• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.75-97
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• 2012

Knowledge residing in the heads of employees has always been regarded as one of the most critical resources within a firm. However, many tries to facilitate knowledge transfer among employees has been unsuccessful because of the motivational and cognitive problems between the knowledge source and the recipient. Social capital, which is defined as "the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998]," is suggested to resolve these motivational and cognitive problems of knowledge transfer. In Social capital theory, there are two research streams. One insists that social capital strengthens group solidarity and brings up cooperative behaviors among group members, such as voluntary help to colleagues. Therefore, social capital can motivate an expert to transfer his/her knowledge to a colleague in need without any direct reward. The other stream insists that social capital provides an access to various resources that the owner of social capital doesn't possess directly. In knowledge transfer context, an employee with social capital can access and learn much knowledge from his/her colleagues. Therefore, social capital provides benefits to both the knowledge source and the recipient in different ways. However, prior research on knowledge transfer and social capital is mostly limited to either of the research stream of social capital and covered only the knowledge source's or the knowledge recipient's perspective. Social network theory which focuses on the structural dimension of social capital provides clear explanation about the in-depth mechanisms of social capital's two different benefits. 'Strong tie' builds up identification, trust, and emotional attachment between the knowledge source and the recipient; therefore, it motivates the knowledge source to transfer his/her knowledge to the recipient. On the other hand, 'weak tie' easily expands to 'diverse' knowledge sources because it does not take much effort to manage. Therefore, the real value of 'weak tie' comes from the 'diverse network structure,' not the 'weak tie' itself. It implies that the two different perspectives on strength of ties can co-exist. For example, an extroverted employee can manage many 'strong' ties with 'various' colleagues. In this regards, the individual-level structure of one's relationships as well as the dyadic-level relationship should be considered together to provide a holistic view of social capital. In addition, interaction effect between individual-level characteristics and dyadic-level characteristics can be examined, too. Based on these arguments, this study has following research questions. (1) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer respectively? (2) How does the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer? (3) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence the effect of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer? Based on Social capital theory and Social network theory, a multi-level research model is developed to consider both the individual-level social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient and the dyadic-level strength of relationship between the knowledge source and the recipient. 'Cross-classified random effect model,' one of the multi-level analysis methods, is adopted to analyze the survey responses from 337 R&D employees. The results of analysis provide several findings. First, among three dimensions of the knowledge source's social capital, network centrality (i.e., structural dimension) shows the significant direct effect on knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the knowledge recipient's network centrality is not influential. Instead, it strengthens the influence of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer. It means that the knowledge source's network centrality does not directly increase knowledge transfer. Instead, by providing access to various knowledge sources, the network centrality provides only the context where the strong tie between the knowledge source and the recipient leads to effective knowledge transfer. In short, network centrality has indirect effect on knowledge transfer from the knowledge recipient's perspective, while it has direct effect from the knowledge source's perspective. This is the most important contribution of this research. In addition, contrary to the research hypothesis, company tenure of the knowledge recipient negatively influences knowledge transfer. It means that experienced employees do not look for new knowledge and stick to their own knowledge. This is also an interesting result. One of the possible reasons is the hierarchical culture of Korea, such as a fear of losing face in front of subordinates. In a research methodology perspective, multi-level analysis adopted in this study seems to be very promising in management research area which has a multi-level data structure, such as employee-team-department-company. In addition, social network analysis is also a promising research approach with an exploding availability of online social network data.

• 수산경영론집
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.131-153
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• 1984

