• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.87-104
• /
• 2023

Recently, concerns are growing over small and medium-sized companies holding out on debt as domestic loan interest rates have risen sharply due to the prolonged impact of COVID-19 and soaring raw material prices. In addition, loans from small and medium-sized enterprises, which are difficult in the business environment, are increasingly being rejected due to high loan interest rates and excessive submission documents and financial statements-oriented screening of loans by the financial sector. Therefore, since it is necessary to discuss ways to promote financing and investment by SMEs, this study intends to suggest ways to promote investment through the use of SMEs' ESG systems. The purpose of this study is to suggest that the use of ESG evaluation indicators used as non-financial indicators helps predict the corporate value of SMEs and the importance of SMEs actively participating in ESG information disclosure. This study suggests the necessity of introducing and practicing ESG by SMEs where financing is important, and aims to analyze as an empirical result that the use of non-financial indicators helps predict corporate value. As a result of the study, the ESG performance and corporate value of SMEs showed a positive (+) relationship. It can be seen that both the grades and corporate value of SMEs by ESG sector have a positive (+) influence relationship. The total ESG rating was confirmed to have a positive effect on corporate value, and it was confirmed that SMEs with higher ESG environment, social, and governance ratings were evaluated higher. According to the research results, it is suggested that SMEs also need to use ESG evaluation indicators, and in order to promote the growth of SMEs, it is suggested that research on ways to re-examine the corporate value of SMEs is necessary. Therefore, this study suggests that the use of ESG should be actively recommended and implemented as a way to establish a management strategy for SMEs, and that efforts to disclose ESG information can soon help SMEs solve information asymmetry. In addition, SMEs want to understand the investment mechanism that the introduction and practice of ESG can lead to the improvement of the value of SMEs and suggest the necessity of SME-type ESG policies in the future.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.31-53
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study is to find out the factors affecting the usage and performance of e-Trade in Chinese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SMEs). To achieve the purpose of the study, the research model and hypotheses, depicting the relationship among external factors, internal factors, relationship characteristics, e-Trade usage level, and performance were developed based on the existing literature on e-Trade. To test the significance of the research model and hypotheses, an empirical survey were conducted to the Chinese SMEs in Yangtze River Delta area, which are actively using the e-Trade in their trade processes. According to the result of the statistical analyses on the 85 effective questionnaires from the sample firms, support of the government related institutions(one of the external factors) and CEO's support(one of the internal factors) had significant relationship with e-Trade usage level, but no significant relationship was found between the relationship characteristics and e-Trade usage level. Like the results of the most of the existing literature, e-Trade usage level were formed to significantly affected the e-Trade performance. Finally, based on results of the empirical survey, several implications on the Chinese SME's e-Trade strategies and policy alternatives were proposed as a concluding remark.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.88-92
• /
• 1991

To analyze the effects of the system parameters on the target parameters, which include the amount of water evaporation, water solubility index(WSI) and water absorption index(WAI), test trials of fractional factorial design of the three process variables at three levels were carried out for corn grit with a laboratory twin-screw extruder with three different screw configurations. The system parameters collected from the trials, such as extrusion temperature, specific mechanical energy input(SME) and mean residence time(RT), were showed the ranges of $129{\sim}182^{\circ}C$, $67{\sim}163\;kwh/ton$ and $12{\sim}34\;sec$, respectively. Within these ranges of the system parameters, the target parameters were able to be quantified by using multiple regression equations. The correlation of results with the system parameters blocked by the screw configuration as dependent variables, yield correlation coefficients above 0.90, and the correlation using the system parameters obtained from whole experiment system as the dependent variables yield correlation coefficients around 0.80. The functional relationship, which can be quantified by second order polynomial regression equation with only two system parameters within necessary degree of accuracy, can he graped in three dimensional surface response and contour diagrams.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.04a
• /
• pp.35-64
• /
• 2007

Despite the tremendous efforts to boost them, domestic SMEs lack competitive power and it intensifies bipolarization between the conglomerates and SMEs. Furthermore, degree of industry-academy collaboration still falls far behind of that of developed countries even with government' s various policies and continuous increase in investment to strengthen the SMEs' technology innovation capability. Although many internal factors are suggested to affect technological performance, focus of existing studies has been restricted to immediate impact of industry-academy collaboration on technology innovation and it is not known how internal factors are related. This research conducts empirical analysis on the impact of industry-academy collaborations and absorptive capacity on technological performance in Korean SMEs. Sample frame is SMEs with more than five employees located in the nation wide industrial complex and 1,077 questionnaires are collected with the help of Korea Industrial Complex Corporations. 940 sample data excluding those with insufficient response are used in analysis. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the industry-academy collaborations and innovative HRM system, on important dimension of absorptive capacity, are positively correlated to technological performance. Furthermore, there exists a positive interaction effect between industry-academy collaborations and innovative HRM system. These findings make contributions to the formation of SME innovation policy and management. When funding industry-academy collaborations, government should consider SMEs' internal effort for innovation, that is, the possession of innovative HRM system, as well as firm's technology capability. Also, as technological performance cannot be achieved simply with R&D investment, both quantitative and qualitative assessment of SMEs' technological capability should be done to evaluate the candidate SMEs. As for management, it is important for SMEs with limited internal resources and capabilities to fully employ external resources to achieve higher technological performance. The development of innovative HRM system will be particularly helpful not only for internal R&D, but also for adoption of technology and knowledge from outside.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.10
• /
• pp.37-45
• /
• 2013

