• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.137-155
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• 2007

Since China joined the WTO, the trade between Korea and China has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, making both nations become mutually important trading partners to each other. The volume of trades with China showed a rapid upward trend with an average annual increase rate of 20% and the resultant dispute is also rising. Thus, this study was aimed to make some suggestions and come up with ways of responding claims by surveying Korean trading firms which have experience in making transactions with China to investigate the current status and the actual condition of their occurrence. As a result of this study, firstly, the main cause of such dispute was shown to be the failure to perform the agreement. Secondly, there were malty verbal agreements and due to a deterioration of trust in Chinese firms, the method of a letter of credit was adopted by many Korean firms. Thirdly, the payment and credit appeared to be most important in transactions with China. A credit inquiry is a must in future transactions with China. Fourthly, the indirect cause of the occurrence of trade claims was the difference in commercial practices and as for the way of settling disputes, the agreement through negotiations between the parties involved was the most. Fifthly, small and medium firms should make more of their credit and English proficiency than large ones do.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.67
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• pp.163-186
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• 2015

This study attempts to analyze the trade costs of domestic firms utilizing the FTAs in terms of burden of expenses in managing the rules of origin. In doing so, we classify the managing costs of FTA rules of origin into three categories (that is, (i) ex ante costs from acquiring necessary information and building the infrastructure in the advance stage before the FTAs, (ii) the actual costs of the origin management in the application stage of FTA preferential treatment, (iii) ex post management cost in the preparation stage of origin verification) and perform a survey on the greater details on each category. Using the comprehensive results from the survey regarding domestic firm's use of FTAs, this paper also discusses the issues related to small and medium-sized firms and addresses the concerns involved with their managing costs of FTA rules of origin. Importantly, this paper emphasizes the importance of government supports to reduce inefficiency induced by the additional costs that domestic firms face in their use of FTAs and proposes the various policy implications regarding the managing costs of rules of origin.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.139-160
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• 2012

Win-win growth between large companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) become a critical encomic and social issue in Korea. Korea government has been attempted to establish strong policy to build right win-win relationship between large companies and SMEs. Along with this strong drive from Korea government, a variety of strategies that enhance win-win relationships between large companies and SMEs have been adopted. Win-win growth policy is expected to provide positive impact on sustainable competitive advantage of firms. Therefore, many studies have focused on the win-win growth policy success factors, type of the policy, and the results of the policy. Although there is much literature on the win-win growth policy, the effects of win-win policy on firm value is not well understood. We addressed this issue by exploring how win-win growth policy influences a firm's market value using event study methodology. We evaluated the cumulative abnormal returns for win-win growth policy announced by Korean large firms from 2004 to 2012. The results of this study insisted that the announcements of win-win growth policy show negative impact on firm's market value, which is not consistent with previous studies. The findings of this study offer insights that may help government policy makers and managers to revise their policy for better outcomes of their win-win growth policy.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2017

This paper empirically studies the effect of public procurement on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Republic of Korea using firm-level data. Public procurement, the purchase of goods and services from private firms by the public sector, is regarded as an important policy measure for providing support to firms, particularly SMEs. This study uses establishment-level panel data of the mining and manufacturing sectors from the Korean National Bureau of Statistics (Statistics Korea) and procurement history from the Korean Public Procurement Service to empirically estimate the effects of public procurement on firms' productivity (total factor productivity) and survivability. Using a propensity score matching estimation method, we find that participating firms showed higher productivity than non-participating ones in the control group only for the year of participation, that is, 2009. After two years, in 2011, they exhibited significantly lower productivity. In contrast, establishments that participated in public procurement for SMEs in 2009 were more likely to survive than those that did not do so in 2011. These results can be interpreted as the negative consequences of government intervention. The market's efficiency enhancement is hindered if underserving companies survive owing to government intervention but fail to improve efficiency.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.6 no.2 s.12
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• pp.1-44
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• 2006

This paper aims to analyse post catch-up innovation activities of Korean firms. Traditional approach focused on incremental innovation through fast catch-up process. Recently, Korean firms present new patterns of innovation activities. It includes the development of state-of-the-art frontier products in capital intensive manufacturing sector, the achievement of architectural innovation through adopting newly developed components and the creation of new market based on the basic technological capabilities. This paper attempts to formulate conceptual framework for analysing post catch-up innovation activities and to analyse stylized facts of post catch-up activities based on the case studies on technology based small and medium Korean firms.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2009

