• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2017

This study investigated one of the contemporary financial issues that is still being debated among governmental policy makers, corporate managers, and investors in the domestic capital market. We attempted to identify the most optimal level of cash holdings for firms during the most updated fiscal years (from 2011 to 2015). The study utilized empirical methodologies, such as ANCOVA and RANCOVA, with respect to the 'inter-' and 'intra-industry' analyses for KOSPI-listed firms. Regarding the first hypothesis testing for inter-industry influence, we revealed with statistical significance that there were differences; however, there were only 3 pronounced industries among the 25 industries sampled in this study. Regarding the second hypothesis, only a few (i.e. two) industries showed no statistically significant intra-industry influence. Based on our results, most KOSPI-listed firms still seem to be searching for their optimal levels of cash reserves. Hence, we can anticipate that the value maximization as a corporate goal can be achieved after adjusting the current levels of their cash holdings according to the optimal points.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.23-43
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• 1995

This paper is the first part of a research which looks into the regional development process and the quality of life of Youngnam area, and which suggests a prospect and tasks for the future development of the region. Youngnam region has grown rapidly on the basis of labor-intensive light industries and standardized Fordist lage-scale heavy industries through the industrialization and urbanization of South Korea from the 1960s; but recently it has shown a relatively downward trend. The recent economic stagnation of Youngnam region can be seen as a result of uneven regional development in the national scale, which has brought out the increasing subcontracting relation within the region, the geographically excessive concentration of firms, the lack of growth potentiality of high-tech industries, the weakness of producer service, and the shortage of financial activities for capital flows. In addition, construction of physical and social infrastructures and management of urban central functions could not meet properly the rapid economic and urban growth of the region. Because of these problematics inherent in the economy of Yougnam region, the occupational status of regional dwellers is more or less unstable, and the wage level of employee as a whole in Youngnam region is lower than those of Seoul, although the wage level of labourers in manufacturing is relatively high. Moreover, the quality of life of dwellers in the region has some difficulties in the use of resources and ecological environment as well as the unequal provision of means of living and welfare facilities, even though it has been improved materially.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.290-308
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• 2008

The industrial development of Goryeong County was started by the operation of the Ssangrym Agro￢industrial complex in the 1980s. As of 2m3, there are 6 industrial complexes in Goryeong County which account for 80 percent of total employment and 67 percent of total production outPuts in local manufacturing. The local manufacturing industries grew steadily before the 1997 financial crisis which resulted in industrial decline and have shown again a growing tendency since 2000. In this period of growth, manufacturing outPuts are increased and the industrial structure are improved, while employment and value added are in stagnation. The major industrial agglomerations are based in Gaejin-Myun, Dasan-Myun and Ssangrym-Myun, all of which are those in which the agro-industrial complex is operated. More than half of local manufacturing finns are those which came to move in from other regions, looking for cheap labour forces, agglomeration of the related finns and the easy accessibility to transport and communication. However, such local advantages are increasingly losing due to the shortage of labour forces and the lack of industrial networks. Some policy agendas can be suggested as follows. First of all, industrial policy should attempt links with the building-up of the Daegu Technopolis and the up-grading of the local industrial structure towards the knowledge-based industries. Secondly, the local government should make efforts to establish the innovation supporting system for local firms and the industrial and residential basis.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.78-87
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• 2013

The modern society has been drastically changed from the industrial economic society to the knowledge based society, to catch up with the knowledge and the change of technology required for the modern people, the people can not live in the modern society without the continued study or education. In case of architectural design firm, it is concentrating on the productivity of enterprise by cultivating the working level through the self education focused on the improvement of inner capacity. In connection with this, the efficiency of enterprises are analyzed by carrying out the Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) utilizing the financial ratio index in the various field of industries recently, the analysis study for the efficiency utilizing DEA is increased in the construction industries as well. However, in case of construction industries, the study focused on the efficiency of administration only has been progressed, it is the real situation that the approach for the analysis of education efficiency of each enterprise is very insufficient. Therefore, this study analyzed the education efficiency of architectural design firm after the selection of input and output variables by utilizing the DEA model and utilizing the AHP analysis technique by deducting the variables through the preceding study in relation to the education efficiency and the interview with the specialists.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.21-34
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• 2021

