• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.113-138
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• 2012

This study examined the determinants of export performance of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in Korea. Depending on the existing research, taking entrepreneurship and product differentiation capabilities as antecedents of export performance. In addition, the product differentiation capabilities examined whether the role of the mediating effects between entrepreneurship and export performance. Thus, the purpose of the study is look at the integrated model of entrepreneurship, product differentiation capabilities and export performance building and their relationship. On 152 domestic companies, empirical analysis was performed. Empirical analysis was conducted using the PLS(Partial Least Square). And analysis tools were used SmartPLS2.0. In the results of the analysis, risk tolerance and innovativeness of small and medium sized manufacturing businesses, entrepreneurs and product differentiation competence have positive impact export performance in both. Product differentiation capabilities also confirmed that it have a positive impact on the export performance of small manufacturing export enterprises. In analysis of the mediated effect in product differentiation capacity showed a significant mediated effect between innovativeness and export performance. But mediated effects did not indicate a significant risk tolerance. these results suggests the need to actively pursue innovation that more product differentiation capabilities required in export companies to small and medium-sized manufacturing. In other words, when attempting to highlight product differentiation, based on innovation, rather than risk tolerance. In terms of analyzing the mediated role of product differentiation capabilities, this study has theoretical implications for the future research to look at the antecedents of export performance from the perspective of dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage. Also, practical implications in this regard as the innovativeness and taking risks to all important to CEO of small manufacturing enterprises but, stranger in the foreign market competition environment, the role of innovation product is required on raising product differentiation capabilities are presented.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2015

This study compares own-brand exporting SMEs' utilization of various government-run exporting service programs that provided support in searching for overseas distributors, in overseas market research, and in marketing support. Researchers measure how important firms found each of these components of the program, as well as firms' satisfaction with these services, based on the type of product exported (industrial vs. consumer goods) and the level of economic development of the host countries (developed, newly industrialized, and developing.) A total of 245 own-brand exporting SMEs were surveyed and analyzed in this study. Results indicated that KOTRA was the most frequently used organization by the sample SMEs, regardless of the product type and the economic level of host countries. Industrial-goods exporting SMEs found support in searching for overseas distributors more important than consumer-goods exporting SMEs. SMEs exporting to developed countries considered overseas market research and marketing support and searching for overseas distributor programs more important than SMEs exporting to NIE or developing countries. In addition, industrial-goods exporting SMEs were more satisfied with the overseas market research and marketing support and searching for overseas distributor programs than consumer-goods exporting SMEs. However, there were no differences in satisfaction among firms based on the level of economic development of host countries. Several cases of significant correlations between the importance of and satisfaction with the utilization of government exporting service programs were found.

• Korean small business review
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.29-51
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• 2019

This study investigates how SMEs' (small and medium-sized enterprises) financing strategies affect firm valuation. Given that information asymmetry is engaged in firm valuation in the stock market, investors interpret the meanings of debt financing depending on how SMEs construct the portfolio of financing strategies (retained earnings vs debt financing), thereby making investment decision. Specifically, given that SMEs' debt financing has two meanings in the market signals, called "benefit" and "cost", this study postulates that firm valuation will be differently made by investors, depending on how they interpret the meanings of debt financing under choice competition between retained earnings and debt financing. In this study, we argue that under choice competition, as a SME's debt proportion increases, the "cost" signal outweighes the "benefit" signal, thereby decreasing firm valuation. Moreover, the effect of such signal can be contingent on the SME's characteristics-firm visibility. These ideas are examined using 363 U.S. SMEs ranging from 1971 to 2010. The fixed-effects models estimating Tobin's q show that under choice competition, a SME's debt proportion has a negative impact on firm valuation and that the firm's high visibility mitigates the effect of "cost" signal. In conclusion, this study sheds new light on how investors' interpretations of SMEs' financing strategies affect firm valuation.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.101-112
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• 2024

In this paper, we present EDF (Event Data Factory), an interactive tool designed to assist event log generation for process mining. EDF integrates various data connectors to improve its capability to assist users in connecting to diverse data sources. Our tool employs low-code/no-code technology, along with graph-based visualization, to help non-expert users understand process flow and enhance the user experience. By utilizing metadata information, EDF allows users to efficiently generate an event log containing case, activity, and timestamp attributes. Through log quality metrics, our tool enables users to assess the generated event log quality. We implement EDF under a cloud-based architecture and run a performance evaluation. Our case study and results demonstrate the usability and applicability of EDF. Finally, an observational study confirms that EDF is easy to use and beneficial, expanding small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) access to process mining applications.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.225-236
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• 2023

