• Title/Summary/Keyword: High-growth firms

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Environment, Competence, and Strategy Effects on the Export Performance of Regional SMEs (지역 중소기업의 환경, 역량, 전략이 수출성과에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Seung-Ho;Huh, Moo-Yul
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.61-67
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    • 2015
  • Purpose - Exports have long been regarded as significant drivers of sustainable competitive advantage and growth among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The export activities of SMEs are particularly important in the context of export-oriented economies such as Korea. Although many studies have examined the determinants of exports, it is difficult to find empirical studies about the determinants of the export performance of regional SMEs. This study investigates the determinants of export performance in the regional SME context based on an integrated approach that combines the environment factor of industrial organization theory, competitive strategy theory, and the competences of the resource-based view. Research design, data, and methodology - To empirically analyze the determinants of export performance in the regional SMEs, data were collected from firms in the Daegu metropolitan area. Data were collected directly through questionnaire surveys; in addition, secondary financial data were also taken from the KIS-VALUE database. Out of the 175 responses that were received, 143 were considered to be worth examining. After testing the reliability and validity of the variables through multiple items such as environmental turbulence and competitive strategy, hypotheses were verified by using five multi-regression models. These models were: a control model with organizational size and age, an environmental model with technology and market turbulence, a competency model with R&D and foreign distribution channels, a strategy model with product and market differentiation, and an integrated model including all of these variables. Results - First, as a control variable, the organization size has significant positive effects on export performance. Second, technology turbulence based on industrial organization theory has significant positive effects on export performance, but market turbulence does not affect export performance. Third, the foreign market distribution competency of the resource-based view has strong positive effects on export performance, but the R&D competency does not affect export performance. Fourth, the product differentiation strategy from competitive strategy theory positively impacts export performance, but market differentiation does not affect export performance. Finally, in the integrated model, only the foreign distribution competency of the resource-based view has a significant effect on export performance. Conclusions - The empirical results of this study verified the usefulness of the rationales behind the three theories to explain the export performance of the regional SMEs, especially the importance of the foreign market distribution competency from the resource-based view. With regard to practical considerations, this study's implications suggest that the use of technological environmental changes by industries is better than the use of market changes. Further, the use of the product differentiation strategy is more effective than the use of the market-driving strategy, and the distribution channel competency plays a stronger role than the technology-oriented competency with regard to the export performance position of regional SMEs. Future studies should examine relational perspectives, such as trust among channel partners. Therefore, the configuration approach is more useful in enhancing pragmatism by comparing high- and low-export companies.

A Research on Development Measures of Information Services for Construction Technology (건설기술 정보서비스 구축 방안에 관한 연구)

  • Ok, Hyun;Kim, Jin-Uk
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.16 no.8
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    • pp.5707-5715
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    • 2015
  • Recently, construction industry has won an increasing number of orders for overseas construction projects, thereby achieving an external growth, but its competiveness is concentrated on the construction execution field. In particular, the plant field occupies most of the entire orders, which are concentrated regionally in the Middle East and Asia. In addition, low-cost orders are frequently caused by excessive competition. But its high value-added construction engineering(Below, CE) field's overseas market share and technological capacity are very low. Also, technological competiveness, in terms of order amount and other factors, is deepening in polarization between large CE companies and small and medium-sized CE firms. It is noted that the existing CE information systems mostly simply accumulate data such as design and specification standards and provide the information thereon to users, and thus have yet to provide the information essential for the CE and support such efforts. This study sought to prepare a system designed for sharing outstanding design documents information necessary for the CE industry, by category of construction so as to support the technological enhancement of the CE field. Toward that end, this study presented measures for constructing the system and services designed to exchange and share the outstanding design documents information and know-how by construction category necessary between ordering agencies and CE companies.

