• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.78-91
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• 2004

The ISO 9000 Follow-up Management Practices (FMP) as an integrated area including training, QM systems, management commitment, customer focus, communication and related issues are examined. A sample of 191 small and medium-sized firms data from mail survey is analyzed by the SPSSWIN. A model of FMP including three factors (Systems, Training, and Customer Focus) is introduced. In this paper, a focus is laid on the comparison between ISO 9000:1994 vs. ISO 9000:2000 or 05 9000 certificates and between groups classified by the time length after certification, and on regression relationships between FMP level and business performance. The result shows that the difference of FMP level is significant between two versions and between groups. Quality level and system satisfaction are influenced significantly by the three factors.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-34
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• 1995

Since 1982, the government of Korea has actively promoted vertical cooperative R&D programs between government-sponsored research institutes (GRIs) and private firms. A number of firms participated in the programs because cooperative R&D could lower the risk and could contribute to rapid commercialization of many technologies. This paper examines the effectiveness of vertical cooperative R&D projects by the modes of cooperation between GRIs and industrial firms, and analyzes the performance of participating firms' technology sourcing strategies for commercial utilization of cooperative R&D results at the project performed from 1982 to 1989 under the Government-Industry Cooperative R&D Program sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology(MOST) in Korea. The cooperative R&D projects are classified into 4 groups by two criteria, i.e., the level of participation of firms, and the breadth of cooperation. The findings suggest that firms should actively participate in cooperative R&D projects. In addition, in order to enhance commercial success, cooperation between GRIs and industrial firms should not be limited to R&D stage only. The breadth of cooperation should be extended to commercialization stage. Small- and medium-sized firms participating in vertical cooperative R&D projects in Korea usually lack internal technological capabilities that are needed to commercialize the results of cooperative R&D. Three different technology sourcing strategies - exclusive cooperative R&D strategy, in-house development augmented cooperative R&D strategy, and licensing-in supplemented cooperative R&D strategy - are empirically derived through cluster analysis of the relative usage rates cooperative R&D and of other supplementary technology acquisition methods. The findings suggest that the firms participating in vertical cooperative R&D projects should try to utilize other supplementary technology acquisition methods in order to achieve commercial utilization of the vertical cooperative R&D results.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.35-47
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• 2020

An economic downturn can occurred through unexpected events in various fields, such as the subprime mortgage crisis and the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19). Trade credit is important for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially during a monetary contraction, as it is the last option for firms that lack bank credit. This study aims to determine whether trade credit is profitable for the buyer and supplier firms during and after a financial crisis. We use panel data consisting of all trade credit transactions and financial statements of 5,751 Korean firms during the period 2008-2012. It shows that trade credit is more profitable for both buyers and suppliers in the post-crisis period than during the crisis. Moreover, trade payable is more effective for unconstrained buyers than for constrained buyers. Finally, a mixed strategy is superior to an aggressive or passive strategy of SMEs. The results suggest less profitability of trade credit during a period of contraction and greater sensitivity of the buyer SMEs, emphasizing the idiosyncratic liquidity strategy of each firm. This study can be helpful to develop a strategy of profitable trade credit for SMEs and to establish a policy of managing liquidity for the authority.

• 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 Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.95-101
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• 2014

In this study, we look at the current state of the inheritance system of family business in korea, you are trying to present a remedy for the activation of family business succession. The family business inheritance tax assistance benefits at the time, it is necessary to define the effect that offers the advantage of tax support to reflect correctly, the scope of its application subject property, easy to match the requirements of the family business succession is family business succession Small Business issue of effectiveness of the system has not emerged, there is a need to strengthen the requirements of family business succession that takes into account the reality of small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, if you provide the inheritance tax deduction for the inheritance of the family business, only to inherit the family business of a substantial tax advantages help to move back, the provisions of the post-management is necessary.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.111-131
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• 2015

