• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether the cash policies of retail firms listed on Korean stock markets are consistent with the evidence provided in the study of Almeida et al. (2004). Liquidity management is an important issue for financially constrained firms relative to financially unconstrained firms. Because there are few sources of external funding, the optimal liquidity policies of financially constrained firms should reflect their own earnings or cash inflows to create opportunities for current and future real investments. According to this simple idea, we estimate the sensitivity of cash to cash flows and simply check whether the estimated sensitivity to cash flows of the cash retained by constrained retail firms is greater than that of the cash retained by unconstrained retail firms. Through this work, we aim to explain why the cash policies of the retail firms listed on the Korean stock markets differ from those of listed manufacturing enterprises. Research design, data, and methodology - To explain a firm's cash holdings, we use only three explanatory variables: earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), Tobin's q, and size. All the variables are defined as the value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets. Thanks to this definition, it is possible to treat all the sample firms as a single large firm. The sample financial data for this study are collected from the retail enterprises listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013. We can obtain these data from WISEfn, the financial information company. This study's methodology has its origin in Keynes's simple idea of precautionary liquidity demand: When a firm faces financial constraints, cash savings from earnings or cash inflows become important from the corporate finance perspective. Following this simple idea, Almeida et al. (2004) developed their theoretical model and found empirical evidence that the sensitivity of cash to cash flows varies systematically according to different types of financing frictions. To find more empirical evidence for this idea, we examined the cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by Korean retail firms. Results - Through several robustness tests, we empirically showed that financially constrained Korean retail firms display significant positive propensity to save cash from earnings before interest and taxes, while the estimated cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by unconstrained retail firms is not significant. Despite the relatively low earnings of retail firms, their sensitivity is three times greater than that of manufacturing enterprises. This implies that Korean retail firms have greater intentions of facilitating future investments rather than current investments. Conclusions - The characteristics of the cash policies of Korean retail firms differ from those of manufacturing firms. This contrast may be attributable to industry-oriented policy planning, regulations, and institutional differences. However, the industrial policymakers should observe signals of the long-term growth options of retail firms based on their high propensity to save from their cash inflows.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.131-153
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• 1999

Since 1980's there have been two trends that obviously developed in the would -- economics globalization and urban internationalization. China, with is reform and opening-up policy and rapid economic growth, keeps pace with these two trends. The term "International City" has no putative standard or definition. If we make an analogue of urban functional hierarchy in the world with a pyramid, the International Citiesa are the few elites on its top. The highest level international cities can be called "World City" or "Global City". In today's new international division of labor, they are diversified leading cities with control capacity on a world scale, like New York, London, and Tokyo. The secondary international cities are either diversified cities with influence and regulative functions on multinational scale or specialized cities on politics, economics, culture, or other aspects with worldwide impact. Judged by different criteria, there is no city that is qualified as International City with the exception of Hong Kong, which was returned to the P.R. of China in 1997. Nevertheless, Some favorable conditions for the development of the international city still exist in China. This country is already the sixth largest economic entity in the world, and the second largest economic entity in the world, and the second largest one if GNP estimated by ppp. Furthermore its import and export value make up for 40% of its GNP, indicating that China is repidly merging into global economy. In this 1, 2 billion-population country, the difference of economic levels between urban and rural, coastal and inland regions is so big that a few metropolises in the coastal region have the possibilities and potentials to develop into international cities regardless of rather low GNP per capita of the whole country. This article will focus on analysis from several perspectives, such as the proportion of foreign trade values in GDP, the proportion of imports and exports by foreign funded enterprises in total foreign trade value; distribution of the 500 largest foreign-funded enterprises; distribution of the 500 enterprises with largest import and export values; distrigbution of foreign computer and telecom companies with offices in China; the number of outward