• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.93-102
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• 2011

With the increasing interest in boosting conventional markets, many authors have paid considerable attention to the roles of shop owners, store image improvement, and how to attract or maintain customers. Nevertheless, it is not easy to find papers related to the relationship between shop owners and their contribution to trading areas, directly or indirectly, in the academic world. Accordingly, research for answering the following question has been initiated: what kind of roles do shopkeepers should play in revitalizing poor conventional markets? Based on the previous studies focusing on enhancing traditional markets, this research was approached from the new insights that have been obtained concerning how to boost conventional markets, that is, from the perspectives of a shop owner and a trader. Therefore, this research aims at identifying some resolutions associated with the roles of shop owners to enhance a shopping district in a specific area, classifying their business roles into a few categories, depending on the degree of their participation in improving the shopping environment. Compared with previous studies focusing on emphasizing the importance of improving customer services from a shopkeeper's perspective, this research provides a new insight as far as how to boost conventional markets. It is, furthermore, necessary to note how market participants, particularly shop owners as they are the key players, can contribute to rebuilding their business area together with their customers. As a research technique for effectively achieving the research goal, the authors adopted a documentation methodology based on a large amount of the existing literature for studying how to rebuild traditional markets. Concerned about the ways to revitalize conventional markets, many authors have proposed a variety of strategies, and have suggested more detailed action plans from a practitioner's perspective. By analyzing these research results, the authors will have accomplished the research aim. Rather than simply identifying the roles of shop owners, the author found that they had to understand their social contribution for enhancing their trading areas, as well as their functional roles, in forming a regional society. The conventional market should be, thus, regarded as the place to share regional culture. Consequently, the authors draw some conclusions from the research results. In order to answer the above question, it was found that the roles of shop owners have been considered as one of the most important ways for revitalizing traditional markets. With respect to their roles, it is evident that their business activities are closely related to the improvement of the trading area in terms of sociality, regional development, and market revitalization, by selling products or services to the customers visiting that area. In a word, this implies that shop owners have to actively take part in boosting conventional markets as a core player. Although the authors have properly achieved the research aim, this study has a limitation, like most other research, in adopting a documentation method. Because the research is based on existing data results provided by the prior research conducted a long time ago, whether the research findings are applicable in a contemporary market should be re-examined in future research from a practitioner's perspective, rather than from an academic's perspective.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.247-267
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• 1993

According to developing international economy since the World War II, the increase and competition of the national business is so empha-sized tht both the interest and the necessity about marine transportation playing the impor-thant role of international transportation are increased. Today, the container transportation, as called the innovation of marine transport has been prevailed since the 1970's. The purpose of this paper is to grasp the spatial structure of the hinterlands and forelands, its object is export container cargo at Pusan Export Port, as known for the transportation node of modern containerlization. In this study, for the purpose of grasping the relation between hinterlands and forelands of Korean export container cargo, first, I researched the transition of carloading about container cargo, the bistribution channel of cargo, the change of the items of container and the carlo-adings about transport route, secondly, I used the cluster analysis so as to group hinterlands according to the items of goods and forelands. The object of the analysis is container cargo of Choyang Line, Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine of National Frag Carriers. The source materials used in this study are Trucking Data of Hanjin Co., Container Ren-tal Data of Samik Transport Co. and Transpor-ting Present Condition Tables of Hyundai Mer-chant Marine. 1. There are two kinds of the transport classi-fied by its form: FCL and LCL. In Pusan Con-tainer Export, a lot of textile goods, clothings and furniture, compound, electric goods, and so on are dealed with but the rate of occupation of the transport is getting lower while that of occupation of equipment, papers and agricultu-ral, mineral and livestock industry higher. 2. In 1990, the transports of container cargo in Korea consist of 7 services and round-the world lines. We can list North America lines, East-South Asian lines, Japan lines and Inter European lines, in order of the quantity of tran-sport form the largest to the smaller. We can have another list that Japan lines, North Ame-rica lines and East-South lines in order of the rate participation of national flag carriers, be-cacuse Korean foreign trade lay disproportionate emphasis on East-South Asian lines. Japan lines among them is the biggest import-export market. Since the rationlization policy of marine tran-sport in 1984, each of national flag carriers have its own lines. Hanjin Shipping predominates over North America lines, Choyang Line over New Zealand, Inter European and Austria lines and Hyundai Merchant Marine over Center-South America lines, in terms of the volume of transport. And small-to-medium sized shippers are prevailing in lines which are adjacent to Korea, Such as Japan lines and East-South Asian lines. 3. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Choyang Line, the light industry goods, electric goods and machinary produced in Seoul and Pusan are exported to the major ports in Europe and Japan, the same produces in Suwon, Ulsan, Kumi are exported to European Ports, and those in Incheon and Kwangju Austrian and Japanese ports, and those in the rest regions to the major port in Japan. 4. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hanjin Shipping, the light industry goods pro-ducing in Seoul and Pusan, the electric goods and machinary in Incheon and Pyeongteck, are exported to New York and Los Angeles. Electric goods and machinary Masan, Anyang, Cheona, Cheongju and Incheon, Electric goods machinary and light industry goods in Kwangju and non mental goods in Pohang, are exported New York, Los Angeles and Oakland. 5. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hyundai Merchant Marine, the region of Seoul, Pusan and Incheon closely related with the main ports in U.S.A. The rest regions with Montreal. The hinterlands of export container cargo can be classified by its export items into three kinds: the large city, industrial city and the rest city. Choyang Line's forelands are European lines, Japan lines and Austria lines, and Hanjin Shipping's forelands are North America lines, and Hyundai Merchant Marine's forelands are North America lines and Japan line. 3 National flag carriers' major forelands are determined by the size of port and the shipper's convenient use of the port terminal.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.109-124
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• 2021

