• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.153-182
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• 2009

This paper intends to increase the performance of export support programs for small-to-medium sized firms promoted by Korea government. A research construct is suggested for effective government support program targeted on the global marketing capability. The data is collected from the firms received the support more than once by Korean governments. The results are shown as follows. First, it is found that those firms who have high propensity to be involved in export business have shown high performance. Second, the firms with high global marketing capability have shown good performance. To be more specific, organizational commitment, strategic initiative, business differentiation, and market knowledge for target markets are found to be critical factors in successful export support program. The business differentiation strategy in target market is very critical. Finally, the degree of program management effectiveness is found to be important in high performance firms. It means that for those firms, much more advanced programs need to be developed. The government should develop diversified programs by considering the degree of global marketing capability.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.35-49
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• 2017

The main objective of this paper is to empirically analyze the efficiency effects of mergers on Korean pharmaceutical firms and suggests managerial or policy implications for managers or policy makers. This study selects non-merging control firms close to the size of merging firms, as well as a set of merging firms, and measures the effects of mergers on efficiency three years before and after the merger using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. To compare the differences of efficiency means among several groups, Wilcoxon rank sum test or Wilcoxon signed rank test is used. It showed that the long-term effects after the merger appeared partially. Furthermore, it was observed that there was no difference statistically in the efficiency between merging and non-merging firms. Also, there was no difference statistically in the efficiency between the pre- and post-merger periods. In conclusion, there was not any observed synergy effect through group (or affiliated) mergers between affiliates or related mergers for Korean pharmaceutical firms.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.256-276
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• 1994

This paper aims at identifying the desirable R'||'&'||'D life cycle related to government-industry cooperative R'||'&'||'D. It is based on a case study associated with the relationship between cooperation and cooperation in information in information communications sector. It presents three types of R'||'&'||'D life cycle to achieve a technological enhancement as high as possible with limited resources. The first case of R'||'&'||'D project is of "advanced type". In the generic technology phase, government takes a leading role jointly in R'||'&'||'D activities, but, in after the applied research phase, the domestic firms take the lead. This kind of cooperation can be made when competition between domestic firms is highly intense, and the technological knowledges of participating firms are at internationally competitive levels. The second type of "less-advanced type"; the firms of a country(more often a small country) lag behind in technology level, and the penetration of foreign firms in the market is limited. In this case, government takes full charge of R'||'&'||'D activities up to the applied research phase, due to the low technology level and insufficient financial resources of private firms. Lastly, this paper presents and R'||'&'||'D life cycle of "strategic" type. This applies to the case in which domestic firm with less financial resources make an attempt to increase their technological knowledges while the government, in turn, contributes to strengthen the international competitiveness of domestic industry.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.83-100
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• 2015

We analyze a duopoly competition when two firms face input cost increases. The objective of this study is to determine the firms' optimal strategy between a price increase and downsizing under conditions of a spatially differentiated market and consumers' diminishing utility on the product size. We develop a theoretical model of two competing firms offering homogenous products using the standard Hotelling model to determine how firms' optimal strategies change when facing input cost increases. In this paper, there are two types of duopoly competitions: symmetric and asymmetric. In the symmetric case, the two firms have the same marginal cost and are producing and selling identical products. In the asymmetric case, the two firms have different marginal costs. The results show that the optimal strategy decision depends on the size of the input cost increase and the cost differences between the two firms. We find that when two firms are asymmetric (i.e., they have different marginal costs), the two firms might choose asymmetric pairs of strategies in equilibrium under certain conditions. When the cost differences between the two firms are sufficiently large and the cost increase is sufficiently small, the cost leader chooses price increase, and the cost-disadvantaged firm chooses downsizing in equilibrium. This asymmetric strategy reduces price competition between two firms, and consumers are better off. When the cost differences between the two firms are sufficiently large, downsizing is the dominant strategy for the cost-disadvantaged firm. The cost-disadvantaged firm finds it more profitable to reduce the product size than to increase its price to reduce price competition, because consumers prefer downsizing to price increases. This paper might be a good starting point for further analytical research in this area.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.51-69
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• 2020

