• Information Systems Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.169-183
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• 2017

As global competition is heating up and product life cycle has been rapidly shortened, each company pursues a variety of competitive technology innovations through different means of innovation. In this study, we assume that open innovation can be a shift motive of the technology innovation paradigm of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) being beyond the limitations of R&D within a company. We analyze the process and content of open innovation and performance. In addition, we identify the problems generated in the open innovation process and analyze the ways to strengthen open innovation. This study is based on the investigations into the technological competitiveness of local SMEs. The innovation ecosystem is analyzed from the perspective of product/service innovation, organizational innovation, and marketing innovation. Situational analysis is presented on the relationship between the innovation capabilities of information and communication technology SMEs and innovation performance.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.165-188
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• 2010

Recently public and finance SI (system integration) industry is called as 4D (difficult, dangerous, dirty, dreamless) industry because of low profit, overtime works and poor motivation of employees. Even some people think at SI industry to be a labor intensive industry instead of a high technology industry. The current study considers outside environmental change of SI industry as well as inside capability enhancement of SI companies. The study adopted action research method with the author's expertise and experiences as a head of a major SI company in Korea. The current research framework suggests 5 areas of profitability enhancement that offers propositions and implications. 5 areas of profitability enhancement are (1) policy improvement, (2) business portfolio innovation (3) sales capability reinforcement, (4) delivery capability reinforcement, and (5) cost management innovation. The five areas include 11 propositional factors and 21 implementation plans which were chosen from the profitability perspectives of SI companies.In order to successfully execute propositions and implementation plans of the framework, 3 years is needed and after 3 years profitability are expected to increase 10% higher than the current level. The framework, propositions and suggestions in this study are expected to offer a real contribution for SI companies that want to enhance competitiveness and profitability. Future extension of the current study to benchmarking the competitiveness and profitability between local companies and global companieswill bring a solid attention from industry and academics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.191-204
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• 2010

Recently, the CO2 emission and energy consumption have become critical global issues to decide the future of nations. Especially, the spread of IT products and the increased use of internet and web applications result in the energy consumption and CO2 emission of IT industry though information technologies drive global economic growth. EU, the United States, Japan and other developed countries are using IT related environmental regulations such as WEEE(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), RoHS(Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substance), REACH(Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of CHemicals) and EuP(Energy using Product), and have established systematic green business/IT strategies to enhance the competitiveness of IT industry. For example, the Japan government proposed the "Green IT initiative" for being compatible with economic growth and environmental protection. Not only energy saving technologies but energy saving systems have been developed for accomplishing sustainable development. Korea's CO2 emission and energy consumption continuously have grown at comparatively high rates. They are related to its industrial structure depending on high energy-consuming industries such as iron and steel Industry, automotive industry, shipbuilding industry, semiconductor industry, and so on. In particular, export proportion of IT manufacturing is quite high in Korea. For example, the global market share of the semiconductor such as DRAM was about 80% in 2008. Accordingly, Korea needs to establish a systematic strategy to respond to the global environmental regulations and to maintain competitiveness in the IT industry. However, green competitiveness of Korea ranked 11th among 15 major countries and R&D budget for green technology is not large enough to develop energy-saving technologies for infrastructure and value chain of low-carbon society though that grows at high rates. Moreover, there are no concrete action plans in Korea. This research aims to deduce the priorities of the Korean green business/IT strategies to use multi attribute weighted average method. We selected a panel of 19 experts who work at the green business related firms such as HP, IBM, Fujitsu and so on, and selected six assessment indices such as the urgency of the technology development, the technology gap between Korea and the developed countries, the effect of import substitution, the spillover effect of technology, the market growth, and the export potential of the package or stand-alone products by existing literature review. We submitted questionnaires at approximately weekly intervals to them for priorities of the green business/IT strategies. The strategies broadly classify as follows. The first strategy which consists of the green business/IT policy and standardization, process and performance management and IT industry and legislative alignment relates to government's role in the green economy. The second strategy relates to IT to support environment sustainability such as the travel and ways of working management, printer output and recycling, intelligent building, printer rationalization and collaboration and connectivity. The last strategy relates to green IT systems, services and usage such as the data center consolidation and energy management, hardware recycle decommission, server and storage virtualization, device power management, and service supplier management. All the questionnaires were assessed via a five-point Likert scale ranging from "very little" to "very large." Our findings show that the IT to support environment sustainability is prior to the other strategies. In detail, the green business /IT policy and standardization is the most important in the government's role. The strategies of intelligent building and the travel and ways of working management are prior to the others for supporting environment sustainability. Finally, the strategies for the data center consolidation and energy management and server and storage virtualization have the huge influence for green IT systems, services and usage This research results the following implications. The amount of energy consumption and CO2 emissions of IT equipment including electrical business equipment will need to be clearly indicated in order to manage the effect of green business/IT strategy. And it is necessary to develop tools that measure the performance of green business/IT by each step. Additionally, intelligent building could grow up in energy-saving, growth of low carbon and related industries together. It is necessary to expand the affect of virtualization though adjusting and controlling the relationship between the management teams.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.241-253
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• 2023

