• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.345-352
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• 2021

Guided by a resource-based theory, this study is the first one that takes a quantitative approach to identify determinants of competitiveness of women-owned small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. The study employs time series data of Vietnamese SMEs extracted from the Vietnam Small and Medium Enterprises Survey conducted biennially from 2005 to 2015 in ten Vietnamese provinces. Firm competitiveness hereby is indicated by revenue, market share, profitability, and export volume. The research reveals a number of determining factors, of all, research and development, labor skills, business environment, technology investment are the most important factors, followed by capital and headcount. It is indicated that the determining factors have different influences on competitiveness obtained by different measurements. Therefore, it is based on specific targets and situations to make wise business decisions. The authors also make comparisons among groups of women-owned enterprises divided by their firm age, location, ownership, export, age, and educational background of business owners. The findings serve as critical empirical evidence and provide policy recommendations for improving the competitiveness of women-owned SMEs in Vietnam. The recommendations range from technology support, education and professional support for female entrepreneurs, access to capital and human resources to business environment improvement.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.45-73
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• 2012

In this paper, we analyse empirically the effects of financial characteristics on the relationship between R&D investment and market value of firms listed on Korea Exchange. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. Firm size increase the market valuation of R&D investment because it provides economies of scale, easier access to capital market, and R&D cost spreading. Market share also positively effects the relationship between R&D investment and firm value. Alternatively, free cash flow has a negative effect on the relationship between R&D investment and firm value because firms with high free cash flow could be tempted to use the free cash flow to undertake negative NPV projects. The dependence on external finance is a handicap negatively assessed by the market when firms undertake R&D projects due to the higher information asymmetry associated with this kind of project. Labor intensity has a negative effect on the relationship between R&D investment and firm value because the abnormal profits arising from R&D investment are diluted among employees. Capital intensity also has a negative effect on the relationship between R&D investment and firm value due to the greater financial constraints faced by capital intensive firms. In conclusion, several financial characteristics(firm size and market share) positively effect the relationship between R&D investment and firm value, while others(free cash flow, dependence on external finance, labor intensity, and capital intensity) exert a negative effect. Therefore, we conclude that the effectiveness of R&D investment depends on these financial characteristics.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.893-921
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• 2005

In this study, we try to find out the effect of private companies' environmental protection activities on the labor demand of companies in Korea manufacturing industries with empirical practice from 1992 to 2002. One of the main difficulties in this empirical work is to identify the effect of environmental protection activities on the labor demand, because the effect can be mixed with the effect of traditional production technologies on the labor demand. We follow the suggestion of Morgenstern et al. (2002) to identify the effect but which is not enough because of endogeneity between the production technology improvement and pollution reduction. So we propose a Fixed-effect Instrumental Variable estimation method as an estimation strategy. The estimation results support the positive relationship between the labor demand increase and the increase in pollution abatement costs. Therefore, we can conclude that the environmental protection activites of Korea manufacturing industries from 1992 to 2002 can help job creation without making a big burden for business activities when we consider the share of pollution abatement costs among total production costs is around 1% during that time.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.143-157
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it shows how to calculate the size of nonregular workers in Korea using the supplemental surveys to the Economically Active Population Surveys. Second, it decomposes the difference in the share of nonregular workers between 2005 and 2013 by a Oaxaca-type method.. The obtained results indicate that the differences in coefficients rather than the differences in characteristics are mainly responsible for the decline in the share of nonregular workers. This implies that a worker with the same characteristics is more likely to be a regular worker in 2013 than in 2005. This tendency may come from the changes in workers's as well as firms' employment practices. Also, it is suspected that the Nonregular Worker Act enacted in 2007 may have contributed to the decrease in the share of nonregular workers.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.65 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to dimensionally examine the factors of policy changes by applying the ACMS model to KEPCO's structural reorganization privatization policies and study its implications. As a result of the analysis, among the external variables that affect as a financial source or restriction to advocates, all areas except for the difference in opinion of the people as well as policy decision and effects of other subordinate systems were shown to be in an advantageous condition acting as a financial source to advocates of structural reorganization privatization. On the other hand, advocates affected by the external variables share a certain belief system in which the advocates of privatization share the justification of profitability while the advocates of collectivization share the justification of publicness. In these flows, the announcement of the privatization plan of public enterprises of the committee of planning and budgeting acts as a matter of contact which opens the windows for policy changes, and this window goes through ignition, explosion, and fixation which causes fierce interactions among advocates of both sides. Eventually, in accordance with the contents of excluding electricity(KEPCO) from the list for privatization the window for policy changes has closed and things have changed to a transitional KEPCO privatization policy. Based on this, the first implication is that non-official participants such as the people, social organizations, labor unions, etc. influence policy changes more than they did before. Secondly, in the process of policy changes, there is an order of boundary even in the fierce interactions between each advocate. Thirdly, specific variables can play various roles in complex policy phenomenon. Fourthly, a logical analysis using the ACMS model is possible in Korea as well. Fifthly, as a result of analyzing the change process of the KEPCO structural reorganization privatization policy through the ACMS model, not all matched with the main research results implied by the ACMS model.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.51-64
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• 2014

