• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.75-89
• /
• 2021

Currently, small business owners are facing a situation where it is difficult to run their business in the existing way due to the spread of digital technology and the prolonged COVID-19. As a necessary competency for them, this study focused on digital literacy and examined the relationship between digital literacy and individual and market characteristics, business performance of small business owners. The specific research purpose is to examine the effect of entrepreneurial characteristics, which are individual factors, and market characteristics, which are environmental factors, on business performance and the mediating effect of digital literacy. In previous studies, various factors explaining the business performance of small business owners were reviewed, and innovation and self-determination, which are entrepreneurial characteristics of small business owners, and market competition and growth were derived as independent variables, and financial and non-financial performance were set as dependent variables. The hypothesis was established as digital literacy was expected to play a role in mediating the relationship between independent and dependent variables. For empirical research, a survey was conducted on small business owners across the country, and the analysis results are summarized as follows. It was found that the innovation and self-determination of small business owners had a positive (+) significant effect on financial and non-financial performance. In addition, it was confirmed that the degree of competition in the market had no significant effect on financial and non-financial performance, and that the growth of the market had a significant positive (+) effect on financial and non-financial performance. In the case of the mediating effect of digital literacy, it was confirmed that innovation had a partial mediating effect on non-financial performance, and digital literacy had a complete mediating effect on the effect of market competition on financial and non-financial performance. Finally, it was confirmed that digital literacy has a partial mediating effect on the effect of market growth on non-financial performance. Looking at the results, it can be seen that the entrepreneurial characteristics of small business owners, which correspond to innovation and self-determination, directly act as a factor to increase business performance, and market characteristics indirectly increase digital literacy to achieve results. Based on the above research results, the implications and limitations of the study and future research directions were presented together.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.31-47
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the moderating effect of technology development activities in the relationship between independent variables such as entrepreneurial orientation and technology innovation capabilities and dependent variables. As a result of analyzing the causal relationship between research variables, it was found that the higher the innovation and initiative among the sub-factors of entrepreneurial orientation, the more positive the technical commercialization performance and product completion. Among the sub-factors of entrepreneurial orientation, risk-taking was found to have a significant effect only on product completion. It was found that the higher the technology commercialization capability and technology convergence capability, the higher the technology commercialization performance, the technology commercialization performance. As a result of analyzing the moderating effect of technology development activities, it was found that technology development management ability, a sub-factor of technology development activities, controls the influence relationship between innovation and risk sensitivity and technology performance. In addition, it was found that the involvement in technology development planning controls the influence relationship between technology convergence capability and technology performance among sub-factors of technology innovation capability. Based on the above analysis results, this study made three suggestions as follows. First, the achievements of technology commercialization to achieve the superiority of corporate competition depend on progressive innovation and risk-taking based on entrepreneurial orientation. It is necessary to find a way to build entrepreneurial orientation from within the organization. Second, due to the nature of the ICT industry, which has a fast pace of technological development and changes in market acceptance, technology commercialization performance will be positive when the capabilities, technology, knowledge, and resources that can quickly lead to product production can be organically linked. Finally, corporate CEOs need to further promote innovation and risk-taking through phased and continuous research activities for technology development. In addition, it is necessary to establish a corporate culture that tolerates various strategies and failures so that understanding of technology convergence can lead to technological performance.

• 기호학연구
• /
• no.57
• /
• pp.7-26
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this paper is to interpret the discourse on design thinking through the perspective of Roland Barthes' Mythologies. To this end, this paper will explore the mythologization process of design thinking using the methodological framework of Barthes, which structurally interprets the connotations produced using semiosis. Design thinking originally refers to a method which is used in the process of planning ideas about designs in order to create the final products for professional designs. However, design thinking has recently attracted more interest from the public because it has become known as a tool for solving various problems which exist outside of the field of design, such as social issues, management, and marketing strategies. Barthes points out that myths are used as a tool to deliver ideologies. He also emphasizes the importance of 'structural thinking'. It interprets the inherent connotative meanings more than the denotative meanings, which are explicitly shown. One of the most powerful ideologies which our society embraces today is creativity. Design thinking realizes the manifestation of creativity through a schematized process. This can be explained by considering design thinking as an icon that is specifically turned into a figuration to realize its objectness, in which a discourse for solving issues and social codes meet together and form a mythology. The mythologies that Barthes cites in his book refer to mythical values created by the cultural codes which humans have produced in our modern and contemporary age. The symbolic value of design thinking has become more important than the signifier which design thinking itself presents. This means that design thinking has become a sign that has mythical properties. In other words, the ideology of creativity embodied by design thinking has attained a mythological status, as it produces a new cultural code through innovation. The process of interpreting a phenomenon using the perspective of semiotics is an important tool that allows us to examine the concept of an object and its surroundings thoroughly. This paper attempts to expand the external scope of critical analysis about social phenomena by using the signs which continuously reveal themselves in common ideologies, such as design thinking, which has been gaining more popularity recently.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.3-34
• /
• 2018

