• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.5-15
• /
• 2018

Purpose - Nowadays customers have become empowered by information communication technologies. This state of customers has brought enormous pressure to bear on organizations, thus, organizations have to stay relevant, market-oriented and profitable. The insurance sector is one that is constantly challenged by its exposure to ICT and the associated need for e-services by myriad customers. With increasing competition in the health insurance environment, it is necessary for the sector to understand customer expectations and how they perceive the services offered. This study seeks to determine the role played by e-services in relation to customer satisfaction in health insurance industry in Botswana where a substantial investment has been made in the sector. Research design, data, and methodology - This study is conducted using two prominent medical aid schemes in Botswana namely BPOMAS and PULA. Subscribers of these medical schemes were the respondents whose views were sourced using both closed and open ended questionnaires. Systemic sampling technique was used to select the participants, while descriptive statistical techniques were mainly used to analyze socio-demographic data of the samples. Results - The results reveal that the level of usage of the medical insurance firm's website and email service is higher for PULA participants than for BPOMAS participants. Conclusions - The findings of this study have practical implications for managers who should understand customers' value perceptions regarding e-service quality in Botswana.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
• /
• v.39 no.1
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2017

This paper empirically studies the effect of public procurement on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Republic of Korea using firm-level data. Public procurement, the purchase of goods and services from private firms by the public sector, is regarded as an important policy measure for providing support to firms, particularly SMEs. This study uses establishment-level panel data of the mining and manufacturing sectors from the Korean National Bureau of Statistics (Statistics Korea) and procurement history from the Korean Public Procurement Service to empirically estimate the effects of public procurement on firms' productivity (total factor productivity) and survivability. Using a propensity score matching estimation method, we find that participating firms showed higher productivity than non-participating ones in the control group only for the year of participation, that is, 2009. After two years, in 2011, they exhibited significantly lower productivity. In contrast, establishments that participated in public procurement for SMEs in 2009 were more likely to survive than those that did not do so in 2011. These results can be interpreted as the negative consequences of government intervention. The market's efficiency enhancement is hindered if underserving companies survive owing to government intervention but fail to improve efficiency.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.787-797
• /
• 2010

Nowadays meteorological information is systemized as a useful knowledge which has a significant effect on the overall industrial domains over the simple data. The distribution industry, which has the short life cycle, depends on the meteorological information at the strategic level. However, it is necessary to pay attention to the continuous investment in meteorological information because there is a hostility to paying for a service, particularly it does not provide accurate and reliable information. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to increase the usefulness of meteorological information in the distribution industry for its economic effectiveness from the core meteorological factors. We found significant meteorological factors (temperature, precipitation, disaster) that have a critical influence on the distribution industry through the hierarchical analysis process, and their importance according to the type of distribution channels, such as department store, large-scale discount store, convenience store, and home shopping. We performed the AHP analysis with 103 survey samples by middle managers from the various distribution channels. We found that precipitation is the critical meteorological factor across the distribution industry. Based on this result, we stress the difference in the level of the meteorological information in order for the effectiveness of each type of distribution channels.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.527-538
• /
• 2021

The purpose of the study is to determine the efficiency, position, and partner selection of securities companies via the negative super-SBM model used in data envelopment analysis (DEA). This model utilizes a variety of inputs, including current assets, non-current assets, fixed assets, liabilities, owner's equity and charter capital, and outputs including net revenue, gross profit, operating profit, and net profit after tax collected from the financial reports (Vietstock, 2020) of 32 securities companies, operating during the period from 2016 to 2019, negative data are collected as well. Empirical results determined both efficient and inefficient terms, and then further determined the position of each securities firm under consideration of every term. The overall score arrived at discovered a large performance change realizing a maximum score able to reach 20.791. In the next stage, alliancing inefficient companies was carried out based on the 2019 scores to seek out optimal partners for the inefficient companies. The tested result indicated that AAS was the best partner selection when its partners received a good result after alliancing, as with FTS (11.04469). The partner selection is deemed as a solution helpful to inefficient securities companies in order to improve their future efficiency scores.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.432-441
• /
• 2014

As the business model is receiving considerable attention these days, the ability to collect business model related information has become essential requirement for a company. The annual report is one of the most important external documents which contain crucial information about the company's business model. By investigating business descriptions and their future strategies within the annual report, we can easily analyze a company's business model. However, given the sheer volume of the data, which is usually over a hundred pages, it is not practical to depend only on manual extraction. The purpose of this study is to complement the manual extraction process by using text mining techniques. In this study, the text mining technique is applied in business model concept extraction and business model evolution analysis. By concept, we mean the overview of a company's business model within a specific year, and, by evolution, we mean temporal changes in the business model concept over time. The efficiency and effectiveness of our methodology is illustrated by a case example of three companies in the US video rental industry.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.177-205
• /
• 2022

