• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.133-155
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• 2005

After the publication of the competitive advantage of nations by Porter in 1990, the competitiveness of regional concentrations of industries has been often explained by the cluster concept. There are many definitions of clusters, but they mainly boil down to a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities. The shipbuilding industry in Korea can for sure be regarded as a competitive industry, as the spectacular rise of its world market share from 2% in the early 1970s to the current 38% impressively testifies, but can it be considered a cluster? Based on an analytical framework consisting of a typology of clusters and a context-sensitive evolutionary approach, the paper will show that over the last thirty years Korea's shipbuilding developed from a mere number of isolated, large shipyards (cathedrals in the desert) established by large conglomerates (chaebol) in close collaboration with the central government into an innovative cluster. The cluster is on the one hand characterised by a strongly developed supply industry and specialised universities and research institutes, but on the other hand by a weak, yet increasing role for local and regional institutions The specific and context-dependent characteristics of this innovative cluster are more important explanations for its competitiveness than the financial interventions by the central government, which are repeatedly put forward by European policy-makers in their trade war with Korea.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.355-379
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• 2007

With the effectuation of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol in 2005, ever growing concern on the importance of overseas forestation is diffusing worldwide. However, fierce international competition to secure overseas forestation sites, inherent uncertainty in UNFCCC or overseas forestation projects, and imbalances among policies on overseas natural resources development make it difficult to realize Korean long-term overseas forestation objective to secure 1 million ha by 2050. In view of necessity of overseas forestation projects for sustainable forest management and securing sinks of carbon to mitigate climate change, various efforts to reform current Korean overseas forestation systems are required. This study suggests several alternatives to improve current Korean overseas forestation systems including expanding financial support for overseas forestation projects, cultivating overseas forestation experts, establishing official organization for overseas forestation, constructing effective support system for overseas forestation projects, fostering international cooperation in the field of forest resources, and so on. Many theoretical, empirical or policy-oriented studies on the influences of UNFCCC and countermeasures on it in various Korean industries should follow this study.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.258-265
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• 2003

In our study, we extracted the market, finance, and government factors determining R&D investment of individual firms in the IT industry in Korea. We collected the financial data of 515 individual firms belonging to IT and non-IT industries between 1980 and 1999 from the Korea Investors Service's database and investigated the empirical relationship between the factors using an ordinary regression model, a fixed effects model, and a random effects model. The main findings of our study are as follows: i) The Herfindahl Index variable representing the degree of market concentration is statistically insignificant in explaining R&D expenditures in the IT manufacturing industry. ii) Assets, which is used as a proxy variable for firm size, have a positive and statistically significant coefficient. These two results suggest that the Schumpeterian Hypothesis may be only partially applied to the IT manufacturing industry in Korea. iii) The dividend variable has a negative value and is statistically significant, indicating that a tendency of high dividends can restrict the internal cash flow for R&D investment. iv) The sales variable representing growth potential shows a positive coefficient. v) The subsidy as a proxy variable for governmental R&D promotion policies is positively correlated with R&D expenditure. This suggests that government policy has played a significant role in promoting R&D activities of IT firms in Korea since 1980. vi) Using a dummy variable, we verified that firms reduced their R&D investments to secure sufficient liquidity under the restructuring pressure during Korea's 1998 and 1999 economic crisis.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.143-157
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• 1999

EDI is one of the most important information technologies in todays business environment. This study is an exploratory study on the EDI control of Korean companies in their early stage of EDI implementation. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of EDI controls on the security and usefulness of EDI systems for Korean companies who have adopted EDI. The data of fifty-one Korean companies for financial, manufacturing, and trade industries are collected by the mail survey and interview methods. The level of EDI control is mediocre on the average. The level of EDI security is low while that of EDI usefulness is mediocre. The empirical results show that the EDI controls in general improve the EDI security and usefulness significantly. Especially, the application and security control affect the EDI security significantly while the management, application, and security controls affect the EDI usefulness significantly. The gap between the level and perceived importance of control does not affect the EDI security but decreses the EDI usefulness at the marginal level of significance. The limitation of this study is that only a small number of companies are available for data collection because Korea is in the early stage of EDI implementation.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.39-55
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• 2016

The rapid expansion of China's trade surplus since the mid-eighties and picking up until the onset of 2008-09 global financial crisis has been a key development in the world economy. While growing trade surplus of China has been viewed with cynicism borne out of an undervalued Yuan and for having being a member of WTO since 2001, many others argue that China's trade surplus reflect changes in China's economic and trade structure and associated shifts in its role within regional and global production chains. We address this issue by analyzing: (i) China's growing and changing trade structure as well as changing structure of trade surplus with the rest of the world, USA, Europe, Japan and rest of Asia, (ii) China's revealed comparative advantage (RCA) with the rest of the world, and (iii) how China's trade policies resulted into a shift in China's trade structure. We find that, not only China has made significant inroads in the world trade since its admission to WTO, but also there has been a noticeable shift in China's trade structure with specialization in high-end technology industries wherein China's exports aided by a well calibrated FDI policy.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.27-32
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• 2014