Now, it is a stylized fact that a small number of technology firms such as Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and a few others have become larger and dominant players in an industry. Coupled with the rise of these leading firms, we have also observed that a large number of young firms have become an acquisition target in their early IPO stages. This indeed results in a sharp decline in the number of new entries in public exchanges although a series of policy reforms have been promulgated to foster competition through an increase in new entries. Given the observed industry trend in recent decades, a number of studies have reported increased concentration in most developed countries. However, it is less understood as to what caused an increase in industry concentration. In this paper, we uncover the mechanisms by which industries have become concentrated over the last decades by tracing the changes in industry concentration associated with a firm's status change in its early IPO stages. To this end, we put emphasis on the case in which firms are acquired shortly after they went public. Especially, with the transition to digital-based economies, it is imperative for incumbent firms to adapt and keep pace with new ICT and related intelligent systems. For instance, after the acquisition of a young firm equipped with AI-based solutions, an incumbent firm may better respond to a change in customer taste and preference by integrating acquired AI solutions and analytics skills into multiple business processes. Accordingly, it is not unusual for young ICT firms become an attractive acquisition target. To examine the role of M&As involved with young firms in reshaping the level of industry concentration, we identify a firm's status in early post-IPO stages over the sample periods spanning from 1990 to 2016 as follows: i) being delisted, ii) being standalone firms and iii) being acquired. According to our analysis, firms that have conducted IPO since 2000s have been acquired by incumbent firms at a relatively quicker time than those that did IPO in previous generations. We also show a greater acquisition rate for IPO firms in the ICT sector compared with their counterparts in other sectors. Our results based on multinomial logit models suggest that a large number of IPO firms have been acquired in their early post-IPO lives despite their financial soundness. Specifically, we show that IPO firms are likely to be acquired rather than be delisted due to financial distress in early IPO stages when they are more profitable, more mature or less leveraged. For those IPO firms with venture capital backup have also become an acquisition target more frequently. As a larger number of firms are acquired shortly after their IPO, our results show increased concentration. While providing limited evidence on the impact of large incumbent firms in explaining the change in industry concentration, our results show that the large firms' effect on industry concentration are pronounced in the ICT sector. This result possibly captures the current trend that a few tech giants such as Alphabet, Apple and Facebook continue to increase their market share. In addition, compared with the acquisitions of non-ICT firms, the concentration impact of IPO firms in early stages becomes larger when ICT firms are acquired as a target. Our study makes new contributions. To our best knowledge, this is one of a few studies that link a firm's post-IPO status to associated changes in industry concentration. Although some studies have addressed concentration issues, their primary focus was on market power or proprietary software. Contrast to earlier studies, we are able to uncover the mechanism by which industries have become concentrated by placing emphasis on M&As involving young IPO firms. Interestingly, the concentration impact of IPO firm acquisitions are magnified when a large incumbent firms are involved as an acquirer. This leads us to infer the underlying reasons as to why industries have become more concentrated with a favor of large firms in recent decades. Overall, our study sheds new light on the literature by providing a plausible explanation as to why industries have become concentrated.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.81-89
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• 2016

