• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.545-552
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• 2015

This study One of the key elements of corporate competitiveness in the modern world of unlimited competition is human resource management. The reason that the world's leading companies are devoting a lot of investment and effort for good human resource development and management is that human resource can impact firm survival. In particular, there is little research on the internal and external environmental stimuli and job stress in the employee of small business which are often led to turnover, while they have suffered from chronic shortage of manpower. The purpose of this study is to determine the turnover factors in the small logistics companies and contribute to stable maintenance of workforce, facilitating human resource management and minimizing turnover. This study empirically analyzed the factors of the turnover in the organization of logistics companies from Busan Port, South Korea, which became one of the national infrastructure and the fifth world largest harbor. The conclusion proposed the development and direction of the human resource management which could promote the job environment improving the turnover factors and creating sustainable work condition through conducting preventive measures. The results indicated that the highest turnover rates was found in the category of field work, and the highest turnover group was from the 'less than one year', which implies that high turnover rates after and during job training might be greater cost to the companies than early turnover. The most common reasons for the high employee turnover were 'excessive workload' and 'dissatisfaction with wages'. Followed reasons including 'troubles with managers' and 'failure in organizational adaptation' can be understood in line with worse working conditions of the small logistic companies. It turned out that the preventive programs of the logistic enterprises had little effect through 'incentives system' and 'improving wage system' which are mainly conducted. The human resource managers appreciated the importance of 'wage raise' and 'benefits improvement'. This study is aimed at contributing to efficient human resource management through understanding of the turnover causes and human resource managers applying preventive measures. In particular, this can benefit small port logistics companies securing competitiveness and promoting persistent growth and development.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.109-124
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• 2021

This study tried to verify the causal relationship that SMEs' organizational culture and self-efficacy would affect job crafting and job satisfaction. Unlike previous domestic studies that have been studied for organizational culture at the organizational level and self-efficacy at the individual level, this study tried to verify the interaction between job crafting and job satisfaction using different mechanisms as antecedent factors. In order to verify the research model of this study, questionnaires of 144 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) workers located in Seoul and metropolitan areas were analyzed. Factor analysis and correlation analysis were performed to verify the reliability and validity of the research model on the relationship between variables, and empirical analysis was performed using regression analysis and mediation effect analysis to verify the hypothesis. The results of the study were first, that organizational culture and self-efficacy had a positive (+) effect on job crafting. On the other hand, relationship-oriented culture and hierarchical-oriented culture, which are sub-factors of organizational culture, were found to be insignificant. Second, organizational culture and self-efficacy were found to have a positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. On the other hand, it was found that market-oriented culture and hierarchical-oriented culture, which are sub-factors of organizational culture, were not significant. Third, job crafting was found to have a positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. On the other hand, it was found that the sub-factors of job crafting, disruptive job demands and social job resources, were not significant. This means that organizational culture partially affects job crafting and job satisfaction of SMEs, and job crafting also partially affects job satisfaction. The implications of this study are first, suggesting the meaning of SME organizational culture for stable and efficient human resource management for SMEs suffering from low productivity and high turnover rate. Second, it was meaningful to understand the possibility of introducing job crafting as an effective job management plan for SMEs. Third, in the current situation where there are few cases of practical introduction of job crafting, research on understanding job crafting for SMEs and improving job satisfaction is thought to be helpful in improving the productivity of SMEs.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.1-20
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• 2018

This study aimed to examine earnings quality of firms selected as Global Champs project which has been promoted by the government since 2013 to support small and medium sized enterprises, for the screening year(t-1) and selected year(t). Earing quality is measured as the value of discretionary accruals estimated by Dechow et al.(1995) adjusted Jones model and Kothari et al.(2005) model, respectively. I analyze the differences of earning quality between the Global Champ firms and the paired firms selected through criteria of the similar total assets and the same industry in the screening year and the selected year. This study is motivated by the needs of measurement of the performance of the Project from the accounting transparent point of view. As the results of this study, major findings are summarized as follows. Firstly the earnings quality of the selected firms was lower than that of the paired firms. This can be explained as a result of motivation of earnings management by companies eager to meet the requirements to be selected for the Project. Secondly, in the selected year, the earnings quality was proved to improve, comparing to the screening year. This can be explained by the efforts of companies to reinforce management innovation and transparent management, which in turn led to positive effects on the earnings quality. These findings were found to be consistent in the additional analyses, where the earning quality of the reconstructed sample with only selected companies was compared for the screening year and the selected year, based on the year before the screening year(t-2).

