• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether the cash policies of retail firms listed on Korean stock markets are consistent with the evidence provided in the study of Almeida et al. (2004). Liquidity management is an important issue for financially constrained firms relative to financially unconstrained firms. Because there are few sources of external funding, the optimal liquidity policies of financially constrained firms should reflect their own earnings or cash inflows to create opportunities for current and future real investments. According to this simple idea, we estimate the sensitivity of cash to cash flows and simply check whether the estimated sensitivity to cash flows of the cash retained by constrained retail firms is greater than that of the cash retained by unconstrained retail firms. Through this work, we aim to explain why the cash policies of the retail firms listed on the Korean stock markets differ from those of listed manufacturing enterprises. Research design, data, and methodology - To explain a firm's cash holdings, we use only three explanatory variables: earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), Tobin's q, and size. All the variables are defined as the value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets. Thanks to this definition, it is possible to treat all the sample firms as a single large firm. The sample financial data for this study are collected from the retail enterprises listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013. We can obtain these data from WISEfn, the financial information company. This study's methodology has its origin in Keynes's simple idea of precautionary liquidity demand: When a firm faces financial constraints, cash savings from earnings or cash inflows become important from the corporate finance perspective. Following this simple idea, Almeida et al. (2004) developed their theoretical model and found empirical evidence that the sensitivity of cash to cash flows varies systematically according to different types of financing frictions. To find more empirical evidence for this idea, we examined the cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by Korean retail firms. Results - Through several robustness tests, we empirically showed that financially constrained Korean retail firms display significant positive propensity to save cash from earnings before interest and taxes, while the estimated cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by unconstrained retail firms is not significant. Despite the relatively low earnings of retail firms, their sensitivity is three times greater than that of manufacturing enterprises. This implies that Korean retail firms have greater intentions of facilitating future investments rather than current investments. Conclusions - The characteristics of the cash policies of Korean retail firms differ from those of manufacturing firms. This contrast may be attributable to industry-oriented policy planning, regulations, and institutional differences. However, the industrial policymakers should observe signals of the long-term growth options of retail firms based on their high propensity to save from their cash inflows.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.41-48
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• 2017

Purpose - Capital structure adjustment costs influence the test of the standard trade-off theory of capital structure. We investigate whether there exist economically significant capital adjustment costs in the Korean retail industry. Research design, data, and methodology - This paper adopts the model of Leary and Roberts(2005) to obtain the hazard rate of capital structure variations. The retail firms traded in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets are analyzed from 2000 to 2016. Results - The empirical analysis shows infrequent capital structure adjustments in the Korean retail firms. The duration analysis emphasizes that the fixed adjustment cost plays an important role in the determination of capital structure adjustments for the Korean retail firms. Yet, even after taking account of infrequent capital structure adjustments, the trade off theory only weakly explains the capital structure variations of the Korean retail firms. Conclusions - This paper confirms the existence of capital structure adjustment costs for the Korean retail firms. Our results argue for the significance of fixed adjustment costs in capital structure adjustments. Such emphasis on the fixed cost is inconsistent with the existing studies. The trade off theory does not successfully explain capital structure policy in the Korean retail firms even after considering adjustment costs.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.75-84
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• 2014