Purpose - Prior researches have empirically focused on the effect of management consulting quality and consultant capability on entrepreneurial firms' performance. This study, however, focused on investigating the moderating role of absorptive capacity and resource capability between management consulting and entrepreneurial firms' performance. So, this study investigated the relationship among consulting quality, consultant capability, absorptive capacity, resource capability, and entrepreneurial firms' performance from the resource based view (RBV). Especially, this study focused on the mediating role of absorptive and resource capability in relational structure of entrepreneurial firms' dimensions. Research design, data, and methodology - In this study, research hypotheses and model are established by the prior researches from the fields of strategic management and entrepreneurial behavior. Concretely, H1~H4 are the relationship between consulting (consulting quality, consultant capability) and innovation (absorptive capacity, resource capability); H5 is the relationship between absorptive capacity and resource capability; and H6~H7 are the relationship between innovation (absorptive capacity, resource capability) and management performance. The data was collected 207 copies from entrepreneurial firms in South Korea. These firms were established in January 2014 and maintained by November 2015 in high-tech industry. The questionnaire was consisted of five dimensions; consulting quality, consultant capability, absorptive capacity, resource capability, and management performance. Each dimension measured multi items on a 5-point Likert scale. The hypotheses and research model are analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS 22. Results - The results of this study are as follows. 1) Consulting quality significantly influenced on the absorptive capacity of entrepreneurial firms. 2) But, consultant capability did not influence on the absorptive capacity of entrepreneurial firms. 3) Consulting quality and consultant capability significantly influenced on the resource capability of entrepreneurial firms. 4) Absorptive capacity significantly influenced on the resource capability of entrepreneurial firms; 5) Absorptive capacity did not significantly influence on the management performance of entrepreneurial firms. 6) Resource capability, however, significantly influenced on the management performance of entrepreneurial firms. By these results, absorptive capacity of entrepreneurial firms had a mediating role partly among consulting quality, consultant capability, and management capability. The resource capability of entrepreneurial firms had a mediating role among consulting quality, consultant capability, and management capability, perfectly. Conclusions - According to this study, the high level of consulting quality and consultant capability may enforce the resource capability of entrepreneurial firms. It means, practically, that external knowledge is a driver for innovation, and then the innovation effects on the management performance of entrepreneurial firms. So, at the initial stage, the management consulting programs are very important to entrepreneurial firms and should be conceived as an essential element. This study may contribute to the advancement of academic in field of new start business, small business, or venture business based on resources, especially the role of absorptive capacity and resource capability between consulting programs and management performance. However, this study has some limitations. They are the measurement of consulting quality's items, cross-sectional research, and the limitation of concept and industry.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.9
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• pp.99-121
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• 1996

On the job training is useful : a part of on the job training has increased the marginal productivity of future and rate of wage. Investment in a human capital depends on character of investment and market conditions. The innovation role of small and medium firms has recently received increasing attention in newly industrializing countries as they attempt to transform their industries from labor intensive to technology intensive. It also suggests some implications to the small and medium firms' strategies and public policies accelerating research and development. Lack of qualified scientists and engineers often inhibits the small and medium firms' ability to access and assimilate external technical information. Such technical personnel are particularly scarce in NICs. Therefore, how to employ these technical staff should be an important issue for small and medium firms seeking to acquire distinctive competences. Small and medium firms must invest further education and training to its labor.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.192-207
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• 1998

This paper focuses on the relationship between innovation and export performance of technology-based firms in Korea. This study analyses the relationship between innovative activity and firm's performances using a sample of 760 technology-based firms in Korea. As for the firm's performance indicators, export is employed. The empirical results support that innovation has a positive effect on firm's export performance. However, for small and medium firms, the relationship between innovative activity and export performance is an U-shape quadratic form, which shows that small firms takes a minimum innovative expenditure in order to access the abroad market. Also, with product differentiation, innovative firms tends to devot more to domestic market than to abroad market. Therefore, it can be concluded that innovative activity builds market power and accelerates export performance. And product differentiation through advertising expenditure make innovative firms less exporting.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.40-50
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• 1999

This paper empirically investigates the impact of winning a quality award by investigating the rate of return of a firm's stock in the stock market, and by analyzing the contribution and effectiveness to a firm's competitiveness. It also compares the effect of firms winning MB(Malcolm Baldrige) award with that of firms winning Korean quality awards on the stock market. A comparative method is used to analyze the change of award-winning firms'rate of return and then they are classified by time-series, cross-sectional, firm's size, award agency, and the year of receiving the award. The number of firms employed in this study is 74, however, multiple award-winning firms are included in the analysis, which increased the sample size to 118. Results indicate that Korean quality awards improve an award-winning firms'market value but not as much as the MB award did.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of elements related to the competitive intelligence(CI) process, methods, and infrastructure in accordance with the degree of CI effectiveness of domestic firms and to propose a guideline for designing and operating an effective CI program in Korean films. The results of this study reveal that, for the elevation of CI effectiveness of Korean firms, it is important to actively utilize the overall CI process, including undisclosed information through human networks, public information through various media, and quantitative and qualitative analyses, an independent CI unit, various CI support systems, such as information and reward systems, and organizational culture of CI openness within an organization. However, CI outsourcing, CI primary objectives, and CI scale do not seem to have a significant influence on CI effectiveness of Korean firms. Based on these results, this research presents some important implications for effective competitive intelligence for Korean firms.