• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.407-418
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• 2009

In our modern society along with high speed economic growth and improvement of living conditions and through concentration of people in cities cars became essential necessities for people living in modern society. Due to social and economic conditions and for the need of recycling of materials and as a countermeasure for waste of materials importance of car service is stressed. In this connection need for improvement of working clothes which are suitable for safety and working efficiency in a difficult working environment is essential. However most of working clothes now being sold in the market are produced without consideration of ergonomic aspects of wearers of working clothes. For this reason there is need for basic research on development of working clothes which improve safety and comfort for working of car service workers. Accordingly in this study this author carried out research on fitness, level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, suitability for movement and level of demand for improvement in working clothes with focus on workers at car service firms and direction for its improvement was explored. This study is intended to provide basic data for development of functional pattern of working clothes for car service workers in future.

• STI Policy Review
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.1-29
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• 2018

With the constant growth of R&D investment, it has been increasingly necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of R&D performance and there is a high emphasis on ensuring the accountability and effectiveness of R&D programs. The evaluation of performance of a firm is especially necessary in times of economic downturn to justify R&D investment. However, there is a marked shortage of clear guidelines as to where and how particular metrics are used to measure the output and outcome of R&D activity in firms. Many firms have difficulties in selecting appropriate indicators for their R&D and financial performances. To fill this gap, this article discusses and presents the findings from the literature in such a way that they become useful for researchers or managers who are in charge of measuring the R&D and business performances arising from innovation activities. Finally, based on the findings about metrics of R&D performance, this article proposes the hypothetical framework to investigate the relationship between technology forecasting, strategic technology planning, and business performance. The framework of this article will assist policy makers, universities, research institutes/national laboratories, and companies to enhance their decision making process in technology development.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.57-81
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• 2008

Knowledge is an essential strategic weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and is the key determinant for organizational growth. When knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout the organization, it increases an organization's value by providing the ability to respond to new and unusual situations. The growing importance of knowledge as a critical resource has forced executives to pay attention to their organizational knowledge. Organizations are increasingly undertaking knowledge management initiatives and making significant investments. Knowledge sourcing is considered as the first important step in effective knowledge management. Most firms continue to make an effort to realize the benefits of knowledge management by using various knowledge sources effectively. Appropriate knowledge sourcing strategies enable organizations to create, acquire, and access knowledge in a timely manner by reducing search and transfer costs, which result in better firm performance. In response, the knowledge management literature has devoted substantial attention to the analysis of knowledge sourcing strategies. Many studies have categorized knowledge sourcing strategies into intemal- and external-oriented. Internal-oriented sourcing strategy attempts to increase firm performance by integrating knowledge within the boundary of the firm. On the contrary, external-oriented strategy attempts to bring knowledge in from outside sources via either acquisition or imitation, and then to transfer that knowledge across to the organization. However, the extant literature on knowledge sourcing strategies focuses primarily on large organizations. Although many studies have clearly highlighted major differences between large and small firms and the need to adopt different strategies for different firm sizes, scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in small firms and what are the differences between small and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on small firm performance from a holistic perspective. By drawing on knowledge based theory from organization science and complementarity theory from the economics literature, this paper is motivated by the following questions: (1) what are the adoption patterns of different knowledge sourcing strategies in small firms (i,e., what sourcing strategies should be adopted and which sourcing strategies work well together in small firms)?; and (2) what are the performance implications of these adoption patterns? In order to answer the questions, this study developed three hypotheses. First hypothesis based on knowledge based theory is that internal-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. Second hypothesis developed on the basis of knowledge based theory is that external-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. The third one based on complementarity theory is that pursuing both internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing simultaneously is negatively or less positively associated with small firm performance. As a sampling frame, 700 firms were identified from the Annual Corporation Report in Korea. Survey questionnaires were mailed to owners or executives who were most erudite about the firm s knowledge sourcing strategies and performance. A total of 188 companies replied, yielding a response rate of 26.8%. Due to incomplete data, 12 responses were eliminated, leaving 176 responses for the final analysis. Since all independent variables were measured using continuous variables, supermodularity function was used to test the hypotheses based on the cross partial derivative of payoff function. The results indicated no significant impact of internal-oriented sourcing strategies while positive impact of external-oriented sourcing strategy on small firm performance. This intriguing result could be explained on the basis of various resource and capital constraints of small firms. Small firms typically have restricted financial and human resources. They do not have enough assets to always develop knowledge internally. Another possible explanation is competency traps or core rigidities. Building up a knowledge base based on internal knowledge creates core competences, but at the same time, excessive internal focused knowledge exploration leads to behaviors blind to other knowledge. Interestingly, this study found that Internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing strategies had a substitutive relationship, which was inconsistent with previous studies that suggested complementary relationship between them. This result might be explained using organizational identification theory. Internal organizational members may perceive external knowledge as a threat, and tend to ignore knowledge from external sources because they prefer to maintain their own knowledge, legitimacy, and homogeneous attitudes. Therefore, integrating knowledge from internal and external sources might not be effective, resulting in failure of improvements of firm performance. Another possible explanation is small firms resource and capital constraints and lack of management expertise and absorptive capacity. Although the integration of different knowledge sources is critical, high levels of knowledge sourcing in many areas are quite expensive and so are often unrealistic for small enterprises. This study provides several implications for research as well as practice. First this study extends the existing knowledge by examining the substitutability (and complementarity) of knowledge sourcing strategies. Most prior studies have tended to investigate the independent effects of these strategies on performance without considering their combined impacts. Furthermore, this study tests complementarity based on the productivity approach that has been considered as a definitive test method for complementarity. Second, this study sheds new light on knowledge management research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and small firm performance. Most current literature has insisted complementary relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies on the basis of data from large firms. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study identifies substitutive relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies using data from small firms. Third, implications for practice highlight that managers of small firms should focus on knowledge sourcing from external-oriented strategies. Moreover, adoption of both sourcing strategies simultaneousiy impedes small firm performance.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.1-32
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate upon a diversification strategy through market creation of CJ Group, which has contributed in positioning of the firm as one of the leading conglomerates in South Korea. With such objective, the background of CJ Group, followed by its business diversification strategies were explored, with reference to several case studies. The history of CJ Group began with establishment of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation in 1953, as the first domestic sugar producer and exporter of South Korea. The corporation gradually expanded its business ever since at both national and global level, to include the fields of food production, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life chemicals. Later, CheilJedang (CJ) Group was established as an affiliate of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation. With such independence, extension of business has been witnessed across the industries of media, entertainment, finance, information technology and distribution. Thus, the current CJ Group pursues to define itself as a progressive global living culture company with four major business categories from food and food service, biotechnology, entertainment and media, and logistics. Despite its success in today's market, CJ Group underwent hardships in its business diversification in 1990s due to indiscreet management, along with the Asian financial crisis. Here, many firms overcame the financial difficulties by taking advantage of the exchange rate for overseas expansion. Though, CJ Group tried to differentiate itself by focusing on the domestic market by creating something out of nothing. Hence, CJ Group takes a unique position among many cases of business diversification and their categorization. In an effort to identify and classify the types of growth experienced by the top 30 companies in South Korea, the firms were categorized into four groups according to their diversification strategies adapted after the Asian financial crisis. Based on the mode and time of entry, corporations were identified either as the 'Explorer', 'Invader', 'Venture Capitalist', or 'Assimilator'. Here, the majority of the firms