This study tried to verify the causal relationship that SMEs' organizational culture and self-efficacy would affect job crafting and job satisfaction. Unlike previous domestic studies that have been studied for organizational culture at the organizational level and self-efficacy at the individual level, this study tried to verify the interaction between job crafting and job satisfaction using different mechanisms as antecedent factors. In order to verify the research model of this study, questionnaires of 144 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) workers located in Seoul and metropolitan areas were analyzed. Factor analysis and correlation analysis were performed to verify the reliability and validity of the research model on the relationship between variables, and empirical analysis was performed using regression analysis and mediation effect analysis to verify the hypothesis. The results of the study were first, that organizational culture and self-efficacy had a positive (+) effect on job crafting. On the other hand, relationship-oriented culture and hierarchical-oriented culture, which are sub-factors of organizational culture, were found to be insignificant. Second, organizational culture and self-efficacy were found to have a positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. On the other hand, it was found that market-oriented culture and hierarchical-oriented culture, which are sub-factors of organizational culture, were not significant. Third, job crafting was found to have a positive (+) effect on job satisfaction. On the other hand, it was found that the sub-factors of job crafting, disruptive job demands and social job resources, were not significant. This means that organizational culture partially affects job crafting and job satisfaction of SMEs, and job crafting also partially affects job satisfaction. The implications of this study are first, suggesting the meaning of SME organizational culture for stable and efficient human resource management for SMEs suffering from low productivity and high turnover rate. Second, it was meaningful to understand the possibility of introducing job crafting as an effective job management plan for SMEs. Third, in the current situation where there are few cases of practical introduction of job crafting, research on understanding job crafting for SMEs and improving job satisfaction is thought to be helpful in improving the productivity of SMEs.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.334-367
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• 2017

