• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-32
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate upon a diversification strategy through market creation of CJ Group, which has contributed in positioning of the firm as one of the leading conglomerates in South Korea. With such objective, the background of CJ Group, followed by its business diversification strategies were explored, with reference to several case studies. The history of CJ Group began with establishment of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation in 1953, as the first domestic sugar producer and exporter of South Korea. The corporation gradually expanded its business ever since at both national and global level, to include the fields of food production, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and life chemicals. Later, CheilJedang (CJ) Group was established as an affiliate of CheilJedang Industrial Corporation. With such independence, extension of business has been witnessed across the industries of media, entertainment, finance, information technology and distribution. Thus, the current CJ Group pursues to define itself as a progressive global living culture company with four major business categories from food and food service, biotechnology, entertainment and media, and logistics. Despite its success in today's market, CJ Group underwent hardships in its business diversification in 1990s due to indiscreet management, along with the Asian financial crisis. Here, many firms overcame the financial difficulties by taking advantage of the exchange rate for overseas expansion. Though, CJ Group tried to differentiate itself by focusing on the domestic market by creating something out of nothing. Hence, CJ Group takes a unique position among many cases of business diversification and their categorization. In an effort to identify and classify the types of growth experienced by the top 30 companies in South Korea, the firms were categorized into four groups according to their diversification strategies adapted after the Asian financial crisis. Based on the mode and time of entry, corporations were identified either as the 'Explorer', 'Invader', 'Venture Capitalist', or 'Assimilator'. Here, the majority of the firms showed the qualities of Invader, entering mature markets through large-scaled mergers and acquisitions. However, CJ Group was the only firm that was categorized as an Explorer, for its focus on the newly emerging service sector in culture-contents industry. This diversification strategy through market creation is worth examining, due to its contribution in generating simultaneous growth between the market and the company itself. Diverse brands of CJ Group have been referred to as case studies in this regard, from 'Hatban', 'Cine de Chef', 'VIPS' to 'CJ GLS'. These four businesses, each to represent processed food, film, restaurant service, and logistics industries respectively, show CJ Group's effectiveness in creating a whole new category of goods and services that are innovative. In fact, such businesses not only contributed in advancement of consumers' wellbeing, but toward generating additional value and employment. It is true that the diversification strategy of CJ Group requires long-term capital investment with high risk, compared to the other strategies mentioned in the paper. However, this model does create high employment and additional values that are positive to both the society and the firm itself. Therefore, the paper comes to a conclusion that the diversification strategy through market creation conveys the most positive impact relative to the others.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.843-871
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• 2015

Cloud computing evolve as a cost effective business model for IT companies to focus on their core business without perturbing on infrastructure related issues. Hence, major IT firms and Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) are adopting cloud services on rental basis from cloud providers. Cloud Service level agreements (SLA) act as a key liaison between consumers and providers on renting Anything as a Service (AaaS). Design of such an agreement must aim for greater profit to providers as well as assured availability of services to consumers. However in reality, cloud SLA is not satisfying the parties involved because of its inherent complex nature and issues. Also currently most of the agreements are unilateral to favour the provider. This study focuses on comprehensive, 360-degree survey on different aspects of the cloud service agreements. We detailed the life cycle of SLA based on negotiation, different types of SLA, current standards, languages & characteristics, metrics and issues involved in it. This study will help the cloud actors to understand and evaluate the agreements and to make firm decision on negotiation. The need for standardized, bilateral, semantic SLA has also been proposed.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.113-121
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• 2005

