• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.185-193
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• 2011

The successful and sustainable growth of SMEs depends on their ability of strengthen their competitiveness in quality and cost and service more than anything else as a fundamental of operation. Among these key competitive factors of SMEs, quality is the most critical factor in manufacturing business fields. There are many different ways to improve the quality performance but it needs proper management decision to choose the best way what can maximize outputs with minimum inputs. And it needs effective measurement methods and some indicators to analysis the quality performance properly. The quality cost is one of the simplest key indicators to measure the quality performance and the effectiveness of quality related management decisions. In this study, through survey on local SMEs, we found that their average annual quality cost ratio versus turnover - total amount of annual quality cost divided by annual turnover - is around 3.69% excluded some SME's performances what have different quality control measures with others. And we found some results what corresponded with the early studies on the correlations between those categorized quality costs factors and some discrepancies between some of the literature model and the early case study results as follows. There were negative correlations between the Prevention costs and the External failure costs, and the Appraisal costs and the External failure costs, and there was positive correlation between the Appraisal costs and Internal failure costs same as early studies. But, we couldn't found any strong negative correlations between the Cost of control - Prevention costs & Appraisal costs - and the Cost of Failure of control - Internal & External failure costs -.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.130-151
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• 2012

Fraunhofer was founded in 1949 and grew into Europe's largest application-oriented research organization. Fraunhofer currently employs over 20,000 members in Germany, is internationally networked, and manages an R&D budget of over 1,8 Billion Euros per year. An important step for Fraunhofer to become an integral component of the German innovation system was the introduction of the Fraunhofer Model of financing based on a performance-related system of financial management. The underlying model of the allocation and distribution of public funding to Fraunhofer that is subsequently allotted to specific research groups is one of the success factors of Fraunhofer. Fraunhofer is proud of its decentralized organizational model. Fraunhofer is comprised of 60 Institutes in Germany working in different fields, under one legal framework, and with a strong brand value. Every Fraunhofer Institute is affiliated with a German University and every institute director simultaneously holds a chair at the affiliated university. It is a challenge for the headquarter organization to balance the intended competition of individual Fraunhofer Institutes with complementarity cooperation in science among Fraunhofer-Institutes, especially when coming from different knowledge domains; however, this goal results in a significant advantage. The unique strengths of Fraunhofer offer system solutions in a world with increasingly complex R&D challenges. While growing to become the largest organization on Europe to focus on applied research it is the challenge to remain an agile organization that is flexible in organizational structure. Fraunhofer has reached a well-recognized position in the European innovation landscape. It is often referred to by science and governments as a role model for innovation policy and a key element of the latest successes in the German economy that has recovered quicker from the latest economic crisis than most other western economies. The paper explains Fraunhofer as an organizational paradigm and its underlying management model to elaborate on the challenges of managing a research organization. We wish to show how it is possible to transfer the management model and philosophy of Fraunhofer to innovation systems with different framework conditions and challenges. A universal conclusion may be drawn based on the description of Fraunhofer; however, changes in existing structures and innovation systems cannot be implemented over night.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.79-106
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• 2005

This study, by adopting case study methodology, is focused on examining the present state and analyzing the cause of the digital divide, and suggesting policies for bridging the divide, specifically in view of SMEs. We have taken cases of manufacturing companies, visiting and interviewing 18 SMEs in 10 APEC member economies which show sharp difference in usage of ICT. In order to analyze the digital gap among SMEs, we used 5 variables that are composed of computer hardware, computer software, Internet, readiness of ICT, and performance of ICT adoption, while categorizing the cases into low and high tier based on the national ICT index. From a computer hardware perspective, the high tier (0.66) has almost double the number of PC’s per employee, compared with the low tiers (0.34). This gap can be explained by financial availability of low income and high tariff in the developing economies. In the computer software perspective, the SMEs in the low tier had some restrictive use of computer applications such as financial and accounting management and document management, while those in the high tier enjoyed more diversity in the use of applications such as inventory management, sales management, financial and accounting management, procurement management, CRM, and ERP. In view of the readiness of ICT, the difference in ICT infrastructure and financial status between the low and high tier was far wider than any other variables. As a result of ICT adoption, SMEs benefited in view of learning and growth, internal business processes, customer service, and financial affairs. To effectively bridge the digital divide between the low and high tier, actions such as setting up a secondary market of used computers among cooperating developed and developing countries, developing and diffusing good business applications, and building speedy, low-cost telecommunication infrastructures should be taken.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.623-626
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• 2005

Toward the practical applications, on operation of conduction-cooled HTS SMES at temperatures well below 77 K should be investigated, in order to take advantage of a greater critical current density of HTS and considerably reduce the size and weight of the system. Recently, research and development concerning application of the conduction-cooled HTS SMES that is easily movement are actively progressing in Korea. Electrical insulation under cryogenic temperature is a key and an important element in the application of this apparatus. Using multi wrapped copper by polyimide film for HIS SMES, the breakdown characteristics of models for turn-to-turn, that is surface contact model, were investigated under ac and impulse voltage at 77 K. A material that is Polyimide film (Kapton) 0.025 mm thickness is used for multi wrapping of the electrode. Statistical analysis of the results using Weibull distribution to examine the wrapping number effects on breakdown voltage under ac and impulse voltage in $LN_2$ was carried.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.331-342
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• 2022