Korea's air transport industry has a 70-year history since Korea National Airline was establishment in October 1948. Korea has 9 airlines which have international air transport business licenses, and as of 2017, air transport performance(Domestic & International) is ranked 8th in the world. Through analysis of Korea's air transport industry, this paper examines the essential problems of the domestic air transport industry and what policies and laws should be supplemented, and presents an "Policy Directions for the Air Transport Industry" that can continue to grow into a global aviation leading country in the future. Analysis of aviation statistics shows that the nation's air transport industry has a very high growth rate, and national airlines continue to invest in sustainable growth. Furthermore, new companies are also trying to enter the market. As of November 2018, four companies applied for licenses for international air transport business, one for international air transport business (cargo) license, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is expected to decide whether to issue the license by first quarter of 2019. While some expect price reductions and consumer benefits through competition promotion, others worry about worsening airline financial structures and reducing safety investment due to competition. To sum up the problems of the nation's air transport industry, first, low-cost airlines focus only on attracting domestic demand, and thus have a weak foundation for continued growth. Second, the rapid growth in recent years has led to the lack of aviation professionals such as pilots and technicians and the saturation of slots at major airports. Third, since the financial soundness of airlines is not systematically managed, the financial situation of airlines can quickly deteriorate and the damage can be attributed to consumers. In order for the national airlines to continue to develop, the first is to focus on the endless demand of the global aviation market and to secure international competitiveness. Second, the government should support the airline infrastructure according to the size of the air transport industry, third, we will systematically nurture aviation experts who will lead the future of the nation's air transport industry, and finally, the government will have to continuously manage the financial status of airlines to prevent consumer damage in advance. Nowadays the air transport industry has become very competitive. Not only do airlines have to work hard for the sustainable development of national airlines, but all government agencies must support our airline companies in policy to win international competition.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.199-209
• /
• 2019

The importance of business strategy for successful social media engagement has quickly increased as more businesses engage in social media. The importance is even greater for startup companies because startup companies are genuinely new to business, and they need to increase their presence in the market, and quickly access future customers. The objective of this paper lies in exploring key indicators of social media engagements by selected startup companies. The key indicators include two aspects of social media usages by the companies: i) overall social media activities, and ii) properties of network structure of the information flow platform provided by social media service. To better assess and evaluate the key indicators of social media usages by startup companies, the indicators will be compared with those of selected large established companies. Twitter is selected as a social media service for the analysis of this paper, and using Twitter REST API, data regarding the key indicators of overall Twitter activities and the Twitter follower-network of each company in the sample are collected. Then, the data are analyzed using social network analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis to examine the characteristics of the follower-network structures and to compare the characteristics between startup companies and established companies. The results show that most indicators are significantly different across startup companies and established companies. One key interesting finding is that the startup companies have proportionally more influencers in their follower-networks than the established companies have. Another interesting finding is that the follower-networks of startup companies in the sample have higher modularity and higher transitivity, suggesting that the startup companies tend to have a proportionally larger number of communities of users in their follower-networks, and the users in the networks are more tightly connected and cohesive internally. The key business implication for the future social media engagement efforts by startup companies in general is that startup companies may need to focus on getting more attention from influencers and promoting more cohesive communities in their follower-networks to appreciate the potential benefits of social media in the early stage of business of startup companies.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
• /
• no.48
• /
• pp.93-139
• /
• 2016

