Korean traditional markets have been struggling of late as big-sized superstores and SSM(Super Supermarkets) are thriving in the market. They have therefore upgraded their facilities and undertaken management modernization actively to overcome the threat to traditional markets and ensure their competitiveness; however, the effect does not appear to be verifiable. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of the organizational characteristics of the traditional market merchant association on social capital and organizational performance. In other words, this paper investigates a merchant association's organizational characteristics in terms of the modernization of business activities of the traditional markets and the influence on their social capital and organizational performance. This study analyzes the traditional market by evaluating the impact of these factors. This study consists of four hypotheses: The first hypothesis relates to the causal relationship between the characteristics of a merchant association and social capital. The second and third hypotheses, respectively, relate to the causal relationships between the social capital of a merchant association and the merchant's satisfaction and that between the social capital of a merchant association and organizational commitment. The last hypothesis relates to the relationship between the organizational commitment of a merchant association and the merchant's satisfaction. This study conducts a reliability and validity analysis of the above factors and analyzes the causal relationships between them by using the PLS(Partial Least Squares) path model as one of the structural equation models. The results of the empirical analysis are summarized as follows: First, the organizational characteristics of the traditional market merchant association have a significant influence on social capital. However, only two sub-hypotheses are not significant; these insignificant hypotheses relate to the relationship between a merchant's entrepreneurship and structural capital and that between a merchant's entrepreneurship and cognitive capital. Second, the social capital of a merchant association influences organizational commitment significantly. Third, the relationship between the social capital of a merchant association and the merchant's satisfaction is mostly significant. However, one of the sub-hypotheses, that is, the relationship between relational capital and a merchant's satisfaction is not exceptionally significant. Lastly, the organizational commitment of a merchant association affect the merchant's satisfaction significantly. Through our extensive study, this paper found that a merchant association's organizational characteristics of the traditional market significantly affect social capital, organizational commitment, and satisfaction through the mediation of social capital. Therefore, in order to activate the key traditional market, an understanding of organizational characteristics and social capital is primarily required. Systematic management and investment pertaining to these two factors will be the first consideration for revitalizing traditional markets.