showed the qualities of Invader, entering mature markets through large-scaled mergers and acquisitions. However, CJ Group was the only firm that was categorized as an Explorer, for its focus on the newly emerging service sector in culture-contents industry. This diversification strategy through market creation is worth examining, due to its contribution in generating simultaneous growth between the market and the company itself. Diverse brands of CJ Group have been referred to as case studies in this regard, from 'Hatban', 'Cine de Chef', 'VIPS' to 'CJ GLS'. These four businesses, each to represent processed food, film, restaurant service, and logistics industries respectively, show CJ Group's effectiveness in creating a whole new category of goods and services that are innovative. In fact, such businesses not only contributed in advancement of consumers' wellbeing, but toward generating additional value and employment. It is true that the diversification strategy of CJ Group requires long-term capital investment with high risk, compared to the other strategies mentioned in the paper. However, this model does create high employment and additional values that are positive to both the society and the firm itself. Therefore, the paper comes to a conclusion that the diversification strategy through market creation conveys the most positive impact relative to the others.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• 제19권7호
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• pp.174-182
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• 2018

Given the ongoing debate in many aspects of finance, more attention may need to focus on corporate R&D expenditures. This study empirically tests financial determinants of R&D expenditures for NYSE-listed and KOSPI-listed firms. Three major hypotheses were postulated to test for corporate R&D outlay. First, proposed variables such as one-year lagged R&D expenditures, market value based leverage, profitability and cash holdings showed significant influence on corporate R&D costs for the sample firms. Moreover, financial factors inclusive of squared one-year lagged R&D expenditures, the interaction effect between one-lagged R&D expenditures and high-growth firm, non-debt tax shield, Tobin's q and a dummy variable to explain differences in accounting treatment between the U.S. and Korea, revealed significant differences between the two samples. Finally, in the conditional quantile regression (CQR) analysis for the R&D-related variables in relation to corporate growth rate, it was found that the NYSE-listed firms had a statistically significant linkage between growth potential and one-year lagged R&D expenditures at lower quantile levels. This study may shed new light on identifying financial factors affecting differences between the U.S. market (as an advanced market) and the Korean market (as an emerging market) regarding the optimal level of R&D investments for shareholders.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.131-149
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to describe and determine how and to what extent size of firm, operating vessels and interest cost, leverage, debit maturity, growth opportunity and cash flow affect the cash holdings of Korean shipping companies. A sample of 38 Korean shipping firms for a period of 9 years(from 2005 to 2013) was selected. In panel data regression, this study finds that cash holdings are negatively affected by firm size, operating vessel size and debit maturity, and positively affected by volume of interest costs. In firm's group of relatively large volume of operating vessel, it's cash holdings are affected by debit maturity, cash flows and growth opportunity but in firm's group of small volume of it, interest cost, debit maturity and operating vessel's size are related with cash holdings. It proved that determinants of cash holdings in a high interest costing group are size of operating vessel, interest cost and debt maturity. On the other hand, debit maturity, growth opportunity, firm size and extent volume of vessels are associated with cash holdings in relatively row interest costing group.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• 제30권2호
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• pp.146-168
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• 1995

problems involved in defining and identifying it. However, data on ownership of business establishments may be useful and one of the best alternatives for this empirical research because of use of limited information about control This study examines the spatial patterns of external control in the Korean manufacturing activities between 1986 and 1992. Using the data on ownership iinkages of multilocational firms between 15 administrative areas, it was possible to construct a matrix of organizational control in terms of the number of establishments. The control matrix was disaggregated by three types of manufacturing industries according to the capital and labor requirements of production processes used in. On the basis of the disaggregated control matrix, a series of measures were calculated for investigating the magnitude and direction of control as well as the external dependency. In the past decades Korean industrialization development has risen at a rapid pace, deepening integration into the world economy, together with the continuing growth of the large industrial firms. The expanded scale of large firms led to a spatial separation of production from control, Increasing branch plants in the nation. But recent important changes have occurred in the spatial organization of production by technological development, increasing international competition, and changing local labor markets. These changes have forced firms to reorganize their production structures, resulting in changes of the organizational structures in certain