Purpose - This article aims to examine whether the stock issuance of firms in the retail industry follows Myers' (1984) pecking order theory, which is based on information asymmetry. According to the pecking order model, firms have a sequence of financing decisions, of which the first choice is to use retained earnings, the second one is to get into safe debt, the next involves risky debt, and the last involves finance with outside equity. Since the 2000s, the polarization of the LEs (Large enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) arose in the retail industry. The LEs exhibited an improvement in growth and profitability, whereas SMEs had a tendency to degenerate. This study contributes to corroborating the features of financing decisions in the retail industry distinguished from the other industries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study considers the stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013, and is more concentrated on the stocks in the retail industry. The data were collected from the financial information company, WISEfn. The empirical analysis is conducted by employing two measures of net equity issues (and), which were introduced in Fama and French (2005), and can be calculated from firms' accounting information. All variables are generated as the aggregate value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets, which, in effect, treats the entire sample as a single firm. Substantially, the financing decisions of the firms were analyzed by examining how often and under what circumstances firms issue and repurchase equity. Then, this study compares the features of the retail industry with those of the other industries. Results - The proportion of sample firms that show annual net stock issues reaching the level of the year's average was 54.33% for the 1990s, and fell to 39.93% per year for the 2000s. In detail, the fraction of the small firms actually increases from 45.08% to 51.04%, whereas that of large firms shows a dramatic decline from 58.94% to 24.76%. Considering the fact that the large firms' rapid increase in growth after the 2000s may lead to an increase in equity issues, this result is rather surprising. Meanwhile, net stock repurchases of assets are considerably disproportionate between the large (-50.11%) and the small firms (-15.66%) for the 2000s. Conclusions - Stock issuance of retail firms is not in line with the traditional seasoned equity offering based on information asymmetry. The net stock issuance of the small firms in the retail industry can be interpreted as part of an effort to reorganize business and solicit new investment to resolve degenerating business performance. For large firms, on the other hand, the net repurchase can be regarded as part of an effort to rearrange business for efficiency and amplifying synergy across business sections through spin-off. These results can help the government establish a support policy on retail industry according to size.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.53-58
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• 2018

Purpose - This study aims to examine how the time variations of customer satisfaction influence retail firms' performance. Research design, data, and methodology - The study employs yearly time series customer satisfaction data of Korean retail secured from the National Customer Satisfaction Index(NCSI) for the 2011~2016 period. Our data includes a total of 90 observations of 15 retail firms in 5 different sector(department store, filling station, large discount store, open market, TV home shopping). We obtained the firm performance data from the KIS Value database. The variables for financial performance include sales and net profit. Results - The results show that customer satisfaction has dynamic effects on retail firms' performance. More specifically, the time variation of customer satisfaction has the moderating effect on the linkage between customer satisfaction and financial performance as well as direct effects on the firms' financial performance. Conclusions - Customer satisfaction has the current effect lasting over time on firm performance and changes of customer satisfaction in positive direction also impact on firm performance. Retail firms need to not only focus on improving customer satisfaction in the current term, but make efforts to continuously enhance customer satisfaction in the long term.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.27-37
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• 2016

Purpose - Prior theories expect a lower marginal value of cash for weak governance firms. To test this hypothesis, we examine the relationship between corporate governance structures and marginal cash values in Korean retail firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We estimate marginal cash values based on the model of Faulkender & Wang (2006). The retail firms listed in Korean Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2013 are analyzed. Corporate governance scores are provided by Korean Corporate Governance Services. Results - We show a higher marginal value of cash for the weak governance retail firms in terms of total governance score. Our analysis on a detailed set of governance scores generally confirms this tendency. Yet, a higher marginal cash value is obtained for the firms with better board structures and dividend policies. Conclusions - Our findings argue against the agency view of cash policy predicting a negative relationship between corporate governance scores and marginal cash values. A low marginal value of cash, widely observed in the sample firms, also supports severe resource diversion problem in Korean corporations.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2016

Purpose - We examine the marginal value of cash in Korean retail firms, largely unexamined in literature. The marginal value of cash plays pivotal role in cash management policy; especially, a significantly low marginal cash value indicates substantial manager-shareholder conflicts. Research design, data, and methodology - We estimate marginal cash values by adopting the approach of Faulkender & Wang (2006). The sample of retail firms traded in Korean Stock Exchange from 1991 to 2013 is analyzed. Results - We estimate the marginal value of cash for the retail firms as 0.75, implying significant manager-shareholder conflicts. We find a lower marginal value of cash for financially constrained retail firms, contradicting existing theories. The marginal value of cash increases substantially after 2000s, suggesting severe agency conflicts in 1990s as a key reason behind our findings. Conclusions - Our findings support the substantial resource diversion problem in Korean firms and the agency theory of cash management policy. Our results argue against the widely accepted view focusing on implications of financial constraints, which highlights a need of new cash management theory.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.127-146
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• 2011

Coping with the rapid change of competition in retail industry, retail firms have dreamed various differentiation strategy to obtain their added value and their life. And they have considered CRM strategy that can differentiate with other retail firms in order to develop some new differentiation factors. So we searched new factors that is best for "T store" and found CRM strategy such as the optimization for product portfolio considering private-brand products and the optimization for product display for customer demands. This study is meaningful in that it has suggested a new CRM strategy model, which can manage new various differentiation factors of a retail firms considering its core competence. We verified and altered retail firm's business model using system dynamics. By simulation results, CRM strategy need long time to obtain visible and satisfactory performance of "T store".

