• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.527-549
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• 2009

This paper investigates the relation of invert U-shape between the M/B ratio and leverage ratio by market, firm size, and a level of technology of firm. Our sample consists of 510 manufacturing firms continually listed on the Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market from January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2008. The total sample consists of the Korea Securities Market(large firms, high technology industry) sample of 2,248(1,816, 1,704) observations and the Kosdaq Market(small and medium firms, high technology industry) sample of 1,632(2,264, 2,376) observations. The empirical results show that the relation of invert U shape appears on the sample of the Kosdaq Market, small and medium firms, and high technology industry. However, the relation doesn't appear on the sample of the Korea Securities Market, large firms, and low technology industry. These mutually different results may be caused by the relatively low M/B ratio of the latter.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.65-88
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the determinants of SWFs' investment in Asian countries and to identify consistent investment patterns of SWFs in specific target firms from Asia, particularly China and South Korea. Design/methodology - This study extends the Tobin's Q model to examine the relationship between SWF investments in target firms and their returns with other firm-level control variables. We collect consistent data on SWF investments and the matched firm-level data on target firms, which of observation is 1,512 firms (333 in South Korea and 1,179 in China) targeted by 20 SWF sources during 1997-2017. The panel random effect model is used to estimate the extended Tobin's Q model. The robustness of the estimations is tested by the simultaneous equation models and the panel GEE model. Findings - The evidence shows that sovereign wealth funds are more inclined to invest in the financial sector with a monopoly position and in large firms with higher growth opportunity and superior cash asset ratios in China. In contrast to their investments in China, sovereign wealth funds in South Korea prefer to invest in strategic sectors, such as energy and information technology, and in large firms with high performance and low leverage. Sovereign wealth funds' investments tend to significantly improve the target firm's performance measured by sales growth and returns in both Korea and China. Originality/value - The existing literature focuses on examining the determination of SWFs investment in the developed countries, such as Europe and the United States. Our paper contributes to the literature in three ways; first, we analyzes case studies of SWF investments in Asian markets, which are less developed and riskier. Second, we examine whether the determination of SWF investment in Asian target firms depends on the different time periods, on types of sources of SWFs, and on acquiring countries. Third, our research uses vast sample data on target firms in longer time periods (1997-2017) than other previous studies on the SWFs for Asian markets.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.767-787
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• 2018

Technology-driven innovation and job-creation has each been the subject of much scholarly attention, but have largely been considered separately rather than in conjunction with each other. While the previous literature on economics pinpointed the macro effects on industry-level, this study explores the micro-level comparisons on innovation sources over the employment and financial performances. The PSM (propensity-score matching) analysis presents that firms, involved in an inward technology, tend to have higher employees with dominant technology capabilities than in-house R&D firms. The in-house R&D firms, on the contrary, have superior financial performances, suggesting that external technology commercialized firms suffer from low transformative efficiency. The mediation test analysis corroborates that the external technology-driven innovation induces more human resources in internalizing the exogenous technology. The positive relationship between R&D innovation and employment allow verification of the government's intervention in the promotion of technology commercialization in public sector. On the other hand, it also signals that the policy needs to enhance the recipient firms' commercializing capacity rather than a 'one-hit' transaction.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.111-129
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• 2012

