• Journal of Information Technology Application
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.103-132
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• 2001

The internet-based business is considered as a new strategic alternative for small-medium size companies. However, very little research about them has been reported. The objectives of this study are to analyze factors influencing the operation for the sites(we call, 'internet shopping mall') which small-and-medium sized firms have built, and to provide the general directions of the successful internee-based business for the small-and-medium sized firms. This paper reports the case studies in which the internet-based electronic commerce practices of 6 small-and-medium sized firms were examined over a 3 month period. In the meantime, this paper reports their present business condition, system environment, positioning, marketing strategy, forward business expectation, and market barrier. This study also focuses on two environmental dimensions of system development; One dimension is on-line only or off-line widened, and the other is self-built or outsourcing. The results found in this study are as follows: 1. The internet shopping mall broadens the company's activity to new business areas. 2. The degree of system outsourcing of the small-medium size company depends on its IT ability and resource capability 3. The marketing strategies on their internet shopping mall differentiate with their business area and market environment. 4. Each interviewed company has its own success and failure factors, in addition to the general factors. 5. Each interviewed company has a positive response for their internet shopping mall for its future. 6. The lack of capital, technology, and government support is the barrier to the improvement of the internet shopping mall system.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.151-171
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• 2014

Firms today have sought management effectiveness and efficiency utilizing information technologies (IT). Numerous firms are outsourcing specific information systems functions to cope with their short of information resources or IT experts, or to reduce their capital cost. Recently, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a new type of information system has become one of the powerful outsourcing alternatives. SaaS is software deployed as a hosted and accessed over the internet. It is regarded as the idea of on-demand, pay-per-use, and utility computing and is now being applied to support the core competencies of clients in areas ranging from the individual productivity area to the vertical industry and e-commerce area. In this study, therefore, we seek to quantify the value that SaaS has on business performance by examining the relationships among firm strategies, SaaS technology maturity, and business performance of SaaS providers. We begin by drawing from prior literature on SaaS, technology maturity and firm strategy. SaaS technology maturity is classified into three different phases such as application service providing (ASP), Web-native application, and Web-service application. Firm strategies are manipulated by the low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy. Finally, we considered customer acquisition as a business performance. In this sense, specific objectives of this study are as follows. First, we examine the relationships between customer acquisition performance and both low-cost strategy and differentiation strategy of SaaS providers. Secondly, we investigate the mediating and moderating effects of SaaS technology maturity on those relationships. For this purpose, study collects data from the SaaS providers, and their line of applications registered in the database in CNK (Commerce net Korea) in Korea using a questionnaire method by the professional research institution. The unit of analysis in this study is the SBUs (strategic business unit) in the software provider. A total of 199 SBUs is used for analyzing and testing our hypotheses. With regards to the measurement of firm strategy, we take three measurement items for differentiation strategy such as the application uniqueness (referring an application aims to differentiate within just one or a small number of target industry), supply channel diversification (regarding whether SaaS vendor had diversified supply chain) as well as the number of specialized expertise and take two items for low cost strategy like subscription fee and initial set-up fee. We employ a hierarchical regression analysis technique for testing moderation effects of SaaS technology maturity and follow the Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if firm strategies affect customer acquisition through technology maturity. Empirical results revealed that, firstly, when differentiation strategy is applied to attain business performance like customer acquisition, the effects of the strategy is moderated by the technology maturity level of SaaS providers. In other words, securing higher level of SaaS technology maturity is essential for higher business performance. For instance, given that firms implement application uniqueness or a distribution channel diversification as a differentiation strategy, they can acquire more customers when their level of SaaS technology maturity is higher rather than lower. Secondly, results indicate that pursuing differentiation strategy or low cost strategy effectively works for SaaS providers' obtaining customer, which means that continuously differentiating their service from others or making their service fee (subscription fee or initial set-up fee) lower are helpful for their business success in terms of acquiring their customers. Lastly, results show that the level of SaaS technology maturity mediates the relationships between low cost strategy and customer acquisition. That is, based on our research design, customers usually perceive the real value of the low subscription fee or initial set-up fee only through the SaaS service provide by vender and, in turn, this will affect their decision making whether subscribe or not.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.11 no.1 s.39
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• pp.223-235
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• 2006

