• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.39-59
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• 2007

The international involvement of a firm has been described as a gradual development process "a process in which the enterprise gradually increases its international involvement in many studies. This process evolves in the interplay between the development of knowledge about foreign markets and operations on one hand and increasing commitment of resources to foreign markets on the other." On the basis of Uppsala internationalization model, many studies strengthen strong theoretical and empirical support. According to the predictions of the classic stages theory, the internationalization process of firms have been recognized and characterized gradual evolution to foreign markets, so called stage theory: indirect & direct export, strategic alliance and foreign direct investment. However, termed "international new ventures" (McDougall, Shane, and Oviatt 1994), "born globals" (Knight 1997; Knight and Cavusgil 1996; Madsen and Servais 1997), "instant internationals" (Preece, Miles, and Baetz 1999), or "global startups" (Oviatt and McDougall 1994) have been used and come into spotlight in internationalization study of technology intensity venture companies. Recent researches focused on venture company have suggested the phenomenons of 'born global' firms as a contradiction to the stages theory. Especially the article by Oviatt and McDougall threw the spotlight on international entrepreneurs, on international new ventures, and on their importance in the globalising world economy. Since venture companies have, by definition. lack of economies of scale, lack of resources (financial and knowledge), and aversion to risk taking, they have a difficulty in expanding their market to abroad and pursue internalization gradually and step by step. However many venture companies have pursued 'Born Global Strategy', which is different from process strategy, because corporate's environment has been rapidly changing to globalization. The existing studies investigate that (1) why the ventures enter into overseas market in those early stage, even in infancy, (2) what make the different international strategy among ventures and the born global strategy is better to the infant ventures. However, as for venture's performance(growth and profitability), the existing results do not correspond each other. They also, don't include marketing strategy (differentiation, low price, market breadth and market pioneer) that is important factors in studying of BGV's performance. In this paper I aim to delineate the appearance of international new ventures and the phenomenons of venture companies' internationalization strategy. In order to verify research problems, I develop a resource-based model and marketing strategies for analyzing the effects of the born global venture firms. In this paper, I suggested 3 research problems. First, do the korean venture companies take some advantages in the aspects of corporate's performances (growth, profitability and overall market performances) when they pursue internationalization from inception? Second, do the korean BGV have firm specific assets (foreign experiences, foreign orientation, organizational absorptive capacity)? Third, What are the marketing strategies of korean BGV and is it different from others? Under these problems, I test then (1) whether the BGV that a firm started its internationalization activity almost from inception, has more intangible resources(foreign experience of corporate members, foreign orientation, technological competences and absorptive capacity) than any other venture firms(Non_BGV) and (2) also whether the BGV's marketing strategies-differentiation, low price, market diversification and preemption strategy are different from Non_BGV. Above all, the main purpose of this research is that results achieved by BGV are indeed better than those obtained by Non_BGV firms with respect to firm's growth rate and efficiency. To do this research, I surveyed venture companies located in Seoul and Deajeon in Korea during November to December, 2005. I gather the data from 200 venture companies and then selected 84 samples, which have been founded during 1999${\sim}$2000. To compare BGV's characteristics with those of Non_BGV, I also had to classify BGV by export intensity over 50% among five or six aged venture firms. Many other researches tried to classify BGV and Non_BGV, but there were various criterion as many as researchers studied on this topic. Some of them use time gap, which is time difference of establishment and it's first internationalization experience and others use export intensity, ration of export sales amount divided by total sales amount. Although using a mixed criterion of prior research in my case, I do think this kinds of criterion is subjective and arbitrary rather than objective, so I do mention my research has some critical limitation in the classification of BGV and Non_BGV. The first purpose of research is the test of difference of performance between BGV and Non_BGV. As a result of t-test, the research show that there are statistically efficient difference not only in the growth rate (sales growth rate compared to competitors and 3 years averaged sales growth rate) but also in general market performance of BGV. But in case of profitability performance, the hypothesis that is BGV is more profit (return on investment(ROI) compared to competitors and 3 years averaged ROI) than Non-BGV was not supported. From these results, this paper concludes that BGV grows rapidly and gets a high market performance (in aspect of market share and customer loyalty) but there is no profitability