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have strong incentives to engage in open innovation to enhance innovation efficiency and effectiveness due to their 'liability of smallness.' Previous research examined the performance effects of various open innovation practices, but whether coupled open innovation practices positively affect SMEs' firm performance is somewhat controversial. To resolve the issue, this study examined the effects of coupled open innovation activities on SMEs' firm performance using Heckman's two stage model to control endogeneity of the firms' self-selection bias in open innovation engagement. This study used the Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) 2020 collected by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), and tested the effects of SMEs' coupled open innovation activities, R&D and non-R&D cooperation, on their innovative and financial performance indicators. The results showed that SMEs' R&D cooperation positively affects the new-to-market (NTM) product innovation only. Moreover, SMEs' non-R&D cooperation has positive effects on the product innovation, business process innovation, new-to-the-market product innovation, and new-to-firm (NTF) product innovation. However, the results showed that both R&D and non-R&D innovation cooperation activities have no significant effects on SMEs' financial performance indicators. This study contributes to research on SMEs' open innovation and provides insights for SMEs' managers and policymakers.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.51-64
• /
• 2014

Open innovation concept is advocating the importance of the customer roles in firm's innovation. As a result, crowdsourcing community is drawing attention as a strategic asset for open innovation across diverse industries. Considering that the goal of crowdsourcing community is harnessing innovative ideas, understanding the characteristics of user-favorable and organization-adoptable ideas can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of idea crowdsourcing. In our approach, we extracted idea content-based characteristics such as subjectivity, negativity, prosocialness, and depth of idea to examine what are the factors that affect user preference and organizational adoption. An analysis of 71,134 ideas from MyStarbucksIdea.com shows that there are significant differences between user-favorable and organization-adoptable ideas in terms of idea characteristics. Lastly, both theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.195-222
• /
• 1996

Faced with the challenge of reducing costs and improving competitive position, firms have recognized outsourcing as an important information systems (IS) strategic option. It has not been understood clearly what determines IS outsourcing. Based on the IS literature and transaction cost economics, cost efficiency related factors were identified, and a questionnaire survey was conducted. The results based on 181 responses from the bank executives in U.S. revealed that vendor production cost advantage and transaction risk are significant predictors of degree of outsourcing and outsourcing preference for data processing services. Insufficiency of IS funds and information technology uncertainty were found to be not only positively associated with vendor production cost advantage, but also directly associated with outsourcing preference and degree of outsourcing. Firm size is, however, not significantly related to vendor production cost advantge and IS outsourcing.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.891-899
• /
• 2021

The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDG) has become a goal to create a sustainable life. The MDGs' target was to be achieved in 2015, but it missed that date. The MDGs' target has turned into a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 The SDGs require financial support from companies. Funds are one of the resources to implement the SDGs. Government and private companies need to cooperate in achieving the SDGs target. The company has a responsibility to implement corporate social responsibility. The company's corporate social responsibility is part of the implementation of sustainable development in the SDGs. One of the essential industries that have responsibility for SDGs is the financial industry. This study aims to examine the determinant of corporate social responsibility funds in financial institutions in ASEAN countries. This study uses panel data to test the determinant variables on CSF provision. This study uses 45 sustainable development reports from 2015-2019. The total number of banks in the sample came from three countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. This study concludes that firm size, profitability, efficiency, and the age of the CEO are variables that influence the size of corporate social responsibility funds.

• Management & Information Systems Review
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.103-122
• /
• 2018

This paper expands the results of previous studies indicating that manager's ability positively affects business performance to analyze whether the degree to which the role of manager's ability improves business performance appears differently according to the characteristics of enterprises. As for the characteristics of enterprises, whether enterprises correspond to enterprises with high levels of funding constraints or late movers in the market is considered. Enterprises with high levels of funding constraints greatly require managers' roles not only for efficient use of funds but also for smooth financing. Late movers require more judgments of professional managers to overcome insufficient resources held and low profitability. In the case of enterprises with corporate characteristics with high dependency on the manager, the business performance is expected to greatly vary with the ability of the manager. The empirical analysis was conducted with listed companies from 2010 to 2014, manager's ability was measured by first measuring the efficiency of the entire enterprise through data envelopment analysis (DEA) using the methodology of Demerjian et al.(2012) and removing enterprise characteristics factors thereafter. Business performance was measured by the return on industrial fixed assets. The results of the empirical analysis indicated that the degree to which manager's ability improves business performance was higher in managerial competence enhances managerial performance in enterprises with high levels of funding constraints and late movers. Business performance is considered to have been improved further in cases where manager's ability is high because investments were made more efficiently through smooth funding. In addition, in the case of late movers in relatively poor environments, business performance was improved further because high manager's ability induced efficient decision making. In this paper, we extend the precedent study that the manager's ability improves the management performance, and confirm that the manager's ability to improve the managerial performance can be different according to the situation of the company. In addition, it is meaningful to analyze empirically whether a company's managerial ability is more important. This paper expanded the results of previous studies indicating that manager's ability improves performance to identify that the degree to which manager's ability improves business performance may appear differently according to situations in which enterprises are placed. In addition, this paper is meaningful in that it empirically analyzed what enterprises require manager's ability more importantly.