• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.147-160
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• 2007

Six Sigma's concept has long been used as an effective way of restructuring the management process of a firm. In literature regarding Six Sigma, a number of successful cases were reported, where Six Sigma based management activities could enhance firm's strategic performance dramatically for year. However, there exist very few researches investigating the effect of Six Sigma on process innovation and quality improvement. Therefore this study propose a research model testing whether Six Sigma innovation could improve process innovation and quality improvement by industrial classification. We collected 332 valid questionnaires from expert in Six Sigma activities, and applied PLS. Empirical results showed that Six Sigma activities could contribute to process innovation and quality improvement.

• 한국경영정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.7-16
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• 2008

This research examined the mediation effects of knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC) and knowledge management capability (KMC), between information communication technology (ICT) implementation and firm performance. In the past, studies investigated KAC and KMC separately. While studies of KAC focus on the flow of information, those of KMC focus on knowledge creation triggered by innovative information. However, KAC and KMC are not mutually exclusive and as such we investigated them together in this research. We surveyed 126 companies and analyzed hypotheses with LISREL analysis. This research provided empirical support for the Nonaka's contention that the information processing has a positive effect on knowledge creation. We also found that there is a mediation effect between ICT implementation and firm performance. Not only is there a direct effect of ICT implementation on firm performance, but there is an indirect effect through KAC and KMC. KAC has a positive effect on both KMC and firm performance. However, it has been discovered that while KMC has mediation effect, it is not significant as an independent factor for firm performance.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.171-191
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• 2015

This paper investigates how internal knowledge dependency and its interaction with external knowledge adoption affect innovation performance in Korean companies. We categorize innovation performance into exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation. Especially, we examine business group effects as group headquarters and sister subsidiaries holistically form the boundary of the firm. Our empirical results first suggest that the degree of internal knowledge dependency is positively associated with exploitative innovation, but negatively with exploratory innovation. Second, internal knowledge dependency is more negatively related to exploratory innovation in independent firms than in business group affiliates. Third, independent firms' adoption of external knowledge tends to strengthen the positive relationship between internal knowledge dependency and exploitative innovation. Finally, exploitative external knowledge search appears to strengthen the negative relationship between internal knowledge dependency and exploratory innovation in both types of firms.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.97-114
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• 2007

IT outsourcing providers has been expanded from a single functional system to the entire IT service to gain sustainable competitiveness. This new trend of IT outsourcing need outsourcing management capability based on a firm's core capacity. Hiring external IT service providers to manage part or all of its information-related services helps a firm focus on its core business and provides better services to its clients, thus obtaining sustainable competitive advantage. This research investigates the major factors that determine the level of a particular firm's success at IT outsourcing. Based on process innovation and core-competency theories, we identify three significant components of a firm's IT outsourcing management method (ITOMM): level of core-competency-based management, maturity of outsourced tasks, and maturity of outsourcing management. Comprehensive data collection was conducted through an outsourcing association. The survey data were analyzed using a structural analysis method. Maturity of outsourced tasks and maturity of outsourcing management were found to affect project performance directly, while level of core-competency-based management only indirectly impacted project performance through its positive impact on the other two ITOMM components.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.195-211
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among innovation activities, innovation performance, and management performance of export firms. I first undertake a review of previous studies related to innovation activity, innovation performance, and export firms' innovation. Based on this, I set up a research model and hypotheses. First, The innovation activity is classified into product innovation activity, process innovation activity, and administrative innovation activity. Innovation performance is divided into product quality improvement and cost reduction. And the business performance is regarded as financial performance of export's firms. This study examined whether innovation activity affect innovation performance such as product quality improvement and cost reduction. In addition, I examined whether these innovation performance affects business performance (financial performance). To achieve this, a total of 368 questionnaires are used in this study and PLS (Partial Least Square) was used to analyze structural equation. As a result, this study shows that product innovation activity have a positive effect on product quality improvement, and process innovation activity also have a positive effect on product quality improvement. However, it was found that neither product innovation activity nor process innovation activity had an effect on cost reduction. And it was found that administrative innovation did not affect product quality improvement, but had a positive effect on cost reduction. Also, it was found that quality improvement, which is an innovation performance, did not affect the financial performance of export's firms, and cost reduction, which is an innovation performance, had a positive effect on the financial performance of the export's firms.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.23-46
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of business scope and technological capability on firm performance in SMEs. Existing studies on business scopes and technological capabilities have focused on the unilateral relationships with financial performances. This study examines the independent and interaction effects of business scopes and technological capabilities on financial performances of SMEs in capital industries. Based on 228 firm-level data, technological capabilities have positively significant impacts on performance. Business scope measured by product variety and number of buyers have been significantly positive relationships to financial performances. Also SMEs with technological capabilities can moderate the effects of business scope on their performances. However, the results show different relationships depending on measurements on business scope, technological capabilities and performance. The results provide interesting findings on strategic behaviors of SMEs when they pursue growth strategy through expanding business scopes and building technological capabilities.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.332-364
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• 2010