difference between BGV and Non_BGV. The second result is that BGV have more absorptive capacity especially, knowledge competence, and entrepreneur's international experience than Non_BGV. And this paper also found BGV search for product differentiation, exemption strategy and market diversification strategy while Non_BGV search for low price strategy. These results have never been dealt with other existing studies. This research has some limitations. First limitation is concerned about the definition of BGV, as I mentioned above. Conceptually speaking, BGV is defined as company pursue internationalization from inception, but in empirical study, it's very difficult to classify between BGV and Non_BGV. I tried to classify on the basis of time difference and export intensity, this criterions are so subjective and arbitrary that the results are not robust if the criterion were changed. Second limitation is concerned about sample used in this research. I surveyed venture companies just located in Seoul and Daejeon and also use only 84 samples which more or less provoke sample bias problem and generalization of results. I think the more following studies that focus on ventures located in other region, the better to verify the results of this paper.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.32-43
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• 2009

Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.61-118
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.23-46
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• 2017

Although there have been cases of evaluating the value of specific companies or projects which have centralized on developed countries in North America and Europe from the early 2000s, the system and methodology for estimating the economic value of individual technologies or patents has been activated on and on. Of course, there exist several online systems that qualitatively evaluate the technology's grade or the patent rating of the technology to be evaluated, as in 'KTRS' of the KIBO and 'SMART 3.1' of the Korea Invention Promotion Association. However, a web-based technology valuation system, referred to as 'STAR-Value system' that calculates the quantitative values of the subject technology for various purposes such as business feasibility analysis, investment attraction, tax/litigation, etc., has been officially opened and recently spreading. In this study, we introduce the type of methodology and evaluation model, reference information supporting these theories, and how database associated are utilized, focusing various modules and frameworks embedded in STAR-Value system. In particular, there are six valuation methods, including the discounted cash flow method (DCF), which is a representative one based on the income approach that anticipates future economic income to be valued at present, and the relief-from-royalty method, which calculates the present value of royalties' where we consider the contribution of the subject technology towards the business value created as the royalty rate. We look at how models and related support information (technology life, corporate (business) financial information, discount rate, industrial technology factors, etc.) can be used and linked in a intelligent manner. Based on the classification of information such as International Patent Classification (IPC) or Korea Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) for technology to be evaluated, the STAR-Value system automatically returns meta data such as technology cycle time (TCT), sales growth rate and profitability data of similar company or industry sector, weighted average cost of capital (WACC), indices of industrial technology factors, etc., and apply adjustment factors to them, so that the result of technology value calculation has high reliability and objectivity. Furthermore, if the information on the potential market size of the target technology and the market share of the commercialization subject refers to data-driven information, or if the estimated value range of similar technologies by industry sector is provided from the evaluation cases which are already completed and accumulated in database, the STAR-Value is anticipated that it will enable to present highly accurate value range in real time by intelligently linking various support modules. Including the explanation of the various valuation models and relevant primary variables as presented in this paper, the STAR-Value system intends to utilize more systematically and in a data-driven way by supporting the optimal model selection guideline module, intelligent technology value range reasoning module, and similar company selection based market share prediction module, etc. In addition, the research on the development and intelligence of the web-based STAR-Value system is significant in that it widely spread the web-based system that can be used in the validation and application to practices of the theoretical feasibility of the technology valuation field, and it is expected that it could be utilized in various fields of technology commercialization.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.71-94
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• 1990

