• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.30 no.12 s.159
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• pp.1768-1777
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• 2006

As the fashion industry comes under the influence of globalization throughout all fields of industry, the globalization and the market entry strategies are required for Korean fashion firms. This study attempted to analyze the factors influencing foreign entry mode of Korean fashion business based on Eclectic Theory. Data collection has been carried out from November 25 until December 25, 2005. The questionnaires were sent through e-mail or fax to 622 trading companies. 67 questionnaires were returned for a response rate of 10.7%. Of these returns, 61 usable questionnaires were employed for data analyses. Descriptive analysis, factor analysis, discriminant analysis, and t-test were used for data analysis. First, the most important venture motivation was price competitiveness and many firms were engaged in both production and sales in their target countries, which were mainly in Southeast Asia. Second, the firm's ability and experience were found out as ownership advantage factor, investment stability and market potential as location advantage factor, and contract stability as internalization advantage factor. Third, the result of discriminant analysis showed that location advantage factor was a significant factor in predicting the entry of fashion firms into foreign countries.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.27-49
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• 2016

This study examines the effects of real exchange rate (RER) depreciation shocks on firm-level productivity and employment in Daegu-Gyeongbuk manufacturing industries during 2006-2012. In particular, the study focuses on a sharp and persistent RER depreciation of the Korean Won from 2007 to 2009, which is a situation akin to a natural experiment in Korea. We find that RER depreciation has positive effects on productivity for firms with high export exposure in foreign markets. However, these effects disappear when RER depreciation persists. In addition, we do not find evidence that RER depreciation affects employment of Daegu-Gyeongbuk firms significantly. Firms in Daegu-Gyeongbuk region should pursue core competency to obtain international competitiveness rather than depending on temporary better price condition driven by RER depreciation. Further, policy makers in a local government should provide firms with financial and investment support to encourage innovation and R&D.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.219-243
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• 2004

Generally, electricity market has monopoly market structure because of need of enormous investment for infrastructure. However, the introduction of competition in network industry as electricity is a tendency of the world with decreasing the effects of economy of scale due to the advancement of technology. Now, electricity industry restructuring is in progress but the competition in electricity retail market is not in force yet in Korea. Whether a effective competition exist or not is very important to policy decision maker who drive restructuring, but there are small numbers of quantitative researches on that. In this study, we estimated the effectiveness of competition in the electricity retail market through switching costs. If switching costs are high, consumers actually can be locked in incumbent firm in spite of introduction of competition. Therefore switching is a critical factor to determine effectiveness of competition and to estimate the size of switching costs quantitatively can proffer the information about whether the competition in the electricity retail market is effective or not in the future. We estimated switching costs using consumer' stated-preference data by conjoint analysis. In according to estimation results, the cost of switching process is not so high, but the relative brand loyalty of an incumbent company is significantly high. And the price is considered as the most important factor choosing an electric service commodity. Based on the empirical results, it is possible to analyze the relationship between suppliers' competitiveness resulted from management efficiency and customers' switching possibilities. The paper therefore provides guidance for suppliers in deciding to enter into retail competition and for policy makers in introducing retail competition. And it has a significance of estimating the switching costs directly.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.33-75
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• 2011

The ownership structure of a franchise system is determined by the franchisor's strategic choice. A close look at the extant theories and perspectives in economics and management such as resource scarcity theory, agency theory, transaction cost analysis, and mixed ownership theory reveals that firms choose their ownership structure for the sake of economic efficiency, profit potentials, the chance of survival, and other strategic concerns. The present study, on the basis of strategic choice perspective, reviews the divergent theories of a franchise system's ownership structure and its determinants, thus providing a theoretical framework for comparing the contradictory arguments along the several critical dimensions. We also developed and tested the conflicting hypotheses regarding key determinants of ownership structure including firm's age, size, transaction-specific investments, uncertainty, and risk-sharing propensity. Using a FDD (Franchise Disclosure Document) data set of 543 Korean franchisors, we found that the years in business, the total number of employees, days of training, the inverse of the years of franchising, and the requirement of royalty payment have positive relationships with the proportion of company-owned outlets to total number of outlets. On the other hand, the proportion of company-owned outlets was found to have negative relationships with the total number of outlets and the extent of geographic dispersion of outlets, but to have no significant relationships with the initial investment required and the inverse of contract length. Based on the findings, we provide several theoretical and managerial implications for studying ownership structure of franchise systems.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.75-84
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• 2014