Aside from serving as a body that monitors and criticizes the government through reviews and comments on public issues, newspapers can also form and spread public opinion. Metadata contains certain picture records and, in the case of local newspapers, the former is an important means of obtaining locality. Furthermore, advertising in newspapers and the way of editing in newspapers can be viewed as a representation of the times. For the value of archiving in newspapers when a documentation strategy is established, the newspaper is considered as a top priority that should be collected. A newspaper archive that will handle preservation and management carries huge significance in many ways. Journalists use them to write articles while scholars can use a newspaper archive for academic purposes. Also, the NIE is a type of a practical usage of such an archive. In the digital age, the newspaper archive has an important position because it is located in the core of MAM, which integrates and manages the media asset. With this, there are prospects that an online archive will perform a new role in the production of newspapers and the management of publishing companies. Korea Integrated News Database System (KINDS), an integrated article database, began its service in 1991, whereas Naver operates an online newspaper archive called "News Library." Initially, KINDS received an enthusiastic response, but nowadays, the utilization ratio continues to decrease because of the omission of some major newspapers, such as Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo, and the numerous user interface problems it poses. Despite these, however, the system still presents several advantages. For example, it is easy to access freely because there is a set budget for the public, and accessibility to local papers is simple. A national library consistently carries out the digitalization of time-honored newspapers. In addition, individual newspaper companies have also started the service, but it is not enough for such to be labeled an archive. In the United States (US), "Chronicling America"-led by the Library of Congress with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities-is in the process of digitalizing historic newspapers. The universities of each state and historical association provide funds to their public library for the digitalization of local papers. In the United Kingdom, the British Library is constructing an online newspaper archive called "The British Newspaper Archive," but unlike the one in the US, this service charges a usage fee. The Joint Information Systems Committee has also invested in "The British Newspaper Archive," and its construction is still ongoing. ProQuest Archiver and Gale NewsVault are the representative platforms because of their efficiency and how they have established the standardization of newspapers. Now, it is time to change the way we understand things, and a drastic investment is required to improve the domestic and international online newspaper archive.

• Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.292-299
• /
• 2018

In a survey in which farmers were asked about their levels of satisfaction with agricultural machines, Japanese products scored higher than local products by 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 times for tractors, combine harvesters, and rice transplanter, respectively. Japanese products corresponded to generally high satisfaction levels in terms of operating performance, operability, frequency of breakdowns, and durability, excluding sales price and after-sales services. Effective countermeasures through quality improvement are therefore necessary for Korean products. Furthermore, a survey of dealers showed that the components and consumables for core agricultural machines had high frequencies of breakdowns and repairs. Four major components of tractors represented 85.3% of all breakdowns and repairs, five components of combine harvesters represented 89.6%, and three components of rice transplanters represented 80.5%. Moreover, a comparison of the technological levels between local and imported machines showed that the local machines' levels were at 60-100% for tractors, 70-100% for combine harvesters, and 70-95% for rice transplanters. Small and mid-sized tractors, 4 interrow combine harvesters, and 6 interrow rice transplanters showed similar levels of technology. The results of the analysis suggest that action is urgently needed at a policy level to establish an agricultural machinery component research center for the development, production, and supply of commonly-used components, with the participation of manufacturers of agricultural machines and components, in order to enhance the competitiveness of local manufacturers and to revitalize the agricultural machine market.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.159-175
• /
• 2021

This study attempted to analyze the relationship between influencer's characteristic factors such as professionalism, authenticity, and interactivity and content quality factors consisting of accuracy, completeness, and diversity on brand attitude and purchase attitude through trust and self-consistency. To reveal the structural relationship between main variables, a survey was conducted on 201 users. An EFA, CFA, and reliability analysis were performed to confirm reliability and validity. And structural equation was conducted to verify hypothesis. The main results are as follows. First, it was found that professionalism and interactivity had a significant positive effect on trust. And, accuracy, completeness, and variety were all found to have a significant positive effect on trust. Second, in the relationship between individual characteristic factors and self-consistency, it was found that professionalism and authenticity had a significant positive effect on self-consistency. In addition, in the relationship between content quality and self-consistency, accuracy, completeness, and diversity were found to have a positive effect on self-consistency along with trust. Third, in the relationship between trust and self-consistency on brand attitude and purchase intention, both trust and self-consistency were found to have a statistically significant positive effect on brand attitude. It was found that only self-consistency and brand attitude had a statistically significant positive effect on purchase intention. These findings showed that when users perceive professionalism and interaction with influencer, trust increases, and professionalism and progress increase self-consistency with influencer. In addition, in the case of content quality, it was found that trust and self-consistency responded positively when perceived content quality through content accuracy, completeness, and diversity. Also, trust and self-consistency increased attitudes toward brands and could influence consumption behavior such as purchase intention. Therefore, for effective marketing performance using influencer's influence in the field of influencer marketing, which has a strong information delivery on products and brands, not only personal characteristics such as professionalism, authenticity, and interactivity, but also quality of content should be considered. The above research results are expected to suggest implications for marketing strategies and practices as one available basic data to exert the expected effect of marketing using influencer.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.59-86
• /
• 2021

