• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.1-11
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to verify the factors affecting corporate bankruptcy by using non-financial information of companies invested by credit guarantee institutions. In this study, 594 companies (525 normal companies, 69 insolvent companies) invested in by the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund from March 2014 to the end of December 2022 were selected as samples. Non-financial information of companies was divided into founder characteristics information, company characteristics information, and corporate investment information, and cross-analysis and logistic regression analysis were conducted. As a result of the cross-analysis, personal credit rating, industry, and joint investment were selected as significant variables, and logistic regression analysis was conducted for those variables, and two variables, personal credit rating and joint investment, were selected as important factors for bankruptcy. In business management, the founder's personal credit and the importance of joint investment in investment support were found out. It will help to minimize bankruptcy if institutions that support investment in SMEs reflect these results in their screening and systematically build cooperative relationships with private investment institutions. It is hoped that this study will provide an opportunity to pay more attention to the factors that affect the bankruptcy of companies that receive direct investment from public institutions.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.193-207
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• 2024

Purpose - With the increase of non-face-to-face activities due to the spread of COVID-19, O2O industry has grown rapidly which reduces contact points between suppliers and consumers. O2O platform is now recognized as an indispensable channel of distribution, but the voice is getting louder that it is necessary to check how it contributes to the performance of suppliers or how its fee system or contract terms affects the expansion of O2O industry as the leading companies tend to monopolize the market. Design/methodology/approach - In this study, the scope was limited to the restaurant industry in which transactions are the most active among the O2O industry and a regression analysis was done on 775 businesses that had used guarantor service from the Seoul Credit Guarantee Foundation. Findings - Analysis on the impact of O2O platform system, information, and service quality on the business performance of the sole proprietors revealed that the system quality represented by ease of use and the information quality determined by level of timely, accurate and reliable information provided to the consumers have a statistically significant effect on the improvement of business performance. In addition, the effect of business performance on the loyalty measured by the likelihood of users continuing to use the service as well as recommending it to others was moderated by the satisfaction with contract terms, not by the fee system. Research implications or Originality - Although the number of O2O platform providers has increased manyfold, the membership rate is no more than 20%, which means that the small business owners are still struggling with digital transformation. In order for the O2O industry, which is now commonplace, to form a healthy ecosystem that satisfies both suppliers and consumers, the standard contract guidelines that are acceptable to both parties must be established and the O2O providers must offer services that help suppliers to improve performance.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.91-116
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• 1991

Market liberalization progressing simultaneously with high and rapidly rising domestic wages has created an adverse business environment for domestic firms. Korean firms are losing their international competitiveness in comparison to firms from LDC(Less Developed Countries) in low-tech industries. In high-tech industries, domestic firms without government protection (which is impossible due to the liberalization policy and the current international status of the Korean economy) are in a disadvantaged position relative to firms from advanced countries. This paper examines the division of roles between the private sector and the government in order to achieve a successful structural adjustment, which has become the impending industrial policy issue caused by high domestic wages, on the one hand, and the opening of domestic markets, on the other. The micro foundation of the economy-wide structural adjustment is actually the restructuring of business portfolios at the firm level. The firm-level business restructuring means that firms in low-value-added businesses or with declining market niches establish new major businesses in higher value-added segments or growing market niches. The adjustment of the business structure at the firm level can only be accomplished by accumulating firm-specific managerial assets necessary to establish a new business structure. This can be done through learning-by-doing in the whole system of management, including research and development, manufacturing, and marketing. Therefore, the voluntary cooperation among the people in the company is essential for making the cost of the learning process lower than that at the competing companies. Hence, firms that attempt to restructure their major businesses need to induce corporate-wide participation through innovations in organization and management, encourage innovative corporate culture, and maintain cooperative labor unions. Policy discussions on structural adjustments usually regard firms as a black box behind a few macro variables. But in reality, firm activities are not flows of materials but relationships among human resources. The growth potential of companies are embodied in the human resources of the firm; the balance of interest among stockholders, managers, and workers of the company' brings the accumulation of the company's core competencies. Therefore, policymakers and economists shoud change their old concept of the firm as a technological black box which produces a marketable commodities. Firms should be regarded as coalitions of interest groups such as stockholders, managers, and workers. Consequently the discussion on the structural adjustment both at the macroeconomic level and the firm level should be based on this new paradigm of understanding firms. The government's role in reducing the cost of structural adjustment and supporting should the creation of new industries emphasize the following: First, government must promote the competition in domestic markets by revising laws related to antitrust policy, bankruptcy, and the promotion of small and medium-sized companies. General consensus on the limitations of government intervention and the merit of deregulation should be sought among policymakers and people in the business world. In the age of internationalization, nation-specific competitive advantages cannot be exclusively in favor of domestic firms. The international competitiveness of a domestic firm derives from the firm-specific core competencies which can be accumulated by internal investment and organization of the firm. Second, government must build up a solid infrastructure of production factors including capital, technology, manpower, and information. Structural adjustment often entails bankruptcies and partial waste of resources. However, it is desirable for the government not to try to sustain marginal businesses, but to support the diversification or restructuring of businesses by assisting in factor creation. Institutional support for venture businesses needs to be improved, especially in the financing system since many investment projects in venture businesses are highly risky, even though they are very promising. The proportion of low-value added production processes and declining industries should be reduced by promoting foreign direct investment and factory automation. Moreover, one cannot over-emphasize the importance of future-oriented labor policies to be based on the new paradigm of understanding firm activities. The old laws and instititutions related to labor unions need to be reformed. Third, government must improve the regimes related to money, banking, and the tax system to change business practices dependent on government protection or undesirable in view of the evolution of the Korean economy as a whole. To prevent rational business decisions from contradicting to the interest of the economy as a whole, government should influence the business environment, not the business itself.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

