• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.3-36
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• 1992

"Corporate control by owners" characterizes the current structure of ownership, control and management of big business groups in Korea. It has become an ever more serious obstacle for the Korean economy to end its distinctive "personal capitalism" and to transform the current system into people's capitalism. The current issue, the deconcentration of ownership, through the course of heated debates should be treated from an integrated perspective. That is, the debate should center on the concentration of economic power and it effects on national economy, instead of sticking to the issue of ownership-control issue per se. This paper, by referring to the historical experiences and development paths which advanced countries have already traveled, analyzes the respective aspects of the concentration issue in a rather descriptive and taxonomist manner - market concentration, business diversification, ownership concentration, integrated management of conglomerates, i.e., managing in groups' unit, and the roles of financial institutions. The government policies against the concentration of economic power have so far focused on the size of big business groups and their diversification activities. The two major policy measures are restrictions on cross-ownership and excess capital investment by big business groups, and controls on their credit deals. This paper strongly suggests that the government should change its current priorities in targeting its policies against concentration. The government should reduce the regulations on size and diversification, and focus its policies on substantial dispersion of corporate ownership. The efficacy of government intervention in the management and control of business enterprises seems quite dubious and even anachronistic given the extent of maturity of Korean firms. Therefore, it should be noted that the current regulation-oriented stance taken by the government against the management style of big business groups should be suppressed, as it has assumed some a priori and typical pattern in advance in directing big business groups, such as independent and specialized management in respective firms' unit. This paper, also, raises the need for introducing new regulations on inter-sectoral diversifications between finance, industry and the press.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.67-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPS_t) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEA_t), the current leverage ratio(LEV_t), the current operating return on assets(ROA_t), the current business risk(RISK_t), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURN_t), and the current dividend premium(DPREM_t). In these control variables, CEA_t, LEV_t, and ROA_t are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROA_t and RISK_t are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURN_t is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREM_t is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.501-508
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• 2014

Objectives: This study identified the general characteristics of asbestos inspection/analysis laboratories in Korea and confirmed the actual situations in terms of technical aspects from these characteristics. In addition, given the background of the current problem, it offers preliminary data for determining future plans for improvement. Methods: A questionnaire was developed and distributed to the asbestos inspection/analysis laboratories that used the ISO/IEC 17025 for asbestos sampling and testing by UKAS(United Kingdom Accreditation Service) and the Korea Laboratory Accreditation Scheme(KOLAS). A total of 202 institutions in Korea were selected for the study and 145(71.8%) questionnaires were returned. Results: The number of personnel of the surveyed institutions averaged $4.2{\pm}2$ and 79.3% operated with less than five persons. In terms of education, the capital and other densely populated areas showed a high level of education(p<0.05). The level of education and facilities were determined by the magnitude of the institution(p<0.05). Institutions managed by highly educated directors were well-stocked with education and facilities(p<0.05). Institutions which had directors with considerable experiences received high scores overall and in particular higher scores in terms of education and facilities(p<0.05). At the level of the bottom five percent, the factor of education was 40.4% while the factor of measurement 49%, the factor of analysis 59%, the factor of facilities 61%, and the factor of survey 81%, respectively. Conclusions: To improve the quality of the institutions, in the short term, the problems identified in this study can be used to revise the related regulations. In the long term, a grading system of survey institutions needs to be established through the introduction of an accreditation system. However, the ongoing support of a government agency is required, including holding seminars and open education, suggesting guidelines for operation of asbestos inspection/analysis labs, and other means.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.169-177
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• 2012

Due to the influences of global financial crisis, countries are putting their efforts on the enhancement of appropriateness and transparency of director compensation. In several countries including Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, listed companies and financial institutions in certain levels make public announcement for compensations of individual directors, not the averages. Recently, even Asian countries including China, Hong Kong, and Singapore are introducing individual director compensation public announcement policies. On the other hand, in cases of companies, which must submit annual reports, under current Korean capital market laws and enforcement ordinances, they are obligated to mention 'total wage paid to all executives in that business year' on the annual report, but does not have to mention individual wages of each executive. About this, at the 17th national assembly, revised bill for the Securities and Exchange Act for companies to mention wages of each executive. The financial world is opposing to open individual director compensation to the public as they concern about the shrinking of outstanding human resources recruitment, breach of corporate confidence, privacy invasion, deterioration of labor-management relations, and downfall of the executive's management will as director compensation will be standardized downward; however, if public opening of individual director compensation is forced, domestic companies will prepare more objective and rational standards when they calculate director compensations, and moreover, it will prevent arbitrary intervention of dominant shareholders. Therefore, to clearly and efficiently control director compensation, we need regulations for obligating public opening of individual director compensation.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.597-607
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• 1998

