• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.39-46
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• 2022

This study has found the socio-economic factors that affect occupational accidents and measured the influence quantitatively. We built the panel data of 4 countries (Japan, Germany, the U.S., and the U.K.) and the analysis model counted on the fixed effect model to reflect the countries' differences. The fatal occupational injury rates in the analyzed countries had a statistically significant relationship with the level of per capita GDP, the proportion of the construction industry, the rate of male workers, annual average working hours, the rate of workers in manufacturing and construction industries, etc. The annual average working hours have a positive correlation with the fatal occupational injury rate. To reduce occupational accidents effectively, we should be monitoring and researching various factors that can affect the occurrence of occupational accidents such as worker characteristics, changing industrial structure, and changes in working hours.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.169-186
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• 1999

This study empirically investigates innovative behaviors of the firm. In so doing, a Probit was employed and estimated. We used the raw data of the "corporate innovation survey"(CIS), which, in consent with OECD efforts, is regularly undertaken by the Science and Technology Policy Institute(SIEPI). The data set includes more than 3400 firms in the manufacturing sector. Three types of innovation, i.e., new product, product improvement and process innovation, are studied, assuming that determinants of innovation are firm′s age. number of employees as the size of firm, ratio of foreign ownership and innovation costs. To investigate the relationship between firm′s innovation behavior and the size, we estimate the Probit including the quadratic term of the firm size. Empirical findings showed that the sign of the quadratic term of the firm size turned out to be negative. It means that the probability of firm's making innovation shows the inversed-U relationship with the firm size. Such an empirical result may have a significant implication for the industrial policy.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.117-137
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• 2020

We examine the current status of smart factory deployment and diffusion programs in Korea, and seek to promote manufacturing innovation from the perspective of SMEs. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows. First, without additional market creation and supply chain improvement, smart factories are unlikely to raise profitability leading to overinvestment. Second, new business models need to connect "manufacturing process efficiency" with "R&D" and "marketing" in value chain in smart factories. Third, when introducing smart factories, we need to focus on the areas where process-embedded technology is directly linked to corporate competitiveness. Based on the modularity-maturity matrix (Pisano and Shih, 2012) and the examples of U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII), we establish the new smart factory deployment policy measures as follows. First, we shift our smart factory strategy from quantitative expansion to qualitative upgrading. Second, we promote by each sector the formation of industrial commons that help SMEs to jointly develop R&D, exchange standardized data and practices, and facilitate supplier-led procurement system. Third, to implement new technology and business models, we encourage partnerships, collaborations, and M&As between conventional SMEs and start-ups and business ventures. Fourth, the whole deployment process of smart factories is indexed in detail to identify the problems and provide appropriate solutions.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.3-53
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• 2003

Using the plant level panel data on Korean manufacturing during 1990-98 period, this study tries to assess the role of entry and exit in enhancing aggregate productivity, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Main findings of this study are summarized as follows. First, plant entry and exit rates in Korean manufacturing seem quite high: they are higher than in the U.S. or several developing countries for which comparable studies exist. Second, in line with existing studies on other countries, plant turnovers reflect underlying productivity differential in Korean manufacturing, with the "shadow of death" effect as well as selection and learning effects all present. Third, plant entry and exit account for as much as 45 and 65 percent in manufacturing productivity growth during cyclical upturn and downturn, respectively. The findings of this study show that the entry and exit of plants has been an important source of productivity growth in Korean manufacturing. Plant birth and death are mainly a process of resource reallocation from plants with relatively low and declining productivity to a group of heterogeneous plants, some of which have the potential to become highly efficient in future. The most obvious lesson from this study is that it is important to establish policy or institutional environment where efficient businesses can succeed and inefficient businesses fail.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.5-30
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• 2005

Globalization has conflicting effects on pharmaceutical policies. A change into a 'populist competitive nation' due to globalization strengthens policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs while the WTO's TRIPS Agreement that is affected by multinational pharmaceutical companies increases drug manufacturing costs by bolstering the patent rights on new drugs. Currently, the independency of populist nations' policies to reduce drug manufacturing cost is being compromised because multinational organizations(such as the European Union) which represents the interests of the multinational pharmaceutical companies put restrictions on the pharmaceutical policies of populist nations for purposes of promoting the industrial goals of the multinational companies. Korea is no exception. Up until the late 1990s, the main feature of the pharmaceutical policies in Korea was keeping the drug price at the cost level based on a growth-driven ideology, and this was Korea's unique policy tools as a developing nation. However, the increase in the power of multinational pharmaceutical companies currently infringes on the independency of Korea's pharmaceutical policies. Expensive imported drugs were originally covered by the national health insurance plan, but starting from 1999 such drugs began to be covered by the plan. After separation of medical and pharmaceutical services, the use of expensive drugs was increased, and the Korean government planned to introduce the reference price policy in order to contain the cost of the national health insurance plan. However, due to pressures from the U.S. government as well as multinational pharmaceutical companies, implementation of the policy has been postponed. In addition, due to a pressure from the U.S. government, a working group was created which would affect the health care policy of the Korean government. Discussions so far on globalization was about whether the change into populist competitive nations due to globalization resulted in the reduction of welfare spending. However, this study shows not only the reduction of health care cost through policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs but increase in welfare spending by raising the strengths of multinational pharmaceutical companies that are for-profit providers of welfare service. While focusing on the contradictory effects of globalization on pharmaceutical policies of a nation, this study looked at how these conflicting effects end up promoting the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies by examining the Korean case.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.53-85
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• 2012

