• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.75-79
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• 2015

This paper investigates two important relationships relating to firm behaviour and performance using econometric methods. First, the relationship between product market competition and innovation is examined, and then the association between innovation and productivity is separately investigated. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Business Longitudinal Database are used in the analysis. For every measure of competition considered except one, the results of the modelling are consistent with an anti-Schumpeterian relationship between competition and innovation - that is, firms appear more likely to innovate if they face stronger competition. The results examining the relationship between innovation and productivity, although weaker than those between competition and innovation, suggest that innovation is associated with better productivity outcomes.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.53-80
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• 2021

The main objective of this study is to determine whether there have been TFP increases in the Korean manufacturing sector due to trade liberalization since the 1990s. Based on the methodology proposed by Pavcnik (2002), which focuses on the channel through which trade liberalization measures enhance overall industrial productivity by triggering the exit of low-productivity firms, this study tests the following two hypotheses: first, the TFP increase in the Korean tradable industry is not higher than that in the non-tradable industry, and second, plants with lower TFP levels did not exit from the tradable industry. Through the rejection of these two hypotheses, it is possible to infer indirectly the effect of trade liberalization on firm productivity rates in Korea since the 1990s. First, this analysis reveals that since the 1990s, the TFP of the tradable sector compared to the non-tradable sector presented a statistically meaningful increase only in the 2000s, when China joined the WTO and trade increased sharply between Korea and China. Secondly, TFP growth in the tradable sector was positively affected by exits, as it was plants with lower TFP levels that ceased to exist.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.1-29
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• 2013

This paper examines the effect of trade liberalization or globalization, more broadly, on plants' growth as well as on "bi-polarization". To do so, we reviewed the possible theoretical mechanisms put forward by recent heterogeneous firm trade theories, and provided available micro-evidence from existing empirical studies on Korean manufacturing sector. Above all, the empirical evidence provided in this paper strongly suggests that globalization promoted growth of Korean manufacturing plants. Specifically, evidence suggests that exporting not only increases within-plant productivity but also promotes introduction of new products and dropping of old products. However, the empirical evidence also suggest that globalization has some downsides: widening productivity differences across plants and rising wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. Specifically, trade liberalization widens the initial productivity differences among plants through learning from export market participation as well as through interactions between exporting and R&D, both of which increase plants' productivity. We also show that there is only a small group of large and productive "superstar" plants engaged in both R&D and exporting activity, which can fully utilize the potential benefits from globalization. Finally, we also show evidence that trade liberalization interacts with innovation to increase the skilled-unskilled wage inequality.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.15-43
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• 1997

This paper investigates empirically the relationship between various business portfolio properties (particularly technological properties) and chaebol's performance using data on the 50largest chaebols in Korea. In addition to the traditional indexes to measure diversification such as entropy index, we calculated inter-industry technological similarity using R'||'&'||'D expenditure data by industry and 1990 Input-output Table in korea, and obtained chaebol-level technological relatedness and internal transaction proportion from chaebols' business profile, inter-inustry technological similarity and 1990 input-output table. We applied factor analysis on 13 business portfolio property indexes and showed that they could be grouped into 3 dimensions. diversification scope, inter-business relatedness and degree of vertical integration. In this paper, using 50 largest chaebols' financial data (1989-1994), we analyzed empirically the effect of business portfolio properties on ROS(Return On Sales) which is conventional index for firm performance and on TFP(Total Factor Productivity) growth which is a pure measure of firm performance. To utilize the advantage of panel data, FEM(Fixed Effect Model) and REM(Random Effect Model) were used. The empirical result shows that the entropy index as a measurement of inter-business relatedness in not significant but technological relatedness index is significant. OLS estimates on pooled data were considerably different from FEM or REM estimates on panel data. By introducing interaction effect among the three variables for business portfolio properties, we obtained three findings. First, only VI(Vertical integration) has a significant positive correlation with ROS. Second, when using TFP growth as an dependent variable, both TR(Technological Relatedness) and VI are significant and positively related to the dependent variable. Third, the interaction term between TR and VI is significant and negatively affects TFP growth, meaning that TR and VI are substitutes. These results suggest strategic directions on restructuring business portfolio. As VI is increased, chaebols will get more profit. A higher level of either TR or VI will increase TFP growth rate, but increase in both TR and VI will have a negative effect on TFP growth. To summarize, certain business portfolio properties such as VI and TR can be considered "resources" themselves since they can affect profit rate and productivity growth. VI and TR have a synergy effect of change in profit rate and productivity growth. VI increases ROS and productivity growth, while TR increases productivity growth representing a technological synergy effect.t.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.400-406
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• 2020

In this study, we first measured the malmquist productivity index by DEA among the Korean public firms. Second, there are 12 public corporations whose productivity (MPI) has decreased compared to 2014. This is mainly because of a decrease in productivity, as well as a decrease in the technical efficiency change index (TECI), impacted by the internal environment, and the increase in productivity because of an increase in the technology change index (TCI) impacted by the external environment. Finally, the analysis of the impact on the management assessment scores showed that the productivity (MPI), scale efficiency (CRS), size of sales, operating profitability, and total capital investment efficiency are significantly related (+), except for the asset turnover, which is a static financial ratio. Meanwhile, the management evaluation scores between the high-productivity public corporations and low-performing public corporations were significantly discriminating. Thus, it is confirmed that the nation's state-run companies must manage their MPIs in a time series to score high in management evaluation.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.48-64
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• 2021