Purpose - This article aims to examine whether the stock issuance of firms in the retail industry follows Myers' (1984) pecking order theory, which is based on information asymmetry. According to the pecking order model, firms have a sequence of financing decisions, of which the first choice is to use retained earnings, the second one is to get into safe debt, the next involves risky debt, and the last involves finance with outside equity. Since the 2000s, the polarization of the LEs (Large enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) arose in the retail industry. The LEs exhibited an improvement in growth and profitability, whereas SMEs had a tendency to degenerate. This study contributes to corroborating the features of financing decisions in the retail industry distinguished from the other industries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study considers the stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013, and is more concentrated on the stocks in the retail industry. The data were collected from the financial information company, WISEfn. The empirical analysis is conducted by employing two measures of net equity issues (and), which were introduced in Fama and French (2005), and can be calculated from firms' accounting information. All variables are generated as the aggregate value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets, which, in effect, treats the entire sample as a single firm. Substantially, the financing decisions of the firms were analyzed by examining how often and under what circumstances firms issue and repurchase equity. Then, this study compares the features of the retail industry with those of the other industries. Results - The proportion of sample firms that show annual net stock issues reaching the level of the year's average was 54.33% for the 1990s, and fell to 39.93% per year for the 2000s. In detail, the fraction of the small firms actually increases from 45.08% to 51.04%, whereas that of large firms shows a dramatic decline from 58.94% to 24.76%. Considering the fact that the large firms' rapid increase in growth after the 2000s may lead to an increase in equity issues, this result is rather surprising. Meanwhile, net stock repurchases of assets are considerably disproportionate between the large (-50.11%) and the small firms (-15.66%) for the 2000s. Conclusions - Stock issuance of retail firms is not in line with the traditional seasoned equity offering based on information asymmetry. The net stock issuance of the small firms in the retail industry can be interpreted as part of an effort to reorganize business and solicit new investment to resolve degenerating business performance. For large firms, on the other hand, the net repurchase can be regarded as part of an effort to rearrange business for efficiency and amplifying synergy across business sections through spin-off. These results can help the government establish a support policy on retail industry according to size.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.77-86
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• 2019

Purpose - The present study examined the reliability of accounting information based on the pay slice (CPS) information of chief executive officers (CEOs) in the service industry. The difference in the size of CPS under the capitalist system can be used as an index to gauge the influence of top management. Research design, data, and methodology - In accordance with the amendment of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Market Act in 2013, the pay information of individual registered executives with annual salary of more than 500 million won has been disclosed. The sample of the current study is 232 companies listed on the Korea Exchange excluding financial services from 2013 to 2015, when the individual pay-slice information for registration officers was published in the business report in accordance with the revision of the Capital Market Act. The financial data required for this study were extracted from the FnGuide and the TS-2000. With the data, we tested the relationship between CPS and accounting information reliability through a linear regression analysis. Results - The first result showed that the relationship between the CPS and human resource in internal accounting control system in the service industry is significantly negative only with the accounting department personnel. This result implied that the CEO can negatively affect the retention of the accounting department in the firm. Second, both the CPS and quality of audit in the service industry are negatively related both to audit fees and to audit time. Nonetheless, the relationship between the number of the auditor and the CPS is insignificant. This result indicated that the CEO can negatively affect audit fees and audit time of external auditors. The results of the present study suggested that CPS information may have a negative impact on the reliability of accounting information. Conclusion - This study is the first study to examine the reliability of CPS and accounting information for the service industry in terms of human resources in internal accounting control system and audit quality. Therefore, the present study is expected to provide some useful information to economic decision-making of various external parties for service firms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.162-169
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• 2016

Using 1795 observations from the 5 year-359 firm panel data collected during the period from 2009 to 2013 in Chinese stock exchanges, this study examines the impact of the controlling shareholders' ownership on R & D expenditure. This empirical study finds that when firms are state-owned, the controlling shareholders' ownership has a U shaped relation with the level of R & D expenses. A non-linear relation is also found when piece-wise regression models are applied. This empirical study also finds that when firms are private-owned, the controlling shareholders' ownership is negatively related to the level of R & D expenses, and no structural changes in the relation are found when piece-wise regression models are applied. These results support the hypothesis that the effects of the controlling shareholders' ownership on R & D expenses may differ depending on the ownership type of the controlling shareholders. This finding suggests that the differences in the controlling shareholders' incentives due to their ownership type should be considered when exploring the relation between the controlling shareholders' ownership and corporate strategic decisions.