The platform concept has been used for business operations in various forms: product platforms, transaction platforms and industry platforms. All these platforms have common characteristics of having 'core' that is reused frequently and 'peripherals' that are less reusable and changed often. Companies use platforms to enable efficient development and creation of product family, transactions and innovation. These platforms provide new opportunities for many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) by bringing changes to traditional industrial structures focused on the products rather than platforms. The service robotics industry in South Korea is mainly composed of technology-intensive SMEs due to its small market size. Although these SMEs succeed in developing technologies, they have difficulties creating and expanding markets to sell products. Thus, this study addresses the characteristics and problems of the South Korean service robotics industry and analyses how ROBOPRINT, one of the SMEs in the service robotics industry, successfully creates and continuously expands the service robot market by adopting platform concept. The results indicate that ROBOPRINT has been applying two types of platforms: product and transaction platforms. First, ROBOPRINT created art robots that were apartment mural service robots. Rather than selling art robots, the company developed various robots such as painting robots, building exterior wall-cleaning robots by reusing the core technology of the robots. The company also developed various robots according to the buyers request. In addition, the company used the robots to directly provide apartment mural services for customers. This mural service has been extended into various areas, not only in apartments but also in soundproof walls, underground passages, and retaining walls. Besides, ROBOPRINT added new services continuously by developing technologies such as virtual reality. Second, ROBOPRINT mediated mural service buyers and mural designers. This platform reduced buyers' workload, which necessitates requesting mural services to ROBOPRINT and searching for mural designers. For designers, this opened up new opportunities to participate in the mural business. The platform attracted both mural buyers and designers who were scattered before. Finally, ROBOPRINT seeks to expand the platform's scope to outside company. To share internally reused ROBOPRINT's technology with other companies, the company participated in Daegu city's 'New Technology Platform Industry'. Furthermore, ROBOPRINT is trying to share the service platform by leasing robots to other companies. This allows external agents to develop technologies and provide services by reusing resources from ROBOPRINT. This study contributes to existing theories by showing that SMEs continuously create and expand markets by building various platforms. Moreover, it provides useful implications for practitioners by describing the firm's specific platform-building strategy.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.17-29
• /
• 2021

Recently, as social distancing have been raised due to the re-spread of COVID-19, the number of serial entrepreneurs who are closing their business is rapidly increasing. Learning from failure is a source of success, but business failure can result in psychological and economic losses and negative emotions of the serial entrepreneur. At this point, it is very important to find a way to recover the negative emotions caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. Recently, a strategic model has emerged to deal with the negative emotions of grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. This study identified the recovery factors from the grief of business failures of serial entrepreneurs and analyzed Shepherd's(2003) three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. To this end, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 small business serial entrepreneurs who challenged re-startup to identify the attributes of recovery factors that were not identified with quantitative data. As a result of the study, first, recovery factors were investigated in three areas: individual orientation, family orientation, and network orientation. It was found to help improve recovery in nine categories: self-esteem, persistence, personal competence, hobbies, self-confidence, family support, networks, religion, and social support. Second, recovery obstacle factors were investigated in three areas: psychological, economic, and environmental factors. Nine categories including family, health, social network, business partner, competitor, partner, fund, external environment, and government policy were found to persist negative emotions. Third, the emotional processing process for grief was investigated in three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. Ten categories such as family, partner support, social member support, government support, hobbies, networks, change of business field, moving, third-party perspective, and meditation were confirmed to enhance rapid recovery in the emotional processing process for grief. The implications of this study are as follows. The process of recovering from the grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs was attempted by a qualitative study. By extending the theory of Shepherd(2003), This study can be applied to help with recovery research. In addition, conceptual models and propositions for future empirical research were presented, which can be discussed in carious academic ways.