• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.15-41
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of the BSCs of 642 firms excluding the financial and insurance companies listed on KOSPI. The analysis of financial performance through analysis of major financial ratios between BSC and non-BSC firms is compared with the input of human and material resources for business growth. We will promote the spread of BSC and examine the areas differentiated performance improvement. The analytical categories are manufacturing, service, wholesale and retail, and information and communications, which are 2,136 business years out of 2,378 final analytical samples. The results of the analysis are as follows. As a result of the analysis, among the four industries analyzed, the industries that showed the best performance were manufacturing. In the case of service industry, growth and activity were lower than those of non-adoption (NA) companies, but the operating margin was significantly different from manufacturing. However, market value was higher than that of NA companies, and R&D expenditures and advertising expenses were significantly higher than NA firms. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in profitability between the BSC and NA firms, but the market value was very significant. EPS is 5.22 times, BPS is 5.64 times, PBR is 1.3 times, and EVA is 35 times higher. In addition, R&D expenditure and advertising expenditure are more than twice as high as those of NA. In the case of the service industry, there is no significant difference in the growth performance from the NA firms. Activity indicators, BSC introduced companies are three times lower than both the total assets turnover and the capital turnover rate. The operating profit margin was high at 45.8% for introduced companies and 37.2% for non-introduced companies. In market value analysis, only BPS was 1.68 times higher. On the other hand, investment in welfare expenses is 0.2% of total assets, which is relatively low compared to NA firms. However, research and development expenses and advertising expenses are 2.1% and 1.02% of total assets, respectively, but they are relatively lower than those of NA firms. Unlike the manufacturing and service industries, wholesale and retail trade was significantly higher than the NA firms in terms of sales growth and total assets growth rate. In terms of market value, EPS and BPS were significantly higher, but the benefits, R&D expenditures, and advertising expenses were lower than those of NA firms. The information and communication industry showed lower level of performance than the NA firms in all indicators except cash liquidity, BPS, and EVA.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.51-78
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• 2021

Followed by 'start-up', the theme of 'scale-up' has been considered as an important agenda in both corporate and policy spheres. In particular, although it is a term commonly used in industry and policy fields, even a conceptual definition has not been achieved from the academic perspective. "Corporate Growth" in the academic aspect and "Business Growth" in the practical management field have different understandings (Achtenhagen et al., 2010). Previous research on corporate growth has not departed from Penrose(1959)'s "Firm as a bundle of resources" and "the role of managers". Based on the theory and background of economics, existing research has mainly examined factors that contribute to firms' growth and their growth patterns. Comparatively, we lack knowledge on the firms' growth with a focus on 'annual revenue growth rate'. In the early stage of the firms, they tend to exhibit a high growth rate as it started with a lower level of annual revenue. However, when the firms reach annual revenue of more than 100 billion KRW, a threshold to be classified as a 'middle-standing enterprise' by Korean standards, they are unlikely to reach a high level of revenue growth rate. In our study, we used our sample of 333 companies (6.7% out of 5,000 'fastest-growing' companies) which reached 15% of the compound annual growth rate in the last three years with more than USD 100 million. It shows that sustaining 'high-growth' above a certain firm size is difficult. The study focuses on firms with annual revenue of more than $100 billion (approximately 120 billion KRW) from the 'Inc. 2020 fast-growing companies 5,000' list. The companies have been categorized into 1) Fast-growing companies (revenue CAGR 15%~40% between 2016 and 2019), 2) Hyper-growing companies (40%~99.9%), and 3) Super-growing (100% or more) with in-depth analysis of each group's characteristics. Also, the relationship between the revenue growth rate, individual company's strategy choice (market orientation, generic strategy, growth strategy, pioneer strategy), industry/market environment, and firm age is investigated with a quantitative approach. Through conducting the study, it aims to provide a reference to the 'Hyper-Growing Model' that combines the paths and factors of growth strategies. For policymakers, our study intends to provide a reference to which factors or environmental variables should be considered for 'optimal effective combinations' to promote firms' growth.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.446-453
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• 2018