External linkages affect the performance of small and medium enterprises in diverse ways. This study delves into the impact of inter-organizational collaboration by looking at different facets of performance, such as innovation, sales growth, profit growth, and firm survival. In addition, it explores the influence of informal knowledge spillover from collaborative partners as well as from formal collaborations. The impact is carefully investigated by dividing firm samples into three different sectoral innovation categories: supplier-dominant, production-intensive, and science-based sector suggested by Pavitt (1984). The result highlights the different influence pattern of collaborative relations by partner types according to sectoral categories. The positive results of collaborating with universities and public institutions are identified, and the sales growth by customer linkage is witnessed. The impact is apparent in science-based sectors. The result implies that the risk associated with collaborating with competitors may be moderated by linking performance enhancing collaborative linkages with universities and government institutes.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.165-190
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to find problems of Geographical Cluster and to analyze relationships between problems of a Geographical Cluster and its performance. The problems of geographical cluster include those of technical fusion, increase of incidental expenses, conditions of settlement, and absence of industrial infrastructures, and performance factors are satisfaction with the cluster policy and within cluster firm's performance. According to the results of analyses based on the data collected from 75 firms located in the Gumi electronic industry cluster complex, first, problems of technical fusion, and absence of industrial infrastructures had a negative(-) effect on satisfaction with the cluster policy. Second, absence of industrial infrastructures had also a negative(-) effect on within cluster firm's performance. In the conclusion, further discussion, limitation of this study and future direction were suggested.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.95-105
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• 2013

Recently, SME's Collaboration activities have become one of a vital factor for sustaining competitive edge. This is because of the rapidly changing and competitive market environment, and also to leverage performance by overcoming obstacles of having limited internal resources. Discussing about the effects and relationships of the firm's collaboration activities and its outputs are not new. However, as ICT and various technologies have been diffused into the traditional industries, boundaries and practice capabilities within the industries are becoming ambiguous. Thus contents of the products/services and their development methods are also go and come over the industries. Although many researchers suggested the relations of SME's collaboration activities and innovation performances, most of the previous literatures are focusing on broad perspectives of firm's environmental factors rather than considering various SME's idiosyncrasy factors such as their major product and customer types at once. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how SME(Small Medium Enterprise)'s external collaboration activities by their idiosyncrasy act as an input to types of innovation performance. In order to analyze collaboration effects in detail, we defined factors that can represent the SME's business environment - Perceived importance of using external resources, Perceived importance of external partnership, Collaboration and Collaboration levels of Major Product types, Customer types and lastly the Firm Sizes. We have also specifically divided the performance of innovation types as product innovation and process innovation based on existing research. In this study, the empirical analysis is based on Probit Regression Model to observe the correlations with the impact of each SME's business environment and their activities. For the empirical data, 497 samples were collected which, this sample data was extracted from the 'Korean Open Innovation Survey' performed by ETRI(Korean Electronics Telecommunications Research Institute) in 2010. As a result, empirical test results indicated that the impact of collaboration varies depend on the innovation types (Product and Process Innovation). The Impact of the collaboration level for the product innovation tend to be more effective when SMEs are developing for a final product, targeting on for individual customers (B2C). But on the other hand, the analysis result of the Process innovation tend to be higher than the product innovation, when SMEs are developing raw materials for their partners or to other firms targeting on for manufacturing industries(B2B). Also perceived importance of using external resources has effected to both product and process innovation performance. But Perceived importance of external partnership was statistically insignificant. Interesting finding was that the service product has negative effects on for the process innovation performance. And Relationship between size of the firms and their external collaboration activities with their performance of the innovations indicated that the bigger firms(over 100 of employees) tend to have better for both product and process innovations. Finally, implications of the results can be suggested as performance of innovation can be varied depends on firm's unique business idiosyncrasy as well as levels of external collaboration activities. The Implication of this research can be considered for firms in selecting an appropriate strategy as well as for policy makers.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.21-56
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• 2022

Since Michael Porter (1991) has proposed that environmental regulation can help a firm increase its competitiveness by encouraging it to engage in more innovative activities to meet the environmental regulation, a number of researchers have empirically investigated the "Porter Hypothesis." However, the empirical results still remain mixed. Combining the perspectives of the behavioral theory of the firm and firm heterogeneity, we argue that the levels of regulation stringency and time-pressure would differentially influence a firm's innovative behavior depending on the firm's aspiration level, performance feedback and technological capabilities. Using the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) regulation context, we empirically demonstrate that lagging firms that do not meet the new regulation standard announced by the government tend to search for more distant knowledge and that the impact of the patents they file for decreases as the regulation becomes more stringent. In addition, we also find that as time-pressure increases, lagging firms stand to apply for more patents than do leading firms whereas the overall impact of the patents decreases. These results help us advance our understanding of the nuanced causal relationship between regulation and innovation and provide practical implications for policymakers.