• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.57-81
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• 2008

Knowledge is an essential strategic weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and is the key determinant for organizational growth. When knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout the organization, it increases an organization's value by providing the ability to respond to new and unusual situations. The growing importance of knowledge as a critical resource has forced executives to pay attention to their organizational knowledge. Organizations are increasingly undertaking knowledge management initiatives and making significant investments. Knowledge sourcing is considered as the first important step in effective knowledge management. Most firms continue to make an effort to realize the benefits of knowledge management by using various knowledge sources effectively. Appropriate knowledge sourcing strategies enable organizations to create, acquire, and access knowledge in a timely manner by reducing search and transfer costs, which result in better firm performance. In response, the knowledge management literature has devoted substantial attention to the analysis of knowledge sourcing strategies. Many studies have categorized knowledge sourcing strategies into intemal- and external-oriented. Internal-oriented sourcing strategy attempts to increase firm performance by integrating knowledge within the boundary of the firm. On the contrary, external-oriented strategy attempts to bring knowledge in from outside sources via either acquisition or imitation, and then to transfer that knowledge across to the organization. However, the extant literature on knowledge sourcing strategies focuses primarily on large organizations. Although many studies have clearly highlighted major differences between large and small firms and the need to adopt different strategies for different firm sizes, scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in small firms and what are the differences between small and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on small firm performance from a holistic perspective. By drawing on knowledge based theory from organization science and complementarity theory from the economics literature, this paper is motivated by the following questions: (1) what are the adoption patterns of different knowledge sourcing strategies in small firms (i,e., what sourcing strategies should be adopted and which sourcing strategies work well together in small firms)?; and (2) what are the performance implications of these adoption patterns? In order to answer the questions, this study developed three hypotheses. First hypothesis based on knowledge based theory is that internal-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. Second hypothesis developed on the basis of knowledge based theory is that external-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. The third one based on complementarity theory is that pursuing both internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing simultaneously is negatively or less positively associated with small firm performance. As a sampling frame, 700 firms were identified from the Annual Corporation Report in Korea. Survey questionnaires were mailed to owners or executives who were most erudite about the firm s knowledge sourcing strategies and performance. A total of 188 companies replied, yielding a response rate of 26.8%. Due to incomplete data, 12 responses were eliminated, leaving 176 responses for the final analysis. Since all independent variables were measured using continuous variables, supermodularity function was used to test the hypotheses based on the cross partial derivative of payoff function. The results indicated no significant impact of internal-oriented sourcing strategies while positive impact of external-oriented sourcing strategy on small firm performance. This intriguing result could be explained on the basis of various resource and capital constraints of small firms. Small firms typically have restricted financial and human resources. They do not have enough assets to always develop knowledge internally. Another possible explanation is competency traps or core rigidities. Building up a knowledge base based on internal knowledge creates core competences, but at the same time, excessive internal focused knowledge exploration leads to behaviors blind to other knowledge. Interestingly, this study found that Internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing strategies had a substitutive relationship, which was inconsistent with previous studies that suggested complementary relationship between them. This result might be explained using organizational identification theory. Internal organizational members may perceive external knowledge as a threat, and tend to ignore knowledge from external sources because they prefer to maintain their own knowledge, legitimacy, and homogeneous attitudes. Therefore, integrating knowledge from internal and external sources might not be effective, resulting in failure of improvements of firm performance. Another possible explanation is small firms resource and capital constraints and lack of management expertise and absorptive capacity. Although the integration of different knowledge sources is critical, high levels of knowledge sourcing in many areas are quite expensive and so are often unrealistic for small enterprises. This study provides several implications for research as well as practice. First this study extends the existing knowledge by examining the substitutability (and complementarity) of knowledge sourcing strategies. Most prior studies have tended to investigate the independent effects of these strategies on performance without considering their combined impacts. Furthermore, this study tests complementarity based on the productivity approach that has been considered as a definitive test method for complementarity. Second, this study sheds new light on knowledge management research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and small firm performance. Most current literature has insisted complementary relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies on the basis of data from large firms. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study identifies substitutive relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies using data from small firms. Third, implications for practice highlight that managers of small firms should focus on knowledge sourcing from external-oriented strategies. Moreover, adoption of both sourcing strategies simultaneousiy impedes small firm performance.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.277-295
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• 2005