The study examines corporate research & development (R&D) expenditure in modern finance. Firms may face one of the essential issues to maintain their optimal levels of R&D expenditures in order to increase corporate profit. Accordingly, financial determinants that may influence R&D spending are statistically tested for firms listed on the KOSPI stock market during the period from 2010 to 2015. Financial determinants which may discriminate between firms in high-growth and low-growth industries are examined on a relative basis. Explanatory variables including one-period lagged R&D expenses (Lag_RD), cross-product term between the Lag_RD and type of industry (as a dummy variable), and advertising expenses (ADVERTISE) significantly influenced corporate R&D intensity. Moreover, high-growth firms in domestic capital markets showed higher Lag_RD, profitability (PROF) and foreign equity ownership (FOS) than their counterparts in low-growth sectors, whereas low-growth firms had higher market-value based leverage (MLEVER) and ADVERTISE. Overall, these results are expected to influence decision-making of firms concerning the optimal level of R&D expenditure, which may in turn enhance shareholder wealth.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.123-147
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• 1990

This paper examines the changing geography of producer service industries in the 1980s. The foci of this study are to analyze the regional distribution of each producer services, and to reveal the spatial linkage of producer services. Further this paper asserts the potential role of producer services for reducing the potential endogenous development in the periphery. During the 1981-86 period, producer service industries grew more rapidly than other service sectors and manufacturing sector. The main reason of the raid growth of producer services is attributable to an increase in demand for intermediate services from manufacturing firms. In order to compete an increasingly complex business environment, firms have expanded the amount of effort devoted to activities such as planning, coordination and control, and consequently have increased their use of producer services. The most distinctive feature of the location of producer services is spatial concentration into Seoul and surrounding region. Especially the degree of the concentration o business services into the Capital Region has been accelerating during the 1990s. The pattern of employment growth and regional distribution of producer services show a clear core / periphery disparity. Much of the regional inequality in producer services is largely due to variation in demand associated with the pattern of corporation headquarters with the pattern of corporation headquarters and branch plants location with large manufacturing firms. The analysis of spatial division of labor reflects that producer services are related to the location of headquarters in manufacturing industry. Headquarters in manufacturing firms and business service firms tend to cluster each other. Most of the headquarters spatially separated from branch offices are clustered heavily in Seoul. Especially headquarters of business services and insurance services are overwhelmingly concentrated into Seoul. The firms whose headquarters are located in Seoul have a linkage pattern on a nationwide scale. It is viewed have little potential for generating local multiplier effects and regional development. In the light of the result of this study, producer services are not likely to disperse soon to peripheral regions. Consequently the absence of policies directed at enhancing producer sevice in the periphery, concentration tendency would continue to reinforce the core's dominance at the expense of peripheral regions. From a regional perspective, the quality of a region's producer service sector is a key determinant of economic growth, since manu industrial location decisions are influenced by the differential availability of producer services among regions. Poor performance of producer services in peripheral regions seemed to be linked to the region's manufacturing base. Low-wage, standardized branch plants are not likely to induce the growth in knowledge intensive services associated with high-technology corporate headquarters. Producer services may help to create and attract new business including manufacturing firms, and also to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of local firms. Therefore the provision of service producing activities would be lead not only to generate and retain endogenous development but also to attract external firms, especially small and medium sized firms which have a lower propensity of internalized services. Hence, it may be more efficient to create and expanse new locally owned producer services rather than to attract branch plants of mult-locational firms in order to make indigenous economic development.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.185-208
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• 2001

A growing number of firms are competitively entering into e-business because they see the high potential of e-business growth as an opportunity. The positive expectation of e-business market leads most firms to go into e-business, but it is not clarified what kinds of benefits firms gain through e-business. In this paper, we examine whether firms' economic benefits are related to e-business activities. For this purpose, we employ event study methodology and assess the cumulative abnormal returns for 782 e-business initiatives made by firms listed in Korean capital markets. The well-known "Dot Com Effect" is empirically verified through this study. The results of this study indicate that the e-business potential is highly evaluated in the capital market, and e-business firms are expected to create significant benefits in the future period.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.150-177
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• 2018