This paper reviews the rationale of monetary and banking intervention by an outside authority, either the government or the central bank, and seeks to delineate clearly the optimal limits to the monetary and banking deregulation currently underway in Korea as well as on a global scale. Furthermore, this paper seeks to establish an objective and balanced view on the role of the central bank, especially in light of the current discussion on the restructuring of Korea's central bank, which has been severely contaminated by interest-group politics. The discussion begins with the recognition that the modern free banking school and the new monetary economics are becoming formidable challenges to the traditional role of the government or the central bank in the monetary and banking sector. The paper reviews six arguments that have traditionally been presented to support intervention: (1) the possibility of an over-issue of bank notes under free banking instead of central banking; (2) externalities in and the public good nature of the use of money; (3) economies of scale and natural monopoly in producing money; (4) the need for macro stabilization policy due to the instability of the real sector; (5) the external effects of bank failure due to the inherent instability of the existing banking system; and (6) protection for small banknote users and depositors. Based on an analysis of the above arguments, the paper speculates on the optimal role of the government or central bank in the monetary and banking system and the optimal degree of monetary and banking deregulation. By contrast to the arguments for free banking or laissez-faire monetary systems, which become fashionable in recent years, monopoly and intervention by the government or central bank in the outside money system can be both necessary and optimal. In this case, of course, an over-issue of fiat money may be possible due to political considerations, but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. On the other hand, the issue of inside monies based on outside money could indeed be provided for optimally under market competition by private institutions. A competitive system in issuing inside monies would help realize, to the maxim urn extent possible, external economies generated by using a single outside money. According to this reasoning, free banking activities will prevail in the inside money system, while a government monopoly will prevail in the outside money system. This speculation, then, also implies that the monetary and banking deregulation currently underway should and most likely will be limited to the inside money system, which could be liberalized to the fullest degree. It is also implied that it will be impractical to deregulate the outside money system and to allow market competition to provide outside money, in accordance with the arguments of the free banking school and the new monetary economics. Furthermore, the role of the government or central bank in this new environment will not be significantly different from their current roles. As far as the supply of fiat money continues to be monopolized by the government, the control of the supply of base money and such related responsibilities as monetary policy (argument(4)) and the lender of the last resort (argument (5)) will naturally be assigned to the outside money supplier. However, a mechanism for controlling an over-issue of fiat money by a monopolistic supplier will definitely be called for (argument(1)). A monetary policy based on a certain policy rule could be one possibility. More importantly, the deregulation of the inside money system would further increase the systemic risk inherent in the current fractional banking system, while enhancing the efficiency of the system (argument (5)). In this context, the role of the lender of the last resort would again become an instrument of paramount importance in alleviating liquidity crises in the early stages, thereby disallowing the possibility of a widespread bank run. Similarly, prudential banking supervision would also help maintain the safety and soundness of the fully deregulated banking system. These functions would also help protect depositors from losses due to bank failures (argument (6)). Finally, these speculations suggest that government or central bank authorities have probably been too conservative on the issue of the deregulation of the financial system, beyond the caution necessary to preserve system safety. Rather, only the fullest deregulation of the inside money system seems to guarantee the maximum enjoyment of external economies in the single outside money system.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.191-204
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• 2015

According to the '2013 Performance Assessment Report on the Financial Program' from the National Assembly Budget Office, the unfilled recruitment ratio of Software(SW) Developers in South Korea was 25% in the 2012 fiscal year. Moreover, the unfilled recruitment ratio of highly-qualified SW developers reaches almost 80%. This phenomenon is intensified in small and medium enterprises consisting of less than 300 employees. Young job-seekers in South Korea are increasingly avoiding becoming a SW developer and even the current SW developers want to change careers, which hinders the national development of IT industries. The Korean government has recently realized the problem and implemented policies to foster young SW developers. Due to this effort, it has become easier to find young SW developers at the beginning-level. However, it is still hard to recruit highly-qualified SW developers for many IT companies. This is because in order to become a SW developing expert, having a long term experiences are important. Thus, improving job continuity intentions of current SW developers is more important than fostering new SW developers. Therefore, this study surveyed the job continuity intentions of SW developers and analyzed the factors associated with them. As a method, we carried out a survey from September 2014 to October 2014, which was targeted on 130 SW developers who were working in IT industries in South Korea. We gathered the