• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

Purpose - Entrepreneurship promotion is emerging as an important economic growth agenda. However, in Korea, entrepreneurship has weakened because of the collapse of the venture bubbles of the 2000s and the global economic recession in 2008, which have induced the business community to choose stability over risk. The Korean government has been implementing several support projects to inspire and promote youth entrepreneurship through various means including financial assistance; however, the perpetuation rate of young entrepreneurship is still low as compared to advanced economies such as the US and EU. This case study focuses on the Youth Start-Up Business Support Program of the Small & Medium Business Corporation, and explores practical alternatives. Further, it aims to suggest managerial factors and a conceptual model for change management factors affecting the business performance creation of a startup company, based on the Small and medium Business Corporation's young venture startup fund. Research design, data, and methodology - Many studies examine the current progress and issues of startup firms, for example, a lack of systematic cultivation of entrepreneurship and startup business training, lack of commercialization funding for youth startup businesses, lack of mentoring, and inadequate infrastructure. From prior research, we address four factors, namely, personal managerial capabilities, innovative business model, sufficient cash flow, and social network, affecting startup companies' business performance. This study involved a sample survey of 200 young entrepreneurs to investigate casual relations between the four factors and business performance. A regression analysis was used to verify the hypotheses. Results - First, in relation to differences in the founder's personal characteristics, age, sales amount, and number of employees significantly impact business performance. Second, regarding the causal relation between the four factors for creating business performance, an innovative business model and social networking have supported the hypotheses, revealing that the more that a start-up founder has an innovative business model and social networking, the more the start-up firms are likely to have better performance (e.g., sales volume, employment, ROE, ROI, etc.). Although the founder's competency and sufficient cash flow have no significant relationship with business performance, the mean value was higher performance for high founder's competency and sufficient cash flow. Conclusions - This study provides basic data on policy support strategies of the Small and Medium Business Corporation, to help young entrepreneurs achieve their start-up business goals. It shows that young entrepreneurship startup firms should strive to explore ideas to satisfy customers' needs, and that changes in customer value and the continuous innovation of business model differentiation are required to actively respond to change management. Moreover, at the infant startup stage, they should activate social network programs to share information, thereby offsetting resource scarcity and managing business risk. Further, the establishment of a long-term vision and the implementation of training programs in related specific fields should be supported to strengthen founders' personal capabilities.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.291-299
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• 2015

This study analyze empirically how the characteristics of a venture business' founder and company development stage will affect on B2B transactions and business management difficulties based on "2012 Survey of Korea Venture Firms". According to this study, there are different frequencies of difficulties in B2B transactions depending on the founder's age and educational background as well as different recognitions about business management difficulties with considering the founder's age, educational background, major and other factors. It is analyzed that in educational background factor, master's degree and in major factor, humanities and social science show comparatively frequent business management difficulties. On the other hand, it is analyzed that there is not meaningful difference in the recognition about the difficulty-frequency in B2B transactions in each company growth stage. It is considered that the difficulties occur frequently in every company growth stage but, these types of difficulties are solved routinely. At the Exit phase, however, there is high recognition about business management difficulties as the transaction with the companies in this stage is avoided.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2013

The current solar cell industry is experiencing a temporary plateau due to a sluggish economy and oversupply. It is expected that the solar industry can see similar growth to that of the recent past by overcoming the current situation, as there is growing demand globally for solar energy. The current situation led to restructuring of the world's solar industry, and domestic firms will need to have competitiveness through strategic approaches and proprietary technology to survive in the global solar market. Crystalline and amorphous silicon based solar cells have led the solar industry and occupied half or more of the market thus far. They will do so in the future PV market as well by playing a pivotal role in the solar industry. In this paper, the current status and prospects of silicon based solar cells, from materials to comprehensive and high efficiency technology that can emerge in the future, are discussed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.131-141
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• 2019

This paper investigates a relationship between a market position of a venture capitalist(i.e.,VC) and its subsequent performance. Although a VC firm may perform better if it occupies a narrow niche(e.g.,specialist), which allows the firm to attain deep insider knowledge and build an identity as an industry expert, a firm may perform better if it has a broader niche(e.g.,generalist), which gives the firm access to more diverse information and opportunities and to effectively spread out potential risks. Given that accesses to valuable information and chances are critical for success in venture capital industry, we hypothesize that venture capitalists with broad niche width are more likely to grow in the future and analyze 26-year data on US venture capital industry. We found that, in general, a firm can enjoy the advantage of having a broad niche. However, the return to having a broad niche varies depending on its status within the market: a return greater for low- status than high-status VC firms. Our finding suggests that explorative efforts may be more rewarding for low-status VC firms.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.2 no.1_2
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• pp.27-45
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• 1999