industries and regions. In this context the empirical analysis revealed the following principal trends. In general term, the geography of corporate control in Korea is marked by a twofold pattern of concentration and dispersion. The dominance of Seoul as a major command and control center has been evident over the period, though its overall share of allexternally controlled establishments has decreased from 88% to 79%. And the substantial amount of external control from Seoul has concentrated to the Kyongki and Southeast regions which are well-developed industrial areas. But Seoul's corporate ownership links tend to streteh across the country to the less-developed regions, most of which have shown a significant increase of external dependency during the period 1986-1992. At the same time, a geographic dispersion of corporate control is taking place as Kyongki province and Pusan are developing as new increasingly important command and control reaions. Though these two resions contain a number of branch plants controlled from other locations, they may be increasingly attractive as a headquarters location with increasing locally owned establishments. The geographical patterns of external control observable in each of three types of manufacturing industries were examined in order to distinguish the changing spatial structures of organizational control with respect to the characteristics of the production processes. Labor intensive manufacturing with unskilled iabor experienced the strongest external pressure from foreign competition and a lack of low cost labor. The high pressure expected not only to disinte-grate the production process but also led to location of production facilities in areas of cheap labor. The linkages of control between Seoul and the less-developed regions have slightly increased, while the external dependency of the industrialized regions might be reduced from the tendency of organizational disintegration. Capita1 intensive manufacturing operates under high entry and exit barriers due to capital intensity. The need to increase scale economies ied to an even stronger economic and spatial oncentration of control. The strong geographical oncentration of control might be influenced by orporate and organizational scale economies rather than by locational advantages. Other sectors experience with respect to branch plants of multilocational firms. The policy implications of the increase of external dependency in less-developed regions may be negative because of the very share of unskilled workers and lack of autonomy in decision making. The strong growth of the national economy and a scarcity of labor in core areas have been important factors in this regional decentralization of industries to less-developed regions. But the rather gloomy prospects of the economic growth in the near future could prevent the further industrialization of less-developed areas. A major rethinking of regional policy would have to take place towards a need for a regional policy actively favoring indigenous establishments.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• 제26권3호
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• pp.55-66
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• 2021

The mobile application (APP) market is growing at an unprecedented speed. Amid such growth, the global platform providers are mandating exclusive in-app payments and charging 30% for platform commission fees. A serious tension has arisen between mobile global platform providers and local content providers. The present study attempts to analyze the domestic mobile game market and in-app payment commission fees. This study estimates the size of the domestic mobile game market and platform commission fees by directly using publicly available financial statements and footnote information of some representative listed mobile game firms. Also, the study analyzes the cost structures of the same sample firms and attempts to draw some implications on sustainable growths of the mobile game ecosystem. We estimated that, in 2019, the domestic mobile game market is around 4.9 trillion Won and the ensuing in-app payment commission fees market was 1.5 trillion Won. High market share firms display a proportional increase in in-app payment commission fees in relation to sales growth. This, in turn, makes the in-app payment commission fees a primary cost item far exceeding employee salaries and R&D expenses. During the same period, low market share firms generated a mere profit or experienced net loss. Analysis of the cost structure reveals that these firms are even more liable to higher in-app payment commission fee cost structure than high market share. Most constituents of the mobile game ecosystem are small business entrepreneurs. By employing a micro-level analysis, the study estimates that, in 2019, a representative median firm generates 530 million Won in sales. At the same time, it spends 190 million Won in employee salaries, 50 Won million in R&D and 190 million Won in in-app payment commission fees, respectively. In the absence of other cost items, these three cost items alone account for 73.8% of sales revenue. The results imply that a sustainable growth of the local mobile game market heavily depends upon the cost structure of such representative median firm, the in-app payment commission fees being the primary cost item of such firm.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.28-36
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• 2009

