• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2022

Purpose - This study investigates the effects of going public on the innovation of KOSDAQ firms. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses firms that go public from 2007 to 2011 in Korea. We compare a firm's innovation performance over five years before and after IPO. Findings - We find that firm's innovation declines after an IPO. After going public, both the quality and the quantity of patents are decreased. However, this decrease is alleviated in high-tech industries or concentrated industries where innovation is expected to be more valuable. When comparing firms with venture capital(VC), which are more likely to window dress, to firms without VC, VC backing has no meaningful impact on changes of innovation. Research implications or Originality - As the KOSDAQ market was established to provide small and medium enterprises(SMEs) with funds for firm's investments and growth, it is necessary to verify whether the capital raised at the IPO encourages innovation. Thus, our study contributes to the literature by examining empirically whether an IPO boosts a firm's innovation.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.65-91
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• 2016

Although the success of industrial clusters largely depends on whether clustering firms can achieve economic performance, there has been less attention on investigating factors and conditions contributing to the performance enhancement for clustering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Along this vein, we adopt the theories of social capital and organizational learning as those success factors for clustering SMEs. This study thus aims at examining what effect social capital accrued in the relationships among actors within clusters has on firm performance of clustering SMEs and what role organizational learning plays in the linkage between social capital and firm performance. For the empirical analysis, we operationalized the variables and their measures to develop questionnaires through the theoretical reviews on literatures. As a sample of 227 clustering SMEs, our collected data was analyzed by hierarchical regression analysis. The results confirmed that a high level of social capital, represented by network, trust, and norm, has positive effect on firm performance of clustering SMEs. We also found that clustering firms presenting high organizational learning, represented by absorptive and transformative capability, achieve better performance than those placing less value on organizational learning. Furthermore the significant relationship between social capital and firm performance is mediated partially through organizational learning. These findings imply not only that the territorial agglomeration of industrial cluster does not guarantee the performance creation of clustering SMEs but that they need to develop social capital among various actors within clusters, facilitating their knowledge diffusion. In order to absorb and mobilize the shared knowledge and information into strategic resources, the firms should improve their capability associated with organizational learning. These expand our understanding on the importance of social capital and organizational learning for the performance enhancement of clustering firms. Differentiating from major studies addressing benefits and advantages of industrial cluster, this study based on the perspective of firm-internal business process contributes to the literature advancement. Strategic and policy implications of this study are discussed in detail.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.505-521
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• 2015

Using small and medium sized firms located on 3th seongseo industry complex in Daegu, this study investigated the effects of technology development factors on innovation performance, and suggested the implications in terms of technology policies. Technology development factors are categorized into both fundamental based factors and external cooperation based factors as independent variables. According to the research results, external cooperation based factor positively affects innovation performance, and this positive effect is reported in firms having more than average firm size. Under environment uncertainty, external cooperation based factor plays a key role to increase innovation performance to firms having more than average firm size. Therefore, policy making should be focused on external cooperation, not on fundamental base such as people and infrastructure, and also dissimilar policy suggestion based firm size is needed to be considered.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.57-77
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• 2021

Purpose - International strategic alliance has been regarded as a strategic decision made by firms' managerial problems and ensure performance growth. From the perspective of the proactive behavior for changing strategies in a global market, this study aims to identify whether performance feedback influences firms' decisions to pursue strategic alliances. This study examines the effects of performance feedback on performance when firms use strategic alliances. Design/methodology - To analyze the impact of performance feedback on forming an international strategic alliance, this study adopt the concept of performance feedback to develop a research model and our hypotheses. Thus, this study used a two-stage least squares unbalanced panel data analysis with random effects. This study is based on 24,543 observations from Korean manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2016. Findings - The results show that firms pursue the formation of strategic alliances more actively, if their past financial and R&D performance are lower than their aspiration level, based on the result of performance feedback. An in split sample analysis for examining the effect of a firm's technology sophistication based on the OECD's classification, negative innovation performance discrepancy has positive effects on the probability of international alliance in high-tech and medium-high-tech industries. Financial performance also improves when a firm decides to form a strategic alliance based on the results of performance feedback. Originality/value - This research extends recent efforts to better understand the effect of performance feedback on firms' performance when they use strategic alliances. These findings suggest that the CEOs and managers of firms should consider the performance feedback perspective when deciding to pursue a strategic alliance to improve performance. In other words, the decision-makers in a firm must analyze and consider various complex variables inside and outside the firm and expand such subjects of examination to more complex and dynamic factors.