One of the important issues in finance literature is how the capital structure influences firm performance. This paper aims to investigate this relationship by focusing specifically on the entertainment industry. Taking into account the growing importance of research and development (R&D) activities in the industrial revolution 4.0 era, an additional goal of this paper is to examine how the R&D intensity moderates the relationship between the capital structure and firm performance, particularly in the entertainment industry. We find that the relationship between the capital structure measured by debt ratio and the firm performance in the entertainment industry shows distinctive features from those obtained from entire industries. While the negative influence of the increase of debt ratio is strong and consistent with various proxies when using a sample with entire industries, we cannot find this distinctive influence among entertainment enterprises. The moderating effect of R&D investments on the negative influence of debt ratio on the firm value, observed in the sample with entire industries, is not found in the sample composed of entertainment companies. These findings suggest that the influence of the debt level on firm performance and the role of R&D investments in this relationship in the entertainment industry are perceived and evaluated differently by financial market participants.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2008

Various opinions have been suggested to explain the slump in equipment investment, such as increased government regulations, shareholder-oriented management by expanded foreign equity investment, response against M&A threats, conservative investment trends seen after a series of bankruptcy of large conglomerates (amidst crumbling myth of "Too Big to Fail"), and financial restructuring. Some also argued that the increased uncertainty in business environment is mainly responsible for conservative management, though there are few domestic studies made regarding the situation. But, in other countries, including the U.S., studies have shown that more volatility is seen now surrounding stock prices, profitability, and sales growth rate reflecting business performance. Also, there are other studies showing such expanded volatility have led to conservative management by businesses. In this regard, this study reviews the volatility conditions of business performance of Korean companies based on profitability, and then attempts to analyze the impact on investment brought on by increased volatility. Each company's profitability volatility used here is from the standard deviation of companies for the past five years. As a profitability indicator, the ROA (= operating profit/total asset) is used. According to the analysis, profitability volatility has remarkably increased from the mid 3% in 1994 to low 5% in 2005. Profitability volatility of the Korean companies has expanded to a great extent since the financial crisis. The crisis might have served to raise the volatility in the macroeconomic conditions. If increased volatility observed during the economic crisis had gradually declined after the crisis, the situation could be interpreted as a temporary phenomenon, not to be too concerned over. But, this was not the case for Korea. The volatility level, after the crisis, has not dropped back to its pre-crisis level. Hence, in the Korea's case, high volatility cannot be explained by the impact of financial crisis. Not only that, the fact that such expansion is seen in every industrial sector indicates that this phenomenon cannot be explained by the composition change of industries alone. An undergoing study shows that with a rapid spread of globalization, industries fiercely competing with China experience more volatility. Such increased volatility tends to contract investment, and since the crisis the impact of volatility on investment has slightly increased. It is noteworthy that this study only includes a part of 'uncertainty' that could be measured statistically. For instance, the profitability volatility indicator used in this study is unable to reflect all the effects that the tacit reduction of protection by the government or regulations might have made. So, the result here also indicates that other 'uncertain' factors not mentioned in this study may have served to contract investment sentiment. It would be impossible for policies to completely remove uncertainties measured by profitability volatility, but at least it is necessary to put effort to reduce the macroeconomic volatility in the future economic management. Stabilized macroeconomic management may not be enough to diminish all volatility that occurs within each company, but it would make a meaningful contribution in encouraging investment.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.51-69
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• 2020

