Technology Innovation Activity and Default Risk (기술혁신활동이 부도위험에 미치는 영향 : 한국 유가증권시장 및 코스닥시장 상장기업을 중심으로)
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- Journal of Technology Innovation
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- v.17 no.2
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- pp.55-80
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- 2009
Technology innovation activity plays a pivotal role in constructing the entrance barrier for other firms and making process improvement and new product. and these activities give a profit increase and growth to firms. Thus, technology innovation activity can reduce the default risk of firms. However, technology innovation activity can also increase the firm's default risk because technology innovation activity requires too much investment of the firm's resources and has the uncertainty on success. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of technology innovation activity on the default risk of firms. This study's sample consists of manufacturing firms listed on the Korea Securities Market and The Kosdaq Market from January 1,2000 to December 31, 2008. This study makes use of R&D intensity as an proxy variable of technology innovation activity. The default probability which proxies the default risk of firms is measured by the Merton's(l974) debt pricing model. The main empirical results are as follows. First, from the empirical results, it is found that technology innovation activity has a negative and significant effect on the default risk of firms independent of the Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market. In other words, technology innovation activity reduces the default risk of firms. Second, technology innovation activity reduces the default risk of firms independent of firm size, firm age, and credit score. Third, the results of robust analysis also show that technology innovation activity is the important factor which decreases the default risk of firms. These results imply that a manager must show continuous interest and investment in technology innovation activity of one's firm. And a policymaker also need design an economic policy to promote the technology innovation activity of firms.
Archaeological heritages are precious cultural relics and public assets that must be preserved, conserved, and shared with people all over the world. Investigating archaeological heritage is valuable and plays an important role for the public good; our ancestors' cultures can be restored, and it helps with developing a clear understanding of the cultural and social aspects of a historical period as well as teaches about historical factors unreported in the literature. One of the most basic and important conditions necessary for recognizing the value and importance of archaeological heritage investigation, expertise, and quality improvement is to establish detailed criteria for investigation services and the qualification examination of archaeological heritage. Observation of detailed criteria and the qualification examination of archaeological heritage can partially demonstrate society's recognition of strengthening transparency, public property, and the objectivity of the investigation of archaeological heritage. However, the detailed criteria for investigation services and the qualification examination of archaeological heritage currently implemented as administrative rules are neither followed by all institutes in the public and private sectors nor the government. Thus, there are serious problems in terms of the effectiveness and stability of institutions. The detailed criteria for the qualification examination breach the principle of statutory reservation, the principle of statutory regulation, and regulations on the announcement and management of orders and rules. Non-compliance with compensation criteria for investigation services or with detailed criteria for the qualification examination of archaeological heritage will be one of the reasons for the failure of the investigation foundation for archaeological heritage in the future. That is, it will result in the expansion, reproduction, and repetition of a vicious cycle of conflict between developers, who are the decision-makers responsible for selecting an investigating organization for archaeological heritage and determining the cost, and investigating organizations. This includes the impractical shortening of investigation periods and reducing costs by developers, distrust of the values and the importance of investigations of archaeological heritage, a decrease in quality, accidents caused by a lack of safety, a lack of occupational ethics, and non-recruitment of new experts, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to change the structure from a vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle, and promote the enactment of regulations that will ensure effectiveness and stability in the process of attaining the goals of the institution and application of the institution, as well as the continuous advancement of work to fill the gaps with reality.
The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.