant risk management. Policymakers may also gain information on aiding restaurant firms during global crisis, such as COVID-19.

• Korean Management Science Review
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.15-32
• /
• 2014

This research empirically investigated the influence factors on the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS) in Korean manufacturing firms. In this study, the external factors (cause factors), the internal factors (facilitating factors) and the firm specific characteristics were integrally considered. In the factor analysis, the third item (regional society) of the external factors and the first item (environmental law) of government regulation were confounded with the items of the other factors. Thus, the confounded items were removed. In the second factor analysis, no items were replicated. The results of a multiple regression analysis showed that the influence factors such as government regulation, normative pressure, top management support, environmental strategy and employees' recognition, and ratio of large shareholders have a significant impact on the construction of EMS. However, the effects of the other firm specific characteristics were not statistically significant. We also examined whether both the number of environmental personnel and the allocation of environmental resources, which are directly related with the adoption of EMS, have a moderating impact on the relationships between other internal factors and the construction of EMS. With a subgroup analysis, the moderating roles of the number of environmental personnel were empirically confirmed. Through a multiple regression analysis, the direct effects of the external factors on the adoption or construction of the internal factors were demonstrated. The effects of government regulation, normative pressure and imitative pressure on the internal factors were significant and positive. Finally, in this study, the fact that the adoption of EMS can improve the environmental performance of a firm was also empirically found.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.41-52
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study aims to provide implications for the government's housing supply policy by analyzing the factors that determine the type of real estate holding and household debt. This study started from the awareness that the determinants of household debt differ depending on the type of real estate holding. Research design, data and methodology: Real estate ownership type was classified and analyzed into 4 models: model 1 (1 household 1 house and self-resident), model 2 (1 household multiple real estate ownership and self-resident), model 3 (1 household 1 house and rent residence), model 4 (1 household holds a large number of real estate and rent residence). The analysis method used multiple regression analysis. The dependent variable was household total debt. As independent variables, household debt, annual gross household income, financial assets, real estate net assets, annual repayment, demographic & residential characteristics were used. Results: 1) Model 4 has the highest household debt and the highest gross income, Model 2 has the most real estate mortgage loans and real estate net asset, and Model 1 has the highest real estate mortgage payments. 2) The positive factor of common household debt determinants is real estate net assets, and the negative factor is financial assets. 3) It was the net assets of real estate that acted as a positive factor in common for the four models. In other words, the more financial assets, the less household debt. It was analyzed that the more net assets of real estate, the more household debt. The annual repayment of financial liabilities had no influence on household debt, while the annual repayment of loan liabilities and household debt had a positive relationship. Conclusions: 1) It is necessary to introduce benefits and systems that can increase the proportion of household financial asset. Specific alternatives include tax benefits and reduced fees for financial asset investment. 2) In the case where a homeless person prepares one house for one household, it is necessary to prepare various support measures according to the income level. The specific alternative is to give additional points for pre-sale or apply an interest rate cut incentive for mortgage loans.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.1-25
• /
• 2020

This study analyzed key success factors of Korean car-sharing enterprises, Socar and Greencar, and the responsive strategies of Korean car-manufacturing company, Hyundai Motor Group, in the face of emerging sharing economy under the specific economic and regulatory system in Korea. The outcomes of the analysis are as follows. 'Timely market entry' in early startup phase and 'use of external resources' in early growth phase were key success factors common to both Socar and Greencar. However, the differences in the eventual business directions of the two companies also resulted in different key success factors in the expansion phase of their business. For Socar which focused on maintaining its independence and the external growth of B2C business, customer relation marketing and sufficient capital raising were key success factors. For Greencar which became a part of a business group and focused on improving the efficiency of business operations, timely market entry (B2B market) was key success factor. The use of external resources and cooperation with large corporations emerged as key success factors common to both companies in the rapid growth phase. The responsive strategies of the Hyundai Motor Group were collaboration, investment and direct management of DeliveryCar. The short-term goal of the responsive strategy was the operation of test-bed in collaboration with car-sharing company while the mid/long term goal was planning new mobility services by utilizing collected data. Securing opportunities for early market dominance for autonomous car industry was also found to be an important goal.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.103-120
• /
• 2009