In the current rapidly changing environment, each country continues to make efforts to create jobs and strengthen technological competitiveness. In particular, support and revitalization policies for venture companies and start-ups are known to play a role in increasing national competitiveness. Companies should make appropriate replacements amid growing uncertainties in the environment in which business life is shortened and customer needs are diversified due to intensifying competition. First of all, it is important for companies to make efforts to strengthen their internal capabilities on their own. However, venture companies lack internal resources and capabilities, so support from the external environment is important enough to lead to the survival of the company(Timmons, 1994). Financial support and certification systems are being operated at the national level to strengthen the competitiveness of companies. However, financial support can lower a company's self-sustainability depending on the situation, so non-financial support such as R&D support and start-up education is considered to be helpful in the long term for venture growth(Aghion et al., 2012; Jeon & Ko, 2021). Non-financial support is divided into commercialization, facilities, space, childcare, manpower, and certification systems, and this study confirmed the benefits of the venture company confirmation system, which is a certification system. To this end, the 2021 venture company precision survey data and venture company sales data were used, and analyzed using the SPSS 26.0 package and SPSS PROCESS MACRO. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that the level of the management environment of venture companies has a positive effect on the benefits of the venture confirmation system or increasing the level of venture company capabilities, but it is difficult to lead to actual management performance. In addition, it was confirmed that the level of venture company competency mediates the relationship between the level of the venture company's business environment and management performance. As a result, even if the level of the venture company's business environment is positive or venture-friendly, it can be said that companies with internal capabilities to digest support from the external environment increase management performance.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.19-39
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• 2016

