• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.329-338
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• 2021

The mobile payment system has not only changed the payment pattern but also has improved the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individuals' quality of life by saving their energy, reducing the risk of taking cash, and enabling them to give more time to businesses and do international business. Besides, with the current advancement in the Internet as well as the digital transformation, SMEs are being forced to adopt mobile payment systems (MPS). The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of technological-organizational-environmental (TOE) determinants on the adoption of MPS and its impact on SMEs' firm performance operating in Ghana. This research employed a closed-ended questionnaire to collect data from January 2020 - April 2020. This study used a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach using SmartPLS 3.0 for path analysis of 145 responses. The findings of the study include the statistically significant effects of technological (relative advantage and compatibility), organizational (top management support and employees' readiness), and environmental (social influence and competitive pressure) factors on the adoption of MPS. Furthermore, this study also proved the positive and statistically significant effect of MPS on SMEs' performance. This study demonstrated that the TOE factor explains 70% variations in the adoption of MPS.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.225-237
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• 2021

The current study aims to classify what determines entrepreneurial leadership among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Saudi Arabian context. It also attempted to recognize the role played by entrepreneurial leadership by supporting SMEs in the nation's sustainable economic growth. The study is based on a primary survey administered among SMEs in the Riyadh region of Saudi Arabia. Overall, 152 responses were collected. However, after data cleaning, only 107 were found to be fit for final analysis. Structural Equation Modelling using SmartPLS® Software was applied for analysis. The findings emerged from the study immensely concluded that entrepreneurial leadership is an essential instrument for managers/owners of the SMEs sector who aim to improve the efficiency of tasks and contextual performance in Saudi Arabia. The study came across that "ability to absorb uncertainty," "ability to build commitment," "the ability to frame the Challenge," "the ability of path-clearing," and "ability to specify limits," are the five constructs that help frame the entrepreneurial leadership in the Saudi context. The study suggests that leadership trainers, SME policymakers must focus on precisely these skills to inculcate the ability of entrepreneurial leadership among Saudi entrepreneurs, SMEs owners, and managers.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.91-98
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• 2021

One of the concerns in the economic policy circle is the fiscal sustainability. This current research revisit the notion of fiscal sustainability for Malaysia using the Indicator of Fiscal Sustainability (IFS) developed by Croce and Juan-Ramón (2003) where we employ samples of time-series data from 1970 to 2017. The findings reveal that 40 out of 48 years, during which the calculated IFS algorithm is above the threshold of 1, imply Malaysia was fiscally unsustainable. Despite having been fiscally unsustainable, Malaysia's fiscal stance shows improvement as a result of fiscal consolidation and fiscal reforms during the sample period. This is shown by the improved calculated IFS algorithm on average, which the value improved from 1.465 in 1970-1993 to 1.377 in 1998-2004 and to 1.146 in the 2006-2013. From the policy front, this indicator can serve as a precautionary early warning measure in formulating future fiscal path for Malaysia. This can be executed by targeting debt ratio and shifting the allocation of expenditures away from less efficient toward more growth-enhancing ones, which eventually would regain fiscal space to counter any incoming economic shocks in the future. This can enhance the fiscal transparency and assist in formulating a fiscal policy strategy in Malaysia.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.33-44
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• 2022

Women entrepreneurs play a vital role in employment creation, economic development, and growth. Women entrepreneurship is deep-rooted in the social and cultural norms and values of society. Women's entrepreneurship contribution is still invisible and needs to be properly investigated. The current research study explores "how institutions affect women's entrepreneurial performance in Pakistan" by using institutional and social cognitive theories. Focusing on the Formal and informal institutions, this research examines how institutions are affecting women's entrepreneurial performance by taking the mediating role of women's entrepreneurial self-efficacy and ethical decision making. A 7-point Likert scale research questionnaire is used to collect primary data. Data on active entrepreneurs are collected from the Peshawar, Mardan, and Abbottabad divisions of KPK's Women Chambers of Commerce. The data is empirically tested through the path analysis technique of structural equation modeling (SEM) through SMART PLS 3. The results indicated that women's entrepreneurial self-efficacy and ethical decision-making strongly mediate both institutions and significantly affect women's entrepreneurial performance. The study suggests that government and concerned departments should pay due attention to determinants like informal institutions and social constraints to boost women's entrepreneurial performance.

