• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1004-1013
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• 2003

This study addressed an ill-understood issue of a price response model and a monopolistic price interval of fashion goods. The concept of monopolistic price interval introduced by Gutenberg has been rarely applied to the fashion goods, which is known as price sensitive goods. Thus, this study examined the price insensitive zone of the blue jean. The data of 268 respondents were analyzed using Choice-based Conjoint (CBC) analysis and t-test. Considering brand consideration set as a price determinant, we found the presence of monopolistic price interval of the jean. The results obtained from the CBC analysis showed that the bigger the size of brand consideration set, the shorter the monopolistic interval. This implied that the consumer who had a small brand consideration set was more likely to have a longer monopolistic price interval than the one who had a large brand consideration set, since the consumer with a small consideration set tended to value brand itself more than price. Although significant monopolistic price intervals were shown only for the three jean brands out of the seven, to reduce the size of brand consideration set and to increase brand loyalty were found important in maximizing firms'financial profits.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.89-105
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• 2004

Many researchers and practitioners have acknowledged the need to investigate the relationships amongst various criteria of implementing total quality management (TQM) in small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs). There is a need to have practical research methodologies that take cognisance of the peculiarities of SMMEs and impact on their quality management practices in developing countries. This paper presents the theoretical foundation of a proposed Generative Research Methodology and configures the specification of a TQM implementation framework in SMMEs. The methodology combines rigorous research approaches, builds theory based on the dynamics of the environment and the firms' characteristics and incorporates various TQM criteria into the design of the framework. It synchronises inductive and deductive research methods in three phases and uses various means to acquire empirical evidence and examine the dependent and independent variables of TQM implementation. It is anticipated that the methodology could help SMMEs to develop, analyse and evaluate the framework for attaining quality performance goals.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.97-107
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• 2005

This study aims to examine the determinants affecting rural women's participation in community organizations in rural Korea. The data was collected through interviews with 958 rural women among 1,870 respondents who have lived in Up and Myen as an administrative unit of a rural community, and analyzed by the SPSS/PC Win V.10 program. The statistical method utilized for this study was the hierarchy multiple regression model. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, rural women with a high income, a larger farm, or a fruit farm are more likely to participate in agricultural cooperatives. Second, rural women with a high income, a larger farm, who are engaged in full time forming, and grow fruit and special crops, are more likely to participate in cooperative firms. Third, rural women who are educated and have a larger farm, a fruit farm, and high community attachment are more likely to participate in learning organizations. Fourth, rural women who were educated and have small households are more likely to participate in religious groups. Fifth, rural women with a small farm are more likely to participate in civic organizations. Sixth, there was no significance between all of these variables and participation in political parties.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 2006

With the diffusion of the Internet, firms try to electronically collaborate with their partners in order to cut costs and gain profits. This, electronic Partnership, called 'Collaborative IT' is quite popular between large purchase enterprises and small-to-medium sized sub-contractors. This study investigates such relations. This study proposes three groups of research variables-interorganizational relationship, collaborative IT activity, and firm performance. the interorganizational relationship consists of trust, commitment, and asymmetry of commitment. Collaborative IT activity is composed of information sharing and workflow integration. The ultimate dependent variable is firm performance. It is hypothesized that the relationship factors influence the level of collaborative IT activity, while the latter in turn affects the firm performance. The relationship factors nay also directly affect the dependent variable. In addition, collaborative IT motive, as a moderating variable, may influence the causal relationship. By means of survey, ore hundred and eighty-two responses were obtained. Most sample companies are small-sized, in the manufacturing sector. The analysis of data reveals that both trust and commitment positively affects the level of collaborative IT activity, while asymmetry of commitment has negative effects. The workflow integration is significantly related with firm performance. Information sharing, however, has no signific3nt effects. Furthermore, asymmetry of commitment shows reverse relationship with firm performance. Collaborative IT motive works as a moderating variable between information sharing and firm performance. Finally, workflow integration is believed to mediate between relationship factors and firm performance.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.161-181
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• 1998

Translating expert knowledge into production rules has been the most difficult and time-consuming when building expert systems (Buchanan et al. 1983). Especially, buidling hierarchical structure, i. e. developing sequential or dominant relationship among production rules is one of the most important and difficult processes. Hierarchical relationship among rules has been typically determined in the course of interviewing human experts. Since this interviewing procedure is rather subjective, however, the hierarchically structured rules produced in terms of interviewing is widely exposed to the severe discussion about their validity (Nisbett and Wilson 1977 : Ericsson and Simon 1980 : Kellog 1982). We thus need an objective method to effectively translate human expert knowledge into structured rules. As such a method, this paper suggests the order anlaysis technique that has been studied in psychometries (Cliff 1977 : Reynolds 1981 : Wise 1983). In this paper we briefly introduce the order analysis and explain how it can be applied to building hierarchical structure of production rules. We also illustrate how bankrupcy prediction rules of small-medium companies can be developed using this order analysis technique. Further, we validata the effectiveness of these rules developed by the order analysis, in comparison with those built by other methods. The rules developed by the proposed outperform those of the other traditional methods in effectively screening the bankrupted firms.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.77-104
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• 2016

