• 한국프랜차이즈경영연구
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.39-48
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• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제78권3호
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• pp.351-368
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• 2021

This paper, by applying a reliability-based framework, develops seismic vulnerability macrozonation maps for Tehran, the capital and one of the most earthquake-vulnerable city of Iran. Seismic performance assessment of 3-, 4- and 5-story steel moment resisting frames (SMRFs), designed according to ASCE/SEI 41-17 and Iranian Code of Practice for Seismic Resistant Design of Buildings (2800 Standard), is investigated in terms of overall maximum inter-story drift ratio (MIDR) and unit repair cost ratio which is hereafter known as "damage ratio". To this end, Tehran city is first meshed into a network of 66 points to numerically locate low- to mid-rise SMRFs. Active faults around Tehran are next modeled explicitly. Two different combination of faults, based on available seismological data, are then developed to explore the impact of choosing a proper seismic scenario. In addition, soil effect is exclusively addressed. After building analytical models, reliability methods in combination with structure-specific probabilistic models are applied to predict demand and damage ratio of structures in a cost-effective paradigm. Due to capability of proposed methodology incorporating both aleatory and epistemic uncertainties explicitly, this framework which is centered on the regional demand and damage ratio estimation via structure-specific characteristics can efficiently pave the way for decision makers to find the most vulnerable area in a regional scale. This technical basis can also be adapted to any other structures which the demand and/or damage ratio prediction models are developed.

• 아태비즈니스연구
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.225-241
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• 2020

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the ratio of outside directors, especially the ratio of outside directors according to their tenure, on firm value. Design/methodology/approach - This study collected total 3,861 firm-year data about companies listed KRX KOSPI market in Korea. The Pooled Ordinary Least Square Model and Panel Fixed Effects Model were hired in order to analyze the data. Findings - First, it was found that the ratio of outside directors for total sample had no significant effect on firm value, and the estimation coefficient of dummy variable for the average tenure less than 3 years had a significant positive(+) effect on firm value. Second, the ratio of outside directors corresponding to the tenure of less than 3 years had a significant positive(+) effect on the firm value. On the contrary, the ratio of outside directors corresponding to the tenure of 3 years or more had a significant negative(-) effect on firm value. Third, the ratio of outside directors corresponding to the tenure for more than 6 years did not show any significant influence on firm value. Research implications or Originality - First, if other matters are not additionally considered, keeping the tenure of outside directors shortly on average could help to increase firm value. Second, in the case of firms facing the decision to reappoint outside directors for the first time, it is highly likely that the firm value would decrease on average, so careful decisionmaking considering various aspects is required. However, this study does not take into account the legal standards for the appointment of outside directors, diversity of outside directors, and the actual independence of outside directors according to other criteria in the analysis. Therefore, if these factors are considered, there is a possibility that the empirical analysis results of this study may show different patterns.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.54-72
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• 2020

Purpose - This study explores the contextual factors that affect the relationship between CEO overseas experience and firm internationalization. This study incorporates a wide range of contextual factors, including mega, macro, and micro variables. In particular, this study goes a step further from prior studies by incorporating a higher-order variable i.e., the global financial crisis that can constrain the managerial discretion of a CEO. Design/methodology - To structure the balanced data set before and after the 2008 global financial crisis, we used the data for the years from 2002 to 2014 from a sample of Korean manufacturing firms. Ultimately, 1101 firm-year unbalanced panel observations from 101 firms were used for the analysis. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows. CEO overseas experience is positively related to firm internationalization. However, this relationship varies depending on the CEOs level of managerial discretion. As for the constraining moderation, the global financial crisis weakened the positive relationship between CEO overseas experience and firm internationalization. As for the enabling moderation, the CEOs tenure strengthened the relationship. Originality/value - This study adopted the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework to explain the relationship between CEO overseas experience and firm internationalization. Moreover, we argue that the CEO-internationalization relationship depends on the specific context of the managerial discretion, focusing on the 2008 global financial crisis. Empirically, this study adopted the 2SLS procedure to correct endogeneity. Instead of taking the actual value of prior internationalization as a control, we estimated prior internationalization using the instrument variables at an industry level. This procedure made our estimation more robust.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.116-133
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• 2021

