• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.63-82
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• 2022

Purpose - Drawing on relational institutional theory, we explored how demographic similarity between board members of a firm and newly emerged political elites led to firms' increased financial resource acquisition such as leverage ratio and decreased export intensity amidst the Asian financial crisis. We also studied how a firm's leverage ratio and export intensity can further affect firm profitability and financial credit rating. Design/methodology - We revisited and explored a unique, unprecedented crisis that affected most Korean firms: the Asian financial crisis that coincided with a governmental shift from a conservative to a liberal party. We collected demographic information from 432 listed Korean firms' board members and 43 political elites of the Blue House from 1998-2000 to create a demographic similarity measurement. We collected firms' financial information, built panel data, and used ordinary least squares regression to test our theory. Findings - Our results showed that demographic similarity between a firm's directors and newly emerged politicians had a positive association with a firm's leverage ratio but a negative association with a firm's export intensity. A firm's leverage ratio had a negative relationship with firm performance measured by firm profitability and financial credit rating. A firm's export intensity showed a positive effect on firm performance. Originality/value - We highlighted that during an economic crisis that coincided with a governmental shift and change of leading political actors, firms exerted efforts to survey the environment and build new external stakeholder relationships to cope with the changing landscape. We proposed that in an emerging market like Korea where low levels of trust and favoritism are prevalent across society, one of the relational institutional strategies that firms can employ is the selection of directors with similar demographic characteristics to political elites based on factors including birthplace and school affiliations. We examined the efforts of firms to build political networks with newly empowered political elites during a financial crisis, and the consequences of establishing such networks. We highlighted that during a financial crisis, the demographic similarity between a firm's board members and newly emerged politicians can provide firms with access to financial resources but can also result in poor management and reduced effort to enhance its international competitiveness.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.165-169
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• 2012

There has been a growing interest in firms' environmental sustainability activities to improve environmental practices in their supply chain. This study aims to deal with supplier evaluation of firm's green supply chain management (GSCM) criteria with incomplete information. Nevertheless, the suitable supplier is a key strategic direction in eliminating environmental impact on supply chain management for manufacturing firms. The firm's GSCM criteria and supplier selection need to be unified as a system to improve the firm's performance.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.7
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• pp.265-292
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• 2001

This paper examines what determines the use of contingent workers in Korean Department Stores. Drawing on internal labor market, transaction cost & agency, and bureaucracy theories, I hypothesize that four factors affect the use of contingent workers: job characteristics, HRM, occupation, and organizational characteristics. Data from a sample of employers surveyed by the author in 1997 were used to test the hypotheses, and analyses showed the following results. First, consistent with job-based perspective, we find that such job characteristics as firm-specific skill and the level of skill significantly affect the use of contingent workers. But job standardization and outcome measurability have no effects of its use. Second, also we find significant effects on the use of contingent workers of such HRM as scrutiny on employee selection and promotion system. The promotion system has expected effect on its use, but scrutiny on employee selection has opposite effect. Third, we find that occupation significantly affects the use of contingent workers, especially the extent of use of contingent workers of sales service is as five hundred times as that of managerial occupation. Fourth, also consistent with organizational-based perspective, we find that the firm's size significantly has positive effects, and affiliate company and labor union have negative effects. That is, the larger firm's size is, the more possibility of use of contingent workers exists, and the possibilities of its use reduce in case of affiliate company and in front of labor union. Finally, we discuss the implications and limits of theses findings.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.191-196
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• 2015

There have been many studies on statistical forecasting on firm's performance and stock price by applying various financial indicators such as debt ratio and sales growth rate. Selecting predictors for constructing a prediction model among the various financial indicators is very important for precise prediction. Most of the previous studies applied variable selection algorithms for selecting predictors. However, the variable selection algorithm is considered to be at risk of eliminating certain amount of information from the indicators that were excluded from model construction. Therefore, we propose a firm's performance prediction model which principal component analysis is applied instead of the variable selection algorithm, in order to reduce dimensionality of input variables of the prediction model. In this study, we constructed the proposed prediction model by using financial data of American IT companies to empirically analyze prediction performance of the model.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1309-1318
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• 2014

In the past few years, data leakage of information assets has become a prominent social issue. According to the National Industrial Security Center in South Korea, 71 percent who suffer from technology leakage are small and medium sized enterprises. Hence, establishment and operation of ISMS (Information Security Management System) for small and medium sized enterprises become an important issue. Since it is not easy to obtain ISMS certification for a small or medium sized enterprise by itself, consultation with an expert firm in information security is necessary before the security implementation. However, how to select a proper security consulting company for a small or medium sized firm has not been studied yet. In this study, we analyze empirically the selection factors of ISMS certification consulting company for a small or medium sized firm through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Our study identified the following four important factors in selecting a security consulting company: expertise of the staffs and human resource management proficiency, market leading capability, competence to make progress during the consultation, and the performance and the size of the physical assets and human resources.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.629-650
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• 2014