The Impact of Hotel Firms' Marketing Agility on Employee Job Crafting and Service Innovative Behavior (호텔기업의 마케팅 민첩성이 직원의 잡크래프팅 및서비스 혁신행동에 미치는 영향)

  • Bae, Moon-Gyu;Jeong, Gap-Yeon
    • Journal of Service Research and Studies
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.79-101
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    • 2024
  • This study aims to investigate the impact of hotel marketing agility on employee job crafting and service innovative behavior in the context of the uncertainties faced by the Korean hotel industry amidst a rapidly changing business environment. In the post-COVID era, hotel companies need to quickly detect market trends and respond flexibly to secure a competitive advantage and promote sustainable growth. Given the high proportion of face-to-face services in the hotel industry, marketing agility is emerging as a core competency to effectively cope with changing customer demands and market dynamics. However, an organization's agile marketing capabilities only take on true meaning when frontline employees voluntarily redesign their jobs and lead service process innovations. In this regard, job crafting, which refers to employees' active redefinition and modification of their job boundaries, can serve as a link between organizational agility and individual innovative behavior. By empirically analyzing the structural relationship between marketing agility, job crafting, and service innovative behavior in the hotel context, this study applies the concept of agility to the field of human resource management and provides new insights into the antecedents and outcomes of job crafting. The results show that hotel responsiveness has a significant positive impact on all three dimensions of job crafting. In the case of speed and flexibility, they had a significant positive effect on task and relational crafting, but the effect of speed on cognitive crafting was not significant. The implications of the study suggest that hotels' rapid decision-making and execution may actually constrain employees' cognitive crafting activities, such as reflecting on and reinterpreting the meaning and identity of their work. Furthermore, it is expected to provide meaningful insights for hotel managers facing environmental upheavals to seek practical measures to enhance agility and innovativeness.

An Empirical Study on the Influencing Factors of Perceived Job Performance in the Context of Enterprise Mobile Applications (업무성과에 영향을 주는 업무용 모바일 어플리케이션의 주요 요인에 관한 연구)

  • Chung, Sunghun;Kim, Kimin
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.31-50
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    • 2014
  • The ubiquitous accessibility of information through mobile devices has led to an increased mobility of workers from their fixed workplaces. Market researchers estimate that by 2016, 350 million workers will be using their smartphones for business purposes, and the use of smartphones will offer new business benefits. Enterprises are now adopting mobile technologies for numerous applications to increase their operational efficiency, improve their responsiveness and competitiveness, and cultivate their innovativeness. For these reasons, various organizational aspects concerning "mobile work" have received a great deal of recent attention. Moreover, many CIOs plan to allocate a considerable amount of their budgets mobile work environments. In particular, with the consumerization of information technology, enterprise mobile applications (EMA) have played a significant role in the explosive growth of mobile computing in the workplace, and even in improving sales for firms in this field. EMA can be defined as mobile technologies and role-based applications, as companies design them for specific roles and functions in organizations. Technically, EMA can be defined as business enterprise systems, including critical business functions that enable users to access enterprise systems via wireless mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. Specifically, EMA enables employees to have greater access to real-time information, and provides them with simple features and functionalities that are easy for them to complete specific tasks. While the impact of EMA on organizational workers' productivity has been given considerable attention in various literatures, relatively little research effort has been made to examine how EMA actually lead to users' job performance. In particular, we have a limited understanding of what the key antecedents are of such an EMA usage outcome. In this paper, we focus on employees' perceived job performance as the outcome of EMA use, which indicates the successful role of EMA with regard to employees' tasks. Thus, to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship among EMA, its environment, and employees' perceived job performance, we develop a comprehensive model that considers the perceived-fit between EMA and employees' tasks, satisfaction on EMA, and the organizational environment. With this model, we try to examine EMA to explain how job performance through EMA is revealed from both the task-technology fit for EMA and satisfaction on EMA, while also considering the antecedent factors for these constructs. The objectives of this study are to address the following research questions: (1) How can employees successfully manage EMA in order to enhance their perceived job performance? (2) What internal and/or external factors are important antecedents in increasing EMA users' satisfaction on MES and task-technology fit for EMA? (3) What are the impacts of organizational (e.g. organizational agility), and task-related antecedents (e.g., task mobility) on task-technology fit for EMA? (4) What are the impacts of internal (e.g., self-efficacy) and external antecedents (e.g., system reputation) for the habitual use of EMA? Based on a survey from 254 actual employees who use EMA in their workplace across industries, our results indicate that task-technology fit for EMA and satisfaction on EMA are positively associated with job performance. We also identify task mobility, organizational agility, and system accessibility that are found to be positively associated with task-technology fit for EMA. Further, we find that external factor, such as the reputation of EMA, and internal factor, such as self-efficacy for EMA that are found to be positively associated with the satisfaction of EMA. The present findings enable researchers and practitioners to understand the role of EMA, which facilitates organizational workers' efficient work processes, as well as the importance of task-technology fit for EMA. Our model provides a new set of antecedents and consequence variables for a TAM involving mobile applications. The research model also provides empirical evidence that EMA are important mobile services that positively influence individuals' performance. Our findings suggest that perceived organizational agility and task mobility do have a significant influence on task-technology fit for EMA usage through positive beliefs about EMA, that self-efficacy and system reputation can also influence individuals' satisfaction on EMA, and that these factors are important contingent factors for the impact of system satisfaction and perceived job performance. Our findings can help managers gauge the impact of EMA in terms of its contribution to job performance. Our results provide an explanation as to why many firms have recently adopted EMA for efficient business processes and productivity support. Our findings additionally suggest that the cognitive fit between task and technology can be an important requirement for the productivity support of EMA. Further, our study findings can help managers in formulating their strategies and building organizational culture that can affect employees perceived job performance. Managers, thus, can tailor their dependence on EMA as high or low, depending on their task's characteristics, to maximize the job performance in the workplace. Overall, this study strengthens our knowledge regarding the impact of mobile applications in organizational contexts, technology acceptance and the role of task characteristics. To conclude, we hope that our research inspires future studies exploring digital productivity in the workplace and/or taking the role of EMA into account for employee job performance.

