• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.81-95
• /
• 2023

As the DT of micro businesses emerges as an important task, the government is also promoting support projects such as policy establishment and micro business education. This study aims to develop a new index (checklist) that can objectively measure the level of digital literacy required for DT in the tertiary industry, which accounts for the largest share of micro business owners. In this study, indicators were derived through review of existing studies and FGI, and the validity and reliability of Likert 5 were measured for decision makers in the tertiary industry. In the field of digital literacy for micro business owners, a total of 22 indicators were developed, largely composed of basic technology environment competency, information utilization competency, information dissemination and production capability, and mind recognition capability. This study has academic significance in that it can contribute to accurately understanding the digital capabilities of micro business owners by developing a digital literacy index for micro business owners, a specific group lacking in research.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.412-422
• /
• 2020

Objectives: This study was conducted to identify the job characteristics and health status of sales and service workers at micro-enterprises. Methods: Multivariate analyses were conducted using data on respondents to the 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey who were business owners (7,572 persons) or employees (3,317) working in sales or service positions at micro-enterprises. Results: Among those analyzed, business owners were found to experience worse health conditions than employees. Business owners also differed from workers in terms of job characteristics. More than employees, they engaged in tiring or painful postures that negatively affected subjective health condition, experience of muscle pain, and experience of depression or anxiety. While employees' health was negatively affected by dealing with angry customers, the health status of business owners was negatively affected even by dealing with ordinary customers. Conclusions: These results show that the owners of micro-enterprises were in a more vulnerable state of health rather than their employees. In order to address this, it is necessary to correct work posture and reduce the stresses that come from customers.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.97-114
• /
• 2023

The purpose of this study is to derive practical implications by verifying the influence of MSME owners' leadership type and management performance on knowledge management. In addition, we tried to verify the mediating role of knowledge management between the leadership type and management performance of MSME owners. Leadership types were divided into transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Transformational leadership consisted of charisma and inspirational motivation, while transactional leadership consisted of situational rewards and management by exception. For data collection, we conducted a survey targeting workers in small businesses. After excluding insincere data that were inappropriate for analysis, we used the remaining 243 samples for empirical analysis. To test the hypothesis, we adopted regression analysis and three-step mediated regression analysis as analysis methods. As a result of the empirical analysis, all seven hypotheses derived were supported, and the main results are summarized as follows. First, we found that MSME owners' transformational leadership and transactional leadership had a positive effect on knowledge management and management performance. Second, we found that knowledge management of MSME owners had a positive effect on business performance. Third, both transformational leadership and transactional leadership of MSME owners were found to be partially mediated by knowledge management in relation to management performance. Based on these research results, we derived practical implications for MSME owners.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.12
• /
• pp.267-274
• /
• 2020

The focus of this study is to investigate the mediating role of online market orientation on information capital readiness-business performance relationship. The construct of information capital readiness is rarely researched. The readiness here refers to the availability of information capital needed to support strategy execution. As quantitative research, this study employs the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses. Data was collected using questionnaires from the owners/managers of the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the East Java Province, Indonesia. As many as 433 respondents had participated. The result indicates that information capital readiness directly and positively affects business performance. Further analysis reveals that online market orientation partially mediates information capital readiness-business performance relationship. In conclusion, this study suggests that the owners/managers of the MSMEs should improve their information capital readiness to support online market orientation strategy so that it can improve their business performance. This is the first study that brings together the issues of information capital readiness and online market orientation as the antecedents of business performance in the Indonesian MSMEs research setting. The mediating role of online market orientation is rarely explored in previous studies.

• Journal of Distribution Research
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.39-57
• /
• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.637-643
• /
• 2021

The study examines the influence of the five pillars of inclusive financing on the empowerment of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and the influence of institutional conditions on the empowerment of MSMEs. This study uses primary and secondary data. The population of the study are MSMEs; the is a total of 930,620 MSMEs in Jakarta. Owners of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises is a good population to be measured because they are the main actors that know exactly the challenges and the obstacles in doing business addressing problems faced in inclusive financing, which is related to the purpose of the study. The research borrows from finance and entrepreneurial theories for model design. The results of the study show that all the variables are significant and positive in the efforts to finance MSMEs in Indonesia, which means that financial education plays an important role in the sustainability of financial inclusion. The financial theory, developed to explain financing at the company level, needs to be adapted to the entrepreneurial situation, so that it can explain the behavior of small businesses. This means that, with correct financial knowledge, financial inclusion plays an important role in the sustainability of MSMEs in Indonesia.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.31-42
• /
• 2012

