• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.395-405
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• 2019

The government has strengthened the system of restricting participation of large corporations to limit participation in national information system construction projects and to increase participation of SME software companies. This study analyzes the financial performances of small and medium sized IT firms in Korea three years prior and 3 years after the restrictions on participation of large firm. A sample of 121 small and medium-sized IT services firms were classified into 3 groups and statistical techniques (T-test and one-way ANOVA) were used for the purpose of the analysis. In the three years after the restriction of participation of large corporations, the total assets and sales of the medium and small IT service firms were positive, but the operating profit and net profit were negative. There were many worries about the introduction of the restriction on the participation of large corporations, but many were stabilized. However, the negative impact was more pronounced for SMEs. Therefore, the reduction effect of SME IT service companies is different from the first legislative purpose of enforcing the restriction system of large enterprises, so we propose to revise the policy.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Information Technology Applications Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.365-368
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• 2005

While the goal of new IT adoption in small and medium sized firms is to choose an optimal system to fit with their own environments and conditions, that of IT post-adoption usage is to fully implement new IT and maximize their benefits from it. Therefore, the decision-making environments of new IT adoption is definitely different from those of post-adoption. Also, The direct experience of IT usage can provide some learning effect and the change of users' beliefs on new IT. From this point of view, this study attempts to figure out the differences of influencing factors on IOS usage intention between adopters and non-adopters. The results show that there are clear differences of influencing factors between two groups. Non-adopter group shows that perceived financial cost and ability of use have significant influences on IOS usage intention, while relative advantage and perceived risk in adopter group have statistically significant influences on post-adoption usage of IOS.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.93-104
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• 2018

Purpose - For small and medium sized firms, CEO characteristics are main factor influencing firms' prosperity as well as performance. So it is quite natural that many people are interested in factors of CEO that matters. In this research, CEO characteristics in terms of capabilities and skill or special knowledge necessary to run the business are invested for manufacturing firms. Precedent studies reveal that CEO characteristics such as psychological factors including desire to succeed, tendency to take risks, personal factors including age, year of running business, and task related factors including managing capability, communication skills, network influence firm performance for manufacturing firms. However, these studies simply verify whether or not those factors affect firm's managing performance. This study, however, goes further to investigate how is the affecting process from CEO's capabilities and organization characteristics to firm's core competence, and from core competence to advantages, and from advantages to managing performance. Research design, data, and methodology - We make a questionnaire and surveyed manufacturing firm CEO's in Gyeonggi-do area. General characteristics analysis, factor analysis, regression analysis, and control effect analysis was conducted. SPSS 2.0 Win, version was used. Results - The CEO characteristics including basic capability, task capability, leadership, and organization characteristics affect core competence at the statistically significant level. And, core competence affect both price advantage and differentiation advantage at the significant level. Some unique finding is that while differentiation advantage affects both financial achievement and non-financial achievement, price advantage does not affect both financial and non-financial achievement. And firm characteristics mainly measured by CEO characteristics of skills has control effects on the trace from core competence to price advantage. Conclusions - For small and medium sized firms CEO characteristics is the most important factor influencing firm's prosperity. For manufacturing firms, whether CEO has the skill or special knowledge to run the firm is critical factor. The study results show that CEO's for manufacturing firms put importance on price and price advantage which seems to be familiar to them. However, the price advantage does not influential to financial and non-financial achievement. This result suggests that small and medium sized manufacturing firms' CEO's should make effort to improve other aspects of advantages to be more competitive.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.121-131
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• 2010

Technological innovation depends on the quality of workers, whose ability is the key component to raise business competitiveness. Our study evaluates how satisfactory is the training of workers at small and medium sized firms, and suggest how to improve upon it. We show the theoretical framework for the relation between customer satisfaction and their behavioral intent on the one side, and factors of training service quality. Our result show: (1) Factors affecting customer satisfaction are, in descending order of importance, expertise, policy, follow-up service, attitude and behavior, and convenience. (2) Contrary to established views on the service quality, satisfaction for training would not be the prerequisite variable for intent to act, in case of training service quality. (3) Satisfaction level for training depends on the type of organization in charge of training (government, university, or private sector.) It also varied among different types of business (L-type, A-type, and J-type.) Small and medium sized firms find it difficult to commit to training education due to lack of money and manpower. The recent expansion of free training service would address part of this problem. On the other hand, the outfit in charge of training could boost service quality by customizing their training program to the type of business they cater to.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.39-81
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• 2018