The objective of the study is to verify the discriminatory power of valuation indexes in predicting IT small and medium sized manufacturing firms' going concern or firms' failure. The result of the study is expected to be useful in loan evaluation, investment decision, internal management decision making and business improvement. The results of study is as follows. First, we find that at least six valuation index elements are significant ex-ante variable which are discriminating between firms' going concern and firms' failure in IT small and medium sized manufacturing firms in various analysis' results. Second, these index elements are composed of 2 indexes-the ability of technology R&D, the efficient strategy of market penetration and six index elements explain 46% of the total variance. This explainable power of these indexed is similar to that of the existing 16 index elements. Finally, we find that the most important success factor of IT small and medium sized manufacturing firms are the ability of technology R&D and the efficient strategy of market penetration.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.199-207
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• 2017

The business environment changing very fast with technology advance and convergence makes the role of R&D become more and more important to firms' success. By analyzing the 683 firm-level data of small and medium venture firms with the ordinary least squares regression, this study sheds new light on the following four points. First, small and medium venture firms' exterior R&D collaboration network heterogeneity positively impacts their import substitution from technology development. Second, the existence of the corporate R&D center moderates the positive impact of small and venture firms' exterior R&D collaboration network heterogeneity on their import substitution from technology development. Third, small and venture firms' exterior R&D information network heterogeneity positively impacts their import substitution from technology development. Fourth, The existence of the corporate R&D center moderates the positive influence of small and venture firms' exterior R&D information network heterogeneity on their import substitution from technology development.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.129-138
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• 2014

After global economic crisis, China has become one of the two pillars in the global economies and the country contributing to the Korean economy. Nevertheless, the research on Chinese financial market, particularly capital market, is rare to date. This study examined the growth enterprise market that emergedat the Shenzhen stock exchange and made comparative analysis on before and after listing for the Chinese small and medium sized firms and venture firms. The listing requirements at the Chinese growth enterprise market for the technologically innovative venture firms and fast-growing small and medium sized firms with financing purpose were more alleviated than the main board of Shenzhen stock exchange. Moreover, the listing procedures are simplified as well. Accordingly, many Chinese enterprises tend to list and the competition for listing is also intense. In particular, with the 36 initially listed firms at growth enterprise market as the research target, the investigation for the business performance before and after listing reveals that the three indexes including return on common equity, debt ratio and operating profit growth rate dropped dramatically for most all the firms. That is, the profitability and growth for the venture firms and small and medium sized firms listed on the Chinese growth enterprise market decreased rapidly after going public, only the stability improved due to the great financing. Taking a step forward, this phenomenon may result from the exaggerated reporting for the business performance before listing with the purpose of going public by the venture firms and small and medium sized firms. Thus, Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission should strengthen the accounting evaluation standard and regulation for the listing firms before going public. In addition, strict sanctions should be imposed on the firms with fraudulent accounting to establish healthy capital market.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.25-47
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• 2010

Over the past 20 years new and small firms have been identified as significant components of economic strategies for job and wealth creation. Implicit in these strategies has been the search for policies which will increase the supply of new firms, and will encourage established firms' growth. Yet the majority firms spend the whole of their economic life within the small firm sector. The aim of this paper is to suggest a multidimensional approach to the understanding of the comparative characteristics of the small firm by providing evidence as to the factors which describe firms of different sizes, regions and industries. And I discuss in the context of policy options for regional economic development in Korea. The results from the analyses are summarized as follows. The size of the small firms in the sample measured in terms of both number of employees and sales revenue are characterized by regions, export performance and R&D. There is also some indication that growing firms may develop more complex environment. These results are based upon a multi-dimensional analysis of the strategic profile of a sample of small firms using KIS. From this observation of the firms during the data collection period, this is a conclusion that I find intuitively appealing.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.39-56
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• 2004

Mergers and Acquisitions(M&A) have long played an important role in the growth of firm. M&A has been considered a effective strategy for Korean government to restructure industry. Previous studies provided mixed results on the synergy effect of M&A This study provides investigation on 39 mergers occurred over the sample period from 2000 to 2001. In this study, event study methodology arc used to calculate abnormal return(AR) and cumulative abnormal return(CAR) based on mean-adjusted model. The testing period of this study from date -30 through date +30, where date zero is the date of the first public announcement of the merger. The empirical results in this study can be summarized as follows. First, the return rates of KOSDAQ registered firms with M&A appears higher than that of KSE listed firms. This means that public announcement of M&A is more influential on stock price for KOSDAQ registered firms than KSE listed firms. Second, The difference between actual merging price and fair value is significant in KSE listed firms and KOSDAQ registered firms. This means that the investors take M&A of KOSDAQ registered firms as a good news. Third, the impact on the market prices of merging firms take place after the first public announcement of the merger in KSE registered firms. But the impact on the market prices take place not only merging firms but also merged firms in KOSDAQ registered firms. This result shows that the investors recognize a M&A is a strategy of technology transfer in small & venture business.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.385-432
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• 2017