Purpose - Intra-industry trade of agricultural products can eliminate the disadvantage of Korea's traditional agriculture and improve its lack of comparative advantage. The main purpose of this paper is to measure the level and index of intra-industry trade of Korean agricultural products and to explore the spatial dependence and spillover effect associated with this type of trade. The main factors influencing intra-agricultural trade are analyzed from two perspectives: the population and the classification of agricultural products. Design/methodology - First, the level of intra-industry trade of Korean agricultural products is measured. Second, to obtain a more accurate estimate of the influence of various factors, and based on two types of weight matrices, a spatial econometric model is constructed from two aspects: population and classification of agricultural products. The status and the factors influencing intra-industry trade are also studied. Findings - It is concluded that there is a positive spatial correlation between Korea's intra-industry trade in agricultural products and that of its trading partners. The spatial spillover effect of this type of trade is verified by using the spatial autoregressive model (SAR). Labor-intensive agricultural products are found to have a positive spillover effect on intra-industry trade, while land-intensive products do not have a significant effect. Originality/value - In this paper, the two types of agricultural products are meticulously distinguished, and the spatial effect of the intra-industry trade of agricultural products as well as the influence of various factors are analyzed. In addition, the accuracy of the estimation of the coefficients of the factors by using the spatial econometric model is higher than that of the ordinary panel data model.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제47권2호
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• pp.166-174
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aimed to provide temporal Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGL) for a hazardous substance as a pilot study. Methods: As one of the substances designated by the Korea Ministry of Environment as requiring preparations for potential accidents, formaldehyde was selected to estimate the AEGLs. The calculation was based on Haber's formula (Cn×t=k) using valid toxicity data (for humans/animals). A total of 96 points of AEGL levels were provided using an interval of five minutes over eight hours. Results: The AEGL-1 and 2 values were constant for the entire exposure duration at 0.9 ppm and 14 ppm, respectively. The values were obtained from clinical/animal tests, and the adaptation effect after a given exposure duration was also considered. AEGL-3 was based on animal toxicity data, and it was estimated from 127 ppm for the initial five minutes to 35 ppm for eight hours. Conclusions: More specific AEGL levels for formaldehyde could be obtained in this study using toxicity data with Haber's formula. Based on this methodology, it would be also possible to estimate AEGL levels that can be used at the scene of a chemical accident for other substances requiring preparation for potential accidents.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제29권3호
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• pp.499-512
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• 2022

This work proposes a novel contactless vibration damping and thermal isolation tripod platform based on Superconducting Magnetic Levitation (SML). This prototype is suitable for cryogenic environments, where classical passive, semi active and active vibration isolation techniques may present tribological problems due to the low temperatures and/or cannot guarantee an enough thermal isolation. The levitating platform consists of a Superconducting Magnetic Levitation (SML) with inherent passive static stabilization. In addition, the use of Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) technique is proposed to characterize the transmissibility function from the baseplate to the platform. The OMA is based on the Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI) by using the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. This paper contributes to the use of SSI-EM for SML applications by proposing a step-by-step experimental methodology to process the measured data, which are obtained with different unknown excitations: ambient excitation and impulse excitation. Thus, the performance of SSI-EM for SML applications can be improved, providing a good estimation of the natural frequency and damping ratio without any controlled excitation, which is the main obstacle to use an experimental modal analysis in cryogenic environments. The dynamic response of the 510 g levitating platform has been characterized by means of OMA in a cryogenic, 77 K, and high vacuum, 1E-5 mbar, environment. The measured vertical and radial stiffness are 9872.4 N/m and 21329 N/m, respectively, whilst the measured vertical and radial damping values are 0.5278 Nm/s and 0.8938 Nm/s. The first natural frequency in vertical direction has been identified to be 27.39 Hz, whilst a value of 40.26 Hz was identified for the radial direction. The determined damping values for both modes are 0.46% and 0.53%, respectively.

