• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.99-121
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• 2010

The goal of this paper is to analyze the effects of various firm characteristics on the probability for a firm to receive government’s financial supports for R&D. In the empirical analysis, a Probit model is estimated for the 2008 Korea Innovation Survey data. The main contribution of the paper is to investigate the distribution of R&D supports at the national level, instead of the program level. Especially, it is the first academic effort to evaluate the effects of regional and industrial variables. The results show that: (1) firm size and export increase the probability of receiving government’s R&D support; (2) variables measuring firms’ innovative ability, such as official designation as innovative firm, running R&D institute, number of R&D personnel, also have significantly positive effects; (3) firms in the chemical and automobile industries are more likely to receive R&D supports; and (4) firms in Teakyoung and Bukyoung regions are more likely to receive R&D supports.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2014

As the scarcity of natural resources has become apparent, the recycling industry has emerged as a promising one for its growth potential. Yet, the recycling industry still remains undeveloped and inefficient for various reasons. In this study, we focus on firms' recycling processes to understand the current status of recycling firms' value creation activities. With respect to the adopted recycling processes, we empirically investigate the differences in firm characteristics and firm performance. We use the data from Keco (Korea Environment Cooperation) which annually conducts a survey of recycling firms in Korea. We exclusively consider the whole group of plastic recycling industry in order to control for a possible bias in firm performance, stemming from the heterogeneity in processing and recycling of materials other than plastics. We review the descriptive statistics from the sample firms and conduct a series of hierarchical regression analyses. The results show that most of the firms in this industry adopt physical transformation processes with a low-level technology. These firms with physical transformation processes are smaller in size and produce entry level items which do not secure higher margins. The results indicate that the recycling industry largely comprises low value added firms which lack economies of scale and resources for R&D. For the stable growth of the industry, recycling firms must create sustainable values through implementation of technology-driven processes and improvement in product quality. In addition, the government should help build a reliable reverse logistic network, lower the entry barriers, and provide necessary funding for the SMEs in the recycling industry.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.57-77
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• 2021

Purpose - International strategic alliance has been regarded as a strategic decision made by firms' managerial problems and ensure performance growth. From the perspective of the proactive behavior for changing strategies in a global market, this study aims to identify whether performance feedback influences firms' decisions to pursue strategic alliances. This study examines the effects of performance feedback on performance when firms use strategic alliances. Design/methodology - To analyze the impact of performance feedback on forming an international strategic alliance, this study adopt the concept of performance feedback to develop a research model and our hypotheses. Thus, this study used a two-stage least squares unbalanced panel data analysis with random effects. This study is based on 24,543 observations from Korean manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2016. Findings - The results show that firms pursue the formation of strategic alliances more actively, if their past financial and R&D performance are lower than their aspiration level, based on the result of performance feedback. An in split sample analysis for examining the effect of a firm's technology sophistication based on the OECD's classification, negative innovation performance discrepancy has positive effects on the probability of international alliance in high-tech and medium-high-tech industries. Financial performance also improves when a firm decides to form a strategic alliance based on the results of performance feedback. Originality/value - This research extends recent efforts to better understand the effect of performance feedback on firms' performance when they use strategic alliances. These findings suggest that the CEOs and managers of firms should consider the performance feedback perspective when deciding to pursue a strategic alliance to improve performance. In other words, the decision-makers in a firm must analyze and consider various complex variables inside and outside the firm and expand such subjects of examination to more complex and dynamic factors.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.109-133
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a model of firm's IT capability based on IT resources such as IT infrastructure, IT personnel, and IT routine. To do this, the study defined IT capability as a third-order factor model and identified three conceptual dimensions of IT capability: IT infrastructure flexibility, IT personnel expertise, IT resource management capability, IT resource management capability indicates a capacity generated by IT routines, a new IT resource type identified in this study. The validity of the proposed model is evaluated with 243 firm level data using LISREL. The results of confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) demonstrated that the model is highly reliable and valid. Additionally, it was found that IT routines have a high potential as a new IT resource category.

• Proceedings of the Technology Innovation Conference
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• 2005.08a
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• pp.5-28
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• 2005

This paper estimates the effect of networks on innovative performance at the firm level , using Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) dataset Product innovation, product improvement , and process innovation are used as proxies for innovative activity. The explanatory variables such as firm size, market concentration ratio, lagged profitability, foreign ownership, export ratio, firm's age, formal R&D activity, and industrial R&D intensity are yet other considerations. With two year-long (2000 and 2001) data from 1,124 Korean manufacturing firms, we estimated the logistic regression model. The research finding indicates that the external networks have a strong positive effect on innovative output regardless of type of innovation. However, the network effects by partner (other firms or research institutions) vary across the type of innovation. Especially, we found that the user-supplier linkage plays an important role in product ion innovation, product improvement, and process innovation.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.87-98
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• 2010

In this paper, we drew upon IMP group's Interaction model to investigate the contributing impact of Inter-organizational system (IOS) on performance through enhancing inter-organizational relationship. While most extant literature studied the contribution of IOS from transaction efficiency perspective, the relational aspect of IOS contribution on the supply chain was addressed only by a few researches. As such, we intended to fill this gap of the IOS research stream. The conceptual model was developed, with reference to process theory, to analyze how the relational perspective could be applicable to IOS impact on performance. With the 129 sample data collected at the firm level,structural equation model using the LISREL was employed to validate the proposed research model. The empirical results supported the hypotheses such as the extent of IOS usage positively influences the interaction between the firms, which thereby enhances the extent of inter-firm partnership and performance. The results help better understanding the strategic use of IOS from relationship perspective.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.143-174
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• 2024