This paper empirically investigates the rates of embodied technological change and their relative contributions to total factor productivity growth for manufacturing, using the Korean plant-level manufacturing data for the period of 1985-2003. We adopt a production-based estimation method proposed by Sakellaris and Wilson (2004) in order to examine the marginal productivity increase of each vintage of equipment over time. We find that the rate of embodied technological progress of Korea's manufacturing sector maintains the annual average level of 13.7 percent from 1985 to 2003, slightly lower than 16.9 percent of the U.S., estimated by Sakellaris & Wilson (2004). While the rate recorded a remarkable increase after the 1997 financial crisis, IT-producing and IT-using industries achieved higher rates of embodied technological progress than non-IT counterparts.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2010

Firm’s social network has been known as an important firm strategy because it could promote technological innovation and also minimize economic uncertainty. In this study, we identify four types of firm’s social network activities such as Collaboration, Manufacturing/Marketing/Distribution Agreements, Financing, and M&A, and analyze how these activities affect firm performance using U.S biotechnology firm data. We found that Manufacturing/Marketing/Distribution Agreements increased firm performance in short-run. Also, collaboration with pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms had a positive effect on firm performance, too. However, collaboration with public institutes or universities had a negative effect on firm performance in short run, which implies its collaboration would be mainly focused on research in pure science area. These empirical results provide two policy implications. First, social network strategy should be encouraged in the Korean biotechnology industry. Secondly, governments should consider developing polices that support collaboration of biotechnology with public institutes or universities, to promote technological innovation.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.43-56
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• 2020

The technology conflict between the U.S. and China is deepening recently. The U.S.-China battle began as a national security issue but is comprehending as a U.S.'s check for China's rapid technological advancement. China is rapidly growing in several indexes including R&D expenditure, patent application, and publications, and is challenging the U.S. in 5G and Artificial Intelligence. In 2018, Huawei became the largest 5G network/equipment provider and second largest smart phone manufacturer in the world. Now, Huawei is outperforming at AI chipset manufacturing, Bigdata analysis and cloud, positioning to become a critical player in the 4th industrial revolution. The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of recent Huawei issues to Korean SMEs focusing on the relation between Huawei and Korean companies; the cooperation status from the Global Value Chain (GVC) perpsective, and Korean government's policies related to Huawei's information security issues will be the three main frames for the analysis. Then, this research proposes policy implications such as increasing Korea's competitiveness in manufacturing and information security.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.116-134
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• 2005

This paper investigates the relationships between export and firm characteristics, focusing on technology factors. It is based on a longitudinal data covering listed firms in the Korean manufacturing industry. A regression model for the determinant of export/sales ratio including dynamic adjustment process is tested on a cross-section sample of the year 2001. Empirical findings suggest that there is no significant relationship between export/sales ratio and firm's technological level. The hypotheses concerning human capital intensity and physical capital intensity are also rejected. But we found a positive and inversely U-shaped relationship between firm size and export/sales for basic material and capital good industry. As a dynamic aspect, we found that the pattern of export/sales ratio changed unstably over the last decade. Finally, some policy implications are presented.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.651-685
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• 2017

This study examines how experience diversity of chief technology officer (CTO) drives radical innovation of the firm, and the moderation effect of group attributes of top management team. Using data of 148 firms in U.S. manufacturing industries, this study finds that a CTO's diverse functional experience increases a firm radicalness, and diverse industrial experience also increases the radicalness. This study also examined the moderating effect of top management team (TMT) characteristics such as TMT size, TMT tenure, and gender composition in TMT. The positive relationship of CTO knowledge diversity and firm radicalness is weakened as TMT size or TMT tenure increased while the relationship is strengthened as gender diversity in TMT increased. These results of the analysis of firm-level radicalness provide implications for both academics and practitioners.