While existing literature has focused extensively on the strengths and weaknesses of the Chaebol and their ownership and governance, there have been few studies of Korean non-Chaebol firms. However, Lee, Lee and Pennings (2001) did not specifically investigate the competitive strategies that non-Chaebol firms use to survive against the Chaebol in the domestic Korean market. The motivation of this paper is to document, through four exploratory case studies, the successful competitive strategies of non-Chaebol Korean companies against the Chaebol and then offer some propositions that may be useful to other entrepreneurial firms as well as public policy makers. Competition and cooperation as conceptualized by product similarity and cooperative inter.firm relationship respectively, are major dimensions of firm.level marketing strategy. From these two dimensions, we develop the following $2{\times}2$ matrix, with 4 types of competitive strategies for non-Chaebol companies against the Chaebol (Fig. 1.). The non-Chaebol firm in Cell 1 has a "me-too" product for the low-end market while conceding the high-end market to a Chaebol. In Cell 2, the non-Chaebol firm partners with a Chaebol company, either as a supplier or complementor. In Cell 3, the non-Chaebol firm engages in direct competition with a Chaebol. In Cell 4, the non-Chaebol firm targets an unserved part of the market with an innovative product or service. The four selected cases such as E.Rae Electronics Industry Company (Co-exister), Intops (Supplier), Pantech (Competitor) and Humax (Niche Player) are analyzed to provide each strategy with richer insights. Following propositions are generated based upon our conceptual framework: Proposition 1: Non-Chaebol firms that have a cooperative relationship with a Chaebol will perform better than firms that do not. Proposition 1a; Co-existers will perform better than Competitors. Proposition 1b: Partners (suppliers or complementors) will perform better than Niche players. Proposition 2: Firms that have no product similarity with a Chaebol will perform better than firms that have product similarity. Proposition 2a: Partners (suppliers or complementors) will perform better than Co.existers. Proposition 2b: Niche players will perform better than Competitors. Proposition 3: Niche players should perform better than Co-existers. Proposition 4: Performance can be rank.ordered in descending order as Partners, Niche Players, Co.existers, Competitors. A team of experts was constituted to categorize each of these 216 non-Chaebol companies into one of the 4 cells in our typology. Simple Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in SPSS statistical software was used to test our propositions. Overall findings are that it is better to have a cooperative relationship with a Chaebol and to offer products or services differentiated from a Chaebol. It is clear that the only profitable strategy, on average, to compete against the Chaebol is to be a partner (supplier or complementor). Competing head on with a Chaebol company is a costly strategy not likely to pay off for a non-Chaebol firm. Strategies to avoid head on competition with the Chaebol by serving niche markets with differentiated products or by serving the low-end of the market ignored by the Chaebol are better survival strategies. This paper illustrates that there are ways in which small and medium Korean non-Chaebol firms can thrive in a Chaebol environment, though not without risks. Using different combinations of competition and cooperation firms may choose particular positions along the product similarity and cooperative relationship dimensions to develop their competitive strategies-co-exister, competitor, partner, niche player. Based on our exploratory case-study analysis, partner seems to be the best strategy for non-Chaebol firms while competitor appears to be the most risky one. Niche players and co-existers have intermediate performance, though the former do better than the latter. It is often the case with managers of small and medium size companies that they tend to view market leaders, typically the Chaebol, with rather simplistic assumptions of either competition or collaboration. Consequently, many non-Chaebol firms turn out to be either passive collaborators or overwhelmed competitors of the Chaebol. In fact, competition and collaboration are not mutually exclusive, and can be pursued at the same time. As suggested in this paper, non-Chaebol firms can actively choose to compete and collaborate, depending on their environment, internal resources and capabilities.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• 제6권2호
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• pp.31-49
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to propose a policy development plan for win-win growth between franchisor and franchisee by investigating success factors of win-win growth on the basis of the problems between franchisor and franchisee. There are many small scale franchise businesses in Korea that have not achieved an economy of scale compared to the developed countries. The conflicts between franchisor and franchisee have continued due to a lack of social trust which comes from an excessively high ratio of business failure and big firms' expansion into franchise business, then again, the perception of relations between the topdog and the underdog causes many problems. As franchise is the industry based on common people that helps service industry advance and competitiveness of the self-employed improve, it needs to be activated as the higher value-added business by promoting establishment of business and strengthening foundation of related industry. A matter of mutual cooperation and win-win growth between franchisor and franchisee is important not only for the sound development of franchise industry but also for the stable growth of nation's economy. Thus, this study suggested a policy development plan for win-win growth between franchisor and franchisee by analyzing success factor of win-win growth based on the problems between franchisor and franchisee. The results of the study provide the important strategic way towards mutual growth and maintaining cooperative relationship between franchisor and franchisee in Korean franchise industry.