Now, it is a stylized fact that a small number of technology firms such as Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and a few others have become larger and dominant players in an industry. Coupled with the rise of these leading firms, we have also observed that a large number of young firms have become an acquisition target in their early IPO stages. This indeed results in a sharp decline in the number of new entries in public exchanges although a series of policy reforms have been promulgated to foster competition through an increase in new entries. Given the observed industry trend in recent decades, a number of studies have reported increased concentration in most developed countries. However, it is less understood as to what caused an increase in industry concentration. In this paper, we uncover the mechanisms by which industries have become concentrated over the last decades by tracing the changes in industry concentration associated with a firm's status change in its early IPO stages. To this end, we put emphasis on the case in which firms are acquired shortly after they went public. Especially, with the transition to digital-based economies, it is imperative for incumbent firms to adapt and keep pace with new ICT and related intelligent systems. For instance, after the acquisition of a young firm equipped with AI-based solutions, an incumbent firm may better respond to a change in customer taste and preference by integrating acquired AI solutions and analytics skills into multiple business processes. Accordingly, it is not unusual for young ICT firms become an attractive acquisition target. To examine the role of M&As involved with young firms in reshaping the level of industry concentration, we identify a firm's status in early post-IPO stages over the sample periods spanning from 1990 to 2016 as follows: i) being delisted, ii) being standalone firms and iii) being acquired. According to our analysis, firms that have conducted IPO since 2000s have been acquired by incumbent firms at a relatively quicker time than those that did IPO in previous generations. We also show a greater acquisition rate for IPO firms in the ICT sector compared with their counterparts in other sectors. Our results based on multinomial logit models suggest that a large number of IPO firms have been acquired in their early post-IPO lives despite their financial soundness. Specifically, we show that IPO firms are likely to be acquired rather than be delisted due to financial distress in early IPO stages when they are more profitable, more mature or less leveraged. For those IPO firms with venture capital backup have also become an acquisition target more frequently. As a larger number of firms are acquired shortly after their IPO, our results show increased concentration. While providing limited evidence on the impact of large incumbent firms in explaining the change in industry concentration, our results show that the large firms' effect on industry concentration are pronounced in the ICT sector. This result possibly captures the current trend that a few tech giants such as Alphabet, Apple and Facebook continue to increase their market share. In addition, compared with the acquisitions of non-ICT firms, the concentration impact of IPO firms in early stages becomes larger when ICT firms are acquired as a target. Our study makes new contributions. To our best knowledge, this is one of a few studies that link a firm's post-IPO status to associated changes in industry concentration. Although some studies have addressed concentration issues, their primary focus was on market power or proprietary software. Contrast to earlier studies, we are able to uncover the mechanism by which industries have become concentrated by placing emphasis on M&As involving young IPO firms. Interestingly, the concentration impact of IPO firm acquisitions are magnified when a large incumbent firms are involved as an acquirer. This leads us to infer the underlying reasons as to why industries have become more concentrated with a favor of large firms in recent decades. Overall, our study sheds new light on the literature by providing a plausible explanation as to why industries have become concentrated.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.1-23
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• 2019

Big data refers to data that is difficult to store, manage, and analyze by existing software. As the lifestyle changes of consumers increase the size and types of needs that consumers desire, they are investing a lot of time and money to understand the needs of consumers. Companies in various industries utilize Big Data to improve their products and services to meet their needs, analyze unstructured data, and respond to real-time responses to products and services. The financial industry operates a decision support system that uses financial data to develop financial products and manage customer risks. The use of big data by financial institutions can effectively create added value of the value chain, and it is possible to develop a more advanced customer relationship management strategy. Financial institutions can utilize the purchase data and unstructured data generated by the credit card, and it becomes possible to confirm and satisfy the customer's desire. CRM has a granular process that can be measured in real time as it grows with information knowledge systems. With the development of information service and CRM, the platform has change and it has become possible to meet consumer needs in various environments. Recently, as the needs of consumers have diversified, more companies are providing systematic marketing services using data mining and advanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) techniques. KB Kookmin Card, which started as a credit card business in 1980, introduced early stabilization of processes and computer systems, and actively participated in introducing new technologies and systems. In 2011, the bank and credit card companies separated, leading the 'Hye-dam Card' and 'One Card' markets, which were deviated from the existing concept. In 2017, the total use of domestic credit cards and check cards grew by 5.6% year-on-year to 886 trillion won. In 2018, we received a long-term rating of AA + as a result of our credit card evaluation. We confirmed that our credit rating was at the top of the list through effective marketing strategies and services. At present, Kookmin Card emphasizes strategies to meet the individual needs of customers and to maximize the lifetime value of consumers by utilizing payment data of customers. KB Kookmin Card combines internal and external big data and conducts marketing in real time or builds a system for monitoring. KB Kookmin Card has built a marketing system that detects realtime behavior using big data such as visiting the homepage and purchasing history by using the customer card information. It is designed to enable customers to capture action events in real time and execute marketing by utilizing the stores, locations, amounts, usage pattern, etc. of the card transactions. We have created more than 280 different scenarios based on the customer's life cycle and are conducting marketing plans to accommodate various customer groups in real time. We operate a smart offering system, which is a highly efficient marketing management system that detects customers' card usage, customer behavior, and location information in real time, and provides further refinement services by combining with various apps. This study aims to identify the traditional CRM to the current CRM strategy through the process of changing the CRM strategy. Finally, I will confirm the current CRM strategy through KB Kookmin card's big data utilization strategy and marketing activities and propose a marketing plan for KB Kookmin card's future CRM strategy. KB Kookmin Card should invest in securing ICT technology and human resources, which are becoming more sophisticated for the success and continuous growth of smart offering system. It is necessary to establish a strategy for securing profit from a long-term perspective and systematically proceed. Especially, in the current situation where privacy violation and personal information leakage issues are being addressed, efforts should be made to induce customers' recognition of marketing using customer information and to form corporate image emphasizing security.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.153-172
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• 1990