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to investigate the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory (the cost of financing increases with asymmetric information) among Korean retail firms from the perspective of debt capacity. According to the Pecking-order theory, a firm's first preference is to use internal funds for its capital needs, its next preference is the issuance of debt, and its last preference is the issuance of equity; this is due to the information asymmetry problem between existing shareholders and investors. However, prior empirical studies, such as Lemmon and Zender (2010), argue that the entire sample test for the Pecking-order theory could be misleading due to the different levels of debt issuance capability of each of the individual firms; in fact, they confirm that the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory improves after taking into account the differences in debt capacity of the U.S. firms they examined. This paper implements a case study approach among Korean retail firms to examine the relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses the sample of public retail firms on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) from the time period of 1990 to 2013. We gather related financial and accounting statements from the financial information firm WISEfn. Credit rating information is provided by the Korea Investor Service. We employ the models of Lemmon and Zender (2010) and Son and Kim (2013) to measure a firm's debt capacity. Their logit models use the rating dummy variable as a dependent variable and incorporate other firm characteristics as independent variables to estimate debt capacity. To test the Pecking-order theory, we adopt variants of the financing deficit model of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). In the test of the Pecking-order theory, we consider all of the changes in total debt obligations, current debt obligations, and long-term debt obligations. Results - Our main contribution to the literature is our confirmation of the predicted relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory among Korean retail firms. The coefficients on financing deficits become greater as a firm's debt capacity improves. This is consistent with the results of Lemmon and Zender (2010). The coefficients on the square of the financing deficits are also negative for the firms in the largest debt capacity group, which is also consistent with the predictions in prior literature. Conclusions - This study takes a case study approach by examining Korean retail firms. We confirm that the Pecking-order theory explains the capital structure of retail firms more appropriately, after taking into account the debt capacity of each firm. This result suggests the importance of debt capacity consideration in the testing of the Pecking-order theory. Our result also implies that there has been a potential underestimation of the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in existing studies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.33-42
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• 2019

Purpose - We investigate whether a firm's engagement in socially responsible activity affects the quality of financial reporting within the retail industry of Korean market. Recent studies argue that more socially responsible firms tend to show a better quality of financial reporting. Research design, data, and methodology - We use a variety of proxy variables related to the use of discretionary accruals and real activity manipulation to measure the quality of financial reporting. The total of environmental, social and governance score is used to represent the degree of socially responsible activity in the retail industry. We use regression models to examine whether more socially responsible firms show a higher quality of financial reporting. The sample of publicly traded Korea retail firms is analyzed from 2011 to 2016. Results - Our analysis finds supporting evidence for limited earning management via the use of discretionary accruals. We find, however, no significant relationship between the degree of social responsibility and the quality of financial reporting within chaebol affiliates unlike non-chaebol affiliates. Conclusions - Our results weakly support a better quality of financial reporting for more socially responsible firms. The results highlight the importance of firm characteristics in deciding the effect of socially responsible activity on corporate policies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.29-38
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• 2017

Purpose - Prior theories predict a negative correlation between stock liquidity and dividend payout propensity. We test this hypothesis by examining the sample Korean retail firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We construct four different types of stock liquidity measures and investigate how these stock liquidity variables affect dividend payout propensity by employing the logit regression model. The retail firms listed in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets are analyzed from 1990 to 2015. Results - Our estimation results support the liquidity hypothesis if we adopt the stock turnover rate as the stock liquidity measure, particularly for the retail firms listed in the KOSPI markets and for non-conglomerate firms. Yet, our estimation results adopting the illiquidity measure of Amihud (2002), the proportion of non-trading day, and the volume of trading do not support the liquidity hypothesis. Conclusions - Our findings provide mixed results for the validity of stock liquidity hypothesis, which enriches the existing literature. In terms of turnover rate, the stock liquidity hypothesis holds robustly. Yet, we are not able to find any empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis if we use the other three measures of stock liquidity.