• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.60-78
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• 2023

Purpose - The study analyzed 90 online firms worldwise and observed them for ten years to investigate their investments and firm performance variabilities. This study attemped to verify the existence of agency problems in online firms. Through this, the paper intends to expand the scope of research in the fields of investment and firm value both empirically and in theory. This study also attempted to supplement the insufficient logic of previous studies by analyzing the relationship between investment and profitability. Design/methodology - In this study, the investment is subdivided into over-, under-, and neutral investments, and an empirical analysis of the firm performance was conducted. As investment generally has long-term effects, the impact of a firm's investment on future firm performance and variabilities in firm performance was considered over the short-and medium-term period. Findings - It was found that there was a negative relationship between firms with an overinvestment and future firm performance. Underinvestment has no clear statistically significant results on firm performance. This implies that overinvestment causes more reduction in future firm performance than underinvestment. It was also found that underinvestment and overinvestment significantly increased the variability of firm performance. A positive significance was found between under- and over- investment with a variability of 3 years and overinvestment with a variability of 4 years in the future. A negative relationship was found between neutral investment propensity and future performance variabilities. Neutral investment has less effect on the future performance variability of a firm than a firm's overinvestment and underinvestment. For online firms, underinvestment and overinvestment have a greater effect on the firm's future performance variability than neutral investment. Originality/value - The agency theory predicts that information asymmetry and adverse selection problems exacerbate conflicts of interest among stakeholders, thus firm performance. The study contributed to accumulating research on online firms that are currently underexplored by analyzing the investment behavior of major firms in the online industry.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.309-316
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• 2020

This research aims to revisit the hypothesis that bribery hurts firm performance in the context of a perceptibly corrupt country. Specifically, we use micro-data from Vietnamese small and medium firm surveys in 2013 and 2015 to examine whether bribery impedes firm revenue growth and labor productivity growth. An issue arising in this type of research is the potential endogeneity between firm bribing behaviors and firm performance. To go around the issue, we follow the literature to instrument bribery variable with the average probability of bribery in other provinces. We further employ the Analysis of Variance technique (ANOVA) to unveil if the effect of bribery is dependent on bribing purposes. The regression results show that firm performance is significantly influenced by firm size, firm age and firm bribing behavior. Larger firms are more likely to grow faster while firm performance tends to be negatively related to firm age. Particularly, we find that bribery significantly impedes firm revenue growth and labor productivity growth. The analysis of variance shows that the effect of bribery on firm performance may vary across bribing purposes. Our findings, therefore, support the sand-the-wheels hypothesis that bribery hurts firm performance even in a highly corrupt business environment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.651-661
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• 2020

This research aims to examine the relationships among entrepreneurial orientation, organizational learning capability, firm innovation, and firm performance. To achieve a data collection, a mail survey procedure via questionnaire was implemented by using executives or managers of gems & jewelry industries, textile and clothing industries, leather and accessories, fashion apparel industries in Thailand as the key informants. Of the surveys completed and returned, 388 were usable. Hence, a model with a structural equation was used to evaluate the data survey of 388 respondents. The results reveal that, in terms of the mediating effect, organizational learning capacity and firm innovation can complement each other in order to improve entrepreneurial orientation. Findings show that entrepreneurial orientation improves firm innovation, which in turn improves firm efficiency. Firm innovation acts as a variable mediating between enterprise orientation and firm performance. Our findings contribute to the current emergence of organizational learning capacity that mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. Entrepreneurial orientation is normally a firm performance that enterprises develop which can have use the information available and make an impact. It can be considered through the mediation of organizational learning capability, and firm innovation variable and as stated in previous literature, it can influence firm performance.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.67-80
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• 2012

This study analyzes the relationship among environment uncertainty, local infrastructure, flexible-open firm culture, operations performance and marketing performance focus on SMEs. This research has revealed that the relation among firm size, firm type, firm culture, operations performance and marketing performance as well. The findings show that firm has its culture which is preparing environment uncertainty and local infrastructure influence on forming firm culture. Change-oriented and leaning-oriented firm cultures affect operations performance and marketing performance. In conclusion, this study suggests implication and limitations for further research.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.497-504
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• 2021

This extended study aims to analyze empirically the influence of firm diversification on firm performance moderated by the stages of the firm life cycle, which consists of introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The target population of this study is the firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. The sampling method uses purposive sampling in the multi-business firm in Indonesia; it includes as many as 127 firms over the period from 2011 to 2017, totaling 889 firm-year observations. The firm performance is measured using a return of equity while the level of firm diversification with the minimum number of two operating segments is proxied by the Herfindahl index. The analysis method used in this study is the estimator model of the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM). The main findings show that the firm life cycle at the stage of growth and maturity significantly strengthens the influence of firm diversification on firm performance. On the other hand, the stage of decline fails to moderate the relationship between firm diversification and firm performance. This study discusses the implications and contributions of the findings theoretically, and provide some policy justifications for potential investors before they invest their money in the capital market.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.30-57
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• 2019