demographic information and characteristics of the respondents, work environments of a SW industry, and social positions for SW developers. Afterward, a regression analysis and a decision tree method were performed to analyze the data. These two methods are widely used data mining techniques, which have explanation ability and are mutually complementary. We first performed a linear regression method to find the important factors assaociated with a job continuity intension of SW developers. The result showed that an 'expected age' to work as a SW developer were the most significant factor associated with the job continuity intention. We supposed that the major cause of this phenomenon is the structural problem of IT industries in South Korea, which requires SW developers to change the work field from developing area to management as they are promoted. Also, a 'motivation' to become a SW developer and a 'personality (introverted tendency)' of a SW developer are highly importantly factors associated with the job continuity intention. Next, the decision tree method was performed to extract the characteristics of highly motivated developers and the low motivated ones. We used well-known C4.5 algorithm for decision tree analysis. The results showed that 'motivation', 'personality', and 'expected age' were also important factors influencing the job continuity intentions, which was similar to the results of the regression analysis. In addition to that, the 'ability to learn' new technology was a crucial factor for the decision rules of job continuity. In other words, a person with high ability to learn new technology tends to work as a SW developer for a longer period of time. The decision rule also showed that a 'social position' of SW developers and a 'prospect' of SW industry were minor factors influencing job continuity intensions. On the other hand, 'type of an employment (regular position/ non-regular position)' and 'type of company (ordering company/ service providing company)' did not affect the job continuity intension in both methods. In this research, we demonstrated the job continuity intentions of SW developers, who were actually working at IT companies in South Korea, and we analyzed the factors associated with them. These results can be used for human resource management in many IT companies when recruiting or fostering highly-qualified SW experts. It can also help to build SW developer fostering policy and to solve the problem of unfilled recruitment of SW Developers in South Korea.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.177-198
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• 2018

Recently, as economic property it has become necessary to acquire and utilize the framework for water resource measurement and performance management as the property of water resources changes to hold "public property". To date, the evaluation of water technology has been carried out by feasibility study analysis or technology assessment based on net present value (NPV) or benefit-to-cost (B/C) effect, however it is not yet systemized in terms of valuation models to objectively assess an economic value of technology-based business to receive diffusion and feedback of research outcomes. Therefore, K-water (known as a government-supported public company in Korea) company feels the necessity to establish a technology valuation framework suitable for technical characteristics of water resources fields in charge and verify an exemplified case applied to the technology. The K-water evaluation technology applied to this study, as a public interest goods, can be used as a tool to measure the value and achievement contributed to society and to manage them. Therefore, by calculating the value in which the subject technology contributed to the entire society as a public resource, we make use of it as a basis information for the advertising medium of performance on the influence effect of the benefits or the necessity of cost input, and then secure the legitimacy for large-scale R&D cost input in terms of the characteristics of public technology. Hence, K-water company, one of the public corporation in Korea which deals with public goods of 'water resources', will be able to establish a commercialization strategy for business operation and prepare for a basis for the performance calculation of input R&D cost. In this study, K-water has developed a web-based technology valuation model for public interest type water resources based on the technology evaluation system that is suitable for the characteristics of a technology in water resources fields. In particular, by utilizing the evaluation methodology of the Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan to match the expense items to the expense accounts based on the related benefit items, we proposed the so-called 'K-water's proprietary model' which involves the 'cost-benefit' approach and the FCF (Free Cash Flow), and ultimately led to build a pipeline on the K-water research performance management system and then verify the practical case of a technology related to "desalination". We analyze the embedded design logic and evaluation process of web-based valuation system that reflects characteristics of water resources technology, reference information and database(D/B)-associated logic for each model to calculate public interest-based and profit-based technology values in technology integrated management system. We review the hybrid evaluation module that reflects the quantitative index of the qualitative evaluation indices reflecting the unique characteristics of water resources and the visualized user-interface (UI) of the actual web-based evaluation, which both are appended for