• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.15-27
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of the study is to examine the relationships among the following retail operations variables: retail store operations (i.e., store management, sales personnel, promotion of merchandise), success of assortment planning, firm performance (i.e., market share, overall competitive position, profitability, product quality, consumer satisfaction), and retail buyer's demographics and firm's characteristics. Research design, data, and methodology - After conducting a pilot test, the survey was conducted in Seoul, South Korea. With using the listwise deletion method, 378 usable data sets were analyzed. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) methods were employed. Results - As evidenced from the path diagram, the relationship between retail store operations and the success of assortment planning is strong and significant. Retail store operations affect firm performance, though at a weaker significance than it affects the success of assortment planning. The relationship between the success of assortment planning and firm performance, is the strongest relationship observed by this research. Conclusions - The findings of this empirical study contribute to the retail/fashion buying/management field by confirming (a) the importance of assortment planning for retail firm performance and (b) the role of store operations for successful assortment planning and firm performance for fashion retailers.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.53-58
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• 2018

Purpose - This study aims to examine how the time variations of customer satisfaction influence retail firms' performance. Research design, data, and methodology - The study employs yearly time series customer satisfaction data of Korean retail secured from the National Customer Satisfaction Index(NCSI) for the 2011~2016 period. Our data includes a total of 90 observations of 15 retail firms in 5 different sector(department store, filling station, large discount store, open market, TV home shopping). We obtained the firm performance data from the KIS Value database. The variables for financial performance include sales and net profit. Results - The results show that customer satisfaction has dynamic effects on retail firms' performance. More specifically, the time variation of customer satisfaction has the moderating effect on the linkage between customer satisfaction and financial performance as well as direct effects on the firms' financial performance. Conclusions - Customer satisfaction has the current effect lasting over time on firm performance and changes of customer satisfaction in positive direction also impact on firm performance. Retail firms need to not only focus on improving customer satisfaction in the current term, but make efforts to continuously enhance customer satisfaction in the long term.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.127-146
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• 2011

Coping with the rapid change of competition in retail industry, retail firms have dreamed various differentiation strategy to obtain their added value and their life. And they have considered CRM strategy that can differentiate with other retail firms in order to develop some new differentiation factors. So we searched new factors that is best for "T store" and found CRM strategy such as the optimization for product portfolio considering private-brand products and the optimization for product display for customer demands. This study is meaningful in that it has suggested a new CRM strategy model, which can manage new various differentiation factors of a retail firms considering its core competence. We verified and altered retail firm's business model using system dynamics. By simulation results, CRM strategy need long time to obtain visible and satisfactory performance of "T store".