With increasing adoption of smart products and complexity, companies have shifted their strategies from stand alone and competitive strategies to business ecosystem oriented and cooperative strategies. The win-win growth of business refers to corporate efforts undertaken by companies to pursue the healthiness of business between conglomerates and partnering companies such as suppliers for mutual prosperity and a long-term corporate soundness based on their business ecosystem and cooperative strategies. This study is designed to validate a theoretical proposition that the win-win growth strategy of Samsung Electronics and cooperative efforts among companies can create a healthy business ecosystem, based on results of case studies and surveys. In this study, a level of global market access of small and mid-sized companies is adopted as the key achievement index. The foreign market entry is considered as one of vulnerabilities in the ecosystem of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). For SMEs, the global market access based on the research and development (R&D) has become the critical component in the process of transforming them into global small giants. The results of case studies and surveys are analyzed mainly based on a model of a virtuous cycle of Creativity, Opportunity, Productivity, and Proactivity (the COPP model) that features the characteristics of the healthiness of a business ecosystem. In the COPP model, a virtuous circle of profits made by the first three factors and Proactivity, which is the manifestation of entrepreneurship that proactively invests and reacts to the changing business environment of the future, enhances the healthiness of a given business ecosystem. With the application of the COPP model, this study finds major achievements of the win-win growth of Samsung Electronics as follows. First, Opportunity plays a role as a parameter in the relations of Creativity, Productivity, and creating profits. Namely, as companies export more (with more Opportunity), they are more likely to link their R&D efforts to Productivity and profitability. However, companies that do not export tend to fail to link their R&D investment to profitability. Second, this study finds that companies with huge investment on R&D for the future, which is the result of Proactivity, tend to hold a large number of patents (Creativity). And companies with significant numbers of patents tend to be large exporters as well (Opportunity), and companies with a large amount of exports tend to record high profitability (Productivity and profitability), and thus forms the virtuous cycle of the COPP model. In addition, to access global markets for sustainable growth, SMEs need to build and strengthen their competitiveness. This study concludes that companies with a high level of proactivity to invest for the future can create a virtuous circle of Creativity, Opportunity, Productivity, and Proactivity, thereby providing a strategic implication that SMEs should invest time and resources in forming such a virtuous cycle which is a sure way for the SMEs to grow into global small giants.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.211-238
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• 2005

Korea is far behind other OECD countries in economy-wise productivity: Korea's labor productivity in terms of GDP per hour worked is the lowest among OECD countries. Against the existing productivity gap, there is a worrying sign in Korea's investment trend - rapid fall in machinery and equipment investment with slow increase in R&D investment. The challenge facing Korea is how to transform her economy from catching-up model to a knowledge-based one. The paper shows that, in tandem with the structural changes that today's Korean industries are experiencing, industry's innovation system is also changing. Innovation networks are emerging as the result of economy-wise restructuring since the financial crisis of 1997 and, though still not a dominant force, the newly emerging innovation networks will be the main threads of industry's innovation activities in the future. The changes in industrial innovation system would positively contribute in raising the productivity of the Korean economy. The paper contains a case study on Korea's automobile industry in order to highlight some of main characteristics of the structural changes, in addition to a chapter that gives an overview of the evolutionary paths of the Korea's industrial innovation. The paper assesses that changes can be considered as a positive sign of future growth perspective; but there are further challenges to make the Korea's industrial innovation system effective. The list of such challenges includes strengthening upstream sectors of currently leading industries, expanding the innovation base to SME and promoting technological co-operation between domestic firms and foreign firms.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.51-57
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• 2016

Purpose - In the year of 2015 and 2016, one of the items that got attention in CES was a drone. It has been 100 years since a drone emerged, but most were used for military purposes. As its use became diverse as of 2010, it got attention of the general public. In Korea, it was in 2011 that a drone was known to the public through an aerial video shooting for television program. This study tried to come up with suggestions by comparing domestic with overseas cases, and tried to consider the related technologies and systems with applying the role of drones in logistics service. Research design, data, and methodology - The overseas cases were regarded as drone's logistical purpose. The Prime Air service by US Amazon is still not commercialized and under pre-testing due to Federal Aviation Regulations, although it started in 2013. In Germany, DHL succeeded in delivering service testing which is called Parcelcopter, but it is not commercialized yet. Other than these, there are more attempts to prepare logistics service in China with Taobao, in France with Geopost's test, and in Africa. In Korea, CJ Korea Express tested delivery with a self-developed drone Results - In order to study for utilizing drones for logistics as the prerequisites, some overseas and domestic cases, which are currently considered, were reviewed. Also, the technologies and institutional requirements to commercialize drones for logistical purpose were reviewed. The reasons for using drones in logistics is to ensure the price competitiveness by reducing cost. The empirical test also will be needed because drone pilot areas are designated by ministry of land, infrastructure and transport. Conclusions - In order to utilize drones in logistics and foster the industry, this study would like to suggest the followings. First of all, size of drones for logistics needs to be fixed and their operating system should be standardized. Centralized investment resources are needed through standardization to ensure the market occupancy. Secondly, it is necessary to get the converged businesses that do research, develop and commercialize drones with the investment of private sector. Example can be found in Korea aerospace Industries. We can respond to the rapid growth of the market with intensive investing by integrating the private sector investment. Thirdly, institutional arrangements are needed to be established quickly. In the case of high-technologies like drones, institutional support often does not follow the rapid development of the technology. The problems can be found in securing drones-only airspace, creating drone-specialized pilot's license, matters related to remote controller and complementary regulations for drones in Aviation Act. If these regulations are not prepared or complemented at the right timing, technologies cannot be commercialized even though the development is completed. Fourthly, there is a need to secure the transparency regarding possible privacy and personal information protection problem while operating drones. Finally, in order to foster this new industry, government should focus on supporting R&D more in the long term than short term outcomes.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.146-173
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• 2014