Processing is generally employed to alter the physical and chemical properties of feeds used in pig diets, using hammer/roller mills, pellet mills and extruders/expanders. The reported optimum particle sizes of corn are approximately $500{\mu}m$, $500-700{\mu}m$, $400-600{\mu}m$, for nursery, growing-finishing, and breeder pigs respectively. Optimum particle size of grains are affected by diet complexity. There was a trend towards reducing particle size in order to increase ADG in pigs fed a simple diet, though such was not the case for pigs fed a complex diet. Uniformity of particle size also affects the nutritional values of swine feeds. Uniform particle sizes would consistently give greater nutrient digestibilities. In terms of pellet quality, it is reported that a higher incidence of fmes in pelleted feeds has a direct correlation with poorer feed conversion ratio in pigs. Particle and pellet sizes are also very important for pelleting in terms of grinding, digestibility, stomach ulceration and pellet durability. A particle size of $600{\mu}m$, or slightly less, seemed optimal for com in fmishing pigs, and the 5/32 in. diameter pellets supported the best efficiencies of gain during nursery and finishing phases. Extruder and/or expander processes would allow the feed industry an increased flexibility to utilize a wider spectrum of feed ingredients, and improve pellet quality of finished feeds. It would appear that extruded or expanded diets containing highly digestible ingredients have little effect on the growth performance of pigs, and the feeding values of the feeds over pelleted diets were not improved as pigs grew. The extruder or expander is much more effective than a pelletizer in salmonella control. Gastric ulcerations and/or keratinizations were consistently reported in pigs fed mash and processed diets containing finely ground grains, whereas carcass quality was not affected by diet processing methods such as pelleting, extruding or expanding. In corn- or sorghum-based diets, the electrical energy consumption is 4-5 times higher in the expanding than in the pelleting process. But the expander's processing cost was half of that shown by an extruder. Finally, the decision of which feed processing technology to adopt would depend on the processing cost, and any potential improvement in growth performance and digestibilities of nutrients should offset the increased operating and capital costs related to the extruder/expander technology over mash or pelleting processes in pigs.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.91-102
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• 2020

This study constructed production frontiers of inputs and outputs in a sequential manner, measured inefficiencies by applying a non-radial sequential weighted Russell directional distance function to these frontiers, and analyzed Luenberg productivity indices and the contribution of each of input and output factor based on these distances. The results are as follows. First, the productivity of banks increased due to technical changes after the global financial crisis. Second, productivity growth decreased between 2009 and 2014 due to technical changes after the recession, as previous studies have shown that technology progressed before the global financial crisis but then largely decreased or remained the same thereafter. After 2014, the productivity of banks improved. This result may be due to both technology improvement after 10 years of stagnation and reduction of inputs and non-performing loans. Third, the 3.6% annual of productivity growth for 10 years was comprised of 1.77% household loans, 0.67% corporate loans, 0.98% manpower, 1.18% non-performing loans, -0.5% total deposits, and -1.25% securities. Finally, this study has limitations since it could not control risks such as capital structure and interest volatility.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.55
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• pp.5-25
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• 2003

