• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.65-89
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• 2012

Recognizing the significance of inter-firm cooperation for firm's sustainable competitive advantage in today's business environment, this study investigates the effects of inter-firm cooperation and knowledge sharing on firm competitiveness based on 327 Korean small and medium sized enterprises. We also examines a mediating effects of knowledge sharing on the relationship between inter-firm cooperation and firm competitiveness and moderating effects of environmental factors on this relationship. The environmental factors are conceptualized by intensity of market competition and technological change. The main findings of the study are as follows: First, the paper found that inter-firm cooperation was positively associated with firm competitiveness while there was also a positive relationship between knowledge sharing and firm competitiveness. Second, it also shows that knowledge sharing partially mediated the relationship of inter-firm cooperation and firm competitiveness. Third, we also found that technological change had negative moderating effects on the relationship between inter-firm cooperation and firm competitiveness. This study suggests that understanding of inter-firm cooperation with consideration of environmental characteristics are required for better firm competitiveness.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.19-40
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper's purpose is to investigate how foreign ownership and innovation affect firm value. Design/methodology - Firm innovation is defined as operational efficiency, which is calculated by adopting data envelopment analysis (DEA). Additionally, R&D intensity is included as a measure of innovation in the analysis. We used firm-level data from manufacturing companies in Korea. The sample comprised 3,753 firm-year observations for every year in the period 2003-2017. Findings - We found that foreign ownership and innovation are positively related to firm value (Tobin's Q). Foreign ownership moderates innovation's contribution to firm value, implying that foreign ownership may enhance the value relevance of firm innovation. In addition, we found that firm innovation partially mediates the relationship between foreign ownership and firm value. Originality/value - This highlights the important role of foreign investors' monitoring; wherein foreign investors enhance firm value by facilitating firm innovation. Our results suggest that foreign ownership can be crucial for innovation and may serve to address weak ownership structures.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.22
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• pp.1-23
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• 2007

This paper investigates the relationships between exports, firm size, and firm dynamics. It is based on a longitudinal data covering listed firms in the Korean manufacturing industry. We found the stylized fact that the probability that a firm is exporter increases with firm size. A regression model for the determinant of export/sales ratio including dynamic adjustment process is tested on a cross-section sample for the year 2001. Empirical findings suggest that there is a positive and inversely U-shaped relationship between firm size and export/sales ratio, just for basic material and capital good industry. Except for firm size, the hypotheses concerning human capital intensity, physical capital intensity, R&D intensity, and patent are rejected. Using Granger causality test, we found that the rate of growth of total sales influences the change of the export/sales ratio with time lag for medium-sized firms. Finally, some policy implications are presented.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.57-72
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• 2013

This paper examines the relationships between the Korean government-owned banks and the firm performance. We investigates this empirical analysis using a data set containing virtually all Korean publicly listed firms for the period of 2004-2006. We find the negative relationships between government-owned banks and firm performance. The strong relationships between the Korean government-owned banks and the Korean listed firms may lower firm performance. The Hold up costs may be present in the government-owned bank relationships. The government-owned bank relationships in the Korean listed firms may could shape the negative management decisions and firm performance. On the lines of concerns on the impact of government banks, this paper will provide new evidences on the impact of government-ownership of banks on the Korean Economy. Particularly, empirical analyses in this paper revealed new evidences on the recent firm-bank relationship or government banks researches.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.67-80
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• 2012

This study analyzes the relationship among environment uncertainty, local infrastructure, flexible-open firm culture, operations performance and marketing performance focus on SMEs. This research has revealed that the relation among firm size, firm type, firm culture, operations performance and marketing performance as well. The findings show that firm has its culture which is preparing environment uncertainty and local infrastructure influence on forming firm culture. Change-oriented and leaning-oriented firm cultures affect operations performance and marketing performance. In conclusion, this study suggests implication and limitations for further research.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.33-52
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• 2020

Patents are widely used in the literature as a measure of firm-level innovation. It is regarded that patents improve a firm's operational environment and ultimately increase the value of the firm. However, the relationship between patents and firm value in Korea is under-explored in the literature due to the difficulty of constructing datasets. This paper examines whether patents in Korea increase the market value of a firm. To do this, I exploit novel data on firm-level patents and financial information of all listed Korean companies during the period of 1993-2015 and estimate the non-linear production-function type of Tobin's q equations on R&D, patents, and citations. Surprisingly, I find that patents and citations are weakly associated with firm value, while R&D is strongly associated with an increase in firm value. These results direct imply that policymakers in Korea should enhance patenting incentives to encourage firms to innovate.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.97-117
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• 2015

There has been a lack of research that has addressed firm performance associated with the mechanism among dependence, conflict and cooperation in the context of B2B relationships. Building on current knowledge regarding key constructs of dependence, conflict, and cooperation, the authors examine the primary assumption underlying firm performance and presents a process model of key constructs on firm performance using two moderators (relationship length and firm type). In so doing, a professional online research firm conducts panel survey and a total of 200 responses are used to test our proposed model. The results show that both conflict-cooperation and cooperation-firm performance linkages are significant, but other proposed links are insignificant. While the moderating effect of firm type is not significant, the dependence-performance link is moderated by relationship length, particularly in the stage of the initial relationships. These results has implications for a better understanding of B2B relationships from the initial stage to the sustainable stage.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.55-79
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• 2011

This study attempts to examine the factors affecting the introduction of e-Business systems and also, to assess the effects of various e-Business systems on firm performance. Empirical analysis is carried out with firm data of 2009, which is collected from Firm Activity Survey of Statistics Korea. Firm performance is measured by four indexes; operating income per employee, value added per employee, return on assets, and return on sales. Empirical results indicate that a firm is more likely to introduce any e-Business system as its size and its assets per employee are larger and as its ratio of labor compensations to operating costs is lower. Additionally, a firm with higher skill levels and more fruitful management experiences is more likely to have any e-Business system. In general, it appears that the presence of e-Business, especially enterprise resources planning, has positive effects on the firm performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.27-38
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• 2015

Recently, Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) is essential firm activity to establish favorable firm true and sustainability management. However, there has been a controversy over the relationship between CSR and financial performance, also, it has been a little research that investigate relationship between CSR, firm reputation in firm level and firm true, firm loyalty in financial institution. This paper investigate empirically relationship between CSR activities, firm reputation and firm loyalty, moderating effect of firm true on the relationship between CSR activities, firm reputation and firm loyalty. Results were computed using SPSS 20.0 statistical analysis programs. The results are summarized as follows. First, The elements of CSR activities are divided into four factor, such as economic, ethical, consumer protection and environmental responsibilities. In the results of the analyses, consumer protection responsibility, economic reliability and business management skill positive affects the reliability of firm. Second, testing its mediating role, I use the three regression equation models by Baron and Kenny. When the mediator effect of firm true on firm loyalty was represented, the effect of CSR and firm reputation was statistically significant or diminished. Thus, the mediating role of firm true was supported. It means the higher the CSR and corporation reputation activities are, the higher the firm true is, further the higher level of firm true can enhance firm loyalty.

• 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.