A Case Studies on the Success Factors of Innovative SMEs (혁신 형 중소기업의 성공요인에 관한 사례연구)

  • Kim, Jin-Hee;Kim, Dae-Ho;Kim, Hong
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.65-88
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    • 2008
  • To achieve the age of 30,000 dollars GNP, The business with speed will hold a more crucial point than the business with scale, and the mass consumption market will be transformed and changed into the niche market. Moreover, it will not be easy for the company without the peculiar and creative technology to survive in the severe competition. Under these circumstances, The innovative company which knows how to use this new paradigm will select the better position in the changing market. Innovation type SMEs are contributing in maintaining the international competitiveness of domestic economy by serving high-tech and the promotion of employment. Also, Innovation type SMEs have the most important economic leverage in our domestic economy. It's a source of the growth in domestic economy. Therefore, A lot of countries have been trying to support innovation type SMEs (with a small capital and high-tech). And many countries also try to protect and promote the innovation type SMEs. Especially the Korean government is also promoting innovation type SMEs in many ways, because the future of innovation type SMEs are not bright. This study explored the three innovative SEMs and studied 1) entrepreneur characteristics, 2) the industry environment, 3) competitive strategies, and 4) resources and capabilities of organization, which have been considered as the success factors for entrepreneurial firms. This study also holds that the characteristics of entrepreneurs is one of the most important factor to impact the success of innovative SMEs. Most of entrepreneurs have started their business with high education career and field experiences and have high intentions in developing new/high techonologies, challenging spirits, and clear vision and goals. The innovative SMEs with small kinds of products and services, narrow market, and small resources are more sensitively impacted by the environment especially. But the SMEs which entered into market early could have the comparative excellencies in their market to survive and grow in the future. They also have competitive advantages in the market using differentiation strategies by technology innovation. Technology innovation and differention strategies are one of the success factors in SMEs, They entered into the niche market using this weapons. The capabilities of changing organization to their changing environment, the open orgarnization culture, the continuous employment education, and the building the organic organization are also success factors of innovative SMEs. The SMEs with the simple organization structure can make fast decisions and operate with the autonomous and flexible ways. These only three cases will not shown successful factors of over 12,000 Innovation type SMEs in Korea and this study of Innovation type SMEs is insufficient from all aspects. But this study have many implications for the future research and the entrepreneurs ready for their business.