Strategic bundling of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices among themselves works together as an entire HRM system rather than individual HRM practices to achieve organizational objectives. The bundles of HR practices support the effectiveness of one another assuming the effectiveness of any practice depends on other practices in place. It is said that the greater the total degree of bundling among the various components of HRM policies and practices, the more will be the organizational outcomes. Realizing these facts, this study aimed to explore the level of strategic bundling and examined the impact of such bundling on organizational performance to the publicly listed companies of Nepal. This empirical study is based on description and exploratory design for which data collected through the questionnaire based on 5-point liker scale. Total population of the study at the time of data collection are 234 organizations publicly listed in Stock Exchange of Nepal. Questionnaire is distributed to all organizations listed, response received from 105 organizations, as a unit of analysis, which is fairly good response. The study of strategic bundling of HRM practices perhaps the first study in Nepal, found that only 32 percent organizations have followed high bundling HR practices and these high bundling organizations are significantly different with low bundling organizations. Business organizations are trying to practice being close association of HRM policies and practices within them except labor relation with employee participation and business strategies. Supporting to the international literature, strategic bundling of HRM practices among themselves shows statistically significant effects on quality of product or services, labor productivity, financial performance, employee satisfaction, rate of innovation, employee commitment and market share.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.119-134
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• 2012

This paper examines the shift to service economy in the developed countries including Korea and analyzes whether Baumol's cost disease hypothesis could explain the labor productivity growth in the developed countries even though the share of service industry is rising rapidly. We have found the following results: First, the shift to service economy is widely observed in the developed countries. Second, the productivity gap between manufacturing and service industry is widening as a result of stagnant productivity growth in service industry. Third, however, the productivity in the whole economy is still growing because of the large productivity differences among the sub-industries in service industry. Fourth, we have found that the productivities of some service industries, such as finance, communication, business service, etc., are almost same or larger than the productivity of manufacturing industry. From this fact it is likely that the productivity of the whole economy could grow in spite of the stagnant productivity growth in service industry.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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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.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.49-55
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• 2023

In this study, it was analyzed that it is necessary to clarify the quality certification parts system, to make certification codes mandatory for self-certification products that are normally distributed, and to conduct follow-up management so that prompt action and thorough management of test reports are necessary in case of defects. Big data-based data, the detailed number of parts replacement cases, parts cost by part group, share, average labor cost, calculated to analyze the detailed automobile parts industry, and automobile parts certification system and automobile parts market in major countries including Korea and Through the distribution structure analysis, improvement plans for the automobile quality certification parts system were derived.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.234-242
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• 2013

In 2007, Long-Term Care Insurance Law was enacted to share the family burden of caring for the elderly who are unable to perform every day living activities due to their old age and chronic diseases such as senile dementia, diabetes mellitus, stroke and more. Backed by this law, since 2008, care workers have been sent to the elderly care centers or each elder's home to help them not only with their recovery from illnesses, but also with general activities from dressing, eating, bathing, walking even to toileting. However, according to the recently released survey by National Human Rights Commission, it has been found that the caring workers are in a very poor working condition including low income, abused blanket wage system, shortage of welfare services, extra works and even sexual harrassment. It is becoming an important issue due to fast-ageing population, the fact that the care workers have had experiences of violation in their right of labor while they are at work needs to be carefully treated. In that sense, this article presents some difficulties the caring workers face and proposes effective ways to solve these problems through the perspective of human rights and human labor rights based on the report written by National Human Rights Commission. In short, for this law to function properly and to boost the worker's capability of providing better services to beneficiaries, followings can be good answers - enhanced management and supervision on caring plans and care centers, providing immediate counselling and protection for victimized care givers, training courses offered to promote service receiver's sincere respect and strengthened awareness upon care givers.