This paper empirically examines the relationship between outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Korean manufacturing firms and the servicification of domestic employment using a firm-level panel data. In this study, considering the issue of low productivity in the Korean service sector, we categorize service employment into core and non-core services and investigate their relationship with OFDI using the firm-fixed effects model. The empirical results show that the share of core service employment exhibits a positive correlation with the extensive OFDI. On the other hand, the share of non-core service employment, which is expected to generate relatively low value-added, does not show a significant relationship with the extensive OFDI. When we divide the samples based on host countries and the type of subsidiaries, the impact on servicification varies depending on the technological capabilities of host countries and their participation in global value chains. Our study suggests that Korean manufacturing firm's internationalization strategies may facilitate a transition from labor-intensive employment, like the cases in advanced countries, to technology-intensive employment through OFDI and other means.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.525-532
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• 2021

The study investigates the mediating effect of Korean firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the relationship between Korean executives' religiosity, their individual social responsibility (ISR), and corporate financial performance (CFP). As executives lead the firms' strategies and policies, their religiosity or ISR may have a significant influence in attaining the firm's CSR and influencing CFP. The upper echelon theory, agency theory, and stakeholder theory are used to explain the link between individual-level drivers of CSR, a firm's CSR, and CFP. The upper echelon theory, agency theory, and stakeholder theory are integrated into the conceptual model, which explains the relationships between proposed constructs in this study. This study employs survey data of 421 Korean companies. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) technique was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The main result shows that Korean executives' religiosity and their ISR positively influence CFP when mediated by CSR. The findings of this study suggest that Korean executives' personal values such as their religiosity and ISR can impact the firm's CSR activities or financial performance. Overall, this paper responds to the recent calls in the CSR literature to examine the individual-level drivers from non-western contexts by shedding more light on the Korean context.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2017

The fisheries industry has led the Korean economy, and has been achieving high-level position in the world. However, this industry meets aging, low growth and profit. In order to overcome this critical situation, it is needed to understand the overall status of industry. In industry level, most of previous researches focused on ocean industry rather than fisheries. In addition, scholars have been getting a lot of attention about fisheries cooperatives, fishing-ports, methods of fishery, and manufacturing process in fisheries sector. The aim of this research is analysis of domestic fisheries industry's managerial performance using data envelopment analysis(DEA) considering operating and scale view. Furthermore, the comparative analysis is performed by firm size, and industry type. In results, fisheries industry's managerial performance is not high, overall. In more detail, most of big size firms are under decreasing returns to scale(DRS) status. Fishery processing industry's performance is low, and fishery distribution industry has the best performance. This paper suggests that transferring operating capability from big firms to small firms, and policy supports and firm's activities should be accompanied for high-value added in fisher, and fishery processing industries.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.113-121
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• 2014

Purpose - Recently, the number of corporations that practice environmental and social responsibility, besides engaging in traditional profit-seeking activities, has been growing steadily, as interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasing. Recent research on CSR practices has identified the relationship between CSR activities and corporate value as one of the main issues in this respect. Considering that donations constitute a large proportion of a company's charitable activities, we considered the extent of donation expenses as a charitable activity in order to mitigate sample selection bias. Specifically, we analyzed the impact of donation expenses on firm value, while investigating if this impact varied in response to the level of corporate governance of firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We used non-financial firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange, having their fiscal year end in December, and the sample period was 2006-2013. For the dependent variable, Tobin's q was used as the corporate value, and for the independent variable, donations were measured as the donation-expense-to-sales ratio. Corporate governance scores, as rated by the Korea Corporate Governance Service, were used to measure corporate governance levels because they consider the overall aspects of governance, including ownership structure, the board of directors, and the audit mechanism of individual companies. To examine the impact of donations on a company in relation to the level of corporate governance, we estimated regression models using the interaction terms of the governance dummy and donation variables. Then, we further estimated the regression models of two sub-samples that were classified according to the level of corporate governance. Similar to previous studies, the study uses variables that affect firm value, such as R&D expenditure, advertising expenses, EBITDA, debt-to-equity ratio, sales growth, company age, and company size as control variables. Results - The empirical results show that firm value significantly increased in response to an increase in donation expenses. Upon including the interaction terms of governance level dummy variables and donations, the coefficients of the interaction terms show significant positive values, while those of donation variables show significant negative values. In the strong governance sub-sample, the relationship between the donation expenses and corporate value was statistically positive (+) and significant. However, in the weak governance sub-sample, the relationship between the donation expenses and corporate value was statistically insignificant and negative (-). Conclusions - The empirical results suggest that donation expenses are significantly linked to an enhanced corporate value if firms have a good corporate governance structure. However, if the corporate governance structure is weak, the same relationship is not necessarily observed. The results of this study show that if a firm has high corporate governance, CSR practices enhance the company's reputation such that it has a positive (+) relationship with corporate value. If a firm has weak corporate governance, on the other hand, CSR practices are recognized as an agency cost and do not increase corporate value.