• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.6 no.2 s.12
• /
• pp.1-44
• /
• 2006

This paper aims to analyse post catch-up innovation activities of Korean firms. Traditional approach focused on incremental innovation through fast catch-up process. Recently, Korean firms present new patterns of innovation activities. It includes the development of state-of-the-art frontier products in capital intensive manufacturing sector, the achievement of architectural innovation through adopting newly developed components and the creation of new market based on the basic technological capabilities. This paper attempts to formulate conceptual framework for analysing post catch-up innovation activities and to analyse stylized facts of post catch-up activities based on the case studies on technology based small and medium Korean firms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.181-189
• /
• 2020

This study identifies interest and reasons for small- and medium-sized technological firms to increase their uses of Technopark for product innovation and development. To determine whether interest exists, a research model was built, based upon the innovative process that small and medium sized enterprises'experience when developing capabilities. The model was characterized by its entrepreneurial orientation, organizational culture and support of the Technopark. Small and medium-sized technological firms operating in Technopark were surveyed in the Fall of 2019. Responses were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Among the findings: supporting greater uses of Technopark can impact a firm's performance positively by mediating new product development capabilities. Firms with relatively limited resources and capabilities are most likely to benefit from using regional innovation hubs such as Technopark to improve their innovative capabilities and performance. Government and Technopark need to develop and implement demand-based support programs, especially ones to focus on improving the innovation capabilities of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.179-190
• /
• 2019

To alleviate financing difficulties of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the government and municipal governments are providing a variety of SME policy funding programs. This study introduced the policy funding program of Gangwon-do and quantitatively analyzed the financial performance of companies supported by the Gangwon-do SME policy fund in the year 2014. Specifically, we compared the financial ratios for three years, from 2013 to 2015, between funded firms and non-funded firms. In addition, we applied a regression analysis to see if the policy funding program contributed to profitability (the operating profit growth and return on equity), stability (the interest coverage ratio and debt-to-equity ratio), and growth (the asset growth and sales growth) of the funded firms. The empirical results show that the firms that received the policy funds did not show any improvement compared to non-funded firms in terms of profitability, stability, and growth. This suggests that Gangwon-do should improve the policy funding program, that currently provides only an interest amount of 2-4% of the corporate loan principal, without any strategic selection criteria for the target funded firms, and without any follow-up management system, after support.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.67-90
• /
• 2016

This study examines whether there is any significant relation between executive compensation and future firm performance for the Korean export manufacturing small and medium-sized firms. We sorted the whole sample firms into the sub-groups of 10 deciles by firm size and the KSIC standard. We found the following empirical results. First, Korean export manufacturing small and medium-sized firms typically showed lower or even negative profitability in terms of return on equity and operating profit ratio to sales. Foreign equity ownership is very low with an average of 3.77%. Second, for the firms with higher ratio of excess executive compensation to asset had lower future firm performance. It implies that the typical owner-manager in Korean export manufacturing SMEs earns excess pay, but do not contribute much to firm performance. Third, as for future cumulative abnormal returns for future one- and three-year periods, firms with higher owner-executive pay had lower returns compared with firms with lower pay. So the stock market investors set a lower value on them. Fourth, there is a positive relation between excess executive pay and executive overconfidence, and it implies that owner-CEOs with higher pay may become overconfident, thereby lowering future firm performance somehow.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.25-36
• /
• 2012

Over the last few years, despite the government's ongoing efforts for cooperative relationship between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs), their effectiveness is limited. In addition, the academic researches for addressing practical policy alternatives are also insufficient. This study aims to suggest the practical policies for cooperative relationship between large firms and SMEs. To this end, we suggest typology to know how collaboration process between large firms and SMEs for technology commercialization project with the utilization of dimensions of technology and marketing cooperaton is, and analyse the characteristics of each type, and examine the present situation of collaboration between large firms and SMEs in Korea and then finally, derive government policy guidelines. Through this research, we suggest theoretical framework to reinforce national industry competitiveness under growing global competition through suggesting how SMEs take survival basis, and also how large firms collaborate with SMEs.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.1-29
• /
• 2018