The present paper investigates the potential value of strategic antitrust policy in an oligopolistic international market. The market is characterized by a non-cooperative Cournot-Nash equilibrium and by asymmetry in costs among firms in the world market. The model is useful for two reasons. First, it is important in the context of policy-making to examine the conditions under which it may be beneficial to relax antitrust law to enhance competitiveness. Second, the explicit derivation of the level of cost-saving required for a gain in total domestic surplus provides an empirical rule for excluding industries that do not satisfy the requirements for a socially beneficial antitrust exemption. Results of the analysis include a criterion that tells how the cost-saving and concentration effects of a merger offset each other. The criterion is derived from fairly general assumptions on demand functions and is simple enough to be applied as a part of the merger guidelines. Another interesting policy implication of our analysis is that promoting mergers would not be a beneficial strategy in a net importing industry where cost-saving opportunities are thin. Cost-saving domestic mergers are more likely to increase national welfare in exporting industries. The best candidate industries for application of strategic antitrust policy are those with the following characteristics: (i) a large potential for efficiency enhancement; (ii) high market concentration at the world but not the domestic level; (iii) a high ratio of exports to imports. Recently, many policymakers and economists in Korea have also come to believe that the appropriate antitrust policy in an era of increased foreign competition may actually be to encourage rather than to prohibit domestic mergers. The Industry Development Act of 1986 and the proposed bill for Mergers and Conversions in the Financial Industry of 1990 reflect this changing perspective on antitrust policy. Antitrust laws may burden domestic firms in the sense that they have a more constrained strategy set. Expenditures to avoid antitrust attacks could also increase costs for domestic firms. But there is no clear evidence that the impact of antitrust policy is significant enough to harm the competitiveness of domestic firms. As a matter of fact, it is necessary for domestic financial institutions to become large in scale in this era of globalization. However, the absence of empirical evidence for efficiency enhancement from mergers suggests caution in the relaxation of antitrust standards.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.133-143
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• 2017

Data is the most important asset in the financial sector. On average, 71 percent of financial institutions generate competitive advantage over data analysis. In particular, in the card industry, the card transaction data is widely used in the development of merchant information, economic fluctuations, and information services by analyzing patterns of consumer behavior and preference trends of all customers. However, creation of new value through fusion of data is insufficient. This study introduces the analysis and forecasting of consumption trends of credit card companies which convergently analyzed the social data and the sales data of the company's own. BC Card developed an algorithm for linking card and social data with trend profiling, and developed a visualization system for analysis contents. In order to verify the performance, BC card analyzed the trends related to 'Six Pocket' and conducted th pilot marketing campaign. As a result, they increased marketing multiplier by 40~100%. This study has implications for creating a methodology and case for analyzing the convergence of structured and unstructured data analysis that have been done separately in the past. This will provide useful implications for future trends not only in card industry but also in other industries.