As business incubation centers (BICs) have been operating for more than 10 years in Korea, many early stage startups tend to use the services provided by the incubating centers. BICs in Korea have accumulated the knowledge and experience in the past ten years and their services have been considerably improved. The business incubating service has three facets : (1) business infrastructure service, (2) direct service, and (3) indirect service. The mission of BICs is to provide the early stage entrepreneurs with the incubating service in a limited period time to help them grow strong enough to survive the fierce competition after graduating from the incubation. However, the incubating services sometimes fail to foster the independence of new startup companies, and raise the dependence of many companies on BICs. Thus, the dependence on BICs is a very important factor to understand the survival of the incubated startup companies after graduation from BICs. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the firm's dependence on BICs and to characterize the relationships among the identified factors. The business incubating service is a core construct of this study. It includes various activities and resources, such as offering the physical facilities, legal service, and connecting them with outside organizations. These services are extensive and take various forms. They are provided by BICs directly or indirectly. Past studies have identified various incubating services and classify them in different ways. Based on the past studies, we classify the business incubating service into three categories as mentioned above : (1) business infrastructure support, (2) direct support, and (3) networking support. The business infrastructure support is to provide the essential resources to start the business, such as physical facilities. The direct support is to offer the business resources available in the BICs, such as human, technical, and administrational resources. Finally, the indirect service was to support the resource in the outside of business incubation center. Dependence is generally defined as the degree to which a client firm needs the resources provided by the service provider in order to achieve its goals. Dependence is generated when a firm recognizes the benefits of interacting with its counterpart. Hence, the more positive outcomes a firm derives from its relationship with the partner, the more dependent on the partner the firm must inevitably become. In business incubating, as a resident firm is incubated in longer period, we can predict that her dependence on BICs would be stronger. In order to foster the independence of the incubated firms, BICs have to be able to manipulate the provision of their services to control the firms' dependence on BICs. Based on the above discussion, the research model for relationships between dependence and its affecting factors was developed. We surveyed the companies residing in BICs to test our research model. The instrument of our study was modified, in part, on the basis of previous relevant studies. For the purposes of testing reliability and validity, preliminary testing was conducted with firms that were residing in BICs and incubated by the BICs in the region of Gwangju and Jeonnam. The questionnaire was modified in accordance with the pre-test feedback. We mailed to all of the firms that had been incubated by the BICs with the help of business incubating managers of each BIC. The survey was conducted over a three week period. Gifts (of approximately ₩10,000 value) were offered to all actively participating respondents. The incubating period was reported by the business incubating managers, and it was transformed using natural logarithms. A total of 180 firms participated in the survey. However, we excluded 4 cases due to a lack of consistency using reversed items in the answers of the companies, and 176 cases were used for the analysis. We acknowledge that 176 samples may not be sufficient to conduct regression analyses with 5 research variables in our study. Each variable was measured through multiple items. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis to assess their unidimensionality. In an effort to test the construct validity of the instruments, a principal component factor analysis was conducted with Varimax rotation. The items correspond well to each singular factor, demonstrating a high degree of convergent validity. As the factor loadings for a variable (or factor) are higher than the factor loadings for the other variables, the instrument's discriminant validity is shown to be clear. Each factor was extracted as expected, which explained 70.97, 66.321, and 52.97 percent, respectively, of the total variance each with eigen values greater than 1.000. The internal consistency reliability of the variables was evaluated by computing Cronbach's alphas. The Cronbach's alpha values of the variables, which ranged from 0.717 to 0.950, were all securely over 0.700, which is satisfactory. The reliability and validity of the research variables are all, therefore, considered acceptable. The effects of dependence were assessed using a regression analysis. The Pearson correlations were calculated for the variables, measured by interval or ratio scales. Potential multicollinearity among the antecedents was evaluated prior to the multiple regression analysis, as some of the variables were significantly correlated with others (e.g., direct service and indirect service). Although several variables show the evidence of significant correlations, their tolerance values range between 0.334 and 0.613, thereby demonstrating that multicollinearity is not a likely threat to the parameter estimates. Checking some basic assumptions for the regression analyses, we decided to conduct multiple regression analyses and moderated regression analyses to test the given hypotheses. The results of the regression analyses indicate that the regression model is significant at p < 0.001 (F = 44.260), and that the predictors of the research model explain 42.6 percent of the total variance. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 address the relationships between the dependence of the incubated firms and the business incubating services. Business infrastructure service, direct service, and indirect service are all significantly related with dependence (β = 0.300, p < 0.001; β = 0.230, p < 0.001; β = 0.226, p < 0.001), thus supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. When the incubating period is the moderator and dependence is the dependent variable, the addition of the interaction terms with the antecedents to the regression equation yielded a significant increase in R2 (F change = 2.789, p < 0.05). In particular, direct service and indirect service exert different effects on dependence. Hence, the results support Hypotheses 5 and 6. This study provides several strategies and specific calls to action for BICs, based on our empirical findings. Business infrastructure service has more effect on the firm's dependence than the other two services. The introduction of an additional high charge rate for a graduated but allowed to stay in the BIC is a basic and legitimate condition for the BIC to control the firm's dependence. We detected the differential effects of direct and indirect services on the firm's dependence. The firms with long incubating period are more sensitive to indirect service positively, and more sensitive to direct service negatively, when assessing their levels of dependence. This implies that BICs must develop a strategy on the basis of a firm's incubating period. Last but not least, it would be valuable to discover other important variables that influence the firm's dependence in the future studies. Moreover, future studies to explain the independence of startup companies in BICs would also be valuable.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.85-91
• /
• 2016

