• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.843-862
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop quality innovation techniques specialized for the small and medium-sized businesses. which account for the majority of Korean companies, were having a hard time utilizing the widely recognized quality innovation techniques due to resource constraints. Methods: First, we do review the existing Single PPM and 6 Sigma. And investigate the utilization of these methods including Toyota Production System. Second, we devised a four-step problem-solving methodology based on recent trends in quality innovation such as Simple, Speedy, and Smart. Third, we do survey on frequently used tools for quality innovation. Many opinion leaders including quality consultants and professors answered and gave us valuable comments about our selected quality tools. Finally, we do specify and map tools to each step of PASS. Results: In 2017, 167 companies participated in the quality innovation support business for small businesses according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry. We conducted performance checks on 167 companies that had completed the "PASS" projects. For the purpose of evaluating improvement performance, the survey was carried out using a structured questionnaire during the field visit of these companies mentioned above. For the reference, 165 out of 167 companies (98.8 % response rate) responded to the questionnaire and conducted performance analysis based on it. According to the survey, 97.6 percent of the respondents were very satisfied with their overall satisfaction with the quality innovation support projects for small and medium sized enterprises in 2017. Also, 93.3 % of the respondents were satisfied with the results of level of the target achievement. As a result, 160 companies (97.0 % of the participating companies) hope to partic ipate in the quality improvement project using "PASS" once again. Conclusion: In this paper, we introduce the new quality innovation methodology, which is named as 'PASS', It could support the long-range business plan of the small and medium-sized businesses to achieve total customer satisfaction resulting in increased market share and improved profit margin. The most small companies can use this "PASS" technique more easily, quickly and most efficiently than their existing known quality innovation techniques such as Six Sigma and Single PPM, etc.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.81-92
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of store occupancy based on the rental characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) renting buildings across the country, and to analyze the satisfaction level after opening. Research design, data and methodology: The study conducted an empirical survey through questionnaires targeting individual business owners, corporate representatives, and executives and employees nationwide, including Seoul, Gyeonggi, and other metropolitan areas and provincial cities. Results: In this study, the most important factor that SMEs consider when deciding whether to rent a commercial building or office is financial characteristics, followed by management characteristics, location characteristics, building characteristics, and facility characteristics. In addition, management characteristics were found to have the greatest impact on rental satisfaction of SMEs, followed by financial characteristics, building characteristics, and location characteristics in order. Conclusions: Since the lessor cannot immediately improve the location characteristics or building characteristics, in order to increase the rental satisfaction of small and medium-sized businesses in a relatively short period of time, it is necessary to improve managerial characteristics such as prompt civil complaint handling and clean management of the building. In addition, it is analyzed that if the factors that can reduce the burden on the tenants are found in advance and reflected in the financial characteristics, the satisfaction of the tenants can be increased.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.155-163
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• 2021

This research was conducted to check the impact of factors related to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) on the economic growth in the Southeast region of Vietnam, over the years from 1996-2019. This paper applies a combination of FEM, DKSE, GMM, and RIDGE-FEM regression methods to estimate the influence of independent variables on the economic growth of the whole Southeast region with the panel data collected from GSO; and applying the OLS regression model for each province. The study finds that all variables have a statistically significant positive impact on the economic growth of the study area. Accordingly, the importance of the variables is in the following order: (1) the proportion of workers by professional and technical qualification (SMEH), (2) the number of vocational training schools (LnTSCH), and educational level of workers (LnSchool), (3) the number of SME enterprises (LnSME); (4) The average number of years in the schooling of employees in the enterprise (LnSchool); (5) Enterprise capital (LnCAP); and (6) the average number of employees of SME (LnSMER). The research results also show that factors related to the quality of labor resources have a more positive influence on growth than both the labor size and financial capital of SMEs.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.113-125
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• 2023

Purpose: Support policies for small and medium-sized retailers (SMSRs) have been promoted in various ways over the past 20 years, but they are generally regarded as unsuccessful. The purpose of this study is to analyze the process and impact of policy changes, identify the reasons for the lack of success, and explore policy alternatives. Research design, data and methodology: This study explored major policies in various categories such as the retail industry, traditional markets, and Micro-Enterprises from the mid-1990s to the present. It also analyzed the short- and long-term impacts of major policies at the retail format level like SMSRs, using data from Statistics Korea's service industry survey. Results: This research found that sudden shifts in policy philosophy conflicted with the existing market structure and reduced the effectiveness of policies. It also found that policies aimed at improving competitiveness at the SMSRs-level had some effect, while polices aimed at supporting expenses at the individual store-level were difficult to achieve their intended purpose. Conclusions: The failure of the policy to support SMSRs is fundamentally due to the late response and conflicts between policies. It was also not successful due to the policy's focus on individual store-level expenses and maintaining employment rather than structural improvements of SMSRs format.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.897-907
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate the quality of entrepreneurship - motivation, entrepreneurial orientation, and risk behavior - in relation to the odds of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises' (MSMEs) financial performance in Indonesia. Additionally, this paper investigates how these qualities apply for the current challenges perceived by MSMEs' entrepreneurs in Indonesia due to Covid-19 crisis; specifically, this paper examines the odds of MSMEs' financial performance during the pandemic in respect to when these qualities are implemented by the entrepreneurs. The empirical data was obtained from an online survey by means of a structured questionnaire. MSMEs surveyed were randomly selected on a national scale. To test the hypotheses, a quantitative approach is employed, using multinomial regression. The main result shows that, under normal economic environment, the more intrinsically-motivated and continuity-driven entrepreneur is, the more likely the MSME will achieve financial growth compared to remaining stagnant. To our surprise, innovativeness leads to less likelihood of MSME's financial growth, suggesting the significance of innovation does not apply to MSMEs in Indonesia. Lastly, MSMEs' risk behavior to operate in a stable business environment is found more likely to result in a better performance and is true for operational and financial risks, but not marketing risks.