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A Study on Profitability of the Allianced Discount Program with Credit Cards and Loyalty Cards in Food & Beverage Industry (제휴카드 할인프로그램이 외식업의 수익성에 미치는 영향)

  • Shin, Young Sik;Cha, Kyoung Cheon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.55-78
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    • 2011
  • Recently strategic alliance between business firms has become prevalent to overcome increasing competitive threats and to supplement resource limitation of individual firms. As one of allianced sales promotion activities, a new type of discount program, so called "Alliance Card Discount", is introduced with the partnership of credit cards and loyalty cards. The program mainly pursues short-term sales growth by larger discount scheme while spends less through cost share among alliance partners. Thus this program can be regarded as cost efficient discount promotion. But because there is no solid evidence that it can really deliver profitable sales growth, an empirical study for its effects on sales and profit should be conducted. This study has two basic research questions concerning the effects of allianced discount program ; 1)the possibility of sales increase 2) the profitability of the discount driven sales. In F&B industry, sales increase mainly comes from increased guest count. Especially in family restaurants, to increase the number of guests we need to enlarge the size of visitor group (number of visitors for one group) because customers visit by group in a special occasion. And because they pay the bill by group(table), the increase of sales per table is a key measure for sales improvement. The past researches for price & discount sensitivity and reference discount rate explain that price sensitive consumers have narrow reference discount zone and make rational purchase decision. Differently from all time discount scheme of regular sales promotions, the alliance card discount program only provides the right to get discount like discount coupon. And because it is usually once a month opportunity given by the past month usage level, customers tend to perceive alliance card discount as a rare chance to get. So that we can expect customers try to maximize the discount effect when they use the limited discount opportunity. Considering group visiting practice and low visit frequency of family restaurants, the way to maximize discount effect should be the increase the size of visit group. And their sensitivity to discount and rational consumption behavior defer the additional spending for ordering high price menu, even though they get considerable amount of savings from the discount. From the analysis of sales data paid by alliance discount cards for four months, we found the below. 1) The relation between discount rate and number of guest per table is positive : 25% discount results one additional guest 2) The relation between discount rate and the spending per guest is negative. 3) However, total profit amount per table is increased when discount rate is increased. 4) Reward point accumulation & redemption did not show any significant relationship with the increase of number of guests. These results suggest that the allianced discount program substantially contributes to sales increase and profit improvement by increasing the number of guests per table. Though the spending per guest is decreased by discount rate increase, the total amount of profit per table is improved. It seems the incremental profit by increased guest count offsets the profit decrease. Additional intriguing finding is the point reward system does not have any significant impact on the increase of number of guest, even if the point accumulation & redemption of loyalty program are usually regarded as another saving offers by customers. In sum, because it is proved that allianced discount program with credit cards and loyalty cards is effective to both sales drive and profit increase, the alliance card program could be recommended as strategically buyable program.

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Social division of labor in the traditional industry district - foursed on Damyang bamboo ware industry of Damyang and Yeoju pottery industry of Yeoju, South Korea (우리나라 재래공업 산지의 사회적 분업 - 담양죽제품과 여주 도자기 산지를 사례로 -)