• Korean small business review
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.165-184
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• 2016

This paper aims at analysing the effects of venture business finance supporting programs on efficiency and productivity of the venture firms, on the basis of the data envelope analysis (DEA) using data of 406 firms in the 2013 Venture Business Detailed Survey of Small and Medium Business Administration. The conclusions are summarized as follows. First of all, the efficiency of government finance supported venture firms is higher than that other venture firms. The increase of productivity in venture firms enjoying government supporting programs is higher than that in venture business without government supporting programs, especially in the technical progress rather than in efficiency improvement. Also the R&D supporting programs for venture firms lead to an increase in productivity. Taking the above results into consideration, government's venture supporting programs are evaluated to be effective in terms of an increase of productivity and the proper scope for fragile venture firms.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.109-129
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• 2009

This study aims at investigating the effectiveness of SME's R&D system empirically. Specifically, this study analyze the relationships among R&D inputs(R&D investment, R&D human resource management), process(R&D planning, external network, internal cooperation), and output(technological innovation). A questionnaire was developed to measure the above variables. To test these relations, data were collected from the small and medium-sized IT firms located in Daegu-Kyungbuk region. The survey data of 154 firms were integrated as the empirical base for testing the relations. Most respondents were from the managers. Structural equation modeling analyses were used to examine the relations. Major results are as follows: Firstly, R&D HRM was positively and significantly influenced on the R&D planning. Secondly, R&D planning was positively and significantly affected on the external network, internal cooperation, and technological innovation. Thirdly, the both relations between R&D investment and R&D planning, and external network and technological innovation were not significant statistically. These results suggest the following implications. First, R&D human resource management is very important for IT SMEs. Secondly, internal cooperation mediates R&D inputs and technological innovation by approaching the other department's unique resources and by sharing the cost of new resource development. Several future researches need to overcome the limitations of this research. First, this study's sample was based on the small and medium-sized IT firms just located in Daegu-Kyungbuk region. This limitation may imply that empirical results can not represent overall small and medium-sized firm's situations. Therefore, future research needs to include different samples. Secondly, this study depends on the latitudinal study.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.99-119
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• 2016

Medium and Small Firms have faced complex and dynamic environments that have been attributed to increases in the globalization and competitiveness of the global economy. To success in this environments, Medium and Small Firms should set up management strategy and introduce strategic performance management system. And, the strategic performance management system are modified to fit in management strategy. The purpose of this study is to find out firstly, whether management strategy types affect the organizational performance and the intensity of the types makes a difference on the performance and secondly, whether the evaluation system or the degree of utilizing the system affects the organizational performance and finally, whether the interaction between management strategy types and strategic performance management system makes a significant influence on the organizational performance. In this paper, we categorize the type of strategy for Medium and Small Firms in Gyeongsangbuk-do and Daegu areas, and study whether Firm's performance can be improved by designing appropriate strategic performance management system.

• 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.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.63-83
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• 2003

This paper's objective is to provide insights about the problems and expansion strategies of electronic trade. Korean small and medium-sized firms have adopted the Internet since the end of 1990s in order to reshape their competitiveness, and it is now being utilized as a major export marketing instrument to develop new customers, save export transaction costs ad facilitate new work processes. However, at present, the use of the internet in the field of trading is limited to the collection of market information, owing to legal, technical and institutional restraints between countries. In addition to that, because firms have the difficulties in making the trade contract through the e-trade system, the negative recognition on its' utility has been spreaded gradually between companies. This is one of the barriers to block the expansion of e-Trade between Korean firms. Therefore, this paper points out the problems of e-trade in the environmental, institutional and strategic view and provides many considerations for establishing the expansion strategy of e-trade by the Korean government and trade supporting institutions.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.684-693
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• 2007

The construction industry is a significant component of many economies and typically contains a high proportion of small and medium enterprises. However, it is generally understood that this industry is fragmented, adversarial, not highly innovative and not quick to respond to change. At the same time, the industry is under pressure to continue to embrace new technologies and methods, and to adapt better to current and emerging global issues such as sustainability. In order to meet these challenges, firms in the industry need to understand the issues involved and manage their practices accordingly. This paper describes exploratory research into the role of innovative and environmentally sustainable design and construction practices in one group of construction firms, viz., smaller residential building firms in Queensland, Australia.