This paper aims at exploring the comparative impact of social networks and firm's absorptive capacity on the process of technological alliance such as technological alliance partner selection, governance structure and performance. Firms not only need to develop internal absorptive capacity but also need to cooperate with outside innovating entities. Increasing networks with other firms and enhancing firm's internal absorptive capacity become more and more important to enter into new market, increase network effects and develop firm's core capacities. In the view of firm's motivation for technological alliance such as expanding social networks and enhancing absorptive capacity, we develop hypotheses and tested comparative impact of those two constructs using 215 survey data of Korean venture companies. The results showed that absorptive capacity showed more impacts on the technological partner selection criteria than social networks. No impact was found between social network and alliance performance. Only absorptive capacity showed positive impact on the technological alliance success. Both constructs showed no impact on the choice of governance structure. In the conclusion section, we discussed the findings and implications of this study and directions for future studies.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.257-278
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• 2017

The paper examines the ownership structure and the firm value of online firms in the world. Data are gathered by using FACTIVA database for firms in the Dow Jones index for the 2014 fiscal year. The Ordinary Least Squares regressions, the Generalized Linear Model, and the model selection criteria are employed to analyze the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables. The paper tests theories such as the convergence of interest theory, the managerial entrenchment theory, and the eclectic theory. The paper finds that the ownership structure has an influence on the firm value depending on the rank of the large shareholders. While the first large shareholders have a negative association with the firm value, the presence of the second and the third large shareholders have a positive influence on the firm value. The paper also finds that the identity of the largest shareholders whether they are insiders or outsiders have an influence on the firm value. The proportion of shareholding by a large shareholder and her identity are variables which predict a firm value.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 1998

Today, ERP becomes very popular as a vehicle of implementing an integrated information system since this package not only facilitates reengineering but also provides the function of generating consolidated financial statements. Yet a successful introduction strategy on the integrated information system needs to be set up because ERP has weaknesses as well as strengths. The strengths include the prompt reaction to environmental changes, the integrated management of information, the adoption of open systems, and the selection of modules according to functionsl However, the weaknesses of ERP include the provision of only basic functions, the development of package on international standard processes, and possible disadvantages to small and medium-sized firms. This paper is to suggest recommendations on the implementation strategy of ERP as an integrated information system. According to the case study with Firm A that has successfully implemented an ERP package, the most significant advantage of adopting ERP was that Firm A was able to implement an integrated information system for only six months. Finally, this research generates suggestions, such as the importance of the project team structure, the sufficient amount of time for education, and the minimization of the package modification.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.69-88
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• 2010

This paper explores the determinants of the innovation impact of publicly funded R&D projects along three broad dimensions, namely project, firm and market-related factors. In addition to these factors we examine the attributes of the research result per se and aspects of the commercialization process. The observations from empirical and qualitative analyses are based on R&D projects funded by the Fifth and Sixth Research Framework Programmes of the European Union. Firm size, prior experience, innovation culture, the nature of the project itself, explicit intension to commercialize, consortium management and strategy are the factors with the strongest effect on project success, defined in terms of product/process innovation and/or technical knowledge creation. The paper provides important implications for the organization, objectives, and management of public programmes that fund R&D and for project and participant selection.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.27-44
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• 2019

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a tractable general-equilibrium model of examining the impact of human resource management on intra-industry trade. Commonly, managers of Korean firms are promoted internally. It necessitates a study of human resource management and its impact on an industrial equilibrium. Design/methodology - This paper relies on theoretical analysis. We build a model in firms are hierarchical; an entrepreneur, managers, and workers. All individuals have heterogeneous managerial talents, which are the main source of managerial quality. Firms search talents for prospect managers, and eventually delegate them to supervise workers. The searching incurs a sunk cost. Findings - Our finding is as follows. Country 1, relatively abundant of managerial talents, can gain more from trade than Country 2, relatively scarce of managerial talents. This is because the higher searching cost leads to the lower survival rate of firms in Country 2. Implicatively, good jobs are destroyed, and aggregate income falls in Country 2. Originality/value - According to our study, relative abundance of managerial talents affects distribution of firm size and determines trade gain. This study can contribute to the literature of organization management and trade.