Purpose - Appropriate response to the fast changing economic environment determines SMEs' competiveness in the era of globalization and open market and, therefore, government policies to strengthen SME's competitiveness will be very important in the future. It is time to investigate the element of strategic orientation that is necessary for strengthening the competitiveness of SMEs, and its effect on the success of a business start-up. This study analyzes the network orientation in addition to existing strategic orientation, and focuses on price and quality management capability as mediators for strategic orientation and outcomes of business start-ups. Research design/data/methodology - The orientations of technology-based business founders were classified into market, technology, network, and entrepreneurial orientation. We then investigated the effect of these orientations on product price and quality management capability, as well as the influence of price and quality management capability on the outcome of a business start-up. This study is based on the nation-wide survey of the founders and members of technology-based business establishments. The survey was administered to 300 selected companies via email for a period of one month, at the end of which 175 companies replied with valid answers. Further, for effective and objective research, we used SPSS 14.0 and Amos 7.0 for structural equation modeling assumptions and hypothesis verification. Results - Except for entrepreneurial orientation, the other three orientations, namely, technology, market, and network orientations, affect the price management capability according to our results. The price management capability relates significantly with the sales and customer satisfaction. Especially, technology orientation is the core competency of start-ups that affects price and quality management capabilities. However, technology and entrepreneurial orientation do not influence the outcome of business start-ups, but affect their quality management capabilities. Conclusions - This study confirms that the strategic orientation affects product price as well as quality management capabilities, to introduce new products and achieve successful outcomes. In conclusion, new business founders face the dilemma of trade-off between price and quality in the planning stage of new product development. In particular, price management capability directly affects the outcome. Therefore, price management is more important for a successful start-up than quality management. Especially, during the initial stages of starting up a new business, price management capability entails following the market-leading company, or price penetration strategy. In this stage, price management is dependent on the information from outside rather than on the founder's decision, and it directly affects sales performance and customer satisfaction. In contrast, quality management capability is directly related to the technology capability and market experience of founders. In this case, subjective and proactive decision making is required for differentiation and development of demand in the niche market, which does not directly influence the sales performance and customer satisfaction.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
• /
• 2011.04a
• /
• pp.731-746
• /
• 2011

The successful and sustainable growth of SMEs depends on their ability of strengthen their competitiveness in quality and cost and service more than anything else as a fundamental of operation. Among these key competitive factors of SMEs, quality is the most critical factor in manufacturing business fields. Because quality strongly influence cost and service performance on this manufacturing business field. There are many different ways to improve the quality performance but it needs proper management decision to choose the best way what can maximize outputs with minimum inputs. And it needs effective measurement methods and some indicators to analysis the quality performance properly. The quality cost is one of the simplest key indicators to measure the quality performance and the effectiveness of quality related management decisions. The major purpose of this study is to diagnose the categorized current level of actual quality cost of local SMEs to maximize their quality management effectiveness through comparing their level with others what's expressed in early studies. In this study, through survey on local SMEs, we found that their average annual quality cost ratio versus turnover - Total amount of annual quality cost divided by annual turnover - is around 3.69% excluded some SME's performances what have different quality control measures with others. And we found some results what corresponded with the early studies on the correlations between those categorized quality costs factors and some discrepancies between some of the literature model and the early case study results as follows. There were negative correlations between the Prevention costs and the External failure costs, and the Appraisal costs and the External failure costs, and there was positive correlation between the Appraisal costs and Internal failure costs same as early studies. But, we couldn't found any strong negative correlations between the Cost of control - Preventive costs & Appraisal costs - and the Cost of Failure of control - Internal & External failure costs -. It reveals not only the lack of effectiveness on their preventive or appraisal activities but also it can reveal there were so many effective ways to prevent the failure costs properly such as some innovative investment on Factory automation includes Error Proofing and more preventive actions to improve the effectiveness of the typical management methods likes CE (Concurrent Engineering), APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning), FMEA (Failure Mode & Effect Analysis) etc.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.325-341
• /
• 2011