  • ;;;Park, Yang-Choon;Lee, Chul-Woo;Park, Soon-Ho
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.30 no.3
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    • pp.269-295
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    • 1995
  • This research is concerned with the social division of labor within the traditional industry district: Damyang bamboo ware industry district and Yeoju pottery industry district in South Korea, Damyang bamboo ware and Yeoju pottery are well known of the Korean traditional industry. The social division of labor in an industry district is considered as an important factor. The social division of labor helps the traditional industry to survive today. This summary shows five significant points from the major findings. First, Damyang bamoo ware industry and Yoeju pottery industry have experienced the growth stages until 1945, the stagnation in the 1960s, and the business recovery in the 1980s. Most Korean traditional industries had been radically declined under the Japanese colonization; while, Damyang bamboo ware industry and Yeoju pottery industry district have been developed during above all stages. The extended market to Japan helped the local government to establish a training center, and to provide financial aids and technical aids to crafts men. During the 1960s and 1970s, mass production of substitute goods on factory system resulted in the decrease of demand of bamboo ware and pettery. During the 1980s, these industries have slowly recovered as a result of the increased income per capita. The high rate of economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s was playing an important role in the emerging the incleased demand of the bamboo ware and pottery. Second the production-and-marketing system in a traditional industry district became diversified to adjust the demand of products. In Damyang bamboo ware industry district, the level of social division of labor was low until the high economic development period. Bamboo ware were made by a farmer in a small domestic system, The bamboo goods were mainly sold in the periodic market of bamboo ware in Damyang. In the recession period in the 1960s and 1970s, the production-and-marketing system were diversified; a manufacturing-wholesale type business and small-factory type business became established; and the wholesale business and the export traders in the district appeared. In the recovery period in the 1980s, the production-and-marketing systems were more diversified; a small-factory type business started to depend On subcontractors for a part of process of production; and a wholesale business in the district engaged in production of bamboo ware. In Yeoju pottery industry district, the social division of labor was limited until the early 1970s. A pottery was made by a crafts man in a small-business of domestic system and sold by a middle man out of Yeoju. Since the late 1970s, production-and-marketing system become being diversified as a result of the increased demand in Japan and South Korea. In the 1970s, Korean traditional craft pottery was highiy demanded in Japan. The demand encouraged people in Yoeju to become craftsmen and/or to work in the pottery related occupation. In South Korea, the rapid economic growth resulted in incline to pottery due to the development of stainless and plastic bowls and dishes. The production facilities were modernized to provide pottery at the reasonable price. A small-busineas of domestic system was transformed into a small-factory type business. The social division of labor was intensified in the pottery production-and-maketing system. The manufacturing kaoline began to be seperated from the production process of pottery. Within the district, a pottery wholesale business and a retail business started to be established in the 1980s. Third the traditional industry district was divided into "completed one" and "not-completed one" according to whether or not the district firms led the function of the social division of labor. The Damyang bamboo ware industry district is "completed one": the firm within the district is in charge of the supply of raw material, the production and the marketing. In the Damyang bamboo ware district, the social division of labor w and reorganized labor system to improve the external economics effect through intensifying the social division of labor. Lastly, the social division of labor was playing an important role in the development of traditional industry districts. The subdivision of production process and the diversification of business reduced the production cost and overcame the labor shortage through hiring low-waged workers such as family members, the old people and housewives. An enterpriser with small amount of capital easily joined into the business. The risk from business recession were dispersed. The accumulated know-how in the production and maketing provided flexiblility to produce various goods and to extend the life-cycly of a product.d the life-cycly of a product.

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A Study on Recent Research Trend in New Product Development Using Keyword Network Analysis (키워드 네트워크 분석을 이용한 NPD 연구의 진화 및 연구동향)