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.23-48
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• 2021

The Korean economy has achieved continuous economic growth for the past several decades thanks to the government's export strategy policy. This increase in exports is playing a leading role in driving Korea's economic growth by improving economic efficiency, creating jobs, and promoting technology development. Traditionally, the main factors affecting Korea's exports can be found from two perspectives: economic factors and industrial structural factors. First, economic factors are related to exchange rates and global economic fluctuations. The impact of the exchange rate on Korea's exports depends on the exchange rate level and exchange rate volatility. Global economic fluctuations affect global import demand, which is an absolute factor influencing Korea's exports. Second, industrial structural factors are unique characteristics that occur depending on industries or products, such as slow international division of labor, increased domestic substitution of certain imported goods by China, and changes in overseas production patterns of major export industries. Looking at the most recent studies related to global exchanges, several literatures show the importance of cultural aspects as well as economic and industrial structural factors. Therefore, this study attempted to develop a forecasting model by considering cultural factors along with economic and industrial structural factors in calculating the import volume of each country from Korea. In particular, this study approaches the influence of cultural factors on imports of Korean products from the perspective of PUSH-PULL framework. The PUSH dimension is a perspective that Korea develops and actively promotes its own brand and can be defined as the degree of interest in each country for Korean brands represented by K-POP, K-FOOD, and K-CULTURE. In addition, the PULL dimension is a perspective centered on the cultural and psychological characteristics of the people of each country. This can be defined as how much they are inclined to accept Korean Flow as each country's cultural code represented by the country's governance system, masculinity, risk avoidance, and short-term/long-term orientation. The unique feature of this study is that the proposed final prediction model can be selected based on Design Principles. The design principles we presented are as follows. 1) A model was developed to reflect interest in Korea and cultural characteristics through newly added data sources. 2) It was designed in a practical and convenient way so that the forecast value can be immediately recalled by inputting changes in economic factors, item code and country code. 3) In order to derive theoretically meaningful results, an algorithm was selected that can interpret the relationship between the input and the target variable. This study can suggest meaningful implications from the technical, economic and policy aspects, and is expected to make a meaningful contribution to the export support strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises by using the import forecasting model.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2022

One of the characteristics of South Korea's economic structure is that it is highly dependent on exports. Thus, many businesses are closely related to the global economy and diplomatic situation. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) specialized in exporting are struggling due to the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a model to forecast exports for next year to support SMEs' export strategy and decision making. Also, this study proposed a strategy to recommend promising export countries of each item based on the forecasting model. We analyzed important variables used in previous studies such as country-specific, item-specific, and macro-economic variables and collected those variables to train our prediction model. Next, through the exploratory data analysis(EDA) it was found that exports, which is a target variable, have a highly skewed distribution. To deal with this issue and improve predictive performance, we suggest a separated learning method. In a separated learning method, the whole dataset is divided into homogeneous subgroups and a prediction algorithm is applied to each group. Thus, characteristics of each group can be more precisely trained using different input variables and algorithms. In this study, we divided the dataset into five subgroups based on the exports to decrease skewness of the target variable. After the separation, we found that each group has different characteristics in countries and goods. For example, In Group 1, most of the exporting countries are developing countries and the majority of exporting goods are low value products such as glass and prints. On the other hand, major exporting countries of South Korea such as China, USA, and Vietnam are included in Group 4 and Group 5 and most exporting goods in these groups are high value products. Then we used LightGBM(LGBM) and Exponential Moving Average(EMA) for prediction. Considering the characteristics of each group, models were built using LGBM for Group 1 to 4 and EMA for Group 5. To evaluate the performance of the model, we compare different model structures and algorithms. As a result, it was found that the separated learning model had best performance compared to other models. After the model was built, we also provided variable importance of each group using SHAP-value to add explainability of our model. Based on the prediction model, we proposed a second-stage recommendation strategy for potential export countries. In the first phase, BCG matrix was used to find Star and Question Mark markets that are expected to grow rapidly. In the second phase, we calculated scores for each country and recommendations were made according to ranking. Using this recommendation framework, potential export countries were selected and information about those countries for each item was presented. There are several implications of this study. First of all, most of the preceding studies have conducted research on the specific situation or country. However, this study use various variables and develops a machine learning model for a wide range of countries and items. Second, as to our knowledge, it is the first attempt to adopt a separated learning method for exports prediction. By separating the dataset into 5 homogeneous subgroups, we could enhance the predictive performance of the model. Also, more detailed explanation of models by group is provided using SHAP values. Lastly, this study has several practical implications. There are some platforms which serve trade information including KOTRA, but most of them are based on past data. Therefore, it is not easy for companies to predict future trends. By utilizing the model and recommendation strategy in this research, trade related services in each platform can be improved so that companies including SMEs can fully utilize the service when making strategies and decisions for exports.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.73-88
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• 2009