Purpose - This study examined the effect of tariff cuts on productivity in Korea's manufacturing industries and the effect of initial productivity level before tariff cuts on productivity improvement after tariff cuts. We also attempted to identify whether import-driven or export-driven factors are more important for productivity improvement, especially in low productivity industries. Design/methodology - Since tariff reduction is a policy decision that can affect cross-industry, its impact is spread across all industries beyond the scope of a single firm through the input and output network of industry structure. Accordingly, we proposed a new method to measure the change in productivity to reflect the impact of tariff cuts across industries. Through an Armington CGE analysis, changes in endogenous variables can be directly measured after the exogenous shock of tariff reduction, and the amount of movements in productivity triggered by tariff cuts can also be calculated. We can thus assess the effectiveness of exogenous policy, such as tariff cuts, through the difference between the benchmark and counterfactual values of endogenous variables. Findings - This study confirmed that tariff reduction positively affected productivity improvement in Korea's manufacturing industries. It also confirmed that productivity gains occur in Korea's leading export industries. Finally, greater productivity gains were recorded in the group with additional high-export-share or high-import-share conditions for low productivity industries. These results are, in a limited sense, consistent with the existing studies that emphasize the importance of exports and imports on productivity improvement, especially for low productivity industries. Originality/value - The results of our experiments are different from those of non-CGE studies, which measure the industry-level change in productivity with dummy coefficients, in terms of directly calculating the amount of change in productivity. In addition, we propose that the Armington CGE model is more appropriate than the Melitz CGE model to directly measure the productivity after tariff cuts. This is because the Melitz CGE model assumes the given specific productivity density, which does not change after an overall drop of tariffs. To the best of our knowledge, this approach to directly calculating productivity by reflecting the impact of tariff reduction across industries through CGE analysis, is unprecedented in this literature.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.123-138
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• 2018

In this paper, we use panel dataset from Korean linked worker-firm to analyse the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity or labor costs. We measure 'labor productivity' as added value per capita, 'cost of labor' as labor cost per capita and estimate a dynamic panel model to study the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity or labor costs. Empirical analysis results show that the workforce age structure is positively related to productivity and labor costs, but only up to the aged of 35-39. That is, we find that an increase in the proportion of younger workers or elder workers rather than the aged 35-39 has a negative effect on productivity and labor cost. In particular, the difference between the estimation coefficient of productivity and labor cost when the share of workers aged 50 or older is increased instead of the aged 35-39 is higher than the difference between the estimation coefficient of productivity and labor cost when the share of workers aged 30 or younger is increased instead of the aged 35-39. Our results exhibit that it is reasonable for firms to worry about declining productivity of elderly workers, whereas firms already used older workers efficiently, such as by adjusting their labor costs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.88-97
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• 2015

Quality management system is a systematic quality improvement approach for firm-wide management for the purpose of improving performance in terms of quality, productivity, organizational characteristics, customer satisfaction, and firm's profitability. Recently, many researchers have examined the relationship between quality management system and firm's performance. The conclusion from these studies is that effective implementation of quality management system improves firm's performance. This paper extends the existing research on quality management system and firm's performance by examining how the impact of quality management system on firm's performance is moderated by organizational characteristics and customer satisfaction. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 introduces the necessity and purpose of the research. Section 2 reviews quality management system and summarizes the results of previous studies. Section 3 present the proposed research model, the hypotheses related to the relationship between quality management system and firm's performance. Section 4 provides results from the data analysis. Section 5 presents discussions, results, further implications, and research limitations. An extensive literature research was designed to identify and retrieve empirical studies relevent to develop the hypotheses. The objectives of this study identify the factors of quality management system on business performance. The results are as follows: First, The management responsibility, resource management and product realization influenced significantly on financial performance. The management responsibility and product realization influenced significantly on non-financial performance. Second, the research showed a fact that organizational characteristics and customer satisfaction effect as a moderated between quality management system and business performance. The implications of our results are that organizational characteristics and customer satisfaction moderate the firm's performance.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.98-136
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• 2020

We empirically investigate the determinants of a firm's exit from exporting, using Korean manufacturing firm-level data for the period from 2006 to 2014. Specifically, we estimate the effects of not only firm-level and industry-level characteristics, but also macroeconomic variables on the probability that a firm stops exporting by applying a Complementary Log-Log Model analysis. The results of our estimation suggest that firm-level heterogeneity, such as workforce size, capital intensity, intangible assets and foreign ownership, industry-level variation, such as the labor displacement rate, and macroeconomic variables, such as domestic demand and world demand, significantly affect the possibility of a firm ceasing exports. Also, we show that market interest rates increase the possibility of an export cessation and that the effects of market interest rates are more pronounced on firms with a higher debt ratio. In the primary exporting industries, the probability of a firm ceasing exports decreases as productivity at the firm rises.

• Proceedings of the Technology Innovation Conference
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• 2006.02a
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• pp.44-77
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• 2006

The technological innovation has been recognized critical factors of productivity of firms and key contribution of improvement of firm performance for a long time. Many researchers have investigated the relationship between R&D investment or patents as a proxy of innovation and productivity. But there were some problem such as lacking of data and ambiguity of innovation definition. So, previous literatures have some difficulty in reliability of analysis for using only survey data. And investigating the relationship R&D and other factors is very difficult. Therefore, this paper tries to investigate and analysis the relationship between innovation and performance of Korean manufacturing firms. Using KIS2002(Korean Innovation survey 2002) which was based on Oslo manual in 2002 and financial data of firms (KISINFO), I will intend to establish the reliability of multiple analysis. In detail, I will investigate whether the innovation input have effect on the innovation output, whether the innovation output have effect on productivity for heterogeneity and what factor of innovation environment have effect on the innovation itself.