• 대기
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• 제31권5호
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• pp.525-537
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• 2021

Black ices on road surfaces in winter tend to cause severe and terrible accidents. It is very difficult to detect black ice events in advance due to their localities as well as sensitivities to surface and upper meteorological variables. This study develops a methodology to detect the road sections vulnerable to black ice with the use of road surface temperature data obtained from a mobile road weather observation vehicle. The 7 experiments were conducted on the route from Nam-Wonju IC to Nam-Andong IC (132.5 km) on the Jungang Expressway during the period from December 2020 to February 2021. Firstly, temporal road surface temperature data were converted to the spatial data with a 50 m resolution. Then, the spatial road surface temperature was normalized with zero mean and one standard deviation using a simple normalization, a linear de-trend and normalization, and a low-pass filter and normalization. The resulting road thermal map was calculated in terms of road surface temperature differences. A road ice index was suggested using the normalized road temperatures and their horizontal differences. Road sections vulnerable to black ice were derived from road ice indices and verified with respect to road geometry and sky view, etc. It was found that black ice could occur not only over bridges, but also roads with a low sky view factor. These results are expected to be applicable to the alarm service for black ice to drivers.

• 아태비즈니스연구
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.193-209
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• 2021

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to specify the relationship between demographic cohesion and firm performance by examining the roles of HR practices, such as job rotation and flexible work arrangement. Design/methodology/approach - This study samples 1,093 firms in Korea and collects their data between 2007 and 2017 from Workplace Panel Survey, a database from Korea Labor Institute. The demographic cohesion is measured using the Herphindal-Hershman index and the firm performance is measured with net incomes. This study employs a fixed-effects model for the estimation of firm performance with respect to demographic cohesion, job rotation, and flexible work arrangement. Findings - There is a positive relationship between demographic cohesion and net incomes. And the relationship is positively moderated by job rotation. However, flexible work arrangement shows a mixed moderation. Research implications or Originality - Differentiated from the studies on demographic diversity, this study shows that demographic cohesion has a mixed impact on firm performance. While demographic cohesion can improve firm performance through trust building, in-group favoritism, and collective identity it entails internal conflicts. However the link between demographic cohesion and firm performance is moderated by job rotation and flexible work arrangement. While there is a positive moderation of job rotation, there is a negative moderation of flexible work arrangement.

• 한국수자원학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국수자원학회 2023년도 학술발표회
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• pp.301-301
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• 2023

국가 수자원 중 농업용수 사용비율은 약 41%에 해당하며, 통합물관리측면에서 큰 비중을 차지하고 있다. 국가 수자원 전체 이용량 372억m³ 중에서 농업용수가 40.9%인 152억m³로 가장 많고, 환경용수 121억m³(32.5%), 생활용수 76억m³(20.4%), 공업용수 23억m³(6.2%)등으로 추산된다. 국가 수자원관리의 중요성이 커짐에 따라 수량 및 수질관리를 환경부로 일원화하여 관리하며, 농업용수의 유역단위 물관리의 필요성이 요구되고 있다. 농업용수는 대부분 벼농사에 소비되고 있으며, 관개용수는 증발산량, 침투량, 자연 및 인위적인 배수량으로 소비된다. 회귀수량은 관개를 통해 농경지에 공급된 용수 중 작물에 의해 소모되지 않고 하천으로 유입되는 수량을 의미하며, 신속회귀수량(quick return flow)과 지연회귀수량(delayed return flow)으로 구분할 수 있다. 수자원장기종합계획에서는 35%가 하천으로 회귀되는 것으로 가정하고 있지만, 선행연구 결과에 의하면 국내 농업용수 회귀율은 기상상태, 작물재배품종, 재배형태, 용배수로 구조 등 여러 가지 요인으로 인하여 약 32 ~ 86%의 다양한 범위로 큰 차이가 나타난다. 이에 본 연구에서는 기존의 회귀수량 산정방법의 취약점을 보완하여, 수문모델링을 통한 유역단위 차원의 회귀수량 산정방안을 제시함으로써, 하천유지유량 관리 개선방안을 모색하고자 한다.