This study examines the characteristics of 24 Korean hidden champions such as key success factors, core competences, strategic problems, and desirable future directions. The study categorized them into 8 types with Danny Miller's four trajectories and top manager's decision making style(rationality and passion). Danny Miller argued in his book, Icarus paradox, that outstanding firms will extend their orientations until they reach dangerous extremes and their momentum will result in common trajectories of decline. He suggested four very common success types: Craftsmen, Builders, Pioneers, Salesmen. He also suggested common trajectories of decline:Focusing(from Craftsmen to Tinkers), Venturing(from Builders to Imperialists), Inventing(from Pioneers to Escapists), Decoupling(from Salesmen to Drifts). In Korea, successful startups appear to possess three kinds of drive: Technology-drive, Vision-drive, Market-drive. Successful technology-driven firms tend to grow as craftsmen or pioneers. Successful vision-driven and market-driven ones tend to grow as builders and salesmen respectively. Korean top managers or founders seem to have two kinds of decision making style: Passion-based and Rationality-bases. Passion-based(passionate) entrepreneurs are biased towards action or proactiveness in competing and getting things done. Rationality- based ones tend to emphasis the effort devoted to scanning and analysing information to better understand a company's threats, opportunities and options. Consequently this study suggested 4*2 types of Korean hidden champions: (1) passionate craftsmen, (2) rational craftsmen, (3) passionate builders, (4) rational builders, (5) passionate pioneers, (6) rational pioneers, (7) passionate salesmen, (8) rational salesmen. These 8 type firms showed different success stories and appeared to possess different trajectories of decline. These hidden champions have acquired competitive advantage within domestic or globally niche markets in spite of the weak market power and lack of internal resources. They have maintained their sustainable competitiveness by utilizing three types of growth strategy; (1) penetrating into the global market, (2) exploring new service market, (3) occupying the domestic market. According to the types of growth strategy, these firms showed different financial outcomes and possessed different issues for maintaining their competitiveness. This study found that Korean hidden champions were facing serious challenges from the transforming economic structure these days and possessed the decline potential from their success momentum or self-complacence. It argues that they need to take a new growth engine not to decline in the turbulent environment. It also discusses how firms overcome the economic crisis and find a new business area in promising industries for the future. It summarized the recent policy of Korean government called as "Green Growth" and discussed how small firms utilize such benefits and supports from the government. Other implications for firm strategies and governmental policies were discussed.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.43-68
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• 2023

In this study, in relation to "Chapter 3 Support for Priority Purchase of Technology Development Products" of the 「Market Channel Support Act」, this study investigated the positive growth impact of technology development products subject to preferential purchase on small and medium sized enterprises. The data used for empirical verification is for 371 companies that obtained certification for technology development products subject to preferential purchase in 2016 and Data from SMEs were collected from 2017 to 2021, Sales, operating profit, and net profit was identified, and empirical verification. And conducted through statistical analysis to determine whether it had a positive effect on the growth factors of SMEs. In addition, data from 225 technology development product certification companies were collected, and empirical testing was conducted through t-test analysis on the change in growth factors before and after acquiring certification. As a result of statistical analysis, it was found that the total assets, certified sales, operating profit, and net profit, which are the growth factors of a company, are all positively affected according to the type of technology development product certification. However, in the case of authentication types, some authentications showed significant negative results. In addition, significant results were derived that after acquiring certification had a positive effect on growth factors than before acquiring certification. Consistent with this conclusion, I think that it is effective for technology development-based SMEs to enter the public procurement market and utilize the technology development product priority purchase policy for market exploitation and corporate growth. And the government should strengthen the market support policy to create demand so that SMEs can enter the procurement market and actively utilize the preferential purchase system, and come up with an improvement plan so that public institutions can actively utilize the preferential purchase system.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.41-76
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• 2020