calculating the business value based on financial data to the existing web-based technology valuation systems in other fields. K-water's technology valuation model is evaluated by distinguishing between public-interest type and profitable-type water technology. First, evaluation modules in profit-type technology valuation model are designed based on 'profitability of technology'. For example, the technology inventory K-water holds has a number of profit-oriented technologies such as water treatment membranes. On the other hand, the public interest-type technology valuation is designed to evaluate the public-interest oriented technology such as the dam, which reflects the characteristics of public benefits and costs. In order to examine the appropriateness of the cost-benefit based public utility valuation model (i.e. K-water specific technology valuation model) presented in this study, we applied to practical cases from calculation of benefit-to-cost analysis on water resource technology with 20 years of lifetime. In future we will additionally conduct verifying the K-water public utility-based valuation model by each business model which reflects various business environmental characteristics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.139-166
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• 2010

The supply chain management (SCM) systems have emerged as strong managerial tools for manufacturing firms in enhancing competitive strength. Despite of large investments in the SCM systems, many companies are not fully realizing the promised benefits from the systems. A review of literature on adoption, implementation and success factor of IOS (inter-organization systems), EDI (electronic data interchange) systems, shows that this issue has been examined from multiple theoretic perspectives. And many researchers have attempted to identify the factors which influence the success of system implementation. However, the existing studies have two drawbacks in revealing the determinants of systems implementation success. First, previous researches raise questions as to the appropriateness of research subjects selected. Most SCM systems are operating in the form of private industrial networks, where the participants of the systems consist of two distinct groups: focus companies and vendors. The focus companies are the primary actors in developing and operating the systems, while vendors are passive participants which are connected to the system in order to supply raw materials and parts to the focus companies. Under the circumstance, there are three ways in selecting the research subjects; focus companies only, vendors only, or two parties grouped together. It is hard to find researches that use the focus companies exclusively as the subjects probably due to the insufficient sample size for statistic analysis. Most researches have been conducted using the data collected from both groups. We argue that the SCM success factors cannot be correctly indentified in this case. The focus companies and the vendors are in different positions in many areas regarding the system implementation: firm size, managerial resources, bargaining power, organizational maturity, and etc. There are no obvious reasons to believe that the success factors of the two groups are identical. Grouping the two groups also raises questions on measuring the system success. The benefits from utilizing the systems may not be commonly distributed to the two groups. One group's benefits might be realized at the expenses of the other group considering the situation where vendors participating in SCM systems are under continuous pressures from the focus companies with respect to prices, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, by combining the system outcomes of both groups we cannot measure the system benefits obtained by each group correctly. Second, the measures of system success adopted in the previous researches have shortcoming in measuring the SCM success. User satisfaction, system utilization, and user attitudes toward the systems are most commonly used success measures in the existing studies. These measures have been developed as proxy variables in the studies of decision support systems (DSS) where the contribution of the systems to the organization performance is very difficult to measure. Unlike the DSS, the SCM systems have more specific goals, such as cost saving, inventory reduction, quality improvement, rapid time, and higher customer service. We maintain that more specific measures can be developed instead of proxy variables in order to measure the system benefits correctly. The purpose of this study is to find the determinants of SCM systems success in the perspective of vendor companies. In developing the research model, we have focused on selecting the success factors appropriate for the vendors through reviewing past researches and on developing more accurate success measures. The variables can be classified into following: technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the basis of TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework. The model consists of three independent variables (competition intensity, top management support, and information system maturity), one mediating variable (collaboration), one moderating variable (government support), and a dependent variable (system success). The systems success measures have been developed to reflect the operational benefits of the SCM systems; improvement in planning and analysis capabilities, faster throughput, cost reduction, task integration, and improved product and customer service. The model has been validated using the survey data collected from 122 vendors participating in