After the rapidly changing business management environment and financial crisis, high prices and domestic recession in Korea posed threats to the business survival of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper looks at the potential of micro business owners for sustainable development: those who have a spirit of entrepreneurship and the potential to be a hidden champion. Our study of micro business values uses structure equation modeling by LISREL. We have done so in order to understand the foundation of management innovation and success model of micro enterprise by increasing the entrepreneurship and management performance relationship analysis. A micro-enterprise is a type of small business, found only in Korea, often registered as having ten or fewer employees. We examine the successful type of hidden champions and the influence of entrepreneurship on start-ups in business. As compared to past research on the SME entrepreneurship, this study segments small businesses even further. Small business entrepreneurship was classified into three forms that are most appropriate for the Korean situation today: innovation, risk-taking, and pro-activeness. This research is meaningful as it is Korea's first empirical analysis on four business types: wholesale and retail sales, food and lodging business, service business, and manufacturing business. Thus far, research on small business entrepreneurship was carried out using small-scale investigative analysis. However, this research attempted to develop a model that can explain a cause-effect relation of the motivational level when it comes to the difference of entrepreneurship by each business type and small business start-up success factors. Various conceptual and operational definitions could be developed in a diverse and precise manner. Independent variables that are related to the success of small businesses can be developed additionally to examine the success factors related to the systematization in detailed manner. The research showed that the innovation, risk-taking and pro-activeness of the manifested difference in the degree of perception depending on the type of small businesses. Among the four business types, the ones that manifested the highest successful start-up rates were food, service, wholesale and retail sales and manufacturing. Results after conducting the regression analysis are shown on, which proves that the small business entrepreneurship exerts direct effect on the financial management performance of small businesses. In other words, small business entrepreneurship exerts a positive effect on the small business financial success and management performance. The R² value is 0.61. It is possible to know that the perception of systematization and variables on attitude explains the 61% of the success for small self-employed businesses management performance. We define start-up key factors that are helpful to achieve internal growth of firms by finding business survival strategies. The results also focus on Korean government policy for micro enterprise and small business support.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.71-88
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to develop the competencies to help micro entrepreneurs who have experienced failure to successfully re-challenge. To this end, relevant literature published from 1977 to 2022 was analyzed, behavioral event interviews (BEI) were conducted with 7 successful micro entrepreneurs, and focus group interviews (FGI) were conducted three times by inviting competency development and HRD experts. Based on these research activities, the draft about competencies for micro entrepreneurs who had have failure was derived. And then inviting 12 experts in related field for Delphi Analysis, the final competency model that helps micro entrepreneurs successfully recover were developed as follows : Competency Groups(small business owners, recovery from failure), 8 detailed competencies(seize business opportunities, business planning, business differentiation, operation management, market exploration, research and development of products and services, positive self-regulation, overcoming and coping with failure experiences), 22 competency factors, and 72 behavioral indicators. This study has an academic significance in that it developed the competencies required for micro entrepreneurs recovering from failure. In addition, the results of this study can be used to develop a competency-based education program for micro entrepreneurs and to select suitable candidates for support programs.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.817-828
• /
• 2021

This article aims to examine the intention to use Islamic microfinance by women entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Microfinance plays a significant role in developing the modern economy in the world by alleviating poverty, creating employment, and empowering women in society. The framework was built on Innovation and Diffusion Theory and Planned Behaviour Theory. The present study has adopted a quantitative research method, which focused on cross-sectional research design to address this problem. Primary data was collected and processed by using a 5-point Likert scale. For this research, a total of 178 questionnaires were distributed among women owners of micro-enterprises in Malaysia by using area collection sampling. To analyze the data, the SmartPLS 3 software package was used. This study developed seven hypotheses, all which have been supported both directly, indirectly, and mediated. This result will be beneficial in assisting policymakers, academics and future researchers who must consider the supported variables. Thus, the study contributes to developing a unique framework to assist women-owned micro-enterprise to success. It will be beneficial for practitioners to enhance women micro-enterprise success rate as well. Indeed, all of the grounded methods have implications both in theory and their main application for the business in SMEs.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.75-85
• /
• 2021

In this paper, we present a deep neural network-based prediction model that processes and analyzes the corporate credit and personal credit information of individual business owners as a new method to predict the default rate of individual business more accurately. In modeling research in various fields, feature selection techniques have been actively studied as a method for improving performance, especially in predictive models including many features. In this paper, after statistical verification of macroeconomic indicators (macro variables) and credit information (micro variables), which are input variables used in the default rate prediction model, additionally, through the credit information feature selection method, the final feature set that improves prediction performance was identified. The proposed credit information feature selection method as an iterative & hybrid method that combines the filter-based and wrapper-based method builds submodels, constructs subsets by extracting important variables of the maximum performance submodels, and determines the final feature set through prediction performance analysis of the subset and the subset combined set.