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to investigate the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory (the cost of financing increases with asymmetric information) among Korean retail firms from the perspective of debt capacity. According to the Pecking-order theory, a firm's first preference is to use internal funds for its capital needs, its next preference is the issuance of debt, and its last preference is the issuance of equity; this is due to the information asymmetry problem between existing shareholders and investors. However, prior empirical studies, such as Lemmon and Zender (2010), argue that the entire sample test for the Pecking-order theory could be misleading due to the different levels of debt issuance capability of each of the individual firms; in fact, they confirm that the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory improves after taking into account the differences in debt capacity of the U.S. firms they examined. This paper implements a case study approach among Korean retail firms to examine the relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses the sample of public retail firms on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) from the time period of 1990 to 2013. We gather related financial and accounting statements from the financial information firm WISEfn. Credit rating information is provided by the Korea Investor Service. We employ the models of Lemmon and Zender (2010) and Son and Kim (2013) to measure a firm's debt capacity. Their logit models use the rating dummy variable as a dependent variable and incorporate other firm characteristics as independent variables to estimate debt capacity. To test the Pecking-order theory, we adopt variants of the financing deficit model of Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). In the test of the Pecking-order theory, we consider all of the changes in total debt obligations, current debt obligations, and long-term debt obligations. Results - Our main contribution to the literature is our confirmation of the predicted relationship between debt capacity and the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory among Korean retail firms. The coefficients on financing deficits become greater as a firm's debt capacity improves. This is consistent with the results of Lemmon and Zender (2010). The coefficients on the square of the financing deficits are also negative for the firms in the largest debt capacity group, which is also consistent with the predictions in prior literature. Conclusions - This study takes a case study approach by examining Korean retail firms. We confirm that the Pecking-order theory explains the capital structure of retail firms more appropriately, after taking into account the debt capacity of each firm. This result suggests the importance of debt capacity consideration in the testing of the Pecking-order theory. Our result also implies that there has been a potential underestimation of the explanatory power of the Pecking-order theory in existing studies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether the cash policies of retail firms listed on Korean stock markets are consistent with the evidence provided in the study of Almeida et al. (2004). Liquidity management is an important issue for financially constrained firms relative to financially unconstrained firms. Because there are few sources of external funding, the optimal liquidity policies of financially constrained firms should reflect their own earnings or cash inflows to create opportunities for current and future real investments. According to this simple idea, we estimate the sensitivity of cash to cash flows and simply check whether the estimated sensitivity to cash flows of the cash retained by constrained retail firms is greater than that of the cash retained by unconstrained retail firms. Through this work, we aim to explain why the cash policies of the retail firms listed on the Korean stock markets differ from those of listed manufacturing enterprises. Research design, data, and methodology - To explain a firm's cash holdings, we use only three explanatory variables: earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), Tobin's q, and size. All the variables are defined as the value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets. Thanks to this definition, it is possible to treat all the sample firms as a single large firm. The sample financial data for this study are collected from the retail enterprises listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013. We can obtain these data from WISEfn, the financial information company. This study's methodology has its origin in Keynes's simple idea of precautionary liquidity demand: When a firm faces financial constraints, cash savings from earnings or cash inflows become important from the corporate finance perspective. Following this simple idea, Almeida et al. (2004) developed their theoretical model and found empirical evidence that the sensitivity of cash to cash flows varies systematically according to different types of financing frictions. To find more empirical evidence for this idea, we examined the cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by Korean retail firms. Results - Through several robustness tests, we empirically showed that financially constrained Korean retail firms display significant positive propensity to save cash from earnings before interest and taxes, while the estimated cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by unconstrained retail firms is not significant. Despite the relatively low earnings of retail firms, their sensitivity is three times greater than that of manufacturing enterprises. This implies that Korean retail firms have greater intentions of facilitating future investments rather than current investments. Conclusions - The characteristics of the cash policies of Korean retail firms differ from those of manufacturing firms. This contrast may be attributable to industry-oriented policy planning, regulations, and institutional differences. However, the industrial policymakers should observe signals of the long-term growth options of retail firms based on their high propensity to save from their cash inflows.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.31-43
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• 2018

Purpose - We examine how a Korean retail firm's social responsibility is related to its financial performances. The traditional view of corporation expects a negative relationship, while the stakeholder theory expects a positive one. Research design, data, and methodology - We adopt the ESG score, published by Korean Corporate Governance Service to measure the level of socially responsible activity for the Korean retail firms. The ordinary least square method is adopted to investigate this relationship. The publicly traded retail firms are examined from 2011 to 2016. Results - We find that the total ESG score is negatively related to ROE but shows no statistically significant relationship with ROA and Tobin's Q value. However, a firm's environmental score is negatively related with both of ROE and ROA. Its social score is no conclusive relationship with the performance measures. The governance score is negatively related to the value of Tobin's Q. Conclusions - This paper generally supports the traditional view of corporate theory, especially in terms of ROE. This evidence is not well aligned with the existing study for Korean corporations generally documenting positive relationships. We find almost no empirical evidence supporting the stakeholder theory of corporation in the Korean retail industry.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.5-11
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper examines how corporate social responsibility of the Korean retail industry affects the degree of asymmetric information. Recent theories predict that a firm's active engagement in socially responsible activities lowers the degree of asymmetric information of the firm. Research design, data, and methodology - This paper uses the sum of environmental and social scores (ES), published by the Korean Corporate Governance Service in order to proxy the degree of socially responsible management practices of Korean retail firms. This paper uses the ordinary least square method to investigate the above predictions. The publicly traded Korea retail firms listed in the Korean Exchange are analyzed from 2011 to 2016. To measure the degree of asymmetric information, this paper adopts the analyst dispersion and price impact measures. Results - This paper shows that the ES score has significantly positive relationships with these two measures of information asymmetry. The environmental score seems to increase the analyst dispersion measure and the social score appears to raise the price impact measure mores significantly. Conclusions - The results do not support the prior theory expecting a negative relationship between corporate social responsibility and the degree of asymmetric information. Environmental and social scores are found to affect the measures of information asymmetry differently.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.33-42
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• 2019