Purpose - Recently, the importance of rapid change in business models is more and more increasing as the change of information technology environment. Therefore, a variety of business models have emerged. On the other hand, there is no company that can generate revenue. Many enterprises are still maintained while they are changing only their appearance of the business model. Business model is important in e-commerce. However, a lot of researches are targeted only in Web sites. Thus, e-commerce companies do not have the infrastructure for measuring and business models. The purpose of paper is to evaluate factors which are related with the structuring of the e-commerce success. And it proposed a financial items and non-financial items. From the perspectives of administrators and managers, the paper researches the possibility for E-Commerce Evaluation Model as a valuable criteria in measuring business model. Research design, data and methodology - The methods are taken by the classification for the type of business-to-business transactions, transactions subject, and the degree of integration and innovation capabilities. Financial and Non-financial value is used to build E-Commerce Evaluation Model. Evaluation items in Administration's perspective are composed with enhance the effectiveness of the mission, improving efficiency of the administration, and control of costs. Evaluation items in the customer's perspective were measured by customer participation and cooperation with customer Satisfaction. In the case of researching the information system's perspective, three criteria are used such as adequacy of the development process, improvement of the quality of service, and maintenance of standardized information technology. In researching for the ICT competence's perspective, evaluation items were composed of enhanced user capabilities, utilizing new technologies, and empowerment of information workers. Results - In this paper, E-Commerce Evaluation Model with financial and non-financial perspectives shows the possibility to be criteria in the case of measuring business model. Moreover, it gives the positive expectation to be successful criteria. But the research may have ambiguity in its essential concept because it cannot avoid the limitation in selecting evaluation tools from merely the model. It is impossible to exclude the possibility in omitting specific properties which may take place in actual case study. Therefore, In hereafter research, it is necessary to include actual case study research in selecting evaluation tools in order to improve the limit point. Actual measurement items which are derived from actual case study should be subdivided, and it would be more effective to complete the research. Conclusions - In rapid change in business models, there are various kinds of business models. But it is general situation that companies which adopted business models have not brought in revenue. For this reason, E-Commerce Evaluation Model is needed as an important factor for the structuring of the e-commerce success. Although it has the limitation in selecting evaluation tools from model, E-Commerce Evaluation Model proposes the implication for measuring business models as a valuable criteria.

• Korean Business Review
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.87-104
• /
• 2007

With the effectuation of Kyoto Protocol, one of the important movement throughout the world is reducing the emission of greenhouse gas which is the main reason of making global warming. The actual factor of greenhouse gas is CO2, and in year of 2002 20% of total CO2 emission was produced only through transportation throughout the South Korea. In the contrary, the recycling of municipal wastes in South Korea was 44.0% in 2002, but it will be targeted upto 53.5% in 2011. This study applied survey research for the activities affecting to the emission of CO2 and packaging wastes produced from transportation and packaging stages in logistics area. For this, survey questionary was constructed with five specific areas - strategy, transportation & distribution, custody, packaging, and information. Based on the 144 returned survey questionaries, this study analyzed 54 categories and finally suggests necessary four alternative in Korea.