It is essential factor for business operation to raise funds effectively. However, in Korea, many start-ups and small businesses have difficulties in fund-raising. In recent years, crowdfunding, a new method for funding a project of individuals or organizations by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, has been growing up simultaneously with diffusion of social media. Crowdfunding is on early stage in Korea, and the majority of projects are focused on cultural or art categories. There is high proportion of projects that have social value in start-up sector. Crowdfunding in Korea has great potential because success rate of it is much higher than its of advanced countries, although market size is much smaller than them. The purpose of this paper is to propose success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up through case study. 5 crowdfunding platforms of Korea and Kickstarter, the platform of United States were investigated. Then we checked the figures related to the operation of the whole Korean projects on start-up. Finally, we made comparison between the cases of success and failure by analyzing 8 project characteristics. The study shows that it were the differences in trustworthiness and activeness of project creator, value of reward and efforts for interactivity that have great effects on success of the project. Whereas there was no significant influence of societal contribution and sponsor engagement. The thesis provides success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up as follows. Firstly, creator of the project should make support base by enthusiastic activites before launching funding project. Secondly, there should be contents that can easily show the process of business development in the project information. Thirdly, there must be appropriate design of rewards for each amounts of support money. Finally, efforts for interactivity, such as frequent updates, response for comments and SNS posting, should be followed after the launch of the project.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.29-40
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• 2013

This study analyzed that adjustment roles of the organization and Information System strategy suitability factors between influence and introduction outcome factors in the IT outsourcing in government offices. Influence factors of IT outsourcing are organization factor(information system maturity, CEO's support), trade factor(asset speciality, uncertainty, using degree of information system), risk factor(risk of security, risk of increase in cost, risk of losing autonomy). And outcome factors are set as economic effect and technology effect. We analyzed that organization and IS strategy suitability factors as moderator variables. Results are the followings. It was analyzed that organization and IS strategy suitability factors are in charge of adjusting role among information system maturity which is lower variable of organization factor, CEO's support, uncertainty of trade factor's lower variable, risk of security which is risk factor's lower variable, risk of increase in cost, loss of autonomy. Therefore, in order for organization to increase the outcome of information technology, organization strategy and IS strategy should be promoted in combined manner. However, it was analyzed that strategy suitability could not take the adjusting role between asset specialty and introduction outcome.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.69-78
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• 2013

Settled lifestyle as important to health and healing to medical tourism and wellness tourism in the 21st century has emerged as the best promising service industry. Jeju Island has a variety of local resources, and the directions was considered to spa industry promotion application it. Jeju Island has a variety of local resources which can be used for spa industry promotion. Jeju Island's beautiful natural environment, mineral resources, water resources, biological resources, agricultural products, traditional folk remedies available in Jeju's spa treatments. Using the local resources of Jeju, 'Jeju specialized spa treatments' can develop of 12 kinds of spa treatments. Namely, thalssotherapy, stone therapy, black sand poultice, hot-floored therapy using volcanic soil, thalassotherapy, drinking therapy, hydrotherapy, herbal/medicinal plants poultice, forest therapy, Spa cuisine, facial beauty, diet therapy. 12 kinds of Jeju specialized spa treatments development and service to the local resources of basic research on the physical and chemical characteristics, product development, clinical trials, efficacy studies should precede. In addition, customized spa services programs should be developed considering the propensity of customers, customer needs, and a spa type. And standardized program of spa services and need a manual painter. Medical tourism and wellness tourism in conjunction with efforts to be considered in order to increase the competitiveness of the spa industry in Jeju.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.55-59
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• 2006