Textile industry of Korea has been assumed advanced textile industry nation's aspects with production system and equipment. But has been descended in the sector of design, brand, recognition comparing with Italy, Japan, England. And products of middle and low price do not have competitiveness against China, South East Asia. The world's textile industry nation has been confronted with Free Trade, and Regional Trade Blocks. New market has been opened with free Trade, but Trade Blocks(NAFTA, EU, APEC etc.) which encourage regional member country's profit maximize made textile export driven nation to consider strategies to cope with. Advanced textile industry nation divided the work among themselves and composed linking system among them which highly valuable products are manufactured at advanced nation and low price products are manufactured by global outsourcing. The purpose of this study is to analyze impact of process which requires to secure international competitiveness into business performance experimentally.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.23-44
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• 2022

Purpose - Recent issues such as vessel enlargement, strengthening of environmental regulations, and port smartization are expected to increase costs and intensify competition in the port industry. In the new normal era, when external growth has reached its limit, the efficient operation of ports is becoming indispensable for achieving sustainable growth. This study aims to identify the determinants of inefficiency by examining the cost structure and efficiency of container terminals in Korea and furthermore propose the political implications to derive the maximization of efficiency. Design/methodology - This study estimates the cost function of container terminal operators and identifies the efficiency of container terminals using stochastic cost frontier (SCF) in the first stage. In the second step, the SCF results are compared with the data envelopment analysis (DEA). Last, this paper proposes efficiency determinants on container terminal operation to establish appropriate strategies. Out of the 29 container terminal operators in South Korea, 13 operators participated in the survey. The translog cost function was estimated utilizing a total of 116 observations collected over the 2007-2017 period. Findings - Empirical analysis shows that economies of scale exist in Korea's container ports, which provides a rationale for the government's policy to establish the global terminal operator by integrating small terminal operators to enhance competitiveness. In addition, as a result of the determinants analysis, container throughput, weight of direct employment costs, and labour cost share have positive effects on improving cost efficiency, while inefficiency increases as the length of quay increases. More specifically, cost efficiency improves as the proportion of direct employment costs to outsourcing service costs increases. Originality/value - This study contributes to analyzing the inefficiency factors of container terminals through efficiency analysis with respect to a cost function. In addition, this study proposes the practical and political implications, such as establishing a long-term manpower pool, the application of the hybrid liner terminal system, and the construction of a statistical data system, to improve the cost inefficiency of terminal operators.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.275-307
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• 2010

In the presidential new-year address in January 2, 2009, the President declared that 17 kinds of new driving force of growth that could create high-added value be selected to step up job creation and an increase in national wealth. The Ministry of Strategy & Finance announced plans for the 17 kinds of new driving force of growth after the presidential address. Specifically, that ministry announced an ambitious plan to select health care service named 'Global Health Care' as one of the five service industries that could create high-added value in a move to provide jobs to approximately 7,000 people and produce pervasive economic effects coming up to a trillion and 10 billion won. To attain the goal, several action plans were mapped out to globalize domestic medical institutions, to rearrange the relevant law and system for the purposes of raising awareness of domestic medical institutions among foreign patients and improving their accessibility and post-satisfaction level, and to lure lots of foreign patients through financial assistance. At the same time, the government announced plans to lure severe patients such as those in want of surgery or organ transplant, cancer patients or patients with heart diseases to create high-added value on a long-term basis. Thus, the government announced that it planned to formulate such strategies and to enter an agreement with foreign governments to attract plenty of foreign patients. In fact, however, there are little full-scale evaluation of medical tourism though it's been a year since it was introduced, and there are few actual efforts to implement what the government announced, either. According to the results of the evaluation of medical tourism, domestic hospitals are said to undergo little significant changes after the introduction of medical tourism, which shows that they take a dim view of medical tourism instead of having expectations for that. The medical tourism industries in major Asian countries have been dynamized, and there are several factors of their success. First of all, they are successful in creating new market opportunities by incorporating related industries such as medicine, tourism and IT and in developing medical tourism products and differentiated marketing by taking advantage of their competitive edge. They have offered full-fledged assistance to this sector, and another reason is the improved international credibility of their medical service. If our country fails to pinpoint our problems in consideration of the cases of the Asian countries or to provide appropriate financial aid, our country is bound to lag behind them. Given this reality, how to assess medical tourism and what challenges this sector is confronted with are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.82-91
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• 2015