This study analysed the components and characters of welfare rights through discussions of the concepts and types of universal rights, and discussions of human rights and citizenship rights. Welfare rights is claims rights which requires somewhat, and it is positive rights. And it is generally passive rights, but it contains collective participation rights which is active rights. The result of total discussions of rights, human rights, and citizenship rights led us to know the components and characters of welfare rights. Welfare rights contains social rights, economic rights, and cultural environmental rights. Social rights are composed of the right of social security, social welfare service, health, education, and residency. Economic rights are composed of the right of labor, intervension of labor market, job security, and capital control. cultural environmental rights are composed of the right of culture and environment. And welfare rights has several characters. First, it is natural rights which is bestowed on the citizens or people in modern civil societies. it is samely characterised as liberties and political rights. second, it has the same values like other rights such as lberties and political rights. Or it is more important, because it is necessary for other rights. Third, it is not the objective being which is constant, but it is changed, formed and constructed as total rights with human rights and citizenship rights. Fourth, it is truely rights, but is simultaniously accompanied by obligations. But the obligations is unconditional like as other rights. Endly, levels of welfare on the welfare rights must be modicum rather than minimum. The meaning of modicum level is uncertain, but it aims to the entire participation of peoples as citizen and social integration. And it has to aim to the prevention of heridity and continuity of inequality.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.107-117
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• 2015

As the demand for urban business hotel has increased in the recent years due to the sharp rise in overseas tourists, the potential of business hotel development has gained in financial attention for the real estate investment. However, its concept and business domain has not been defined, and none of investment guidance for the development has not been clarified. Accordingly, this report intends to define the concept of urban business hotel in perspective of real estate investment through prior case studies and literature review, and provide the structure of determinants which control its investment decisions. Furthermore, this study develops the weight of determinants depending on the type of investment, and evaluate the two actual projects in urban area of Seoul, differed from investment type: direct and indirect, based on AHP and Fuzzy methodologies. Research finding indicate that the financial factors affecting the sales and tour business condition factors are critical determinants regardless of investment type. And it is notable that the direct investment perspective pays more attention on the finance and investment associated determinants while the indirect one more focuses on the regional and environmental ones. From the analysis of case evaluation, it is also noteworthy that the direct investors turn out to be more conservative than indirect investors due to the risk of equity capital investment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Since 2005, Korea Venture Investment Corp. (KVIC) has been managing Korean Fund of Funds (KFoF) which helped greatly the domestic venture capitals create their private funds. Its contribution, however, is not limited fetching the pump. When KFoF decides to invest in VC funds, it demands very strict rules the VC funds need to follow before and after their investments in private equities. Whether this tight control of investments does hinder GPs' creativity or rather enhance GPs' transparency and professionalism is an open question subject to empirical tests. If KFoF is only fetching the pump, and neither fund size or time horizon improves VC funds' return rates, then KFoF's involvement in VC funds should not be positively related to VC funds' return rates. If, on the other hand, KFoF harms GPs' creativity, KFoF's involvement should be negatively related to VC funds' performances. Still, if KFoF promotes GPs' transparency and professionalism, its presence in VC funds should positively affect the returns earned by VC funds. Even when KFoF only got to get quality VC funds because those GPs good enough to stand up to the tight conditions set forth by KFoF, the empirical implication will yield the same results. In this article, empirical tests are carried out using the data provided by Korea Venture Capital Association. The VC funds formed and liquidated from 2000 to 2018 are selected for the tests. The results show that VC funds with the presence of KFoF exceed VC funds without KFoF in returns, which supports the hypothesis that KFoF enhances transparency and professionalism of VC funds.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.477-485
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• 2018

To control manage environmental load during construction work, it is required to ascertain an accurate quantity for materials those are using during the construction. In construction industrial nowadays, especially on design part, there are lots of mistakes occurred on quantity take-off between plan documents and actual work. That mistakes are caused by omission of design items, overcount because of interference each materials or simple calculate error. Besides, in case of a construction project, engineers are impossible to design perfectly due to a lot of invalid variable in a construction site. Thus, design errors and changes occur frequently in the process of construction work or design due to such unclear elements. And in case of LCA assessment based on 2D design, there is difficult for an engineer who is in charge to calculate the volume of materials manually using drawings and relevant specifications. This study is aimed for examining and verifying a high reliable method of evaluating environmental load which is useful in construction process through comparing LCA analysis. In addition, this study provides the method of calculating the volume of materials and LCA assessment in working on the basis of 2D design, using the specifications which is used for LCA evaluation, and possibility of utilizing the LCA assessment by introducing BIM design technic to improve the former problem through comparing and analyzing the previous method with 3D-based evaluation process.