This paper empirically tests pecking order theory. Korean listed firms are used as the samples. On the whole we find supportive results for pecking order theory. The fixed effect model on the whole period shows that as pecking order theory suggests that debt ratio decreases as cash flow. ROA, physical assets, and firm size increase. Again, it is shown that corporate debt ratio significantly decreases as cash flow or ROA increases in every sub-sample, which coincides with the prediction of pecking order theory. Corporate debt ratio significantly decreases as physical assets or jinn size increases in case of the whole sample, pre-financial crisis period, and the sub-samples by q-ratio, which also supports the prediction of pecking order theory. Statistical significance of the coefficients of physical assets or firm size completely disappears after Korean financial crisis. Perhaps it is because the role of physical assets or firm size as a mitigator of information asymmetry significantly weakens after the financial crisis as Korean financial market becomes more transparent. For small firms only size variable is negatively and significantly related with debt to assets. It seems that size is an important factor for smaller firms in making financing decision.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.225-229
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• 2009

International construction market has been open to other countries, and it derives the development of our overseas construction industry quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Until now, the major companies have an absolute majority in the overseas construction market, and the small and medium enterprises have had difficulty to get a leadership in the international construction market because of the lack of the technical expertise and the capital strength. Especially in the Middle East Asia, our construction companies has touched off a boom, so our market share also has grown, which derived from the up toward ratchet oil prices and a worldwide boom in real estate development. The small and medium enterprise minority have recognition that the overseas construction market is the major company's native territory. But Data from the existing researches and many statistics indicate the most companies tend to underestimate the capacity and international competitiveness of the small and medium enterprises. As a matter of fact, hundreds of small and medium enterprise cut a conspicuous figure in overseas market. Consequently, it is indispensable to overcome the international financial crisis by revitalizing our overseas construction industry which obtains excellent results in international market. this study suggested the ways to expand overseas bonding capacity of Korean financial institution. This study proposed the Korean government to allow Construction Guarantee (former Korea Construction Financial Cooperative) to deal with foreign exchange so that Construction Guarantee will underwrite the overseas construction bond.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.59-74
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• 2019

Purpose: Despite the fact that the majority of domestic firms are small in size, there have been few studies conducted to understand the leadership effectiveness of small firm CEOs. Based on the upper echelon theory, this study attempts to demonstrate empirically that transformational leadership of small firm CEOs can increase the innovative behavior of employees. In addition, the present study examines mediating effects of CEO trust perceived by employees when transformational leadership affects employees' innovative behavior. Methods: The survey data of CEOs'transformational leadership, innovative behavior of employees, and perceived CEO trust were collected from 176 employees working in domestic small firms. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to examine the main effects between transformation leadership and innovative behavior and mediating effects of CEO trust perceived by employees. Results: The results show that CEOs' transformational leadership is significantly related to the innovative behavior of employees in the current sample. Results also indicate that CEO trust perceived by employees reveals a mediating effect in the process of transformational leadership affecting innovative behavior. Conclusion: The results show that as suggested by the upper echelon theory, the leadership of small firm CEOs can have a significant impact on positive job-related behaviors and attitudes of employees. The results also contribute to expand on the understanding of the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behavior by explaining that transformational leadership can mediate trust in CEOs in enhancing employees'innovative behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are reviewed, and limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are addressed.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.25-36
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• 2012

Over the last few years, despite the government's ongoing efforts for cooperative relationship between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs), their effectiveness is limited. In addition, the academic researches for addressing practical policy alternatives are also insufficient. This study aims to suggest the practical policies for cooperative relationship between large firms and SMEs. To this end, we suggest typology to know how collaboration process between large firms and SMEs for technology commercialization project with the utilization of dimensions of technology and marketing cooperaton is, and analyse the characteristics of each type, and examine the present situation of collaboration between large firms and SMEs in Korea and then finally, derive government policy guidelines. Through this research, we suggest theoretical framework to reinforce national industry competitiveness under growing global competition through suggesting how SMEs take survival basis, and also how large firms collaborate with SMEs.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.1-29
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• 2018

The paper reviews the trend of youth employment in Korea in recent years and examines whether the change in labor demand through declining business dynamism is one of the causes. The analysis based on Employment Insurance database finds that the rate of job creation declined over the period from 1999 to 2014 and that the job creation of small- and medium-sized enterprises fell sharply. This is partly explained by entry of fewer firms than before given that young firms tend to experience rapid employment growth. In fact, it is confirmed that the share of firms under age 6 in employment level and job creation declined. The finding that young firms employ young workers more than old firms suggests that a smaller role of young firms in the economy had a negative effect on youth employment.