This study focuses on whether non-standard workers are matched by voluntary contract with employers in the labor market and analyzes the factors of involuntary choice of non-standard employees that are diverse by firm size. For the analysis I consider non-standard employees as either voluntary or involuntary according to the push/pull theory based on labor mobility. The Economic Activity Census Added Survey data 2016 show that the proportion of involuntary non-standard employees is greater than voluntary ones as the firm size is smaller. As a result of the analysis, involuntary non-standard employees are not significantly discriminated from voluntary non-standard employees in large firms. However, in small and medium-sized firms and micro small-sized firms, workers are more likely to be involuntarily non-standard if they are older or less educated. In addition, they are more likely to be employed involuntarily in micro small-sized firms than in small and medium-sized firms. Therefore, we should take into account the mismatching problems of compensation, specialty, and career in order to establish policies on non-standard workers. In addition to the financial support for small and medium-sized and micro small-sized firms, it is necessary to provide workers with job information that matches their job skills and career experiences.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.287-300
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• 2020

We investigate empirically the impact of IT exploration & exploitation capability and operational capability upon organizational agility, especially small and medium sized firms in the logistics industry in South Korea. Based on literature on the bilateral relationship between organizational agility and IT capability, we follow the established research model and propose hypotheses. This work takes an empirical methodology to test the hypotheses: design survey questionnaires, collect data, test reliability and validity of data, and finally test the hypotheses. Our results based on the data collected in 2018 present that IT exploration & exploitation capability significantly increases operational capability, and operational capability increases organizational agility. We find our contribution in updating previous research findings with recent data and in expanding the domain of research more specifically into small and medium sized firms in logistics industry in South Korea. Practically our work suggests that managers and policy makers should consider both fostering newly emerging IT exploration and existing IT resource exploitation capability in order to enhance organizational agility of those small and medium sized firms in logistics industry.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.125-140
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• 2018

Technology cooperation is a necessary factor for small and medium sized firms to be survived and developed because small and medium sized firms can make economy scale and economy scope by new advanced technologies obtained from technology cooperation. Therefore, the technology cooperation of small and medium sized firms can be thought as their specific resource. Due to the importance of technology cooperation, many previous studies paid an attention on its positive effect. Unlike the related studies, this study examined the link among uncertainty of technology environment, relationship characteristics(such as degree of technology cooperation and influential strategy), and relationship tie. The empirical results are reported as follows: Firstly, uncertainty of technology environment positively affected on degree of technology cooperation. Secondly, degree of technology cooperation positively affected on uncoercive influential strategies of both own firm and partner firm. Thirdly, degree of technology cooperation and uncoercive influential strategy of own firm have positive effects on relationship tie while uncoercive influential strategy of partner firm does not. The positive effect of uncoercive influential strategy of own firm means the importance of strategic countermeasures to promote relationship tie in technology cooperation of both own firm and partner firm.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.61-75
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of quality management system requirements, a management innovation technique, on business performance to secure the competitiveness of SMEs in an environment of increasing uncertainty in the global economy and intensifying competition. To this end, a survey was conducted on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating a quality management system, and statistical analysis was performed through validity and reliability analysis, regression analysis, and group analysis using IBM SPSS 26.0. As a result of the study, it was found that planning, operation, support, and improvement, which are the core requirements of a quality management system, have a positive effect on business performance. In addition, through group analysis, it was found that the effect of quality management system requirements on business performance varies according to the level of the company. This means that the importance of quality management requirements required for strategy establishment varies according to the quality management introduction level of small and medium-sized manufacturers, and it can be used for small and medium-sized manufacturers to set strategic directions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.173-176
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• 2004

Understanding the fact that more spending for R&D is merely a necessity, not a factor of success, managing technological development efforts effectively and efficiently for higher R&D productivity and sustainable growth has become an important issue for contemporary firms. Based on a survey on small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms, this paper explores the relationships of leadership positions, technological contents and acquisition methods of korean firms. This paper has identified several findings from Korean manufacturing firms: (1) five different patterns are identified in the technology strategy of medium-sized companies; (2) a significantly positive relationship exists between a firm's leadership position and the aggressiveness in technological contents of their acquisition methods; (3) a significantly positive relationship of some technology acquisition methods to the firms' leadership position exists,