Purpose - Since Iran's economy is only now developing, and its stock market is only now emerging, we should deal with the relationship between ownership structure and conservative accounting of companies to see whether such a relationship exists in Iran's market. This study aims to investigate the relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Research design, data, and methodology - All listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange, for which the required information financial statements (balance sheet, profit and loss account) could be acquired for the period 2007-2012, were studied. A total of 123 companies from various industries was selected. Results - In order to test the hypotheses, multi variate regression (inter procedure), with their meaningful t- and f-statistics, and a Durbin-Watson autocorrelation model were used. Conclusions - The research results show that the ownership of major shareholders and ownership concentration have a negative significant relationship with accounting conservatism. Therefore, as a significant negative relationship between concentration of ownership and accounting conservatism at the 95% confidence level was found, the second hypothesis was confirmed.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.57-74
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• 2019

Self-driving technology is changing the paradigm of automotive industry. Since it is imperative to converge this emerging technology with ICT and there is a time lag between securing this emerging technology and occurrence of firm performance, it is difficult to make decisions on technology development. This study investigates patent indicators to understand the impact of self-driving technology on performance of automotive parts companies. We analyze 611 of self-driving technology patents from 2000 to 2016 and the financial performance of 270 small and medium businesses that register the corresponding patents with consideration of up to four years of time lag. Our analysis results show that patents related to self-driving has a positive impact on asset growth of 2 years and sales growth of 3 years in terms of time lag. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the impact of technology development on the firm performance in case of convergence of the automotive and ICT industries. Additionally, this study provides a role of patent in knowledge management planning through technology development as a practical implication.

• Proceedings of the Technology Innovation Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.140-174
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• 1999

This study proposed the model of research describing the positive impact of fitness between career orientations and reward systems on the performance of R&D professionals. To prove the propositions of the model, a questionnaire survey was conducted 204 professionals in 19 R&D research institutes related with electronics and communication industries provided answers for the questionnaire. The results of the survey were summarized in the following. 1) Career orientations of R&D professionals can be categorized into three dimensions : managerial, technical/professional, and project orientation. 2) The rewards consist of four dimensions : financial, social status, job content, and professional reward. 3) The age and tenure of R&D professionals has the negative impact on the project orientation. 4) The education level of R&D professionals has the positive impact on the professional orientation. 5) The sex was found as insignificant variable career orientation. 6) The person with strong prefers social status rewards to other rewards, the professional orientation is prefer to professional rewards, and the project orientation is prefer to job content rewards. 7) For the professionals with professional and project orientation, the congruence with each reward delivered positive impact on job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. However it created negative impact on turnover intention and job stress.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.125-145
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• 2008

The paper evaluates the Korean science, technology, and innovation policy(STIP) in terms of an individual firm. The firm is Viromed(Ltd), a new technology-based venture company in the field of biotechnology. The case is compared with the 'Hwang Project', which is known as a typical failure case in Korea. In order to evaluate the Korean STIP, we establish 6 areas, which are technological infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, human capital infrastructure, technology market, industrial base, and innovation networks. The study shows that the policy schemes relating with technological infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, human capital infrastructure, and industrial base play a positive role in the start-up, development and innovation of Viromed(Ltd). However, we can hardly find the role of Korean government in fostering the technology market, transferring the technological output to economic performance. Although the international networks with the British, American, and Japanese firms or investors were a key success factor of the growth of Viromed(Ltd), the role of the government in this policy area was not enough. As for the 'Hwang Project', we suggest that the government should consider the possibility of commercialization in choosing R&D projects and determining the size of financial aids. Since the evaluation of the Korean STIP is based on an individual firm, the results of the paper need to be confirmed by a systematic comparison with other cases or industries.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.442-451
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impacts of the rapid rise in oil prices on fisheries economy. Even though fishery oils are tax exemption items, such increase in oil prices put a great amount of pressure on Korean fishing operations. Because basically the recent oil shock is externally given, Korean fisheries themselves have little capacity to cope with the disruption of economic environments. The research results turned out that Korean fisheries are extremely vulnerable(or fragile) to external shocks. In this regard, government support issues of oil costs are in the center of debate. It is widely recognized that direct/indirect government financial supports or subsidies would result in economic inefficiency in expense of equity. However, there are second best theories which may justify government intervention into the markets. This second best theory is translated into the constitutional law that instructs the government to protect and promote the primary industries including fisheries, agriculture, and midium/small-scale enterprises. It is apparent that the constitutional law would provide the government with a variety of policy instruments such as more active buy-back programs, tax exemptions and technological development to deal with fisheries economic hardship due to the external pressure such as high oil prices and international fishery orders.