the SCM systems in Korea. To test for mediation, one should estimate the hierarchical regression analysis on the collaboration. And moderating effect analysis should estimate the moderated multiple regression, examines the effect of the government support. The result shows that information system maturity and top management support are the most important determinants of SCM system success. Supply chain technologies that standardize data formats and enhance information sharing may be adopted by supply chain leader organization because of the influence of focal company in the private industrial networks in order to streamline transactions and improve inter-organization communication. Specially, the need to develop and sustain an information system maturity will provide the focus and purpose to successfully overcome information system obstacles and resistance to innovation diffusion within the supply chain network organization. The support of top management will help focus efforts toward the realization of inter-organizational benefits and lend credibility to functional managers responsible for its implementation. The active involvement, vision, and direction of high level executives provide the impetus needed to sustain the implementation of SCM. The quality of collaboration relationships also is positively related to outcome variable. Collaboration variable is found to have a mediation effect between on influencing factors and implementation success. Higher levels of inter-organizational collaboration behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the vendors trust in the supply chain network. Government support moderates the effect of the IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support on collaboration and implementation success of SCM. In general, the vendor companies face substantially greater risks in SCM implementation than the larger companies do because of severe constraints on financial and human resources and limited education on SCM systems. Besides resources, Vendors generally lack computer experience and do not have sufficient internal SCM expertise. For these reasons, government supports may establish requirements for firms doing business with the government or provide incentives to adopt, implementation SCM or practices. Government support provides significant improvements in implementation success of SCM when IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support and collaboration are low. The environmental characteristic of competition intensity has no direct effect on vendor perspective of SCM system success. But, vendors facing above average competition intensity will have a greater need for changing technology. This suggests that companies trying to implement SCM systems should set up compatible supply chain networks and a high-quality collaboration relationship for implementation and performance.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.109-153
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• 1992

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Korea's banking industry and derives various implications on the prospect for the Korean banking structure in the future based on the estimated efficiency indicators for the banking sector. The Korean banking industry is permitted to operate trust business to the full extent and the security business to a limited extent, while it is formally subjected to the strict, specialized banking system. Security underwriting and investment businesses are allowed in a very limited extent only for stocks and bonds of maturity longer than three year and only up to 100 percent of the bank paid-in capital. Until the end of 1991, the ceiling was only up to 25 percent of the total balance of the demand deposits. However, they are prohibited from the security brokerage business. While the in-house integration of security businesses with the traditional business of deposit and commercial lending is restrictively regulated as such, Korean banks can enter the security business by establishing subsidiaries in the industry. This paper, therefore, estimates the efficiency indicators as well as the cost functions, identifying the in-house integrated trust business and security investment business as important banking activities, for various cases where both the production and the intermediation function approaches in modelling the financial intermediaries are separately applied, and the banking businesses of deposit, lending and security investment as one group and the trust businesses as another group are separately and integrally analyzed. The estimation results of the efficiency indicators for various cases are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2. First, security businesses exhibit economies of scale but also economies of scope with traditional banking activities, which implies that in-house integration of the banking and security businesses may not be a nonoptimal banking structure. Therefore, this result further implies that the transformation of Korea's banking system from the current, specialized system to the universal banking system will not impede the improvement of the banking industry's efficiency. Second, the lending businesses turn out to be subjected to diseconomies of scale, while exhibiting unclear evidence for economies of scope. In sum, it implies potential efficiency gain of the continued in-house integration of the lending activity. Third, the continued integration of the trust businesses seems to contribute to improving the efficiency of the banking businesses, since the trust businesses exhibit economies of scope. Fourth, deposit services and fee-based activities, such as foreign exchange and credit card