• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.1-25
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• 2005

This Paper examines the effect of IT knowledge and IT communication on the operational performance of small firms. Small firms which could be defined firms with less than 50 people in total lags behind medium and large firms in computerization. In order to fill up the computerization gap resulted from size differences, Korean government has been promoting the 'Networking Small Firms' project since 2001. Survey data with 698 small firms in Korea, we could find that If knowledge and IT communication significantly contributed to the operational performance of small firms. Internal process performance is affected by individual IT knowledge, traditional communication, and e-mail communication. Customer performance is affected by above three factors, organizational IT knowledge and internet/EDI communication. Interestingly, financial performance is not affected by traditional communication but only IT knowledge and IT communication.

• World Technopolis Review
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.21-42
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• 2019

The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors influencing global expansion/scalability of Kenyan Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Factor analysis and multiple/multivariate regression analysis to determine the functional relationship between independent variables (factors) and the dependent variable was used. The independent variables were: innovation & technology, fitness/appropriateness of management, global marketing strategy; and support environment and the dependent variable, global expansion/scalability. Data was collected from a survey of randomly selected firms of 205, drawn from a population of 440 firms from Kenya Manufacturers Directory, with 175 firms responding. The key findings from the research in relation to Kenyan SMEs were that: there is a functional relationship between global market strategy and global expansion; there is a functional relationship between innovation and technology orientation and global expansion, there is no significant functional relationship between supportive environment of firms and their global expansion; and there is no significant functional relationship between fitness/appropriateness of management and global expansion/scalability. The implications for practice is that the ranking of the factors in order of priority supports focusing concern on the orientation of business strategy toward global market strategy, market research geared at obtaining foreign market intelligence, innovation and technology, product adaptation, service orientation, collaborative ventures, and long-range vision as key factors in making Kenyan firms successful in the international market. The implication for policy and practice is that there is need for collaboration between industry and government in pursuing policies for global expansion/scalability and among SMEs and large enterprises particularly in areas of rapid technological change.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.1217-1230
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• 2021

Using a multinomial logit model with the panel-data set of Vietnam manufacturing firms, this paper investigates the impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) - small and medium enterprises (SMEs) linkages and other factors on SMEs' participation in the global value chain (GVC). We consider GVC firms are those engaging in any of the three modes including (i) using domestic inputs to export (D2E), (ii) using imported inputs to produce for the domestic market (I2P), (iii) using imported inputs to export (I2E). We discover that FDI-SME linkages statistically encourage Vietnamese SMEs to integrate into the GVC via I2P and I2E, while no statistical association between FDI-SME linkage and D2E participation is found. GVCs participation likelihood is also positively correlated with the introduction of new product introduction. The establishment of firms' production facilities in industrial zones and foreign ownership are both reported to be significantly decisive factors to SMEs' decisions on GVC participation. Besides, there is a strong association between firms' attributes, i.e. employment, capital intensity as well as financial access, and their participation in the GVC. Local governance quality (proxied by the Provincial Competitiveness Index) and the share of skilled labor at the province-level can facilitate firms' integration into GVCs, while greater market concentration may be a hurdle to such potential.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• 제32권2호
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• pp.1-14
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• 2004

As environmental issues have been become critical concerns of business, many domestic small and medium enterprises(SME's) are rapidly accepting environmental management systems(EMS) that confirm ISO 14001 guidelines. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an empirical study carried out on a sample of certified SME's with the aim of identifying obstacles encountered in adopting ISO 14001 standards and the impact of environmental systems on corporate performance after implementation of the ISO 14001 registration process. Data from this study show that the vast majority of respondents reported environmental improvements related to the implementation of an ISO 14001 EMS, especially in the area of employees' participation of the environmental management and responsibilities for reducing negative impacts, energy and resource conservation, materials reuse, and raising top management commitment. The greatest obstacles for implementing the ISO 14001 standard are lack of cooperation and a scarcity of resources such as personnel, money, and time. Results of this study serve as a reference point understanding the problems in the implementation of ISO 14001 in other small and medium firms.