This paper investigates how firm age, size and ownership are related with job creation and destruction, and how these patterns differ across transition and non-transition economies. The analysis finds that age is inversely related with gross job creation and net job creation in the two samples. This finding is consistent with the theory of the learning effect. The relationship between age and job destruction is indifferent in non-transition economies. On the contrary, old firms in transition economies destroy more jobs than young ones. The paper further establishes an inverse relationship between size and gross job creation in the two groups. However, there is divergence between the two samples; small firms in non-transition economies also exhibit a higher gross job destruction rate. Consequently large firms have a higher net job creation rate. In transition economies, small and large firms exhibit similar rates of job destruction. But small firms retain a higher net job creation rate. A more intriguing finding is that state owned firms do not underperform domestic private ones. This means these countries may be using soft budget constraint which allows state owned firms to overstaff. Finally, crowding out of SMEs by foreign owned firms is not evident in transition economies.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.27
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• pp.101-129
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• 2008

This study introduced the inclusion of Global Value Chain (GVC) as a strategy for the globalization of domestic industries. In addition, this study intended to highlight direct foreign investment as an important opportunity for enhancing the competitiveness of the domestic small and medium firms. That is, globalization could be realized not only through simple capital inflow, but also through domestic industry's participation in the overseas production network. The analysis of the trend and pattern of direct foreign investment revealed that the FDI inflows heavily dependent on the USA and Japan have been diversified steadily over time. In spite of recent decline trend of overall FDI amount, inflows from European countries in machinery and chemical industries have been rising. These rising and diversifying trends in these industries are promising since FDI inflows have the potential of playing an important role in achieving productivity growth of domestic industries, particularly in the area of comparatively fragile industries such as machinery and chemicals. In the same logic, it is crucial for future growth of Korea that the small and medium firms find their competitive edges through strengthening production networks with foreign multi-national companies. Thus, it is suggested that the policy of globalization of small and medium firms should be based on the firm understanding of GVC and FDI pattern of industries.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.149-172
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• 2009

Service industries nowadays have become the subject of a scientific research. However, unlike research on manufacturing, there has not yet been a broader presentation of important aspects theoretically and methodologically. The importance of service sector in both national and global economies has grown significantly. An active participation of service industries in the internationalization process, notably by licensing and FDI, has occurred over time. But a few sub-sectors still dominate on this process, for example, financial institutions such as banks, securities, and insurance as well as producer services in advertising and accounting. On the other hand, personal services that are owned by small- and medium- sized firm have limited capabilities in their transnational transfer. This paper attempts to examine various factors influencing decisions for these small- and medium- sized Korean beauty firms in entering to the foreign markets. Determining factors for these firms in the engagement of internationalization depends largely on competitive advantages in both domestic and host countries, and they may be different from those in the sub-sectors mentioned above. Based on previous researches, i identified three categories of independent variables(characteristics of firms, managers, and competition) that can influence decisions to enter to the foreign markets. Seven hypotheses have been tested by using a sample of beauty firms in Daegu city and Kyungbuk province. The results show that the intention of these firms to enter to the foreign markets is significantly influenced by the factors of the innovative character of CEO's, the competitiveness of firms, and size of firms.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.49-71
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• 2000

This paper looks at "network" aspects of research and development (R'||'&'||'D) with a special focus on small and medium (S'||'&'||'M) automotive part makers in Korea. It throws light on recent changes in the technological capability building mechanism of Korean automotive firms. The Korean automotive firms have mostly built up technological capability from scratch. It is widely acknowledged that they have benefited from two cooperative relations: namely (1) the close cooperative relationship with their own assemblers and (2) technical assistance from auto parts makers abroad. Too much emphasis on these two links can, however, keep us from understanding new developments. This paper argues that auto parts firms have diversified their networks for technological development. It is based on the analysis of the data drawn from the survey on technological development activities of small and medium sized firms, which was carried out by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business. Many automotive firms have recently increased joint R'||'&'||'D links with university and/or research institution while their reliance on foreign sources have decreased.