In this study, those previous research works are reviewed and summarized in various contexts, and this paper also describes the results of an empirical study done for the sample business workers in Korea, analyzing SQC and consumer's value. The surveyed data are statistically analysed to examine the relationship between SQC acquisition and consumer's value in the lodging industry, considering additional factors of business types of companies as well as the consumer's using purpose of service facilities. The important findings of the study can be summarized as follows: First, the business types of companies is an insignificant factor on the consumer's value by the quality certificated services, while the using purpose of service facilities(Hotel and Pension) is an significant factor. Second, the descriptive result is shown that consumers are willing to pay 21.47～31.24 % more than the un-certificated services for quality-certificated services. On the basis of these findings, some practical implications can be drawn for the effective management of the lodging industry. When a firm decides to establish a business plan, it should be considered the using purpose of service facilities.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.363-372
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to investigate COVID-19's impact on firm survival, as well as the management accounting system's role in adjusting operation efficiency for business survival. Two sets of data comprising small enterprises in the service sector were used. The first business group serves customers who have changed their lifestyle to a new normal. The second business group serves customers who are affected by social distancing measures. The data was collected based on an in-depth interview method. The data was then evaluated using content analysis and analytic comparison. The results show that the COVID-19 situation positively impacts the business survival of the service businesses group that serves customers who have changed lifestyles. However, COVID-19 has a negative effect on the survival of service business groups that serve customers affected by social distancing measures. In addition, the management accounting used during COVID-19, small enterprises have analyzed the operating environment and used the information stored in the database to determine goals for the operation. This study provides comprehensive economic effects and the utilization of management accounting systems. The accounting systems helped to decide to adjust the operation process during the quick changing of the environment of the small enterprise in the service sector.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.324-357
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• 2016

As the transition to the knowledge-based economy has been accelerated in the 21st century, the importance of the service industry has been highlighted. As the proportion of knowledge service industry in the economy and the related employment rate are continuously growing, it is necessary to bring innovation to the industry in order to increase competitiveness. In this study, the innovation types are diversified into product, process, organization, and marketing and the influencing factors have been analyzed with knowledge service firms. The complex causal relationship that is linked to the innovation performance has been analyzed by the structural equation with each innovation types as the intervening variables. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. The innovation capacity of firms in knowledge service industry has very strong positive effects either directly or indirectly on product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation, marketing innovation, and the revenue and employment of the firm. On the other hand, innovation support policy through government intervention produce negative impact on product innovation and they do not create meaningful impact on the total effect on the revenue nor the employment growth. The innovation should ultimately create effects on the revenue and the employment of the firm. And the government support policies should be carefully designed in consideration of the final destination point of this complex causal structure.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.447-467
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• 1999

Most published work on product quality focuses on manufactured goods. The subject of service quality has received less attention. This distinction is important because some of the quality-improving strategies avaliable to manufacturers may be inappropriate for service firms. Services are performances, not objects. They are often produced in the presence of the customer, as in the cause of hotel restaurant services, quality occurs during service delivery, usually in an interaction between the customer and contact personnel of service firm. for this reason, service quality is highly dependent on the performance of employees, an organizational resource that cannot be controlled to the degree that components of tangible goods can be engineered. The study has begun as a basic study for customer satisfaction-oriented management in understanding the service quality of food & beverage products and through a systematic analysis of it. The major purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of the customer satisfaction and service quality in consideration of reliability, empathy, responsiveness, tangibility and assurance. An empirical research was conducted based on the previous theoretical studies. 286 customer at first class hotels in Seoul were selected as samples of this study. The time period of research was from February through March 1999, and answers were processed by SAS to yield frequency analysis, multivariate statistical analysis and regression analysis. The finding of the statistical treatment are frequencies, factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, path analysis. SERVQUAL method was used the service quality evaluation methods. After factor analysis, it was resulted to 3 factors. those were factor 1(assurance.empathy.responsiveness), factor 2(reliability), factor 3(tangibility). The findings of the statistical treatment are as follows. First, the attribute measurement of performance service quality was affected by customer satisfaction. Second, the attribute measurement of performance service qualify was affected by repurchase intention. Third, The attribute measurement of performance customer satisfaction was affected by repurchase intention. The result of study model was followed, service quality was affected repurchase intention than customer satisfaction. indirected effect through, service duality and customer satisfaction was affected repurchase intention.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.3-17
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• 2003

This paper examined a e-Business utility of on-line shopping mall firms. Based on the literature review and cases study, the following results were found. First, in e-business policy, it was found that partnership between government and market are very important to e-business utility. Second, e-CRM of on-line shopping mall firms should be considered web site design based on commodity, cafe based on experience and information shares, and transaction confirm service. Third, B2C e-commerce model should be contained firm-specific force, customer oriented force, social force, and technology force.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.31-49
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• 1999

The present paper discusses the current status of outsourcing of service encounter in department stores. We attempt to find if there is any significant relationship between outsourcing motive and business performance. The 30 department stores under analysis show that they vary in the degree to which they appreciate the necessity of outsourcing and also the which they employ outsourcing. It is also found that firm size influences the portion of outsourcing. The two main motives of outsourcing seem to be (i) cost saving and (ⅱ) better customer satisfaction. We find that the latter plays a more important role. However, there seems to be no significant connection between outsourcing and performance and between motives of outsourcing and performance.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.79-106
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• 2016