The integration of products and services is being expanded in both manufacturing and service companies such as in Apple's iPod & iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Hyundai Motor Company's Mozen. This phenomenon has recently accelerated due to multiple factors including market change, lessening of differences in quality of products or services, the paradigm of participation and sharing, and deindustrialization and evolution toward becoming a service economy. The objective of this paper is to investigate and analyze the status and characteristics of integration of products and services in Korean firms and to suggest policy directions promoting this integration. Towards this purpose, income statements from the Korea Listed Companies Association (KLCA) database of companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange are analyzed regarding the servitization of manufacturing firms as well as the productization of service firms. In addition, this research investigates the Korean Innovation Survey 2011 database for the service sector and 2010 database for the manufacturing sector in order to evaluate R&D activity in each. In the manufacturing sector, the average ratio of service sales (servitization) was low at 0.208, with bias in the level and distribution of ratios associated with the manufacturing sector. 18 out of a total of 23 sectors (78%) have low servitization, showing there's a long way to go for servitization in the Korean manufacturing sector. In the service sector, the average ratio of product sales (productization) was 9.53%, which is relatively high compared to that of the manufacturing sector. However, the distribution of ratios is also biased, as with the manufacturing sector. Based on this analysis, policy directions are proposed in terms of 1) R&D, 2) concept boost, 3) R&D result spread, 4) statistics, 5) infrastructure and 6) green growth.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.74-92
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• 2021

Purpose - Utilizing a large sample of Korean firms, this study examines international diversification impacts on corporate tax avoidance and whether firms affiliated with large business groups (known in Korean as "chaebol") reinforce the relationship between international diversification and tax avoidance. Design/methodology - This paper hypothesizes that 1) international diversification is likely to increase tax avoidance, 2) the positive effect of international diversification on tax avoidance is likely to be more pronounced for chaebol firms. We examine the hypotheses by using Korean firms listed in the Korean stock market between 2011 and 2016. We employ the number of foreign subsidiaries and the entropy index as proxies for international diversification and CASH ETR and GAAP ETR as proxies for tax avoidance. Findings - Our findings are summarized as follows. First, we have found that as firms are more internationally diversified, tax avoidance increases. It means that international diversification can be employed as a method of reducing the tax burden. Second, firms affiliated with chaebol are strengthened by the positive relation between international diversification and tax avoidance. It is interpreted that chaebol firms have more effective opportunities to reduce taxes than other firms. When entering foreign markets, they can share experience and resources to decrease taxation within the large business group. Originality/value - This study provides empirical evidence regarding the tax effect of international diversification. Unlike prior studies, international diversification is positively related to tax avoidance in Korea. In addition, we present additional evidence on the chaebol effects of international diversification on tax avoidance, in which they have an advantage to reduce taxes using transfer pricing through related party transactions, income shifting to low tax rate countries, and establishing subsidiaries in tax havens.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2017

The fisheries industry has led the Korean economy, and has been achieving high-level position in the world. However, this industry meets aging, low growth and profit. In order to overcome this critical situation, it is needed to understand the overall status of industry. In industry level, most of previous researches focused on ocean industry rather than fisheries. In addition, scholars have been getting a lot of attention about fisheries cooperatives, fishing-ports, methods of fishery, and manufacturing process in fisheries sector. The aim of this research is analysis of domestic fisheries industry's managerial performance using data envelopment analysis(DEA) considering operating and scale view. Furthermore, the comparative analysis is performed by firm size, and industry type. In results, fisheries industry's managerial performance is not high, overall. In more detail, most of big size firms are under decreasing returns to scale(DRS) status. Fishery processing industry's performance is low, and fishery distribution industry has the best performance. This paper suggests that transferring operating capability from big firms to small firms, and policy supports and firm's activities should be accompanied for high-value added in fisher, and fishery processing industries.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.3-21
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• 1992