The ICT industry has been the main driver of Korea's economy with international competitiveness and is expected to be the growth engine that will revitalize the currently depressed economy. A broad range of different perspectives and opinions on the industry exist in Korea and overseas. Some of these are stereotypes, not all of which are based on objective evidence. Stereotypes refer to widely-held fixed opinions on a specific group and do not necessarily have negative connotations. However, they should not be viewed lightly because they can substantially affect decision-making process. In this regard, this study sought to review the stereotypes of ICT industry and identify objective and relative stereotypes. In the study, a decision-tree analysis was conducted on a survey result of 3,300 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to identify Korean ICT companies' characteristics that distinguish them from other technology companies. The decision-tree analysis, a data mining process based on machine learning, took a total of 291 variables into account in 10 subjects such as: corporate business in general, technology development activities as well as organization and people in technology development. Identifying the variables that distinguish ICT companies from other technology companies with the decision-tree analysis, the study then came up with a list of objective stereotypes of ICT companies. The findings from the stereotypes of Korean ICT companies are as follows. First, the companies are in need of technology policies that help R&D planning and market penetration. Second, policies must better support the companies working to sell new products or explore new business. Third, the companies need policies that support secure protection of development outcomes and proper management of IP rights. Fourth, the administrative procedures related to governmental support for ICT companies' R&D projects must be simplified. It is hoped that the outcome of this study will provide meaningful guidance in establishment, implementation and evaluation of technology policies for ICT SMEs, particularly to policymakers or researchers in relevant government agencies who determine R&D policies for ICT SMEs.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.175-195
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to identify the sub-factors of consultant ability of an industrial safety consulting company and conduct an empirical study on how these factors influence the intention to recontract by mediating consulting satisfaction and utilization Research on consultant ability, satisfaction with and utilization of consulting has been actively conducted in fields such as small and medium-sized business consulting and management consulting, but research in the field of industrial safety consulting has been found to be insufficient. Accordingly, this study seeks to demonstrate the causal relationship between the ability of industrial safety consultants, satisfaction and utilization of consulting, and recontract intention. Using the random sampling method, the researcher collected 202 questionnaires from customers such as companies and public institutions receiving industrial safety consulting, and conducted statistical analysis with the SPSS 21.0 program. The results of the study were as follows. First, it was found that consultant ability, consultant knowledge, and consultant attitude, which are sub-factors of consultant ability, had a significant positive effect on recontract intention. Second, it was found that consultant ability, consultant knowledge, and consultant attitude, which are sub-factors of consultant ability, had a significant positive effect on consulting satisfaction and utilization. Third, consulting satisfaction and utilization were found to have a significant positive effect on recontract intention. Fourth, consulting satisfaction was shown to mediate the relationship between consultant ability and recontract intention. Fifth, consulting utilization was shown to mediate the relationship between consultant ability and recontract intention. The conclusions and implications of this study are as follows. First, it was demonstrated that consultant ability, consulting satisfaction and utilization are important in the recontract intention for industrial safety consulting. Second, as a result of analyzing the effect of consultant ability on recontract intention, consulting satisfaction and utilization, it was analyzed that the influence of consultant ability, consultant knowledge, and consultant attitude was significant in the order. Third, consulting satisfaction and utilization were found to mediate the relationship between consultant ability and recontract intention. In conclusion, It was demonstrated that consultant ability, consulting satisfaction, and consulting utilization had a significant impact on the recontract intention, and it was found that consulting satisfaction and utilization mediate the relationship between consultant ability and recontract intention. and it was discovered that the three sub-factors of consultant ability had a significant impact on consulting satisfaction, utilization, and contract renewal intentions in the order of ability, knowledge, and attitude. it was found that the consultant ability, consulting satisfaction, and the utilization of industrial safety consulting companies are all important factors that influence recontract intention. In addition, industrial safety consulting companies have laid the foundation that in order to greatly affect consulting satisfaction, utilization, and recontract intention by improving consultant ability, consultants' capability, knowledge, and attitude must be improved in order.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.67-88
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• 2018

Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.23-48
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• 2021