We review two specific risk management strategies of venture capitalists (VCs): deal syndication and domain specialization with respect to their explicit role in adjudging and managing the overall magnitude of information asymmetry risks. These are analyzed for three distinct categories of VC firms as classified by their funding stage focus (early vs. late), ownership type (foreign vs. domestic) and the human capital composition of the core VC team (entrepreneurial vs. investor). The analysis is based on both secondary data and primary data for active 72 VC firms in India. Syndication is moderately important for entrepreneurial VC firms, but not at all important for early-stage focused and foreign VC firms. This finding is distinctly different from what has been conventionally observed in the literature. Among the various arenas of domain specialization, high-technology focus is important for all segments of VC firms. In the context of investment-stage focus, foreign VC firms exhibit growth-stage specialization, while entrepreneurial VC firms concentrate on earlier investment stages.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.70-83
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• 2018

Korea's five leading industries-chemical, automobile, shipbuilding, metal and electronics-have been the growth engines of the Korean economy for the last 30 years. However, with their performance weakening in the past few years, Korea's annual growth rate has dropped to less than 2%. Just as the Japanese economy struggled through the lost decades, Korea's leading industries have been facing signals of arriving at a Strategic Inflection Point ("SIP") since the mid-2000s. The objective of this study is to present an appropriate value strategy for Korean firms in leading industries to gain sustainable competitive advantages. This paper examines the following issues : First, it diagnoses the signs and timing of SIP for the five leading industries. Second, this study examines 78 Korean and Japanese firms in order to understand the adaptation strategies of the highest and lowest performing firms from a value strategy point of view. Third, it empirically analyzes the correlation between the indicators of value strategy and the accounting performances of the Korean and Japanese firms. The data set used in the cluster analysis were collected from KISLINE database of NICE Information Service and annual reports. The findings in the case analyses of high and low performing companies show that high value-added specialty chemical materials and electronic component manufacturers that had a strong focus on value creation were defined as high performing companies. And in the cosmetic and automobile industries, companies with a strong emphasis on value appropriation gained high performance. Furthermore, the study conducted a cluster analysis based on two indicators R&D and advertisement expense. The analysis shows that a significant gap exists in the operating incomes among three groups classified under the value strategy. The study recommends that Korean firms are requested to increase R&D expenditure, conduct M&A and collaborate with companies that own source technologies to narrow the technology gap and improve their segment portfolio from commodity to value-added products.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.300-308
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• 2016

Research on OECD and Korea have shown that high-growth startups are the keys to job creation and that these companies are very important for economic growth. Given that the large-scale entry of women into the labor force accelerates economic growth and women have far lower levels of participation in growth-oriented entrepreneurship than men do, accelerating female entrepreneurship could have positive effects on the Korean economy. This paper uses data from several databases to do a comparison analysis between women's and men's start-ups to explore the factors that explain the lag in building high-growth firms among women. Women startups make up nearly 34% of startups(defined as less than 7 years of establishment), but only 6% of high-growth startups. Women rarely own large businesses, reflecting their low levels of initial capital and outside financing. Regardless of gender, entrepreneurs face many of the same challenges in starting businesses, but this study shows three primary factors for female entrepreneurs that lead to a less high-growth startup: a greater financing gap than for men(this gap is more apparent for high-growth firms), a lack of ideas, knowledge, and experience(related to the lack of mentorship), and lastly the difficulty maintaining a work-life balance. The findings are very similar with those found in studie's in the US(financing gap, work-life balance, and lack of mentorship). Further studies are required to identify more specific factors behind the gender gap in ideas, knowledge, and experience.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.115-144
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• 2010

This study aims to empirically verify that the effect of investor protection on risk taking may differ according to growth opportunities. Furthermore, this paper intends to verify the hypothesis that the impact of risk taking upon corporate value will also be influenced by growth opportunities. The results of the analysis show that firms with high growth opportunities demonstrate greater risk taking as investor protection gets stronger while the degree of investor protection has little or no impact on their risk taking in case of firms suffering a lack of growth opportunities. In addition, risk taking has a statistically significant positive impact on improving corporate value for firms with sufficient growth opportunities, in contrast the impact is little or none when firms lack growth opportunities.