This study confirmed factors affecting smart factory technology acceptance through empirical analysis. It is a study on what factors have an important influence on the introduction of the smart factory, which is the core field of the 4th industry. I believe that there is academic and practical significance in the context of insufficient research on technology acceptance in the field of smart factories. This research was conducted based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), whose explanatory power has been proven in the study of the acceptance factors of information technology. In addition to the four independent variables of the UTAUT : Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, and Facilitating Conditions, Government Assistance Expectancy, which is expected to be an important factor due to the characteristics of the smart factory, was added to the independent variable. And, in order to confirm the technical factors of smart factory technology acceptance, the Task Technology Fit(TTF) was added to empirically analyze the effect on Behavioral Intention. Trust is added as a parameter because the degree of trust in new technologies is expected to have a very important effect on the acceptance of technologies. Finally, empirical verification was conducted by adding Innovation Resistance to a research variable that plays a role as a moderator, based on previous studies that innovation by new information technology can inevitably cause refusal to users. For empirical analysis, an online questionnaire of random sampling method was conducted for incumbents of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises, and 309 copies of effective responses were used for empirical analysis. Amos 23.0 and Process macro 3.4 were used for statistical analysis. For accurate statistical analysis, the validity of Research Model and Measurement Variable were secured through confirmatory factor analysis. Accurate empirical analysis was conducted through appropriate statistical procedures and correct interpretation for causality verification, mediating effect verification, and moderating effect verification. Performance Expectancy, Social Influence, Government Assistance Expectancy, and Task Technology Fit had a positive (+) effect on smart factory technology acceptance. The magnitude of influence was found in the order of Government Assistance Expectancy(β=.487) > Task Technology Fit(β=.218) > Performance Expectancy(β=.205) > Social Influence(β=.204). Both the Task Characteristics and the Technology Characteristics were confirmed to have a positive (+) effect on Task Technology Fit. It was found that Task Characteristics(β=.559) had a greater effect on Task Technology Fit than Technology Characteristics(β=.328). In the mediating effect verification on Trust, a statistically significant mediating role of Trust was not identified between each of the six independent variables and the intention to introduce a smart factory. Through the verification of the moderating effect of Innovation Resistance, it was found that Innovation Resistance plays a positive (+) moderating role between Government Assistance Expectancy, and technology acceptance intention. In other words, the greater the Innovation Resistance, the greater the influence of the Government Assistance Expectancy on the intention to adopt the smart factory than the case where there is less Innovation Resistance. Based on this, academic and practical implications were presented.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.41-65
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• 2023

This study was conducted to empirically analyse the factors that influence SMEs' intention to adopt ESG. For this purpose, we first derived the variables of usefulness of ESG and ease of adoption. In addition, we adopted CEO's will because of the importance of CEO's role in decision-making in SMEs. In addition, we added customer's request, government support, and credit evaluation reflection as institutional factors for ESG management. To examine the mediating role of attitudes and employees' innovation resistance in these relationships and how they affect ESG adoption, we set up a research model. These factors were used in the empirical analysis with 368 valid responses from the survey. Hierarchical regression analysis method using SPSS 24.0 was used for statistical analysis, and Process Macro 4.0 based on SPSS 24 was used for mediation and moderation effects. The results of the empirical analysis of this study showed that the usefulness of ESG adoption, ease of adoption, CEO's will, customer's request, government support, and credit evaluation reflection all had a positive and significant effect on the intention to adopt ESG management. In particular, among the variables affecting ESG adoption, CEO's will was found to be the most influential. Attitudes were also found to play a mediating role between the influencing factors and intention to adopt ESG management, as well as the mediating effect of employee' innovation resistance. The academic implications of this study include the identification and empirical testing of each of the influencing variables of ESG management adoption in the scarce literature on ESG in SMEs, and the prioritisation of the influence of these factors on adoption intention, which can be used to promote the adoption of ESG management. In terms of practical implications, it is important for SMEs to have a win-win relationship with large corporations, an ecosystem such as government support, in order to improve CEO awareness and motivate the CEO's will, and for smooth introduction of ESG management, it is necessary to find ways to reduce resistance through sufficient communication with organizational members to make them aware of the need.