Recently, due to the increasing concern of environmental factors and low carbon usage, the use of natural gas has been inclining steadily. In order to meet the growing demand of natural gas, government have established strategies to secure the sufficient amount of gas that is mainly used by industries, power generation and residential use by constructing additional receiving terminals for Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). In the process of selecting the optimal site for the terminals, the characteristics of the terminals are not considered where the decision making is done through internal meetings or outsourcing. In respect to site selection, researches are done to derive the factors that are considered for optimal site selection. However, there have not yet been researches in creating a systematic model for analyzing the optimal site selection. To this aim, the paper aims to propose a model for site selection of LNG receiving terminals that considers the characteristics of the terminal construction. Total of 47 factors considered in site selection is derived through interviews with experts and analyzing the previous cases of site selection by various firms. Furthermore, the derived 47 factors are used for the survey for the previous LNG terminals in PT, IC, TY, SC and BR areas where the survey data is analyzed by factor analysis and multiple regression models to depict the optimal site. By applying the model for site selection, practitioners are able to make decisions for site selection in a systematic approach for new candidates of sites.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.259-265
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• 2017

This study reviewed the existing studies in order to set up a strategy that can achieve the trust and business performance of the franchisers, who are actually operating franchised business, breaking from the research trend centered around franchise headquarters and added the factors of the franchise headquarters' strategy for expanding franchises, including word-of-mouth communication and advertising & publicity and added the exercise of recruitment agency outsourcing, flagship store, recently utilized often as preceding variables to verify the causal relation between the trust of the franchiser and the business performance of the franchise. The implications of this study, it can be concluded that the government authority for the attraction of healthy franchises can continuously attract franchises and enter the market can continuously attract franchises by increasing the trust of the franchises, and powerfully investing and managing them for the effort through word-of-mouth marketing. It is expected that this study will be helpful in the establishment of a business strategy for forming a continuous relationship as well as the franchise head office's strategy for the recruitment of new franchises.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.137-154
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• 2002

It's not easy to renew old brand of over 50 years history to the tastes of new consumer of our time. Most of national brands that has a history of some 20 years in Korea have strove for continuation and growth of brand to no avails, which can be taken as a good example of current situation. For instance, C company, one of the National brand of US which has a history of 51 years, has made its position secure as a fashion group and based itself on a sound foundation by establishing new marketing strategy and completing successful brand renewal in the process of strategic M&A with Italian company. Those successful marketing strategies are as follows. 1) they regarded both market and consumer oriented marketing activity as company's highest priority strategy and put great emphasis upon concentration on target market and reestablishment of brand image of business casual wear. 2) Setting up and operating planning team composed of merchandizer alone in Milano, they set the direction of plan on the basis of concentrated research on potential item in market according to thorough market research done by buying office in Korea, branch office in Hong Kong and buyer in US prior to blueprint planning for season. 3) Great emphasis was placed on business which focused on intensive presentation of basic key item for apparel career women who are main consumer group in the midium-low prices market in US and on supplementation of size and color. they named this line 'collectibles' and helped their customer develop their own clothes plan without worrying about the change of color and fabric by supporting same fabric and color throughout the year and enabled them to add variation easily by supplementing new trend item. 4) Company set black as a main color that lots of apparel career women find easy to care and to express their own image and presented them with pebble which belongs to navy and beige and added fashion color such as wine and brown etc as season goes by. They constructed basic line in order for their customers to coordinate purchased item with new one or to add them to present collection, and to achieve efficient sale by setting up strategy which allows this cross coordination and changing pattern occasionally. 5) Though basic jacket for 99$, short slim skirt for 49$ are products within midium-low prices range, in the material planning stage aiming at production of item that has both resonable function appealing to consumer and is fashionable, synthetic material had to be used as a main source due to price competitiveness. Despite this situation, considering comfortable sense of fit and refined drape of silhouette that has no sign of cheap material, whole collectible line was divided into two items, which contributed to reduction of cost. In case of material that is composed of triacetate and polyester in 70 to 30 ratio, was used up to 4 million yard, which allowed drastic curtailment of cost accompanied by concentration. In case of 'collectibles' line, using Korean material mainly, C company chose to have their product sewed in Southeast Asian countries where transportation is well developed and both productivity and quality verified by operating global production system which aiming at cutdown of cost through outsourcing production from the country where labor cost is low and getting finished product. Polarization between present consumers telling us that consumers with the mind of middle classes in the past no longer exists between consumers who seek after only fine article of highest quality and wise consumers who are sensible enough to judge bubble on correlation between price and quality. To cope with this change in new consumer mind, apparel makes changing their policy so as to produce item that has reasonable quality and falls within affordable price range anywhere in the world. and they're striving to get out of difficult situation by operating global marketing strategy which stresses separation of planning, production and sale and sensibility of fashion shared worldwide. The marketing strategy of C company can be exemplified as a successful one.