The effective management of R&D employees is critical for a small or medium sized firm's sustainable growth. R&D employees have professional skills and choose expertise-oriented or management-oriented careers in the process of organizational socialization. This study synthetically verifies the direct and indirect effects of R&D employees' social network and self-esteem on their career orientation by organizational commitment based on social network theory and social recognition theory. The research model has been analyzed through structural equation modeling using survey responses from 220 R&D employees at small- and medium-sized firms in Korea. The analysis results show that internal network activities have direct and indirect impacts on organizational commitment and career orientation, but external network activities do not have significant effects on self-esteem, organizational commitment, or career orientation. There is no consensus in prior studies on whether expert orientation and management orientation are distinct concepts. In this study, these two types of orientation are verified as distinct concepts. It is also found that R&D employees' internal network activities are significant factors for a company's growth. A company should implement an educational system of roles and duties using which individuals can pursue career progression. In addition, it is necessary to provide career development programs such as job rotation, mentoring, and career counseling.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.73-79
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to explore how small and medium enterprises in India has identified the opportunities and challenges in adopting the Web 3.0 technologies to improve their productivity and efficiency. After an in-depth literature review, researchers framed a semi-structured questionnaire with open-ended questions for collecting responses from managers working in 40 Indian SME's representing five key economic sectors. The collected data was analyzed, and themes were encoded using the NVivo 11 computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. Content analysis was used to analyze the data collected with the semi-structured interviews. This study identified five key themes and 12 subthemes illustrating the key advantages and challenges as perceived by the managerial leadership of SMEs. The five key themes identified in this study include integration of data and services, the creation of new functionalities, privacy and security, financial and technological challenges, and organizational challenges. The results of this study will benefit the organizational leadership of SMEs in planning and developing their short-term and long-term information systems strategies and will enable SME leaders to make optimal use of their information technology assets, improving the productivity and competitiveness of the firms. Web 3.0 technologies are considered as emerging technologies, so the advantages and challenges of using these technologies for SMEs have not been explored in the context of emerging economies, such as India.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.231-236
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• 2016

Background: To analyze the effects of the factors associated with different types of injury (superficial wounds, dislocations and sprains, bone fractures, concussion and internal injuries, burns scalding and freezing) caused by occupational accidents in automotive repair workshops. Methods: Study of a sample consisting of 89,954 industry accidents reported from 2003 to 2008. Odds ratios were calculated with a 95% confidence interval. Results: Belonging to a small company is a risk factor for suffering three of the five types of injury studied. Women are less likely to suffer burns and superficial wounds, and more likely to suffer dislocations or sprains. Foreign workers are more likely to suffer concussion and internal injuries. Conclusion: Health and safety strategies and accident prevention measures should be individualized and adapted to the type of worker most likely to be injured in each type of accident. Occupational health and safety training courses designed according to worker profile, and improving the participation of the workers in small firms creating regional or roving safety representatives would improve working conditions.

• Proceedings of the Technology Innovation Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.226-249
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• 1998

Technology diffusion policy can be defined as the role of government in linking knowledge production with usage. It has an importance due to the fact that linking knowledge between the producing agent and using agent does not automatically occur. If knowledge produced by an R&D agent is not used by somebody else, the knowledge may deteriorate to a social loss since knowledge production consumes a considerable degree of social resources. Explicit technology diffusion policies are not found in Korea. There we, however, a number of implicit policies to promote technology diffusion, mainly by promoting cooperation among universities, industries and research institutes. Government R&D programs have provided incentives for cooperative research projects, and many government sponsored institutes have been assigned the role of technology assistance for small and medium sized firms. Nevertheless, diffusion policies remain weak in comparison to other innovation and technology policies. This is reflected in the relatively small scale of government support for technology diffusion programs. In addition, there is no systematic approach between the different ministries for enhancing diffusion across technologies, institutions, sectors and regions. A comprehensive evaluation of government diffusion programs, which is necessary for improving policy and program design, is lacking. Enhancing the diffusion of technology in Korea will require the strengthening of policies at different levels, including; 1) increasing the orientation of science and technology policies towards diffusion; 2) increasing the scale of existing diffusion programs; 3) developing new diffusion programs, in particular sector-specific or manpower training programs; 4) developing policies to encourage a culture of cooperation that can facilitate technology diffusion; and 5) carrying out substantial policy research to develop diffusion policies.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.41-50
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• 2020

The paper investigates the factors that affect the demand for a voluntary audit of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. A structured questionnaire survey of 284 SMEs was employed, preceded by in-depth interviews with auditors and SMEs' managers. The research used logistic regression estimator to address econometric issues and to improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients. The results show that the degree of director's view on voluntary audit, related stakeholder, degree of recommendation, and firm size have a statistically significant positive effect on audit decisions of SMEs while degree of audit fee has a statistically significant negative effect, and degree of subjective norm does not affect. This indicated that SMEs are more likely to have an external audit if they have some typical features: it is becoming larger in terms of size, and the directors consider that the audit has a relative benefit outweighing its cost. The research results suggested that Vietnam Government should make a statutory audit of SMEs' financial statements rather than make it an option for SMEs. The auditing firms were also recommended to actively take their audit services to SMEs rather than waiting for the SMEs' managers to contact them for their services.