Recently, the changes of industrial location can be explained as the concentration of small and medium manufacturing firms or high technology industries by industrial restructuring in Seoul metropolitan area, and the dispersion of large companies'branch plant into the peripheral region in Korea. Particularly deindustrialization is progressing in the inner city and manufacturing firms disperse into the outer city in Seoul metropolitan area. This study reviews on the structural perspectives for the changing industrial location factors. The development of capitalism organizes economic spacial structures and Its characteristics can be reasons which can raise changes in industrial location. Korean economy rapidly grew in the movement process of international capital. And capital accumulation by continuous economic growth is raising the spatial division of labor or the spatial difference and inequality on land price, wages. the base of labor reproduction. Therefore, these factors are the most reasons to raise the changes of industrial location in Korea. Hereafter the study on these factors, that is, in relation to sociocultural structure and land use structure have to be progress more concretely.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.153-175
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• 2010

Firms must focus on innovative activities via R&D investment in order to secure competitive advantage and sustainable growth. However, their innovative activities do not always result in successful outcomes and are often obstructed by uncertainty and non-appropriability of technology being developed and by insufficient internal resources and capabilities to tap into it. In this situation, collaboration with external partners can be a part of good alternative strategy to solve those problems. This paper aims to analyze what factors lead to Korean manufacturing companies’ decision to collaborate with external partners for technology innovation. For empirical analysis, we used the Korean Innovation Data compiled by STEPI, government-funded research institute in Korea. The research findings are: 1) firms tend to participate in external collaboration for product innovation with greater firm size, more past collaboration experiences and when they belong to high-tech industries 2) unlike our expectation, our chosen ‘innovation-impeding’ factors are found not to contribute to the enhancement of collaboration for product innovation.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to investigate empirically the characteristics of financial structure by using 76 fisheries corporations in Korea, and to suggest implications of the empirical results for government's financial policy for fisheries corporations. For the empirical test, we choose the following factors as the explanatory variables of cross-sectional regression analysis:firm-size(SIZE), collateral value of assets(TFATA), business risk(BRISK), growth(GROWTH), effective tax(ET), profitability(PROFIT). Two different debt ratios are used as dependent variables. One is defined as the ratio of total debt to total assets and the other is as that of long-term debt to total asset in terms of book value. The sample consists of 76 fisheries firms and sample period is 14 years from 1982 till 1995. From the results of cross-sectional regression analysis, the adjusted R$^2$values were high, 16∼79% and the overall F values indicated to be statistically significant. The results of cross sectional regression analysis show that the characteristics of financial structure fur fisheries corporations are as follows ; (1) Firm-size and collateral value of assets are the major factors of financial structure for fisheries corporations. That is, the larger firm-size the higher is debt ratio. This means that financial institutions conventionally lend more collateral loans with fixed assets like land, building rather than management capacities or credits. (2) To be consistent with a pecking-order theory, the higher is profitability the lower is debt ratio in fisheries corporations. (3) Corporations with high effective tax rate have lower financial leverage. Although the empirical results are inconsistent with traditional static trade-off theory, we think it would be attributed to government's various tax shelterings for fisheries which are likely to reduce tax shield effect of interests.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.235-246
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• 2023

In the rapid technological development of artificial intelligence (AI), electric vehicles, and robots based the fourth industrial revolution, semiconductors determine the core performance, and semiconductor competitiveness is directly related to national competitiveness. However, the Korean semiconductor industry has continuously weakened its competitiveness in the system semiconductor field, excluding memory semiconductors, so in this study, a new smart contract basedblockchain business model to engage the global market, which is the most urgent need for the growth of Korean fabless system semiconductor industry in recession. F-SBM (Fabless-Smart contract based Blockchain Model) proposed. In this study, through the new F-SBM, it was verified how to engage new customers for fabless firms through smart contract based consortium blockchain regarding technology, economy, and reliability items of fabless. This model has great significance in improving the high entry barriers to engaging new customers for the long-cherished desire of the Korean fabless system semiconductor industry and deriving new growth solutions.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.37-45
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• 2015