flights per week and the international tourists; the value of foreign capital used in cities and so on. From this analysis, it is predicted that Chinese international cities will surely emergy from the eastern coastal regions and they must be the core cities of metropolitan interlocking regions that have been formed or in the process of forming. Those international cities will arise from south to north in turn : Hong Kong-Guangzhu, Shanghai, Beijing-Tianjin, and perhaps the last one is Dalian-Shenyang. The other side of this issue is that there is a long way for the coming international cities in China except Hong Kong. At least China and these core cities must continually devote to (1) improve the regional composition of foreign capital sources. (2) improve the composition of export commodities. (3) improve the investment environment (including hard and soft environment) to attract more transnational corporations to settle. (4) deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and establish Chinese own transnational corporations to enter the world market.ons to enter the world market.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.59-75
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the current status of Korean medicine health technology assessment and explore realistic plans to activate it. Methods: We investigated all the applications for new health technology assessment related to Korean medicine from 2007 to 2016. The several expert meetings were held to draw out the barriers and improvement strategies of the new health technology assessment of Korean medicine field. Results: There were 31 cases in total except for duplications or reapplies falling into 3 main types. First, 19 of them were to try to enter a medical market and be covered by National Health Insurance. Eight cases were to apply western medicine technology as new health technology in Korean medicine area. The rest was 4 cases, which were totally not appropriate for the purpose of new health technology assessment system. According to the expert opinion, the obstacles of activation in new health technology assessment of Korean medicine were application of unstandardized technology, lack of understanding and experience, lack of clinical trial supporting system for Korean medicine, lack of committee members within the nHTA(new Health Technology Assessment) review board, ambiguous definition of medical practice and sharp conflict between western medicine and Korean medicine. Conclusions: Several suggestions were derived. First of all, to activate Korean medicine in the nHTA system, the existing system should be used sufficiently, and multifaceted efforts are needed to upgrade the system, if necessary. Also, self-help efforts, Korean medicine clinical trial supporting system and increasing R&D investment, establishing extra-committee for Korean medicine in nHTA could be needed. Finally, long-term strategy for improving collaboration between Korean medicine and western medicine should be considered.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.157-175
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• 2021

This study categorized 3,214 companies out of the tech firms supported by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation's "technology guarantee scheme" through technology assessment from 2017 to 2019 into Fourth Industrial Revolution-related companies and general SMEs. The impact of the management characteristics of these 1,752 tech firms on the determination of high-growth firms was then empirically analyzed. This study used the OECD(2007) definition to define a "high-growth firm" as "an enterprise with average revenue growth greater than 20% per annum, over a two-year period." As the two sample groups showed non-normal distribution, this study conducted the Mann-Whitney U test, a nonparametric test, to analyze the mean differences and bivariate logistic regression in which the normality assumption is less stringent. The independent variables include fundamental characteristics; a regional dummy; a technological level dummy; and the capabilities of company representatives, human capital, and technological innovation. The corresponding sub-variables are representatives' level of education and experience in the same industry, full-time workers, research personnel, the extent of intellectual property rights, investment in research and development, firm age, total assets, region_metropolitan area, region_central region, technological level_high technology, and technological level_medium technology. As a result, the research hypothesis about representatives' level of experience in the same industry, full-time workers, total assets, and technological level_high technology was supported for the Fourth Industrial Revolution-related companies. For the general SMEs, the research hypothesis about representatives' level of experience in the same industry, research personnel, total assets, and region_metropolitan area was supported.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-15
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• 2020