• Journal of Research and Publication Ethics
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.13-17
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• 2023

Purpose: EAJBE is actively responding to changes in academic paradigms at domestic and abroad and is carrying out measures to maximize synergy effects between academic fields with the goal of being at the world level. This study aims to present a developmental strategy for EAJBE to grow into an academic journal with international public trust and prepare for future changes. Research design, data and methodology: This paper identifies the current status from the first issue of EAJBE to the present, and analyzes the overall development strategy and direction. Results: EAJBE continues to strengthen long-term investment for internationalization and activities to attract members of excellent scholars. Specifically, first of all, EAJBE aims to operate responsible academic journals, such as guaranteeing the long term of the president of the academic society, the chairman of the editorial board, and the editor-in-chief. EAJBE also focuses on expanding investment for internationalization from a long-term perspective. Finally, EAJBE actively strives for academic exchanges between scholars abroad and at home. Conclusions: EAJBE was indexed in the KCI of the Korea Research Foundation and currently operates a rigorous academic journal to be indexed in the SCOPUS. Already, EAJBE is doing its best to become a successful model for Korean academic journals. EAJBE's path forward will be the first one that no academic society has ever reached as the world's top academic journal.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.181-190
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• 1997

A large subtidal sand ridge (Jungang Satoe) in Asan Bay, on the west coast of Korea, was studied in order to understand the morphology and sediment transport trend in a macrotidal setting, by means of analyzing sediment samples, current data, side-scan sonographs and seismic profiles. The ridge is about 15 km long and 2-5 km wide, with a relief of about 15 m. It is elongated in the flow direction of flood (SE) and ebb (NW) tidal currents, but asymmetrical in cross section. The western and southwestern side of the ridge is characterized by relatively gentle slopes averaging 0.4$^{\circ}$, whereas on the northeastern side, relatively steep slopes were mapped with 1.6$^{\circ}$ slope angles. Tidal currents associated with the ridge are very strong; maximum surface velo-cities range from neap values of 50 cm/s to spring values of 130 cm/s. The shear velocities during flood and ebb are strong enough to erode and transport sands on the ridge. Sand waves and megaripples (dunes) are the most common bedforms produced by the tidal currents, which show regional differences in shape and size on the ridge. The distribution pattern of these bedforms in-dicates that the flood tidal currents are dominant on the offshore (northwest) side of the ridge, whereas the onsho.e (southeast) side of the ridge is ebb-dominated. The sand transport path as inferred from bedform orientations is directed toward the ridge crest on the flanks, whereas on the crest, it is near-longitudinal to the ridge axis. The convergent, upslope movement of sands on the ridge flanks appears to be important in sand ridge building and maintenance. A significant ridge migration toward the northeast can be suspected on the basis of the ridge morphology, which may cause offshore hazards for navigation.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.49-71
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• 2010

Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.53-69
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• 2019