Purpose - This study analyzes the effect of internationalization represented as exporting on firm performance on the subject of SMEs operating in Masan Free Trade Zone which has shown poor performance recently despite its status as the oldest and largest free trade zone in Korea. We also analyze the effect of firm size on firm performance, and the moderating role of firm size in relation to internationalization and firm performance. Design/methodology - This study uses multiple regression models for unbalanced panel data as the empirical tools for the estimation of the effect that internationalization has on firm performance (ROA or ROS). Our sample consists of 91 manufacturing SMEs among all 110 companies located in Masan Free Trade Zone as of 2017. Findings - The degree of internationalization has a negative impact on firm performance. However, firm size turns out to have a positive effect and play a positive moderating role in the relation to internationalization and firm performance. This seems to be because most tenant companies operating in Masan Free Trade Zone are small firms whose costs of internationalization may exceed the benefits. Empirical results also show that longer CEO tenure has a greater negative effect on firm performance. Originality/value - The originality/value of this paper can be found in 3 aspects. First, we conducted an empirical analysis on the relationship between the internationalization and firm performance of SMEs in a specific region, namely, Masan Free Trade Zone. Second, while most previous studies focused on listed medium companies, most of the sample of this study are small and medium non-listed enterprises. Third, it is witnessed that firm size has a positive moderating effect on the relation between internationalization and firm performance.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.25
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• pp.43-68
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• 2008

From intuitional viewpoint many researchers have been considering that information technology investment serves to increase the productivity and the profitability of firm. But the empirical studies that have examined the relationship between information technology investment and firm performance have reported mixed findings. In spite of that, recently there has been growing recognition of the importance of assessing information technology investment in determining future performance of firms. This study examines the relationship between investment in information technology and performance of securities companies in Korea. I use Tobin's Q, a financial market-based measure of firm performance and investigates the pure effect of information technology investment on firm performance after controlling for a variety of firm specific variables which may affect on firm performance. This study finds that information technology investment have a significantly positive association with Tobin's Q. This result implicates that information technology investment contributes to a firm's future performance potential.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.9-19
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• 2020

The study aims to answer why the previous studies find the positive or insignificant effect of the CEO's abilities on firm performance. Using 34,285 CEO-firm-year panel data from the U.S. publicly traded firms drawn from the BoardEx and EXECUXOMP database during from 1992 to 2014, the results show that the fit of the CEO's generality or specialist ability with firm strategy matters on firm performance and risk. This study computes a discrete STRATEGY composite measure to construct firm strategy types, such as Prospect or Defend and use CEOs' résumés to construct an index of general skills that are transferable across firms and industries. The results find that generalist CEOs are more suitable for prospectors than specialist CEOs. Firm performance is much better when specialist CEOs work for Defenders. Although the firm performance is better too for the generalist CEOs who fit for the Prospect strategy, the firm's risk is up too. The result suggests that firms need to consider their chosen business strategy to recruit and select CEOs Our findings provide direct evidence that the match between CEO's ability and the firm's strategy is crucial to firm performance and risk.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.943-952
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of COVID-19 on corporate governance attributes and firm performance association. This research used a sample of 188 non-financial firms from the Malaysian market for the years 2019-2020. We found that the COVID-19 has affected all firm characteristics including firm performance, governance structure, dividend, liquidity, and leverage level, yet, the difference between prior and post COVID-19 pandemic is not significant. Also, the investigation revealed that board size exerts a significant positive impact on firm performance. After splitting the sample based on year, however, we found that board size does not matter in the uncertain time of the current crisis, while board diversity appeared to be significantly enhancing firm performance in the crisis time compared to the prior year where it has an inverse association with firm performance in both indicators. Board meetings and audit committee meetings seemed to have a significant negative influence on firm performance pre and post-COVID-19. This study contributes to the limited literature by providing the first empirical evidence on the impact of Coronavirus on the firm performance and corporate governance association.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.15-41
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• 2012

Recently, there has been increasing interests on strategic orientation and intellectual capital as measures of competitiveness and their impacts on firm performance. However, there was little research which verify empirically the relationships among strategic orientation, intellectual capital and firm peformance. This research scrutinizes the effects of strategic orientaion on intellectual capital and firm performance. Based on literature review, research model and hypotheses are developed and empirically tested. The results are as follows. First, market orientaion and entrepreneurial orientation have positive effects on human capital, structural capital and customer capital which compose intellectual capital. Second, market orientaion and entrepreneurial orientation do not influence firm performance directly, but indirectly influence firm performace via intellectual capital. Third, the hypothesis about the relationship between intellectual capital and firm performacne is partially accepted. Only customer capital affects firm performance. Discussions and implications are followed.