• IE interfaces
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2012

Recently, the collaboration among small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) has been recognized as an effective competitive tool. As several systems have been developed to boost the collaboration, it is necessary to analyze the effectiveness of the systems in terms of their contribution to enhance operational performance of SMEs through objective and quantitative validation. In particular, the analysis for SMEs rather than large-scaled enterprises has not received much attention due to lack of relevant information and difficulty of collecting data. This paper presents a framework for analyzing the effectiveness of the collaboration support system, called i-manufacturing hub, which has been implemented by Korean government. Identification of influential factors to the effectiveness of collaboration hub, and constructing necessary hypotheses are proposed. To overcome the difficulty in data collection only by means of surveys through subjective questionnaires, we exploit system log data that are generated while SMEs use the system. As an initial phase to analyze the effectiveness through hypothesis validation, we discuss several interesting observations and challenges in the direction of enhancing collaboration among SMEs for better operational performance improvement and more participation in the collaboration hub.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.11-30
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• 2013

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute an important part of current industrial economies. Information technologies can be useful strategic weapons for SMEs by enhancing their competitiveness. Categorized as one kind of cloud computing, SaaS is a computing resource and software sharing model which can be accessed via the Internet. Based on virtualization technology, SaaS is expected to improve the efficiency and quality of the IT service level in SMEs. This study attempts to identify the determinants of SaaS adoption intention among Korean SMEs. Through the lens of the theory of planned behavior, this study adopts technological, organizational, environmental factors to explore the determinants of cloud computing adoption intention. The research population is the SMEs that have been funded by the Korean government. Partial least square method was used for empirical analysis of 190 samples collected through on-line survey. The results show that the positive attitude is influenced by business process improvements. Vender support and top management support are positively associated with subjective norm. Vendor support, top management support can relieve perceived behavior control factors. Government support directly influences adoption intention of cloud computing. These findings can provide useful strategy for both SMEs and vendors of SaaS.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.41-55
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper tries to analyze the factors affecting the utilization of electronic trade of small and medium enterprises and examine how these factors affect the performance of small and medium enterprises. In addition, the leading factors affecting the level of e-trade utilization of small businesses were analyzed by dividing them into external environmental factors affecting the external business and internal resources of the companies themselves Research design, data, and methodology - With a sample of 223 small and medium-sized export firms from South Korea, this study investigates the antecedents of the utilization level of e-Trade such as information exchange, innovation orientation, absorptive capacity and trust by hierarchical regression analysis. Results - The results show that innovation orientation was shown to have a positive effect on e-trade utilization and absorptive capacity has a positive effect on e-trade utilization. Also, information exchange with stakeholders has a positive impact on e-trade utilization. Conclusions - Internal and external factors of companies have a positive effect on the utilization of e-trade. It also showed that the increased utilization of electronic trade had a positive effect on trade performance. Thus, the findings provide policy-makers with implications of the importance of activating e-trade, and furthermore, significant implications for exporter performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.661-670
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• 2020

This paper investigates the influence of the economic integration exemplified by the Eurasian Economic Union on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Kazakhstan corporate sector. Using data collected from 204 small-, medium-, and large-sized Kazakh companies, the researchers analyzed the collected data with percentile. Findings of this study show that small- and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the tertiary sector of the Kazakh economy, are not that much affected by regional integration, whereas large firms have been significantly impacted. The originality of the paper is threefold. First, the research explores the entrepreneurial ecosystems in its focus on geographic location or digital technologies that came across mainly from the ICT space. This is becoming pervasive across mechanical systems, communications, infrastructure, and the built-up environment. Second, the originality of the paper lies in focusing on the entrepreneurial ecosystems' influence on the business processes by clearly understanding the regional, national, and international trends in different markets. Third, the paper is first of its kind to contribute an updated perspective on the entrepreneurial ecosystem's influence on economic integration to the policymakers of Kazakhstan. Policymakers will gain expertise on how to manage network effects while planning investment projects, as well as transactions, modes, and fixed nodes, acquisition, and greenfield investments.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.151-160
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• 2021

The purposes of this research were: 1) to analyze the confirmatory factors with the business operational model of entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the textile and clothing industry, and 2) to verify the congruence of the model with the operational ways of the entrepreneurs of SMEs in the textile and clothing industry. The sample consisted of 500 small and medium enterprise entrepreneurs in the textile and clothing industry. This study was quantitative research and the instrument used to collect the data was a questionnaire. The data was analyzed using 1^st order and 2^nd order of confirmatory analysis (CFA). The findings of this research revealed that the model of SMEs in the textile and clothing industry was overall at a high level. Four main factors were used for the model of SMEs in the textile and clothing industry by their importance in descending order as follows: marketing mix (MM), collaboration network (CN), production inventory management (PIM), and creativity (CT). The results of verification of model congruence revealed the model of SMEs in the textile and clothing industry was fit and in accordance with the empirical data.