Purpose - We investigate whether a firm's engagement in socially responsible activity affects the quality of financial reporting within the retail industry of Korean market. Recent studies argue that more socially responsible firms tend to show a better quality of financial reporting. Research design, data, and methodology - We use a variety of proxy variables related to the use of discretionary accruals and real activity manipulation to measure the quality of financial reporting. The total of environmental, social and governance score is used to represent the degree of socially responsible activity in the retail industry. We use regression models to examine whether more socially responsible firms show a higher quality of financial reporting. The sample of publicly traded Korea retail firms is analyzed from 2011 to 2016. Results - Our analysis finds supporting evidence for limited earning management via the use of discretionary accruals. We find, however, no significant relationship between the degree of social responsibility and the quality of financial reporting within chaebol affiliates unlike non-chaebol affiliates. Conclusions - Our results weakly support a better quality of financial reporting for more socially responsible firms. The results highlight the importance of firm characteristics in deciding the effect of socially responsible activity on corporate policies.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.5-12
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• 2019

Purpose - In this paper, we examine the effect of accrual earnings management and real earnings management on the corporate value of retail corporations. Research design, data, and Methodology - The sample cover firms whose settlement is December among retail companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange's securities market and KOSDAQ market from 2001 to 2016. Of these, the targets were companies with operating profit and equity capital of zero or higher and with sales data. The secondary data was collected through KIS-VALUE data base. The Jones model and the modified Jones model were used for the calculating the accrual-based earnings management and the real earnings management. Result - According to the empirical results, the relationship between accrual earnings management, real earnings management and firm value is positively significant in the retail industry as in manufacturing industry. These results are also significant when controlling the size, profitability, investment, debt ratio, dividend, and growth potential of a company. Conclusions - The characteristics of the distribution business can be identified and the influence of the various kinds of earnings management, which is being researched around the manufacturing industry, can be studied in the distribution industry to give practical implications to investors.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.129-139
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• 2016

Purpose - This paper examines the explanatory power of the agency theory in the determination of cash holdings for Korean retail firms. If the agency theory holds, a firm with strong corporate governance structure tends to have low cash holdings. A strong governance structure makes the CEO of this firm to behave in the interests of shareholders and thus the CEO has low incentive to stockpile cash holdings, which can be easily diverted for the CEO's own managerial purposes. We investigate this relationship between corporate governance structure and cash holdings, by using corporate governance scores as a proxy variable that captures the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanism. Research design, data, and methodology - We adopt the sample of publicly listed retail firms in KOSPI market from 2005 to 2013. Financial and accounting statements are gathered from the WISEfn database. We also use the corporate governance scores published by Korean Corporate Governance Service. The relationship between the corporate governance scores and cash holdings is cross-sectionally estimated based on the ordinary least square method. This estimation method is widely accepted in the existing literature. The sample of large conglomerates, Chebol, and the remainder firms are separately examined as well, to account for the distinctive internal financing environment in these large conglomerates. Results - We mainly contribute to the extant literature by providing empirical evidence against the agency theory of cash policy. Unlike the prediction of agency theory, we confirm statistically insignificant or even positive correlations between the set of corporate governance scores and cash-asset ratios. Almost all the major corporate governance attributes including total score, shareholder rights, board structure, and the quality of information disclosure do not show negative correlations with cash holdings, which poses a strong challenge to the validity of the agency theory in the determination of retail firms' cash holdings. Conclusions - This study presents interesting empirical results with respect to the cash policy in Korean retail firms. Consistent to prior studies, I verify that the agency theory only limitedly explains the level of cash holdings. Future studies may obtain more robust results by examining a longer sample period.