The business environment of today's small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) has a tendency to shorten the product life cycle due to the rapid technological change. Therefore, in this study, an empirical study was conducted to understand the influence of CEO type and technological innovation capability on management performance through technological innovation performance as a medium. The subject of the study was a survey focusing on executive level and above of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in the southeast region, and the research results are as follows. Overall, it was verified that the structural causal relationship between the technological innovation performance and the management performance of the CEO type and technological innovation capability of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises is a relationship that has a significant influence with mutual correlation. These results indicate that higher performance can be achieved when technological innovation performance is combined with the effect of technological innovation capability on management performance according to CEO type. In this way, SMEs are trying to present the need for various innovative activities to discover excellent technologies and acquire competence, and to suggest a development direction that requires efforts to improve the technological competitiveness of enterprises.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.60-69
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• 2022

In this study, to verify the effectiveness of the persona-type consumer analysis data service, a study was conducted focusing on the consumer analysis service use case of www.ethno-mining.com. The case was targeted at the 'Small Business Design Difficulty Resolving Support Project' of the Gangwon Institute of Design Promotion. The progress of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure the user satisfaction and effectiveness of the service, study the consumer analysis data of the persona method of the www.ethno-mining.com system, study related theories, compare similar services, and conduct questionnaires; The results were analyzed and tested. In the result of testing the participants in the 'Small Business Design Difficulty Resolving Support Project' of the Gangwon Design Promotion Institute, the persona-style consumer analysis data got a positive response in terms of user satisfaction, and a regression that measures the effectiveness of the service on the company's R&D In the analysis, it was found that there are practical effects for companies by reducing time, reducing costs, smooth communication between developers, securing expertise in consumer analysis, and improving the overall quality of R&D during R&D.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.223-234
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• 2022

This study demonstrated the relationship between members' perception of meaning of work and turnover intention and analyzed the moderating effect of work-family promotion efforts. To this end, data were obtained through a survey of 143 SME workers in Busan, and the results were used for analysis. As a result of the study, first, it was possible to confirm a negative (-) relationship with turnover intention when members in the organization positively perceived the meaning and value of their work. In addition, it was confirmed that efforts to promote work-family within the organization showed a moderating effect in this process. Based on these results, the following implications were derived. First, SMEs operate somewhat insufficient treatment and welfare systems compared to large companies, so they should pay more attention to the design and operation of various personnel systems so that they can recognize the organization's growth potential and technical advantage and meaning of work. In particular, in the case of rapidly growing SMEs, institutional support for work-family promotion may be insufficient, and the importance of introducing and operating a system to further revitalize it was suggested.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.197-216
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• 2023

This research aims to examine and reevaluate the risk management procedures required for facilitating E-Commerce exports by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SMEs) in the context of customs risk management procedures. Based on risk management studies, this research focuses on three research questions. First, what courses comprise the export risk management structure? Second, what are the key issues in risk management in facilitating E-Commerce export clearance? Third, based on the research results, what are the implications and improvements for export customs risk management in boosting SMEs' E-Commerce exports? The research concluded that risk control for SMEs' E-Comerce exports should be further strengthened based on a compliance management approach. To achieve this, the customs authorities should develop a new method of reasoning about the difficulties SMEs face in exporting and the risks of failure to comply with the regulations at the foreign markets.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.253-272
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• 2022

As the digital era accelerates, traditional perspectives have limitations in explaining the success or failure of export performance. The purpose of this study is to analyze new factors affecting export performance from the perspective of customer experience, which has emerged as an important factor in securing a competitive advantage and generating organizational performance. After deriving hypotheses based on literature review and discussion, a research model is designed in which three factors of customer experience such as understanding customer's objectives, customer value creation capability, and customer journey management are the antecedents, and export performance is the dependent variable. This model also includes organizational agility and personal contact as the moderating variables. To verify the hypotheses, multiple regression analysis was conducted on the collected data drawn from 198 SME exporters. According to the analysis results, it was found that all three antecedents positively affected export performance. In particular, the organizational agility and personal contact were confirmed to have a moderating effect that creates better export performance by interacting with customer value creation capability. The theoretical significance of this study is to find that effective customer experience management can be a key factor in creating export performance. The results suggest that checking the overall customer journey, exporters should select and intervene to intensively manage key touch points that can have a decisive impact on the quality of customer experience. At the end of the paper, practical implications to be considered in creating export performance through effective customer experience management are presented.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.73-92
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• 2021

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a large proportion of the total number of enterprises in many countries. The development of SMEs has contributed to job creation and economic benefits. Every government has formulated active diversification strategies to promote the export market of SMEs, but the performance of export capabilities remains insufficient. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of export credit insurance in promoting SME export performance in Canada. Using data from 2008-2017, the augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) model to test the stationarity of the concerned variables and the error correction model (ECM) and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration test to empirically investigate the cointegration relationship between the research targets. The results represent the positive and critical impact of export relative price and domestic demand pressure on Canada's export performance, and the negative impact of the export volume index at a significant level. Regrettably, the impact of export credit insurance on the export performance of Canadian SMEs is considered exaggerated overall. In view of this result, it is necessary for the Canadian government to enact policies based on the current market status. And enhance confidence among SMEs to begin exports and diversify their markets rather than focusing only on the domestic or US market, especially given the impact of COVID-19. From the case of Canada, Korean government can attempt to learn from them to conduct more efficient strategies for SMEs.