The Korean economy has achieved continuous economic growth for the past several decades thanks to the government's export strategy policy. This increase in exports is playing a leading role in driving Korea's economic growth by improving economic efficiency, creating jobs, and promoting technology development. Traditionally, the main factors affecting Korea's exports can be found from two perspectives: economic factors and industrial structural factors. First, economic factors are related to exchange rates and global economic fluctuations. The impact of the exchange rate on Korea's exports depends on the exchange rate level and exchange rate volatility. Global economic fluctuations affect global import demand, which is an absolute factor influencing Korea's exports. Second, industrial structural factors are unique characteristics that occur depending on industries or products, such as slow international division of labor, increased domestic substitution of certain imported goods by China, and changes in overseas production patterns of major export industries. Looking at the most recent studies related to global exchanges, several literatures show the importance of cultural aspects as well as economic and industrial structural factors. Therefore, this study attempted to develop a forecasting model by considering cultural factors along with economic and industrial structural factors in calculating the import volume of each country from Korea. In particular, this study approaches the influence of cultural factors on imports of Korean products from the perspective of PUSH-PULL framework. The PUSH dimension is a perspective that Korea develops and actively promotes its own brand and can be defined as the degree of interest in each country for Korean brands represented by K-POP, K-FOOD, and K-CULTURE. In addition, the PULL dimension is a perspective centered on the cultural and psychological characteristics of the people of each country. This can be defined as how much they are inclined to accept Korean Flow as each country's cultural code represented by the country's governance system, masculinity, risk avoidance, and short-term/long-term orientation. The unique feature of this study is that the proposed final prediction model can be selected based on Design Principles. The design principles we presented are as follows. 1) A model was developed to reflect interest in Korea and cultural characteristics through newly added data sources. 2) It was designed in a practical and convenient way so that the forecast value can be immediately recalled by inputting changes in economic factors, item code and country code. 3) In order to derive theoretically meaningful results, an algorithm was selected that can interpret the relationship between the input and the target variable. This study can suggest meaningful implications from the technical, economic and policy aspects, and is expected to make a meaningful contribution to the export support strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises by using the import forecasting model.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.172-178
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• 2021

In the ship repair market, interest in maintenance and repair is steadily increasing due to the reinforcement of prevention of environmental pollution caused by ships and the reinforcement of safety standards for ship structures. By reflecting this effect, the number of requests for repairs by foreign shipping companies increases to repair shipbuilders in the Southwest Sea. However, because most of the repair shipbuilders in the southwestern area are small and medium-sized companies, it is difficult to lead to the integrated synergy effect of the repair shipbuilding companies. Moreover, the infrastructure is not integrated; hence, using the infrastructure jointly is a challenge, which acts as an obstacle to the activation of the repair shipbuilding industry. Floating docks are indispensable to operating the repair shipbuilding business; in addition, most of them are operated through renovation/repair after importing aging caisson docks from overseas. However, their service life is more than 30 years; additionally, there is no structure inspection standard. Therefore, it is vulnerable to the safety field. In this study, the finite element analysis program of ANSYS was used to evaluate the structural safety of the modified caisson dock and obtain additional structural reinforcement schemes to solve the derived problems. For the floating docks, there are classification regulations; however, concerning structural strength, the regulations are insufficient, and the applicability is inferior. These insufficient evaluation areas were supplemented through a detailed structural FE-analysis. The reinforcement plan was decided by reinforcing the pontoon deck and reinforcement of the side tank, considering the characteristics of the repair shipyard condition. The final plan was selected to reinforce the side wing tank through the structural analysis of the decision; in addition, the actual structure was fabricated to reflect the reinforcement plan. Our results can be used as reference data for improving the structural strength of similar facilities; we believe that the optimal solution can be found quickly if this method is used during renovation/repair.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.3340-3353
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• 2009

This paper aims to study the effect of academia-industrial cooperation on the technical innovation of small and medium-sized companies. A survey was conducted on about 1,100 businesses located in the Sihwa-Banwol industrial estate to analyze the consequence of three factors of academia-industrial cooperation. the joint use of equipments, technological support of universities to businesses, and cooperative technological development through technical guidance-on entrepreneurial capability and their knowledge-absorption ability, and ultimately on their technological innovation,. The validity of the survey result was tested through the Structural Equation Model. On the basis of the comparison between companies which have participated in academy-industry cooperation and companies which have not, this paper suggests that venture businesses should take advantage of the cooperation with universities to boost their competitiveness. The analysis of the three individual factors of the academy-industry cooperation based on the Structural Equation Model shows that all of them have remarkable influence on entrepreneurial capability, but that they don't have as much impact on businesses' knowledge absorption ability. However, the outcome of technological innovation of businesses is primarily influenced by entrepreneurial capability rather than their knowledge absorption ability. The survey also shows that the three factors of the cooperation have an equal impact on the competitiveness of companies regardless of their business type or their products' growth stages. As the companies involved in academy industry cooperation outweigh other businesses, in terms of technological innovation, the numbers of new product development, and the numbers of their process improvement cases, this paper argues that new strategies should be taken for the businesses to fully take advantage of academy-industry cooperation.