As the entrepreneurial ecosystem turns out to be a leading factor in improving nation's entrepreneurship, many studies are underway in the country to develop the start-up ecosystem. Although the entrepreneurial ecosystem is receiving attention as an essential factor for the nation's economic growth as well as entrepreneurship due to its inter-relationship with start-ups, government agencies and investors, criticism of measurement indicators has been increasing due to the different institutional and political contexts of each country, including the various definition of start-up ecosystem. In this study, we develop indicators that are suitable for domestic conditions in Korea and that can measure the level of start-up ecosystems in each regional level. FGI and Delphi surveys by scholarly experts in each field of start-ups & entrepreneurship were conducted to verify how well existing indicators fit the domestic situation and to develop indicators that can measure the local entrepreneurial ecosystem in Korea through close examination. As a result, the local entrepreneurial ecosystem consisted of three to four sub-components and 38 sub-components, each consisting of seven indicators, including Policy, Investment, Culture, Market, Human Capital, Support and Knowledge. It is expected that this research will be used to diagnose local start-up ecosystems and to propose discriminatory policies that can complement regional strengths and weaknesses.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.67-80
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• 2022

This study was conducted to derive policy measures such as fostering and supporting by examining the actual conditions of domestic startups. The subject of this study was the start-ups located in Seongnam-si, where Pangyo Techno Valley, which is the highest-level innovation cluster in Korea and is evaluated as a start-up mecca. Startups were defined as startups under 7 years old based on new technologies such as IT, BT, and CT, and the subjects of the study were selected. This can be seen as a step forward from previous research in that it embodies the concept of a startup that was previously abstract in a quantitatively measurable way. As a result of the analysis, about 94% of startups are distributed in the so-called "Death Valley" growth stage, and startups above scale-up, which means full-scale growth beyond BEP, account for about 6%. appeared to be occupied. He cited the problem of start-up funds as the biggest difficulty in the early stages of startups, and cited the loan evaluation method that prioritizes sales or collateral in raising funds as the biggest problem. In addition, start-ups rated the access to private investment capital such as VC, AC, and angel investors at a low level compared to policy funds, which are public funds. Most startups showed a lot of interest in overseas expansion, and they chose matching overseas investors such as overseas VCs as the biggest support for overseas expansion. The overall competitiveness in the overseas market was 49.6 points, which is less than 50 points out of 100, indicating that the overall competitiveness was somewhat inferior. It was analyzed that public support and investment in overseas sales channels (sales channels, distribution networks, etc.) should be prioritized along with enhancement of technological competitiveness in order for domestic startups to increase their competitiveness in overseas markets as well as in the domestic market.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.109-153
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• 1992

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Korea's banking industry and derives various implications on the prospect for the Korean banking structure in the future based on the estimated efficiency indicators for the banking sector. The Korean banking industry is permitted to operate trust business to the full extent and the security business to a limited extent, while it is formally subjected to the strict, specialized banking system. Security underwriting and investment businesses are allowed in a very limited extent only for stocks and bonds of maturity longer than three year and only up to 100 percent of the bank paid-in capital. Until the end of 1991, the ceiling was only up to 25 percent of the total balance of the demand deposits. However, they are prohibited from the security brokerage business. While the in-house integration of security businesses with the traditional business of deposit and commercial lending is restrictively regulated as such, Korean banks can enter the security business by establishing subsidiaries in the industry. This paper, therefore, estimates the efficiency indicators as well as the cost functions, identifying the in-house integrated trust business and security investment business as important banking activities, for various cases where both the production and the intermediation function approaches in modelling the financial intermediaries are separately applied, and the banking businesses of deposit, lending and security investment as one group and the trust businesses as another group are separately and integrally analyzed. The estimation results of the efficiency indicators for various cases are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2. First, security businesses exhibit economies of scale but also economies of scope with traditional banking activities, which implies that in-house integration of the banking and security businesses may not be a nonoptimal banking structure. Therefore, this result further implies that the transformation of Korea's banking system from the current, specialized system to the universal banking system will not impede the improvement of the banking industry's efficiency. Second, the lending businesses turn out to be subjected to diseconomies of scale, while exhibiting unclear evidence for economies of scope. In sum, it implies potential efficiency gain of the continued in-house integration of the lending activity. Third, the