Service innovation is one means of gaining an advantage in a highly competitive environment. Although numerous studies have stressed the importance of service innovation, traditional good-dominant logic is still used in service innovation literature. Furthermore, few studies have been conducted on the link between service innovation and its antecedents in terms of service-oriented approach. To fill the gap, this article theoretically and empirically examines service innovation and its antecedents and consequences. Based on service-dominant logic and resource advantage theory, the current study aims to understand the effect of antecedents on service innovation as well as to identify the effect of service innovation on firm performance (i.e., non-financial and financial performance). Three service innovation activities, namely service creation-focused innovation, service delivery-focused innovation, and customer interaction-focused innovation, and four antecedents of service innovation, including human resource management capability, collaboration capability, marketing capability, and information technology capability, are identified based on Den Hertog (2000)'s service innovation framework. By using the empirical data collected from 189 service firms in Korea, this study explores the causal relationship among antecedents, service innovation and firm performance. Findings indicate that human resource management and marketing capabilities influence the three types of service innovation, whereas collaboration and information technology capabilities have a significant effect on both service creation-focused innovation and service delivery-focused innovation. In particular, human resource management capability is strongly related to customer interaction-focused innovation. The three types of service innovation have a positive influence on non-financial performance, whereas service delivery-focused innovation and customer interaction-focused innovation positively influence financial performance. These results support the crucial effects of antecedents, such as human resource management, collaboration, marketing and information technology capabilities, on service innovation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.73-82
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• 2015

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate whether information asymmetry could explain capital structures in Korean corporations. According to Myers (1984), firms prefer internal funding to external financing due to the costs associated with information asymmetry. When external financing is necessary, firms prefer to issue debt rather than equity by the same reasoning. Since Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999), numerous studies continue to debate the validity of the theory. In this paper, we show how the theory depends on assumptions and incorporated variables. We hope our investigation can provide helpful implications regarding capital structure, information asymmetry, and other firm characteristics. Specifically, our empirical results are complementary to the analysis of Son and Lee's (2015), a recent study that examines the pecking order theory prediction for Korean retail firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We test empirical models that are some variants of model used in Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). The financial and accounting data are provided by WISEfn for the firms listed on the KOSPI during 1990 to 2013. Bond ratings are supplied by the Korea Investor Service (KIS). We take into account the heterogeneity in debt capacity; a firm's debt capacity is measured by using the method of Lemmon and Zender (2010) based on its bond ratings. Finally, we estimate empirical models suggested by Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999), Frank and Goyal (2003), and Lemmon and Zender (2010). Results - First, we find that Shyam-Sunder and Myers' (1999) prediction fails to explain total debt changes of Korean firms. Second, we find a non-monotonic relationship between total debt changes and financial deficits with respect to debt capacity. This contradicts the prediction of Lemmon and Zender (2010) that argues the pecking order theory survives with a monotonically increasing relationship. Third, we estimate a negative correlation coefficient between financial deficit and current debt changes. The result is the complete opposite of the prediction of Lemmon and Zender (2010). Finally, we also confirm the non-monotonic relationship between non-current debt changes and financial deficits with respect to debt capacity. Yet, the slope of coefficient is smaller than that of total debt change case. Indeed, the results are, to some extent, consistent with the prediction of pecking order theory, if we exclude the mid-debt capacity firms. Conclusions - Our empirical results complementary to the analysis of Son and Lee (2015), a recent study focusing on capital structure in Korean retail firms; their paper suggests interesting topics regarding capital structure, information asymmetry, and other firm characteristics in Korean corporations. Contrary to Son and Lee (2015), our results show that total debt changes and current debt changes are inconsistent with the prediction of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). However, similar to Son and Lee (2015), non-current debt changes are consistent with the pecking order prediction, in the case of excluding the mid-level debt capacity firms. This contrast allows us to infer that industry characteristics significantly affect the validity of the pecking order prediction. Further studies are needed to analyze the economics behind this phenomenon, which is beyond the scope of our paper. In addition, the estimation bias potentially matters regarding the firm-level debt capacity calculation. We also reserve this topic for future research.