고정관념과 불평등: 정체성 선택에 관한 신호이론 (Stereotypes and Inequality: A 'Signaling' Theory of Identity Choice)
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- KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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- 제34권2호
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- pp.1-15
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- 2012
본 논문은 고정관념(stereotypes)과 노동시장 신호(signaling)에 관한 이론적 틀에 기반하여 개인의 정체성(identity) 선택에 관한 이론모형을 제시하고 있다. 사회집단 간의 평판의 차이 및 이로 인한 집단 간 불평등은 사회집단에 대한 시장의 고정관념 및 이에 상응하는 집단 구성원의 인적자본 투자수준에 의해 형성된다(Arrow[1973]; Coate and Loury[1993]). 한편, 이제까지의 학계의 논의는 개인들의 사회집단 선택 및 이에 따른 사회집단 구성의 내생적 변화 가능성을 배제한 채 발전하여 왔다. 사회집단 간 평판의 차이가 존재하고 동시에 개인들의 자발적 집단 선택이 가능한 상황이라면, 평판이 좋은 사회집단은 집단의 구성원들이 보다 적극적으로 인적자본에 투자하는 '투자 확대'의 효과뿐만 아니라, 평판이 상대적으로 떨어지는 사회집단에 비해 보다 우수한 인재들을 집단의 새로운 구성원으로 맞아들이는 '집단 구성'의 효과를 동시에 누리게 된다. 이러한 집단 구성의 내생성은 본질적으로 사회집단 간의 평판의 차이를 보다 확대시키는 결과를 낳게 되며, 이렇게 확대된 평판의 격차가 우수한 인재의 집중을 보다 강화시킴으로써 집단 간 경제적 불평등이 시간이 지남에 따라 악화되는 것이다. 본 논문은 노동시장 신호이론을 활용하여 사회집단 선택의 내생성하에서의 집단 간 불평등의 균형점을 찾고 이들의 안정성에 관해 논하고 있으며, 집단 구성의 내생성이 주어질 경우 그렇지 않은 경우에 비해 사회집단 간의 경제사회적 불평등이 보다 심화될 수 있음을 이론적으로 증명하고 있다.
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.
본 논문에서는 1860년대에서 1930년대까지 비농업직을 중심으로 하여 러시아 극동지역의 한인 이주민의 직업에 관하여 고찰한다. 먼저 이주민의 직업선택과 노동시장에서의 위치에 관한 이론들 즉 문화이론, 분절노동시종이론, 인적자본론 및 인종적 특수시장이론 등을 살펴보고 이들 이론이 러시아 극동지역 이주한인의 직업들 중 농업을 제외한 여러 가지 직종에 어떻게 적용되는지를 검토한다. 이러한 과정을 통해서 기존 이론들에서는 이주민의 직업에 관한 공급적 측면과 수요적 측면을 모두 분리하여 고찰하고 있다는 한계성을 지적한다. 이러한 한계성을 극복하기 위하여 본 논문에서는 러시아 극동지역 한인 이주민의 사례를 들어 이주민의 직업에 관한 두 가지 측면을 모두 통합해야 할 필요성을 설명하고 이를 위해 공급적·수요적 측면을 모두 고려할 수 있는 통합적 모델을 제시한 후 이러한 모델에 따라 러시아 극동지역 한인이주민의 직업에 영향을 키친 요인들을 광업, 어업, 자영업종, 서비스직종, 기타 단순 노무직 등으로 나누어 고찰한다. 마지막으로 이주의 통합적 모형에서 공급적 측면에 포함되는 것으로서는 한인의 농업중심적 성격, 이민직전의 조선에서의 사회경제적 모순 및 한인의 자급자족적 성격 등과 수요적 측면에서는 러시아의 이민정책과 러시아 극동의 다양한 지역적 상황이 고려되어야 함을 지적하였다.
Franchising is one of the fastest growing types of business. It is already popular and well-known in the U.S., and has been growing in many other countries including Korea. Furthermore, many Korean franchising companies have expanded their business overseas actively. According to the data by the Ministry of Industry and Resource, 82 companies out of a sample of 500 franchising companies are already operating in many foreign countries and 48% of them have started their foreign business since 2006. This clearly indicates the fast growing current trend of foreign operation by Korean franchising companies. In spite of the fast growing trend of foreign expansion in the industry, academic research on internationalization of franchising companies is extremely difficult to find. Accordingly, academic research on the issue is necessary and urgent in Korea. Among the various research questions on internationalization of franchising business, this study intends to investigate the difference in organizational factors between the franchising companies doing foreign operation and those doing business only domestically. More specifically, this research has the following purposes. First, considering the lack of theoretical basis of previous studies, resource-based theory and agency theory are employed as the theoretical bases. Second, this study explains the difference in internationalization based on organizational factors such as company size, history and growth rate. Third, the five hypotheses regarding the difference in organizational factors are presented and tested empirically, which is the first attempt in the area of this topic. Finally, the study attempts to clarify the conflicting implications among theories regarding some organizational factos such as growth rate. As the theoretical background, resource-based theory and agency theory are discussed. According to resource-based theory, a firm can grow continuously when it has competence and resource, and also the ability to develop them. The competence and resource can include capital, human resource, management skill, market information, ability to manage risk, etc. Meanwhile, agency theory views the relationship between franchisor and franchisee as an agency relationship. In agency theory, bonding capability and monitoring capability are the two key factors which promote internationalization of franchising companies. Based on the two theories, a conceptual model is designed. The model consists of two groups of variables. One is organizational factors including size, history, growth rate, price bonding and geographic dispersion. The other is whether a franchising company is operating overseas or not. We developed the following five research hypotheses basically describing the relationship between organizational factors and internationalization of franchising companies. H1: The size of franchising companies operating overseas is larger than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H2: The history of franchising companies operating overseas is longer than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H3: The growth rate of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H4: The price bonding of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H5: The geographic dispersion of franchising companies operating overseas is wider than that of franchising companies operating domestically. Data for the analyses are obtained from 2005 Korea Franchise Survey data co-generated by Ministry of Industry and Resource, GS1 Korea, and Korea Franchise Association. Out of 2,804 population companies, 2,489 companies are excluded for various reasons and 315 companies are selected as the final sample. Prior to hypotheses tests, validity and reliability of the measures of size, history, growth rate and price bonding are examined for further analyses. Geographic dispersion is not validated since it is measured using nominal data. A series of independent sample T-tests is used to find out whether there exists any significant difference between the companies internationalized and those operating only domestically for each organizational factor. Among the five factors, size and geographic dispersion show significant difference, growth rate and price bonding do not reveal any difference and, finally, history factor shows conflicting results in the difference depending on how to measure it.