By localizing the production of core parts and intermediate goods previously imported from Japan, Korean firms have been striving to increase their market share and profit in the final goods market in which Japanese firms are dominating. Korean producers' efforts, however, have often been thwarted by Japanese suppliers' "strategic" behavior. This competitive strategy involves Japanese exporters supplying parts and intermediate goods at very high prices until Korean firms must locally develop them, and then setting the prices far below the previous level so that the profitability of localization is dramatically reduced, or even means a loss for the Korean manufacturer. This paper intends to explain the strategic behavior of Japanese firms through the concepts of strategic interactions and joint economies. Strategic interactions can be aggressive or accommodating depending on whether competitors are dealing with strategic substitutes or complements. Joint economies exist in multi-stage competition when competition in the previous state favorably influences "profits" of the ensuing stage. Competiton between Korean and Japanese firms (a two-stage game involving production and technology rivalries) can be characterized by joint economies and strategic substitutes: joint economies since technological improvement results in more profits in the production stage; and strategic substitutes since an increase in marginal profits of one firm brings about a decrease in marginal profits of the other in a duopolitic production stage. This implies that the flood of "low price" Japense substitutes is an almost "natural" phenomenon in the context of the duopolistic market described in this paper. In the technology competition stage, on the other hand, technology development and technology transfer can be either strategic complements or substitutes. This implies that, in typical comparative static analyses, the effect of changes in exogenous variables cannot be expected a priori. Thus it becomes very difficult to determine the desirability of applying various policy measures such as countervailing duties, R&D subsidies, and creating demand for localized products. For these reasons, it is indeed likely that the measures suggested as means of circumventing the strategic behavior of Japanese firms (and enhancing technological development of Korean firms) may not work.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.444-467
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• 2023

Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have been acknowledged to play a key role in promoting innovation and economic development. In Peru, 99.5% of formal firms are MSMEs, thus promoting innovation in these firms could have a significant impact on the Peruvian economy. In spite of Innovate Peru's efforts, Peru is still one of the countries that invests the least in innovation, with MSMEs offering low value added. Innovate Peru has launched programs (technological missions) to improve MSMEs' innovation through technology-transfer-oriented subsidies, which may strengthen companies' absorptive capacity (AC) and thus their capabilities to identify and integrate internal and external knowledge. This study assesses the impact of these programs on MSMEs. Data were collected from 85 MSMEs that participated in Innovate Peru's technological missions between 2014 and 2016. Findings show that all the dimensions of AC have a positive impact on innovation; however, the impact of economic subsidy was found to be non-significant. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.332-353
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• 2017

This paper highlights how Thailand upgrades its positions in global value chains in high-tech, mid-tech and low-tech industries represented by electronics, automotive and frozen seafood, respectively. In the electronics industry, there are not many capable firms in the upstream segment like semiconductors. Nevertheless, transnational corporations in segment like hard disk drive began to invest in process R&D and collaborate more with local suppliers, universities and public research institutes in human resource and technological development. In the automotive industry, several Japanese car manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Isuzu set up R&D/Technical centres in Thailand since 2000s. This prompted Japanese and local part suppliers to also invest more in engineering, design and development activities. Some local universities offer as well engineering programmes specifically targeting the automotive industry. In the frozen seafood industry, several Thai firms have developed new ready-to-eat products, own brands and international distribution networks. They started to become transnational corporations investing in both developing and developed countries.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.11-46
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• 1996

The objectives of this research paper are to identify the types of the firm's new product development strategy and their characteristics about business strategy, to examine the effect of each type on new product outcomes, and to explore the contingency variable influencing the relationship between these types and new product outcomes. The result of the research are summarized as follows : First, in terms of both the resource allocation for product innovativeness and technology acquisition method, this study suggests 9 types of the firm's new product development strategies- Type 1 (pursuing low innovative products/relying on external technology), Type 2 (pursuing low innovative products oriented/relying on internal technology), Type 3 (pursuing low innovative products/relying on mixed technology), Type 4 (pursuing high innovative products/relying on internal technology), Type 6(pursuing high innovative products /relying on mixed technology), Type 7 (balancing low and high innovative products/relying on external technology), Type 8 (balancing low and high innovative products/relying on internal technology), Type 9 (balancing low and high innovative products/relying on mixed technology). Second, these 9 types are deeply associated with the firm's business strategic variables such as product differentiation and market differentiation, and exhibit different level of both technical and commercial performance of new products. Finally, the effects of these types on new product outcomes are different according to industrial environment and firms' characteristics with respect to size and technological capability.