This study was designed to investigate the optimum manufacturing condition of germanium-fortified yeast, and the binding properties of germanium (Ge) in germanium-fortified yeast. The nutritional optimum conditions were glucose 3.0 (w/v) %, yeast extracts 0.3 (w/v) % and peptone 0.5 (w/v) %, and the amounts of yeast cells were 67.4 mg/ml. And, the standard germanium-fortified yeast was produced under the condition at the ratio of yeast cell and germanium solution was 1 : 0.5 (50%), pH 6.5 and $35-40^{\circ}C$ during fermentation. In results of the identification, binding of germanium-protein showed structural difference between the inorganic Ge $(GeO_2)$ added during fermentation process and germanium-fortified yeast. Therefore, germanium-fortified yeast made by biosynthetic technology formed structurally safe organic germanium during fermentation process. Germanium-fortified yeast can be applied as a new functional material far the improvement of health, the prevention and treatment of chronic degenerative disease like cancer, and the enforcement of immune system.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.835-843
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• 2020

Obesity, the world's leading metabolic disease, is a serious health problem in both industrialized and developing countries. Natural substances are of great interest in preventative medicine, especially in the field of metabolic syndromes-from insulin resistance to obesity and diabetes. In the present study, we investigated the effect of A. pullulans SM-2001 Extract (Polycan^®) on the adipocyte differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and the anti-obesity effect of 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Although β-glucan has been found to have health benefits in the regulation of the immune system and blood cholesterol levels, its role in obesity has not been fully investigated. Polycan^® suppressed lipid accumulation and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) activity without affecting cell viability in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and adipocytes. Polycan^® also inhibited cellular lipid accumulation through down-regulation of transcription factors, such as PPARγ and C/EBPα, and induced dose-dependent phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)-a cellular energy sensor-while the total AMPK protein content remained unchanged. Taken together, this shows that the activation of AMPK by Polycan^® in adipocytes plays a critical role in Polycan^®-induced inhibition of adipocyte differentiation. Our results show that Polycan^® has an anti-obesity action in vitro, suggesting a potential novel preventative agent for obesity and other metabolic diseases.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.83-95
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• 2007

We are motivated by how offline and online firms compete. The Internet made many conventional offline firms build a dynamic online business as another sales channel using their advantages such as brand equity, an existing customer base with comprehensive purchasing data, integrated marketing, economies of scale, and longtime experience with the logistics of order fulfillment and customer service. Even though the hybrid selling using both offline and online channel seems to have advantages over a pure online retailer, all the conventional offline firms are not seen to create an online business. Many conventional offline firms began to launch online business since the Internet era, however, just being online business is not likely to guarantee success. According to Bizate.com's report whether the hybrid channel strategy is successful is still under investigation. For example, consider the classic case of Barnes and Noble versus Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble was already the largest chain of bookstores in the U,S., when Amazon.com was established in 1995, BarnesandNoble.com followed suit in 1997, After suffering losses in its initial years, Amazon finally turned profitable in 2003. In 2004, Amazon's net income was $588 million on revenues of $6.92 billion, while Barnes and Noble earned $143 million on revenues of $4.87 billion, which included BarnesandNoble.com's loss of $21 million on revenues of $420 million. While these examples serve to motivate our thinking, it does not explain when offline firms should venture online. It also does not provide an analytical framework that can generalized to other competitive online-offline situations. We attempt to do this in this paper and analyze a hybrid channel model where a conventional offline firm competes against online firms using its own direct online channels. We are particularly interested in an optimal channel strategy when a conventional offline firm sells its products through its own direct online channel to compete with other rival online firms. We consider two situations where its direct online channel and other online firms are symmetric and asymmetric in the brand effect. The analysis of this paper presents several findings. In the symmetric model where a hybrid firm's online channel is not differentiated from a pure online firm, (i) a conventional offline firm will not launch its online business. In the asymmetric model where a hybrid firm's online channel is differentiated from a pure online firm, (ii) a conventional offline firm can launch its online business if its brand effect is greater than a certain threshold. (iii) there is a positive relationship between its brand effect and online customer costs showing that a conventional offline firm needs more brand effect in order to launch online business as online customer costs decrease. (iv) there is a negative relationship between its brand effect and the number of customers with access to the Internet showing that a conventional offline firm tends to launch its online business when customers with access to the Internet increases.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.225-239
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• 2019

In order for a company to grow through technological innovation, technological innovation capacity to support technological innovation is more important than anything else. In addition, the technology commercialization process can not be ignored in order to lead to the improvement of the business performance. In this context, this study analyzed the impact of firm's technological innovation capacity on business performance and tried to analyze whether technological innovation capacity has a moderating effect on technological innovation capacity. To analyze the purpose of this study, we collect data through questionnaires of small and medium venture companies located in the southeast region of korea. The results of multiple regression analysis based on 132 collected company survey data are summarized as follows. First, Technology innovation capacity has a positive effect on business performance. Specifically, companies with well-equipped R&D capabilities, technology accumulation capabilities, and technology innovation systems showed higher business performance(market competitiveness, business growth potential, and business profitability). Second, technology commercialization capacity has a positive effect on the effect of technological innovation capacity on business performance. This result implies that a company with a good technical commercialization capability increases the positive influence of technological innovation capacity on business performance. The results of this study suggest that it is important to systematically manage the technology commercialization capacity in order to generate business performance through technological innovation.