• Archives of design research
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.47-57
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• 1998

This research investigates the factors of participatory activities in coalition between industy firms and research universities. An empirical analyses research was conducted with 375 sample small and medium sized firms in Kwangju-Chonnam area. The present conditions of the object firms' product design were explored in terms of competitive positions in markets. The results show that the object firms have not much engaged In the coalition with regional universities, but want to have a close relationship for the purpose of product design development. Several t- test analyses were employed to discriminate the groups of pro-colation and con-coalition between firm and university. The results indicate that the perception of design importance as competitive means and business success, the level of present design capability, and the possession of design patent were the important variables to differentiate the two groups. This research draws the implications to enhance the coalitions between firm and universities by utilizing the empirical results.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.55-75
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• 2011

Scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in SMEs and what are the differences between SMEs 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 SMEs performance. The empirical segment of our work is based on data on knowledge sourcing strategies of SMEs and organizational performance from a sample of 166 Korean firms. Our results indicate knowledge sourcing adoption patterns of SMEs are different from large firms. In addition, the results confirm that substitutability between internal- and external-oriented, person- and external-oriented sourcing strategies. This study sheds new light on knowledge management (KM) research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and SMEs performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.9-15
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• 2020

This paper investigates how economic freedom affected firm investment in Vietnam. In the globalization decade, economic freedom has been an important policy to support economic development in Vietnam. Improvements in economic freedom, such as capital freedom and domestic credit freedom, allow firms to access external finance more easily, so that the firm's investment depends less on internal cash flow. In a developing country, on the drawbacks, many small and medium firms likely have more challenges if the government would not give any subsidies. The higher level of freedom may exacerbate the financing constraints of less competitive firms. We analyze unique firm-level data from 2006 to 2016, which includes listed firms on two major stock exchanges and unlisted firms in the Unlisted Public Company Market. The article also considers how economic freedom affects small firms and large firms differently. Our results show that capital freedom and domestic credit freedom played an important role in investments for Vietnamese firms. However, we cannot find evidence that overall economic freedom relaxed the financial constraints on firms. Additionally, we suggest that small firms likely gain more advantage in access to external finance than do larger firms when the government removes restrictions from capital movement and the domestic credit market.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Information Technology Applications Conference
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• 한국정보기술응용학회 2005년도 6th 2005 International Conference on Computers, Communications and System
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• pp.365-368
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• 2005

While the goal of new IT adoption in small and medium sized firms is to choose an optimal system to fit with their own environments and conditions, that of IT post-adoption usage is to fully implement new IT and maximize their benefits from it. Therefore, the decision-making environments of new IT adoption is definitely different from those of post-adoption. Also, The direct experience of IT usage can provide some learning effect and the change of users' beliefs on new IT. From this point of view, this study attempts to figure out the differences of influencing factors on IOS usage intention between adopters and non-adopters. The results show that there are clear differences of influencing factors between two groups. Non-adopter group shows that perceived financial cost and ability of use have significant influences on IOS usage intention, while relative advantage and perceived risk in adopter group have statistically significant influences on post-adoption usage of IOS.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.19-44
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• 2015

This paper examines the effect of the global financial crisis on corporate investment in Korea. Specifically, the crisis was considered to have possibly constrained firm-level investment as the negative shock to the credit supply dramatically unfolded. As Duchin et al. (2010) demonstrated, if a negative supply-side shock is evident during a crisis period, larger cash holdings before the crisis will lead to fewer constraints to corporate investment, or vice versa. In order to investigate the supply-side effect of the crisis, we use firm-level financial data, including firms listed on the Korean stock market as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. We find that corporate investment declined significantly after the crisis, even if we control for factors associated with the demand side, such as contemporaneous capital productivity and cash flow. More importantly, the decline is positively and significantly related to cash holdings before the crisis, implying the negative effect of a credit supply shock. Small and medium enterprises experienced relatively sharp investment declines compared to those of larger firms, and the relationship between pre-crisis cash amounts and the degree of investment decline is greater than that in large firms. Additionally, we examine whether the negative effect persists up to the present, finding evidence that the cash-investment relationship continues in small and medium-sized enterprises.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제7권6호
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• pp.19-27
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• 2020

This research investigates the determinants of investment capital size in Vietnam's small and medium-sized firms. The study employs a sample of 458 small and medium-sized enterprises in the country. The study is based on data collects in the areas of Hanoi, Bac Can, Buon Ma Thuot and Pleiku Provinces at time series data of October 2019. This study also identifies the factors that affect the size of investment capital in medium and small-sized enterprises in Vietnam. Data are processed via STATA 14.0 and SPSS 20.0 software. The research results indicate that (1) business lines, (2) import and export business, (3) type of business registration, (4) business location, (5) operating time, and (6) the percentage of the organization's capital contribution are factors that impact on the size of the investment capital of the business. Business line and business location have negative impacts on investment capital size. The operating time, the percentage of the organization's capital contribution, import and export business, and the type of business registration have positive impacts on investment capital size. In addition, the findings of this study also suggest that the operation time has the highest impact on investment capital size of the small and medium-sized firms in Vietnam.