continued integration of the trust businesses seems to contribute to improving the efficiency of the banking businesses, since the trust businesses exhibit economies of scope. Fourth, deposit services and fee-based activities, such as foreign exchange and credit card businesses, exhibit economies of scale but constant returns to scope, which implies, the possibility of separating those businesses from other banking and trust activities. The recent trend of the credit card business being operated separately from other banking activities by an independent identity in Korea as well as in the global banking market seems to be consistent with this finding. Then, how can the possibility of separating deposit services from the remaining activities be interpreted? If one insists a strict definition of commercial banking that is confined to deposit and commercial lending activities, separating the deposit service will suggest a resolution or a disappearance of banking, itself. Recently, however, there has been a suggestion that separating banks' deposit and lending activities by allowing a depository institution which specialize in deposit taking and investing deposit fund only in the safest securities such as government securities to administer the deposit activity will alleviate the risk of a bank run. This method, in turn, will help improve the safety of the payment system (Robert E. Litan, What should Banks Do? Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1987). In this context, the possibility of separating the deposit activity will imply that a new type of depository institution will arise naturally without contradicting the efficiency of the banking businesses, as the size of the banking market grows in the future. Moreover, it is also interesting to see additional evidences confirming this statement that deposit taking and security business are cost complementarity but deposit taking and lending businesses are cost substitute (see Table 2 for cost complementarity relationship in Korea's banking industry). Finally, it has been observed that the Korea's banking industry is lacking in the characteristics of natural monopoly. Therefore, it may not be optimal to encourage the merger and acquisition in the banking industry only for the purpose of improving the efficiency.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.41
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• pp.5-38
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• 2020

The current state of performance halls in South Korea is closely related to the performance art and culture of the nation as the culture of putting on and enjoying a performance is deeply rooted in public culture and arts halls representing each area at the local government level. Today, public culture and arts halls have multiple management purposes, and the subjects of their management are in the public domain including the central and local governments or investment and donation foundations in overwhelming cases. Public culture and arts halls thus have close correlations with the institutional aspect of cultural policies as the objects of culture and art policies at the central and local government level. The full-blown era of public culture and arts halls opened up in the 1980s~1990s, during which multi-purpose performance halls of a similar structure became universal around the nation. Public culture and arts halls of the uniform shape were distributed around the nation with no premise of genre characteristics or local environments for arts, and this was attributed to the cultural policies of the military regime. The Park Chung-hee regime proclaimed Yusin that was beyond the Constitution and enacted the Culture and Arts Promotion Act(September, 1972), which was the first culture and arts act in the nation. Based on the act, a five-year plan for the promotion of culture and arts(1973) was made and led to the construction of cultural facilities. "Public culture and arts" halls or "culture" halls were built to serve multiple purposes around the nation because the Culture and Arts Promotion Act, which is called the starting point of the nation's legal system for culture and arts, defined "culture and arts" as "matters regarding literature, art, music, entertainment, and publications." The definition became a ground for the current "multi-purpose" concept. The organization of Ministry of Culture and Public Information set up a culture and administration system to state its supervision of "culture and arts" and distinguish popular culture from the promotion of arts. During the period, former President Park exhibited his perception of "culture=arts=culture and arts" in his speeches. Arts belonged to the category of culture, but it was considered as "culture and arts." There was no department devoted to arts policies when the act was enacted with a broad scope of culture accepted. This ambiguity worked as a mechanism to mobilize arts in ideological utilizations as a policy. Against this backdrop, the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, a multi-purpose performance hall, was established in 1978 based on the Culture and Arts Promotion Act under the supervision of Ministry of Culture and Public Information. There were, however, conflicts of value over the issue of accepting the popular music among the "culture and arts = multiple purposes" of the system, "culture ≠ arts" of the cultural organization that pushed forward its establishment, and "culture and arts = arts" perceived by the powerful class. The new military regime seized power after Coup d'état of