The paper reviews the trend of youth employment in Korea in recent years and examines whether the change in labor demand through declining business dynamism is one of the causes. The analysis based on Employment Insurance database finds that the rate of job creation declined over the period from 1999 to 2014 and that the job creation of small- and medium-sized enterprises fell sharply. This is partly explained by entry of fewer firms than before given that young firms tend to experience rapid employment growth. In fact, it is confirmed that the share of firms under age 6 in employment level and job creation declined. The finding that young firms employ young workers more than old firms suggests that a smaller role of young firms in the economy had a negative effect on youth employment.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.175-198
• /
• 2006

Analyzing the effects of information technology(IT) in the life insurance Industry is important in establishing the direction for future information technology investment. In this research, the cost-elasticity of IT capital stock was measured by the SUR technique, using the second-order translog cost function, which was drawn out by a Taylor expansion of the multi-product joint cost function. Analysis was made based on data from 1991 to 2003 collected from 33 life insurance firms. The results show that although the effects of information technology investment vary according to individual life insurance firms, half of the life insurance firms surveyed reduced their costs by investing in information technology. The research also revealed that although large life insurance firms reduced their costs by investing in information technology medium & small life insurance firms and foreign ,life insurance firms increase their costs. Additionally, although both information capital and information labor increase as the information budget increases, the increase in information capital is larger than one in information labor. Because the price of information capital is decreased rapidly more than one of information-related labor.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2009

The aim of this study is to analyze the characteristics of firms related to products for the elderly. The data are based on statistics, questionnaire surveys and interviews with the persons related to the industry. Firms are classified into $3\times3$ matrix with the indexes of innovation performance and network participation. The former is measured with the number of patents and the latter is evaluated by the degree centrality of firms' network in the industries. Combining the previous indexes with other properties, the 9 categories are merged into 5 types: 'High Performance-High Centrality' (HP-HC), 'Network Leader-Low Technology Manufacturer' (NL-LTM), 'Network Leader-Distributor' (NL-D), 'High Performance-Network Outsider' (HP-NO), 'Low Performance-Isolated' (LP-I). Finally, sectoral and spatial policy implications are explored with the results of analysis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• 2004.11a
• /
• pp.584-587
• /
• 2004

After the IMF bailout, the Environment of Domestic Construction Industry had changed dramatically Therefore the IMF, Domestic Construction Firms are secured by the government regulations and some traditional Practices. However, due to the following reasons: a decrease in public works, an increase in uncertainty of market prediction, the change of bid system, and increase in construction firms, recently the competition among construction firms has became keen. Under the serious competition, In order that medium-size construction firms survive in the construction market, it is need to establish the strategy that could increase productivity. In order to establish the strategy, firstly, construction firms should set up an appraisal standard of construction firms. This paper propose a suitable appraisal standard that construction firm's strategy establish in environment change of the construction industry.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.6 no.2 s.24
• /
• pp.102-110
• /
• 2005

After the IMF bailout, the Environment of Domestic Construction Industry had changed dramatically. Before the IMF, Domestic Construction Firms are secured by the government regulations and some traditional practices. However, due to the following reasons: a decrease in public works, an increase in uncertainty of market prediction, the change of bid system, and increase in construction firms, recently the competition among construction firms has became keen. Under the serious competition, in order that medium-size construction firms survive in the construction market, it is need to establish the strategy that could increase productivity. In order to establish the strategy, firstly, construction firms should set up an appraisal standard of construction firms. Consequently, This study will introduce companies' objective appraisal in domestic construction market as well as basal data for setting-up strategy through adaptation industry structure analysis of business administration for strategic group analysis and a company which has lagged behind competitive power among the competitive companies can choose a target strategic group which should be pursued it in the future through being classified according to a group taken analogical strategy.