Purpose - National scientific technology R&D investment is exceeding 60 trillion won per year, and the results of patent applications and technology transfers are visually improving. However, despite the improving research results of national R&D, the practical results of technology startups are mediocre. It is now time to expand the construction of the technology commercialization ecosystem, where the expansion of national R&D leads to the results of technology startups. Therefore, this study discussed the measures to increase the competitiveness of technology startups through the factual survey of the companies that benefitted from R&D support programs. Research design, data, and methodology - This study targeted 996 companies that benefitted from the R&D projects of the Technology Transfer Center for National R&D Programs, and deducted itemized issues through the survey replies. Survey questions were prepared to estimate the national R&D results, and the technology recognition path, the purpose of detailed introduction of the technology, investment of the commercialization fund, economic results, and the factors of success and failure were analyzed. Results - As for the recognition rate of technology during the process of corporate technology commercialization through the technology transfer, recognition through project participation showed a high response rate, and diverse implications of technology commercialization were deducted through the analysis of economic results. As for the resolution alternatives, the proliferation of technology commercialization platform that can create excellent technology for the companies in early stages and the measure of expanding the distribution of technology infrastructure were suggested. In this study, public technology commercialization strategy is established, and the innovative marketing strategy is presented. Conclusions - This study reveal that the result of creating scientific technology jobs should be deducted, in order to produce the revolutionary results of job creation by suggesting the success models of technology commercialization based on domestic scientific technology. In particular, even though the support systems for public research results are being diversely suggested, accurate studies on their actual conditions are currently lacking. Therefore, this study suggest realistic political alternatives to assure results in the process of public technology commercialization, by examining the current state of public research results of R&D support institutions and diagnosing the issues.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.784-795
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• 2007

In this thesis, the Multi element antenna with wideband and enhanced gain characteristic is proposed to operate at both frequency range from 824 MHz to 896 11Hz for the CDMA and frequency range from 908.5 MHz to 914 MHz for the RFID band. The proposed antenna has tile size of $35{\times}15{\times}5mm^3$ in order to put it in the A model of S company and each element of the proposed antenna is folded to obtain the minimum size. To obtain the antenna with wideband and high gain characteristic, the radiator of the antenna is divided into 4 elements. As a result, bandwidth of the proposed antenna become broader and lower center frequency is appeared due to increased and lengthened current path. Moreover, the enhanced gain characteristic is verified because divided element structure that induct uniform current distribution can get increased antenna efficiency. To attain more uniform current distribution, modified structure of the feeding point that can deliver currents directly is designed. The antenna that alters the feeding structure has higher gain value. Each element is folded to increase the current paths considering the current directions to attain the miniaturization of the antenna. To measure the handset antenna, the handset case must be considered. Even though antenna is designed for predicted characteristic, the resonance frequency is shifted and antenna gain is deteriorated at predicted frequency while antenna is set in the handset case. 1.08 GHz of the resonant frequency is determined after frequency shift from 150 MHz to 200 MHz is confirmed and the maximum gain is measured as 3.1 dBi while antenna is not set in the handset. In case handset case is considered, the experimental results show that the impedance bandwidth for VSWR<2 is from 0.824 GHz to 0.936 GHz(110 MHz). This result appears that the proposed antenna can cover both CDMA and RFID band at once. The measured gain is from -3.4 dBi to -0.5 dBi and it has omni-directional pattern practically.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.5B
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• pp.469-479
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• 2006

In order to investigate characteristics of the primary flow and the secondary currents in meandering channels, the laboratory experiments were conducted in S-curved channels with angle of bend, $150^{\circ}$, and sinuosity of 1.52. The experimental conditions was decided varying average depth and velocity. Under these experimental conditions, spatial variations of the secondary currents in multiple bends were observed. The experimental results revealed that the distribution of primary flow in straight section is symmetric without respect to the experimental condition and the maximum velocity line of the primary flow occurs along the shortest path in experimental channel, supporting the result of previous works. The secondary currents in second bend became more developed than those in first bend. Particularly, the outer bank cell developed distinctively and the secondary current intensity was low at the straight section and high at the bends, periodically. Also, the secondary current intensity at the bends was as twice to three times as that at the straight section, and has its maximum value at the second bend. The turbulent flow characteristics of meandering channel was investigated with turbulent intensity of the primary flow and Reynolds shear stress. It was observed that the turbulent intensity is increasing when the velocity deviation of the primary flow is large whereas Reynolds shear stress increases when both the velocity deviation of the primary flow and the secondary current are large.