Environmental regulations in the world has been strengthened. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that international standard for social responsibility in the ISO26000 was published on November 01, 2010. CSR is rapidly changing in global environment. In the meantime, domestic companies such as donations to the required activities ought to be stayed. Strengthening the competitiveness of enterprises in the management tools that should be taken as the movement is taking place. The domestic small and medium-sized corporate social responsibility (SMEs CSR) activities have also taken many changes. In particular, multinational corporations and large companies within the supply chain, B2B companies in partnership appears to have a significant impact on business. In this study, in changing environment for domestic SMEs CEO survey results are based. CSR activities of SMEs and its impact on the financial competence, B2B businesses and B2C business activities of corporate social responsibility has been to analyzed the differences factor. This allows the small and medium-sized companies effectively promote socially responsible business activities, to spread the government, corporate, NGO, and local stakeholder's CSR was to provide a new perspective.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.341-366
• /
• 2013

The term, Mittelstand, has no exact english translation for the definition, but, today, Mittelstand refers to small and medium-sized enterprises(SME), mostly family-owned firms in Germany. The Mittelstand is called the backbone of the German economy because it drove the economic miracle after World War II. During the global recession and the euro zone's debt crisis in recent years, in which european businesses have faced the near-collapse of competitiveness particularly in manufacturing, the German exports are booming and exceeded exports of China in 2012. Most importantly, the Germany economic performance has been widely attributed to the strength of the Mittelstand. Many of countries, even some leading public companies are seeking to emulate the success of the Mittelstand. Investors evaluate that many of Germany's investable "hidden champions" are Mittelstand companies. The purpose of this study is to present some of answers to the following questions: Firstly, what makes the German Mittelstand so successful? Secondly, what does the success of the German Mittelstand mean for the Korean SMEs in global competitiveness? Thirdly, what Korean government has to do improve the global competitiveness of the Korean SMEs? Some discussions in this study mention the managerial implications for Korean exporting SMEs particularly in manufacturing. Several factors that account for the success of the German Mittelstand are technological excellence and the tradition of family-owned management, concentration on niche market and globalization, and institutional supports. There are some of important lessons to be learned from the German Mittelstand. If the purposes of Korean SMEs want to remain in the sustainable competitive advantage and withstand unforeseen economic turbulences in the future, they must be able to meet the followings: 1) Technology that meets the global standard or exceeding it 2) Competitiveness in price in the global market 3) Active involvement in the globalization process, utilizing various entry modes Innovative products at globally competitive price are a crucial point for Korean exporting SMEs to achieve their competitive edge over others in the target markets abroad. It is time for Korean SMEs to cultivate a core competence in manufacturing in order to position Korea as a global manufacturing hub with SMEs leading.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.173-193
• /
• 2020

This study analyzes the effects of KOSDAQ-listed firms' convertible bonds, which have recently increased rapidly in number and size. Although KOSDAQ companies are called mid-size companies, KOSDAQ companies belong to SMEs. Furthermore, convertible bonds have traditionally been a critical capital raising tool for SMEs in the US and Europe. In Korea, KOSDAQ companies actively employ convertible bonds. Convertible bonds provide investment incentives for hesitant investors, allowing companies to raise capital at low interest rates. This study analyzes whether capital raising through issuance of convertible bonds by KOSDAQ companies affects their financial constraints. Financial constraints result from incomplete capital markets, which are embedded in most companies and countries.. In particular, financial constraints have a significant impact on the growth and survival of SMEs. The seminal study FHP(1988) is the most important and effective study of firm's financial constraints. We find that FHP's financial constraint measures show that convertible bond issuance would mitigate the financial constraints of KOSDAQ companies. However, the significance of the evidence is not strong.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.77-87
• /
• 2022

Previous literatures have provided growing evidence regarding the impact of leadership in enhancing follower creativity. Despite these ample evidences, a noticeable omission in this body of study is entrepreneurial leadership. The present study extends leadership·creativity research by developing a mediation-moderation model and investigating the key roles that innovation climate and psychological empowerment may play in the mechanism between entrepreneurial leadership and followers' individual creativity. Using a data of 161 SME's members, the results show that: (a) followers' psychological empowerment positively mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and individual creativity; (b) the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on followers' psychological empowerment through innovation climate is high (in other words, innovation climate positively moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and followers' psychological empowerment). This study gain more comprehensive insight of individual creativity and leader's entrepreneurial leadership, to foster more creative venture organizations. The findings of this study make several important implications to present venture·leadership·creativity knowledge. Future studies should examine a broad range of mediating or moderating processes through which context for innovation effects positively on individual creativity. Therefore, additional study is needed to test if the results of this research can be generalized across industry·firm types.