December 12, 1979 and failed at its culture policy of bringing the resistance force within the system. It tried to differentiate itself from the Park regime by converting the perception into "expansion of opportunities for the people to enjoy culture" to gain people's supports both from the side of resistance and that of support. For the Chun Doo-hwan regime, differentiating itself from the previous regime was to secure legitimacy. Expansion of opportunities to enjoy culture was pushed forward at the level of national distribution. This approach thus failed to settle down as a long-term policy of arts development, and the military regime tried to secure its legitimacy through the symbolism of hardware. During the period, the institutional ground for public culture and arts halls was based on the definition of "culture and arts" in the Culture and Arts Promotion Act enacted under the Yusin system of the Park regime. The "multi-purpose" concept, which was the management goal of public performance halls, was born based on this. In this context of the times, proscenium performance halls of a similar structure and public culture and arts halls with a similar management goal were established around the nation, leading to today's performance art and culture in the nation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.83-94
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• 2011

Most domestic companies, with the exclusion of major firms, are reluctant to implement a supply chain management (SCM) network into their operations. Most small- and medium-sized enterprises are not even aware of SCM. Due to the inherent total-systems efficiency of SCM, it coordinates domestic manufacturers, subcontractors, distributors, and physical distributors and cuts down on cost of inventory control, as well as demand management. Furthermore, a lack of SCM causes a decrease in competitiveness for domestic companies. The reason lies in the fundamentality of SCM, which is the characteristic of information sharing, process innovation throughout SCM, and the vast range of problems the SCM management tool is able to address. This study suggests the contemplation and reformation of the current SCM situation by analyzing the SCM strategic plan, discourses and logical discussions on the topic, and a successful case for adapting SCM; hence, the study plans to productively "process" SCM. First, it is necessary to contemplate the theoretical background of SCM before discussing how to successfully process SCM. I will describe the concept and background of SCM in Chapter 2, with a definition of SCM, types of SCM promotional activities, fields of SCM, necessity of applying SCM, and the effects of SCM. All of the defects in currently processing SCM will be introduced in Chapter 3. Discussion items include the following: the Bullwhip Effect; the breakdown in supply chain and sales networks due to e-business; the issue that even though the key to a successful SCM is cooperation between the production and distribution company, during the process of SCM, the companies, many times, put their profits first, resulting in a possible defect in demands estimation. Furthermore, the problems of processing SCM in a domestic distribution-production company concern Information Technology; for example, the new system introduced to the company is not compatible with the pre-existing document architecture. Second, for effective management, distribution and production companies should cooperate and enhance their partnership in the aspect of the corporation; however, in reality, this seldom occurs. Third, in the aspect of the work process, introducing SCM could provoke corporations during the integration of the distribution-production process. Fourth, to increase the achievement of the SCM strategy process, they need to set up a cross-functional team; however, many times, business partners lack the cooperation and business-information sharing tools necessary to effect the transition to SCM. Chapter 4 will address an SCM strategic plan and a case study of LG Electronics. The purpose of the strategic plan, strategic plans for types of business, adopting SCM in a distribution company, and the global supply chain process of LG Electronics will be introduced. The conclusion of the study is located in Chapter 5, which addresses the issue of the fierce competition that companies currently face in the global market environment and their increased investment in SCM, in order to better cope with short product life cycle and high customer expectations. The SCM management system has evolved through the adaptation of improved information, communication, and transportation technologies; now, it demands the utilization of various strategic resources. The introduction of SCM provides benefits to the management of a network of interconnected businesses by securing customer loyalty with cost and time savings, derived through the consolidation of many distribution systems; additionally, SCM helps enterprises form a wide range of marketing strategies. Thus, we could conclude that not only the distributors but all types of businesses should adopt the systems approach to supply chain strategies. SCM deals with the basic stream of distribution and increases the value of a company by replacing physical distribution with information. By the company obtaining and sharing ready information, it is able to create customer satisfaction at the end point of delivery to the consumer.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2012

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.