businesses, exhibit economies of scale but constant returns to scope, which implies, the possibility of separating those businesses from other banking and trust activities. The recent trend of the credit card business being operated separately from other banking activities by an independent identity in Korea as well as in the global banking market seems to be consistent with this finding. Then, how can the possibility of separating deposit services from the remaining activities be interpreted? If one insists a strict definition of commercial banking that is confined to deposit and commercial lending activities, separating the deposit service will suggest a resolution or a disappearance of banking, itself. Recently, however, there has been a suggestion that separating banks' deposit and lending activities by allowing a depository institution which specialize in deposit taking and investing deposit fund only in the safest securities such as government securities to administer the deposit activity will alleviate the risk of a bank run. This method, in turn, will help improve the safety of the payment system (Robert E. Litan, What should Banks Do? Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1987). In this context, the possibility of separating the deposit activity will imply that a new type of depository institution will arise naturally without contradicting the efficiency of the banking businesses, as the size of the banking market grows in the future. Moreover, it is also interesting to see additional evidences confirming this statement that deposit taking and security business are cost complementarity but deposit taking and lending businesses are cost substitute (see Table 2 for cost complementarity relationship in Korea's banking industry). Finally, it has been observed that the Korea's banking industry is lacking in the characteristics of natural monopoly. Therefore, it may not be optimal to encourage the merger and acquisition in the banking industry only for the purpose of improving the efficiency.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.83-121
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• 2004

This study was carried out to examine how solid the production foundation of rice in Chung-Nam Province is, and, if not, to probe alternative measures through the size of farms specializing in rice, of which direction would be a pivot of rice industry-oriented policy. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : 1. The amount of rice production in Chung-Nam Province is highest in Korea and the size of paddy field area is the second largest : This implying that the probability that rice production in Chung-Nam Province would be severely influenced by a global trend of market conditions. The number of farms specializing in rice becoming the core group of rice farming account for 7.7 percent of the total number of farm household in Korea. Average field area financial support which had been input to farm household by Government had a noticeable effect on the improvement of the policy of farm-size program. 2. Farm-size program in Chung-Nam Province established from 1980 to 2002 in creased the cultivation size of paddy field to 19,484 hectares, and this program enhanced the buying and selling of farmland and the number of farmland bargain reached 6,431 household and 16,517 hectares, respectively, in 1995-2002. Meanwhile, long-term letting and hiring of farmland appeared so active that the bargain acreage reached 6,970 hectares, and farm involved was 7,059 households, however, the farm-exchange-and-unity program did not satisfy our expectation, because the retirement farm operators reluctantly participated to sell their farms. Another reason that had delayed the bargain of farms rested on the general category of social complication attendant upon the exchange and unity operation for scattered farm. Such difficulties would work negative effects out to carry on the target of farm-size work in general. 3. The following measures were presented to propel the farm-size promotion program : a. Occupation shift project, followed by the social security program for retirement and elderly farm operators, should be promptly established and also a number of types of incentives for promoting the letting and hiring work and farm-exchange-and-unity program would also be set up. b. To establish the effective key system of rice production, all the farm operators should increase the unit area yield of rice and lower the production cost. To do so, a great deal of production teams of rice equipped with managerial techniques and capabilities need to be organized. And, also, there should be appropriate arrays of facilities including information system. This plan is desirable to be in line with a diversity of the structural implement of regional integration based on farm system building. c. To extend the size of farm and to improve farm management, we have to devise the enlargement of individual size of farm for maximized management and the utilization of farm-size grouping method. In conclusion, it can be said that the farm-size project in Chung-Nam Province which has continued since the 1980s was satisfactorily achieved. However, we still have a lot of problems to be solved to break down the barrier for attainment of the desirable farm-size operation work.. Farm-size project has fairly close relation with farm specialization in rice and, thus, the positive support for farm household including the integrated program for both retirement farmers and off-farm operators should be considered to pursue the progressive development of the farm-size program, which is key means to successful achievement of rice farming enforcement in Chung-Nam Province.