Fishery resources are still abundant compared with other resources and the possibility of exploitation is probably great. The Korean fishery industry has grown remarkably since 1957, and Korea is ranked as one of the major fishery countries. Its of fishery products reached the 9th in the world and the value of exports was 5th in 1982. But recently a growth rate has slowed down, due to the enlargement of territorial seas by the declaration of the 200 mile, Exclusive Economic Zone, the tendency to develop fishery resources strate-gically in international bargaining, the change in function of the international organizations, the expansion of regulated waters, the illegal arrest of our fishing boats, the rapid rise in oil prices, and the fall in fish prices, the development of fishery resources as a symbol of nationalism, the fishing boats decreptitude, the rise of crew wages, regulations on fishing methods, fish species, fishing season, size of fish, and mesh size, fishing quotas and the demand of excessive fishing royalties. Besides the the obligation of coastal countries, employing crews of their host countries is also an example of the change in the international environment which causes the aggravation of foreign profit of fishing firms. To ameliorate the situation, our Korean fishery firms must prepare efficient plans and study systematically to internationalize themselves because such existing methods as conventional fishing entry and licence fishing entry are likely to be unable to cope with international environmental change. Thus, after the systematic analysis of the problem, some new combined alternatives might be proposed. These are some of the new schemes to support this plan showing the orientation of our national policy: 1. Most of the coastal states, to cope with rapid international environmental change and to survive in the new era of ocean order, have rationalized their higher governmental structure concerning the fishery industries. And the coastal countries which are the objectives of our expecting entry, demand excessive economic and technical aid, limit the number of fishing boats’entry and the use of our foreign fishing bases, and regulate the membership of the international fishery commissions. Especially, most of the coastal or island countries are recently independent states, which are poorer in national budget, depend largely on fishing royalties and licence entry fees as their main resources of national finance. 2. Alternatives to our entry to deep sea fishing, as internationalization strategies, are by direct foreign investment method. About 30 firms have already invested approximately US $ 8 million in 9 coastal countries. Areas of investment comprise the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, the Moroccan sea and five other sea areas. Trawling, tuna purse seining and five other fields are covered by the investment. Joint-venture is the most prominent method of this direct investment. If we consider the number of entry firms, the host countries, the number of seas available and the size of investment, this method of cooperation is perhaps insufficient so far. Our fishery firms suffer from a weakness in international competitive ability, an insufficiency of information, of short funds, incompetency in the market, the unfriendliness of host coastal countries, the incapability of partners in joint-ventures and the political instability of the host countries. To enlarge our foreign fishing grounds, we are to actively adopt the direct investment entry method and to diversity our collaboraboration with partner countries. Consequently, besides proper fishing, we might utilize forward integration strategies, including the processing fied. a. The enterprise emigration method is likely to be successful in Argentina. It includes the development of Argentinian fishing grounds which are still not exploited in spite of abundant resources. Besides, Arentina could also be developed as a base for the exploitation of the krill resources and for further entries into collaboration with other Latin American countries. b. The co-business contract fishing method works in American territorial seas where American fishermen sell their fishery products to our factory ships at sea. This method contributes greatly to obtaining more fishing quotas and in innovation bottom fishing operation. Therefore we may apply this method to other countres to diffuse our foreign fishing entry. c. The new fishing ground development method was begun in 1957 by tuna long-line experimental fishing in the Indian Ocean. It has five fields, trawling, skipjack pole fishing and shrimp trawling, and so on. Recently, Korean fisheries were successful in the development of the Antarctic Ocean krill and tuna purse seining. 3. The acceleration of the internationalization of deep sea fishing; a. Intense information exchange activities and commission participation are likely to be continues as our contributions to the international fishery organizations. We should try to enter international fishery commissions in which we are not so far participating. And we have to reform adequately to meet the changes of the function of the international commissions. With our partner countries, we ought to conclude bilateral fishery agreements, thus enlarging our collaboration. b. Our government should offer economic and technical aids to host countries to facilitate our firms’fishery entry and activities. c. To accelerate technical innovation, our fishery firms must invest greater amount in technical innovation, at the same time be more discriminatory in importing exogeneous fishery technologies. As for fishing methods; expanded use of multi-purpose fishing boats and introduction of automation should be encuraged to prevent seasonal fluctuations in fishery outputs. d. The government should increases financial and tax aid to Korean firms in order to elevate already weak financial structure of Korean fishery firms. e. Finally, the government ought to revise foreign exchange regulations being applied to deep sea fishery firms. Furthermore, dutes levied on foreign purchaed equipments and supplies used by our deep sea fishing boats thould be reduced or exempted. when the fish caught by Korean partner of joint-venture firms is sold at the home port, pusan, import duty should be exempted.