  • Pyun, JeBum;Jeong, EuiBeom
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.5
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    • pp.119-134
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    • 2018
  • Today, many firms face the environment of high uncertainty and severe competition due to the rapid technology development and the diverse needs of customers. In the business environment, one of the most important ways to gain sustainable competitive advantage and future growth engine is related to NPD (New Product Development), which is a very important issue for practice and academia. Thus, this study intends to provide new values to practitioners and researchers related to NPD by analyzing current research trends and future trends in NPD field. For this, we bibliometrically analyzed keyword networks which consist of keywords that were already published in the eminent journals from Scopus database to generate insights that have not been captured in the previous reviews on the topic. As a result, we could understand the extant research streams in NPD field, and suggest the changes of specific research topics based on the connected relationships among keywords over the time. In addition, we also foresaw the general future research trends in NPD field based on the keywords according to preferential attachment processes. Through this study, it was confirmed that NPD keyword network is a small world network that follows the distribution of power law and the growth of network is formed by link formation by keyword preferential attachment. In addition, through component analysis and centrality analysis, keywords such as Innovation, New product innovation, Risk management, Concurrent engineering, Research and development, and Product life cycle management are highly centralized in NPD keyword network. On the other hand, as a result of examining the change of preferential attachment of keywords over the time, we suggested the required new research direction including i) NPD collaboration with suppliers, ii) NPD considering market uncertainty, iii) NPD considering convergence with the other academic areas like technology management and knowledge management, iv) NPD from SME(Small and medium enterprises) perspective. The results of this study can be used to determine the research trends of NPD and the new research themes for interdisciplinary studies with other disciplines.

Future Direction of National Health Insurance (국민건강보험 발전방향)

  • Park, Eun-Cheol
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.273-275
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    • 2017
  • It has been forty years since the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Korea. Following the 1977 legislature mandating medical insurance for employees and dependents in firms with more than 500 employees, South Korea expanded its health insurance to urban residents in 1989. Resultantly, total expenses of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) have greatly increased from 4.5 billion won in 1977 to 50.89 trillion won in 2016. With multiple insurers merging into the NHI system in 2000, a single-payer healthcare system emerged, along with separation policy of prescribing and dispensing. Following such reform, an emerging financial crisis required injections from the National Health Promotion Fund. Forty years following the introduction of the NHI system, both praise and criticism have been drawn. In just 12 years, the NHI achieved the fastest health population coverage in the world. Current medical expenditure is not high relative to the rest of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The quality of acute care in Korea is one of the best in the world. There is no sign of delayed diagnosis and/or treatment for most diseases. However, the NHI has been under-insured, requiring high-levels of out-of-pocket money from patients and often causing catastrophic medical expenses. Furthermore, the current environmental circumstances of the NHI are threatening its sustainability. Low birth rate decline, as well as slow economic growth, will make sustainment of the current healthcare system difficult in the near future. An aging population will increase the amount of medical expenditure required, especially with the baby-boomer generation of those born between 1955 and 1965. Meanwhile, there is always the problem of unification for the Korean Peninsula, and what role the health insurance system will have to play when it occurs. In the presidential election, health insurance is a main issue; however, there is greater focus on expansion and expenditure than revenue. Many aspects of Korea's NHI system (1977) were modeled after the German (1883) and Japanese (1922) systems. Such systems were created during an era where infections disease control was most urgent and thus, in the current non-communicable disease (NCD) era, must be redesigned. The Korean system, which is already forty years old, must be redesigned completely. Although health insurance benefit expansion is necessary, financial measures, as well as moral hazard control measures, must also be considered. Ultimately, there are three aspects that we must consider when attempting redesign of the system. First, the health security system must be reformed. NHI and Medical Aid must be amalgamated into one system for increased effectiveness and efficiency of the system. Within the single insurer system of the NHI must be an internal market for maximum efficiency. The NHIS must be separated into regions so that regional organizers have greater responsibility over their actions. Although insurance must continue to be imposed nationally, risk-adjustment must be distributed regionally and assessed by different regional systems. Second, as a solution for the decreasing flow of insurance revenue, low premium level must be increased to an appropriate level. Likewise, the national reserve fund (No. 36, National Health Insurance Act) must be enlarged for re-unification preparation. Third, there must be revolutionary reform of benefit package. The current system built a focus on communicable diseases which is inappropriate in this NCD era. Medical benefits must not be one-time events but provide chronic disease management. Chronic care models, accountable care organization, patient-centered medical homes, and other systems that introduce various benefit packages for beneficiaries must be implemented. The reimbursement system of medical costs should be introduced to various systems for different types of care, as is the case with part C (Medicare Advantage Program) of America's Medicare system that substitutes part A and part B. Pay for performance must be expanded so that there is not only improvement in quality of care but also medical costs. Moreover, beneficiaries of the NHI system must be aware of the amount of their expenditure through a deductible payment system so that spending can be profiled and monitored. The Moon Jae-in Government has announced its plans to expand the NHI system; however, it is important that a discussion forum is created so that more accurate analysis of the NHI, its environments, and current status of health care system, can take place for reforming NHI.