Extant studies have explained that firm's innovations including technological product and process innovations contribute to its competitive advantage and growth, thereby supporting competitiveness and growth of industry. These studies, however, have focused mainly on the role and effect of technological change that is primarily measured by the patent numbers and R&D intensity. Aside from these traditional streams, there has been growing interest on the impact by various dimensions of innovation including non-technological innovations. Apart from the discussions on the dimensions and scope of innovation, stages or processes of innovation also have been studied. Extant studies on innovation process model, however, has limited its interests in the structure of the transformation of knowledge. This study have established a comprehensive model embracing operational and financial performance to investigate the causal paths between innovation and firm performance. Using multi-level generalized linear model with path analysis, this study have found results as follows: First, the processes from innovative activities to innovation output and outcomes including operational and financial performance at firm level were verified. Secondly, the influence of innovation decreases gradually as the distance away from the direct outputs of the innovation increase in the direction of financial outcomes. Third, the effect of innovation on the sales growth rate is higher for small businesses than for medium-sized businesses. The effect of innovation on the profit rate, however, is significant only for medium-sized businesses. For large businesses, innovation has no positive significant impact on any financial performance at all. Fourth, Fourth, the appropriability of innovation has positive impacts on innovative performance, patent applications, and operational performance.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.469-481
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• 2003

This study is to suggest strategies for the aquaculture of marine fishes in Korea through the analysis of current domestic states and case studies of the advanced countries to enhance the competitiveness of the industry. To reveal the current state, a questionnaire study to the producers was carried out, and cases in Norway, China, Japan, USA were analysed in terms of national development strategies. From those analyses, 3 strategies for the improvement of the competitive edge in the industry were induced as followings. First, it is necessary to implement restructuring such as upsizing through consolidation of small units, networking, etc. Second, it is required to introduce the state-of-the-art technology with the newly-designed equipments to save energy and cost in the operation. Third, it is also required to implement programs to select the national strategic species and concentrate R&D resources on the selected ones.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.235-262
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• 2012

Although a commercialization of developed technology is an important factor for firm's competitiveness, the success rate in technology commercialization is significantly low. This fact raises a need of an analysis on factors affecting success in technology commercialization. Thus, in this study, in order to determine the success factors of technology commercialization, statistical analysis is done on 4 different elements of Korean automobile industry firms: managerial group attitude, market orientation, technology quality, and government support; and developed a causal-relationship model of the above elements and commercialization. In the developed model, two moderating variables, corporate ability and industry classification, are added to determine the level of correlations respect to two moderating variables. As a result of hypothesis tests, market orientation, managerial attitude as an antecedent variable; and government support, technology quality as an antecedent variable, both have significant correlation with technology commercialization. For moderating variables, a corporate ability has moderating effects on the connections of managerial attitude, market orientation and technology commercialization; but an industry classification has a moderating effect only on the link between technology quality and government support. The results of this research serve a contribution to the development of R&D efficiency improvement by providing government with direction in science & technology policy.