• The Journal of Information Technology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.199-215
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• 1999

A quantitative analysis was conduct on the economic effect of electronic commerce according to the method of constructing the internet. As a consequence, it was information retrieval cost that had the most cost retrenchment effect in connecting the internet by telephone, which saved about 353,700 won. And it was found that the dedicated line to electronic commerce saved 420,600 won of information retrieval cost and a considerable amount of 319,900 won of brokerage expenses and physical distribution expenses. In terms of value, it was found that the telephone line reduced the time of order process by 8.25%, whereas the dedicated line did so by 9.41% and therefore saved more time than the telephone line. It was found that the dedicated line convenient to use had the higher effect by about 1.2%, respectively than the telephone line in terms of the effective construction of corporate image and the increase of potential buyers. In terms of business management, the intensification of corporate competitiveness improved by 10.00% in case of less than 10 times and by 11.53% in case of 50 to less than 50 times. And it was found that the effect of profit increase as the number of inquiries was large. That is, it was found that the effect of profit increase was 10.88% when the number of inquiries was less than 10 times but it increased to 14.00% in case of 50∼1ess than 100 times. The limitation of this study is that because the size of samples through mail, interview and E-mail was not large, its results have some limitation in applying them to every firm. That is, since the improvement effect of the intrafirm business method, unnecessary repeated manual paperwork and the use effect of being able to maintain the close relationship with to the parties to trades in the process of prompt receipt and delivery of documents are long-term and indirect effects, they have some limitation in that they can not be measured as coefficients but only as scales. Thus, firms using electronic commerce have difficulty enjoying a uniformly identical effect. Therefore, to revitalize electronic commerce, it is thought that government, the academic community and the business world all need to make much research into and sustained investment in electronic commerce.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.41-63
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• 2016

Energy policy is known to have higher path dependency among policy fields (Kuper and van Soest, 2003; OECD, 2012; Kikkawa, 2013) and is a critical component of the infrastructure development undertaken in the early stages of nation building. Actor roles, such as those played by interest groups, are firmly formed, making it unlikely that institutional change can be implemented. In resource-challenged Japan, energy policy is an especially critical policy area for the Japanese government. In comparing energy policy making in Japan and Germany, Japan’s policy community is relatively firm (Hartwig et al., 2015), and it is improbable that institutional change can occur. The Japanese government’s approach to energy policy has shifted incrementally in the past half century, with the most recent being the 2012 implementation of the “Feed-In Tariff Law” (Act on Special Measures Concerning Procurement of Renewable Electric Energy by Operators of Electric Utilities), which encourages new investment in renewable electricity generation and promotes the use of renewable energy. Yet, who were the actors involved and the factors that influenced the establishment of this new law? This study attempts to assess the factors associated with implementing the law as well as the roles of the relevant major actors. In answering this question, we focus on identifying the policy networks among government, political parties, and interest groups, which suggests that success in persuading key economic groups could be a factor in promoting the law. Our data is based on the “Global Environmental Policy Network Survey 2012-2013 (GEPON2)” which was conducted immediately after the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake with respondents including political parties, the government, interest groups, and civil society organizations. Our results suggest that the Feed in Tariff (FIT) Law’s network structure is similar to the information network and support network, and that the actors at the center of the network support the FIT Law. The strength of our research lays in our focus on political networks and their contributing mechanism to the law’s implementation through analysis of the political process. From an academic perspective, identifying the key actors and factors may be significant in explaining institutional change in policy areas with high path dependency. Close examination of this issue also has implications for a society that can promote renewable and sustainable energy resources.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.127-146
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• 2020

Overseas advanced countries are aware of the importance of research equipment and are providing a lot of policy support to revitalize the research equipment industry. However, Korea does not have any law to support policies or related projects to revitalize the research equipment industry. Therefore, there is an urgent need for legislation to support policies and projects for revitalizing research equipment industry. It is considered necessary to establish a separate special law for revitalizing the research equipment industry so that it can gain competitiveness in the global market of the research equipment industry. As we have seen, the necessary articles in the relevant laws should be specified so that various promotion policies can be developed to foster the research equipment industry. In order to promote the development of research equipment industry, there are three essential items to be specified in the law. First is research and development support, second is infrastructure development, and third is business incubation. The following contents should be included in each contents. First of all, "research and development support" includes research and envelopment project promotion and support policy items, research equipment development trends and investment trends, joint research between industry, academia, And research and development support for fusion, hybrid and commercialization. Next, the items to be included in "infrastructure development" should include the establishment of research equipment clusters, related support items, training of professional manpower, and research equipment development base area and institutions. Finally, the items that should be included in "business incubation." include support matters for the development of excellent companies (priority purchase system, etc.), matters related to technology transfer and marketing, matters concerning the protection of intellectual property, And matters for promoting overseas expansion.