Fifty years of economic geography in Korea:research trends and issues (한국경제지리학 반세기:연구성과와 과제)

  • ;Park, Sam Ock
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.160-197
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    • 1996
  • The purpose of this study is to review research trends and issues of economic geography in Korea for the last fifty years by sub-fields of agricultural geography, industrial geography, commercial and service geography, and transportation geography. Research in Korean economic geography has progressed significantly in terms of the scope and the number of papers published during the last a half a century. Agricultural geography was a leading field of economic geography in Korea before mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, agricultural geography has turned over the leading role in economic geography to industrial geography. Classification and structure of agricultural region has been the most popular research theme in Korea, even though diverse topics has been dealt in the research of agricultulal geography in Korea during the last fifty years. In recent years, emphasis is given to study on the dynamics of agricultural region and regional differentiation of part-time farming. It is suggested that the future issues of research in agricultural geography in Korea are agricultural restructuring and changes in agricultural space under the WTO system, changes in rural area and agricultural region with the progress of informatization, changes in agricultural structures and rural society by the increase of part-time farming, governments agricultulal policy and its impacts, competitive advantages of Korean agricultulal products, and environmental impacts of agricultural restructuring. Research in industrial geography has remarkably progressed since the 1980s. Locational changes, regional industrial structure and formation of industrial region were the major topics of interest in the research of industrial geography in Korea before 1980. Since the early 1980s, in addition to the topics which were interested in before 1980, changes of industrial organization and industrial location, changes of production systems and industrial space development of high technology industries and science parks, industrial restructuring and regional economy, foreign direct investments, industrial linkages and industrial districts, and industrial policy and regional development have been the major research themes of industrial geography in Korea. Considerable number of papers has been published both in Korean journals and in foreign journals during this period. Considering global changes in the organization of industrial space, future research should be more focused on firms strategy for regaining competitive advantages, local and global perspectives of industry, industry and environmental changes, in addition to the topics which have been dealt in recent years. Research in commercial and service geography and transportation geography was negligible in Korea before the late 1970s. These two sub-fields in economic geography have begun to develop since 1980s. Periodic markets, structure of commercial area, and distribution of products were the major topics of interest in the 1980s in the commercial and service geography in Korea. In the 1990s, however reserch in producer services has been active with growth of producer services in Korean economy. It is suggested that regional changes with progress of informatization and technology, changes of international trade and regional changes, development of efficient distribution system, role of producer services in regional development, and network of producer services are the major issues to be studied in the future in the field of commercial and service geography in Korea. Commuting, distribution of products, and transportation networks have been the major topics of research in transportation geography in Korea. Diverse quantitative techniques have been applied in the most of the researches in transportation geography. It is required that future studies in transportation geography should also focus on societal and behavioral issues, policy issues regional impacts of new transportation facilities, an analysis of transportation system at the global or international level. Since the 1980s economic geography in Korea has considerably progressed with publication of papers and books. The progress can be regarded as successful in quantitative aspect, but not in quantitative aspects. For the development of Korean economic geography in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, it is necessary to promote international collaborative researches and interdisciplinary cooperations. Attention should also be given to the research on changes in competitive advantages and economic restructuring, changes of economic space with the development of high technology and the progress of informatization. economic development and culture. and foreign regional studies.

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