There are only a handful number of research conducted on pattern analysis of corporate distress as compared with research for bankruptcy prediction. The few that exists mainly focus on audited firms because financial data collection is easier for these firms. But in reality, corporate financial distress is a far more common and critical phenomenon for non-audited firms which are mainly comprised of small and medium sized firms. The purpose of this paper is to classify non-audited firms under distress according to their financial ratio using data mining; Self-Organizing Map (SOM). SOM is a type of artificial neural network that is trained using unsupervised learning to produce a lower dimensional discretized representation of the input space of the training samples, called a map. SOM is different from other artificial neural networks as it applies competitive learning as opposed to error-correction learning such as backpropagation with gradient descent, and in the sense that it uses a neighborhood function to preserve the topological properties of the input space. It is one of the popular and successful clustering algorithm. In this study, we classify types of financial distress firms, specially, non-audited firms. In the empirical test, we collect 10 financial ratios of 100 non-audited firms under distress in 2004 for the previous two years (2002 and 2003). Using these financial ratios and the SOM algorithm, five distinct patterns were distinguished. In pattern 1, financial distress was very serious in almost all financial ratios. 12% of the firms are included in these patterns. In pattern 2, financial distress was weak in almost financial ratios. 14% of the firms are included in pattern 2. In pattern 3, growth ratio was the worst among all patterns. It is speculated that the firms of this pattern may be under distress due to severe competition in their industries. Approximately 30% of the firms fell into this group. In pattern 4, the growth ratio was higher than any other pattern but the cash ratio and profitability ratio were not at the level of the growth ratio. It is concluded that the firms of this pattern were under distress in pursuit of expanding their business. About 25% of the firms were in this pattern. Last, pattern 5 encompassed very solvent firms. Perhaps firms of this pattern were distressed due to a bad short-term strategic decision or due to problems with the enterpriser of the firms. Approximately 18% of the firms were under this pattern. This study has the academic and empirical contribution. In the perspectives of the academic contribution, non-audited companies that tend to be easily bankrupt and have the unstructured or easily manipulated financial data are classified by the data mining technology (Self-Organizing Map) rather than big sized audited firms that have the well prepared and reliable financial data. In the perspectives of the empirical one, even though the financial data of the non-audited firms are conducted to analyze, it is useful for find out the first order symptom of financial distress, which makes us to forecast the prediction of bankruptcy of the firms and to manage the early warning and alert signal. These are the academic and empirical contribution of this study. The limitation of this research is to analyze only 100 corporates due to the difficulty of collecting the financial data of the non-audited firms, which make us to be hard to proceed to the analysis by the category or size difference. Also, non-financial qualitative data is crucial for the analysis of bankruptcy. Thus, the non-financial qualitative factor is taken into account for the next study. This study sheds some light on the non-audited small and medium sized firms' distress prediction in the future.

• 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 Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.73-86
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to examine a security investment for firms experienced in confidential information leak. Information security is an apparatus for protection of secret information. The competence of information security is a competitiveness to avoid information leakage in changing business environment. The type of information security is divided into administrative security, technical security and physical security. It is necessary to improve the incident correspondence competence through information security investment of the three types. Therefore, the investment of information security is to enhance information-asset protection of firms. To reinforce accident response competence, an organization discussed an establishment, security technology development, expand investment and legal system of the security system. I have studied empirically targeting the only information leak of firms. This data is a technical security competence and technology leakage situation of firms happened in 2010. During recovery of the DDos virus damage on countries, company and individual, the collected data signify a reality of information security. The data also identify a security competence of firms worrying information security management. According to the study, the continuous investment of information security has a high competence of accident correspondence. In addition, the most of security accidents showed a copy and stealing of paper and computer files. Firm on appropriate security investment is an accident correspondence competence higher than no security investment regardless of a large, small and medium-sized, and venture firm. Furthermore, the rational security investment should choose the three security type consideration for firm size.

• 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.