Policy implications were derived by comparing/analyzing innovative SMEs and general SMEs that obtained innovation certification from 2015 to 2021 in terms of survival period. Work experience, scale (employment, capital and debt size, sales and operating profit) Korean standard industry classification (2 digit) was used to select general SMEs similar to innovative SMEs. Survival period was calculated by defining suspension, closure and overdue equivalent to default as events. As a result of the survival analysis, innovative SMEs showed a 9.8% reduction in the risk of delinquency compared to general SMEs, indicating that the survival period of innovative SMEs was significantly longer. In addition, it was found that the work experience and size (employment, capital) of SMEs had a positive effect on the survival period, but debt had a negative effect on the survival period. This means that the innovation certification system centered on innovation capabilities and future growth potential is a significant indicator in terms of survival period. As a result, it was concluded that the benefits and support policies provided by the innovation certification system need to be more systematic and sophisticated by reflecting the work experience and industry for the actual growth and survival of SMEs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.25-38
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• 2019

This study is to develop a diagnostic model for the effective introduction of smart factories in the manufacturing industry, to diagnose SMEs that have difficulties in building their own smart factory compared to large enterprise, to identify the current level and to present directions for implementation. IT, AT, and OT experts diagnosed 18 SMEs using the "Smart Factory Capacity Diagnosis Tool" developed for smart factory level assessment of companies. They analyzed the results and assessed the level by smart factory diagnosis categories. Companies' smart factory diagnostic mean score is 322 out of 1000 points, between 1 level (check) and 2 level (monitoring). According to diagnosis category, Factory Field Basic, R&D, Production/Logistics/Quality Control, Supply Chain Management and Reference Information Standardization are high but Strategy, Facility Automation, Equipment Control, Data/Information System and Effect Analysis are low. There was little difference in smart factory level depending on whether IT system was built or not. Also, Companies with large sales amount were not necessarily advantageous to smart factories. This study will help SMEs who are interested in smart factory. In order to build smart factory, it is necessary to analyze the market trends, SW/ICT and establish a smart factory strategy suitable for the company considering the characteristics of industry and business environment.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.118-143
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• 2008

This paper examines the effect of innovation strategy and R&D organization on the innovation performances in the Korean small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs). For the SMEs with limited resources and capabilities, the one of key strategic issues is to allocate innovation resources to the exploitation of existing technological capabilities and/or the exploration of new technological capabilities. Based upon survey data from 769 SMEs, this study investigated relationships among exploitation and exploration strategies, the existence of R&D organization, and innovation performance. Exploration is positively related to product and process innovation performances across the industrial sectors. However, exploitation is positively related only to the process innovation performance in the traditional manufacturing sectors. The existence of R&D organizations has positive effects on the product innovation performance and not on the process innovation performance. Finally, it discusses the managerial implications, the limitations of this study and the future research directions.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.131-153
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• 2009

Due to the deterioration of the business environment, many companies become more interested in IT adoption to strengthen their internal competence. The recent expansion of the ERP adoption in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be interpreted as an example for this. However there are still a number of questions over the outsourcing effectiveness and its performance of IT adoption by characteristics of SMEs. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the software process quality and the product quality, and additionally the moderating effect of IT adoption factors, from the case of SMEs' ERP adoption by the outsourcing. For this purpose, the empirical analysis through the structural equation model has been carried out, based on the software quality model defined in ISO/IEC 15504 and ISO/IEC 9126. The result of analysis shows that the acquisition process quality can affect the product quality characteristics, currently applied in the national software quality certification, and this supports the practical usefulness of the ISO standard of software engineering. But another result shows that there is little moderating effect by IT adoption factors, in contrast to the expectation, and this can be explained due to the inappropriate measurement and the data constraint such as short duration-time of IT adoption. These can be used as an informative reference for continuing studies of the quality model application and the effect of IT adoption factors in SMEs.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.101-118
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• 2016

With regards to CSR, Proactive CSR has been less researched in small & medium enterprises(SMEs). This research examines empirically the relation between SME's organizational capabilities, proactive CSR and corporate performance as well as a mediating role of proactive CSR between capabilities and corporate performance. Using quantitative data collected from 485 SMEs in Korea, we find that all specified capabilities are positively related with adoption of proactive CSR by SMEs and that proactive CSR is, in turn, associated with an improvement in corporate performance. In addition, we also find a mediating role of proactive CSR on the relationship between organizational capabilities and performance. The study is likely to contribute to both SMEs CSR strategy and RBV research.

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