Purpose - This paper's aim is to investigate whether or not gross profitability explains the cross-sectional variation of the stock returns in the Korean stock market. Gross profitability is an alternative profitability measure proposed by Novy-Marx in 2013 to predict cross-sectional variation of stock returns in the US. He shows that the gross profitability adds explanatory power to the Fama-French 3 factor model. Interestingly, gross profitability is negatively correlated with the book-to-market ratio. By confirming the gross profitability premium in the Korean stock market, we may provide some implications regarding the well-known value premium. In addition, our empirical results may provide opportunities for the fund distribution industry to promote brand new styles of funds. Research design, data, and methodology - For our empirical analysis, we collect monthly market prices of all the companies listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) of the Korea Exchanges (KRX). Our sample period covers July1994 to December2014. The data from the company financial statementsare provided by the financial information company WISEfn. First, using Fama-Macbeth cross-sectional regression, we investigate the relation between gross profitability and stock return performance. For robustness in analyzing the performance of the gross profitability strategy, we consider value weighted portfolio returns as well as equally weighted portfolio returns. Next, using Fama-French 3 factor models, we examine whether or not the gross profitability strategy generates excess returns when firmsize and the book-to-market ratio are controlled. Finally, we analyze the effect of firm size and the book-to-market ratio on the gross profitability strategy. Results - First, through the Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regression, we show that gross profitability has almost the same explanatory power as the book-to-market ratio in explaining the cross-sectional variation of the Korean stock market. Second, we find evidence that gross profitability is a statistically significant variable for explaining cross-sectional stock returns when the size and the value effect are controlled. Third, we show that gross profitability, which is positively correlated with stock returns and firm size, is negatively correlated with the book-to-market ratio. From the perspective of portfolio management, our results imply that since the gross profitability strategy is a distinctive growth strategy, value strategies can be improved by hedging with the gross profitability strategy. Conclusions - Our empirical results confirm the existence of a gross profitability premium in the Korean stock market. From the perspective of the fund distribution industry, the gross profitability portfolio is worthy of attention. Since the value strategy portfolio returns are negatively correlated with the gross profitability strategy portfolio returns, by mixing both portfolios, investors could be better off without additional risk. However, the profitable firms are dissimilar from the value firms (high book-to-market ratio firms); therefore, an alternative factor model including gross profitability may help us understand the economic implications of the well-known anomalies such as value premium, momentum, and low volatility. We reserve these topics for future research.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.113-121
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• 2014

Purpose - Recently, the number of corporations that practice environmental and social responsibility, besides engaging in traditional profit-seeking activities, has been growing steadily, as interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasing. Recent research on CSR practices has identified the relationship between CSR activities and corporate value as one of the main issues in this respect. Considering that donations constitute a large proportion of a company's charitable activities, we considered the extent of donation expenses as a charitable activity in order to mitigate sample selection bias. Specifically, we analyzed the impact of donation expenses on firm value, while investigating if this impact varied in response to the level of corporate governance of firms. Research design, data, and methodology - We used non-financial firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange, having their fiscal year end in December, and the sample period was 2006-2013. For the dependent variable, Tobin's q was used as the corporate value, and for the independent variable, donations were measured as the donation-expense-to-sales ratio. Corporate governance scores, as rated by the Korea Corporate Governance Service, were used to measure corporate governance levels because they consider the overall aspects of governance, including ownership structure, the board of directors, and the audit mechanism of individual companies. To examine the impact of donations on a company in relation to the level of corporate governance, we estimated regression models using the interaction terms of the governance dummy and donation variables. Then, we further estimated the regression models of two sub-samples that were classified according to the level of corporate governance. Similar to previous studies, the study uses variables that affect firm value, such as R&D expenditure, advertising expenses, EBITDA, debt-to-equity ratio, sales growth, company age, and company size as control variables. Results - The empirical results show that firm value significantly increased in response to an increase in donation expenses. Upon including the interaction terms of governance level dummy variables and donations, the coefficients of the interaction terms show significant positive values, while those of donation variables show significant negative values. In the strong governance sub-sample, the relationship between the donation expenses and corporate value was statistically positive (+) and significant. However, in the weak governance sub-sample, the relationship between the donation expenses and corporate value was statistically insignificant and negative (-). Conclusions - The empirical results suggest that donation expenses are significantly linked to an enhanced corporate value if firms have a good corporate governance structure. However, if the corporate governance structure is weak, the same relationship is not necessarily observed. The results of this study show that if a firm has high corporate governance, CSR practices enhance the company's reputation such that it has a positive (+) relationship with corporate value. If a firm has weak corporate governance, on the other hand, CSR practices are recognized as an agency cost and do not increase corporate value.