• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.786-794
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• 2011

To investigate the sanitary-quality level of commercial kimchi in South Korea, the pH, acidity, and microbial-flora changes in the kimchi were determined. Samples of kimchi produced by three different manufacturers (a small grocery store, a small/medium-sized enterprise, and a large food company) were collected. Freshly made kimchi was purchased and fermented at $10^{\circ}C$ for 10 days. The pH of the commercial kimchi on the purchased day was approximately pH 5.8, and that on the $10^{th}$ day of fermentation was ${\simeq}pH$ 4.1. The kimchi purchased from a large company showed a more rapid decline in pH level during fermentation. The saltiness of the kimchi purchased from a medium-sized company was slightly higher than those of the other commercial kimchi samples. The saccharinity index of the kimchi produced by a small grocery store was higher than those of the other samples, and its value deviation was also higher than those of the other commercial kimchi samples. A higher total viable-cell count and a higher lactic-acid bacteria (LAB) count were detected in the kimchi from the large food company at the beginning of fermentation compared to the samples of the two other kimchi manufacturers. The highest cell numbers of gram-positive bacteria (except LAB) and coliform bacteria were detected from the small-grocery-store kimchi, but the coliform bacteria count gradually decreased during fermentation although such bacteria were still detected until the $10^{th}$ day of fermentation. In contrast, coliform bacteria were not detected in the samples from the medium-sized and large food companies. Yeast, which is detected in over-ripened kimchi, was detected in the unfermented kimchi from the small grocery store, which had a below-0.36% acidity level. The gram-positive bacteria (except LAB) that were detected in all the tested commercial kimchi samples were determined to be Bacillus spp., and the gram-negative bacteria were determined to be Escherichia coli, Enterobacter spp., Sphingomonase spp., and Strenophomonas spp. The proportions of all the aforementioned bacteria in the kimchi samples, however, were different depending on the samples that were taken. These results indicate that a more sanitary kimchi production process and a more systematic kimchi production manual should be developed to industrialize and globalize kimchi.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.90-97
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• 2016

Since Korean construction firms have steadily advanced into the international market, small and medium construction companies (SMCCs) have also advanced in such market. SMCCs's recent trend have clearly shown the changes of contract types from single subcontractor projects to multiple general contracting projects. However, among those multiple projects performed by SMCCs, 1 out of 3 projects were deficit projects that impact the overall pe rformance of the firm. To increase such performance, risk management for in international construction must be managed at the enterprise level for SMCCs. This research aims to create a multiple project management model for SMCCS that employs the concept of acceptable risk to assess the limit risk level for corporation to acceptable. Using the accumulated data from previous survey and International Construction Association of Korea (ICAK), integrated risk of each firm and their profitability of each project are analyzed. Through the analysis, each firm's acceptable risk level is derived. Through the two research steps, acceptable risk algorithm was developed based on corporate integrated risk and profit correlation. To prove the acceptable algorithm relevance, financial statement analysis of 3 corporation was derived that level of acceptable risk and financial statement were available. Through the approach, this research allows the firms to analyze the firm's capability and find projects that suits the firm's situation and capability.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.607-641
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• 2017

Recently, there has been an increase in government-wide demand for technological cooperation between government funded research institutes (GFRIs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), while there remain a tension between positive and negative views regarding the support given by GFRIs to encourage the technological innovation of SMEs. Although preceding studies have found that the support given by GFRIs to SMEs tends to have the effect of enhancing the technological innovation outcomes of SMEs, this study examines the question of why the agent that provides technological cooperation to SMEs should be limited to GFRIs. To answer this question, in this study, we first examined the qualitative changes in the external technological cooperation behavior of SMEs over time, from 2007 to 2014. Next, we performed cluster analysis to examine whether there were distinctive characteristics of SMEs that engage in technological cooperation with GFRIs, compared to the various other alternatives available as technological cooperation partners for SMEs. Lastly, to help us identify the characteristics of the companies that technologically cooperate with GFRIs and to facilitate the administrative or practical effort to find companies that would be strong candidates for technological cooperation with GFRIs, we used discriminant analysis to define a discriminant formula for such companies likely to engage in technological cooperation. The results of this study were as follows. First, GFRIs were the most competitive -- as demonstrated by the highest level of satisfaction, etc. - compared to the other alternatives for external technological cooperation available to SMEs. This confirmed the necessity for GFRIs to provide technological cooperation to SMEs. Secondly, the issue of whether the small and medium-sized enterprise had engaged in technological cooperation specifically with GFRIs was found not to be a very significant factor in distinguishing these companies. It was found, however, that SMEs engaged in technological cooperation were distinctive, regardless of the type of institution involved in the technological cooperation. Thirdly, SMEs that were in technological cooperation with GFRIs had the characteristics of being already active in joint research and already familiar with utilizing the systems available for governmental support. The findings of this study offers various insights relevant to establishing national R&D strategies using GFRIs and improving the efficiency of policies and administrative practices intended to help GFRIs assist SMEs.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.187-194
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• 2007

In order to control and manage oil-tanker scrapped materials and wastes properly, the actual conditions and global trends of the treatment and the management of ship scrapped wastes were surveyed and some amendments to marine pollution prevention law of Korea were proposed. Global annual volume of scrapped ships was estimated to be about 22 million DWT and most of them were scrapped in 4 major ship scrap countries such as Bangladesh, China. India and Pakistan and in minor ship scrap countries such as Turkey, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. The industry of ship scrap has been mainly developed in developing countries or undeveloped countries rather than in advanced countries. Most of scrapped ships were found to be small or medium size below 1,000 GRT In Jellanam-Do and Jeju-Do of Korea. Most of ship scrap enterprise and all enterprises of collection, transfer, treatment and disposal for ship scrapped materials and wastes were shown to be small sized in Korea. The regulations and/or rules which shall prohibit or limit trans-boundary movement of overage oil-tankers for scrap from Korea to developing or undeveloped countries, and vice versa should be Included in marine pollution prevention law of Korea. the criteria of manpower and facilities for enterprise of ship scrap, and for enterprises of collection, transfer, treatment and disposal of ship scrapped materials and wastes should be stipulated in marine pollution prevention law of Korea. It is desirable to introduce the system or concept of recycle or reuse of ship scrapped materials and wastes on producer's responsibility into marine pollution prevention law of Korea.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.85-105
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• 2021

This study verified how R&D investment affects the management performance of SMEs, whether technology innovation mediates this relationship, and whether marketing competency moderates the relationship between technology innovation and management performance. A longitudinal analysis was conducted using data from the corporate panel survey performed by Daegu Technopark every year since 2013. Data from 349 companies in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk region were mainly used, and the size of 30 to 50 employees in the manufacturing industry was a major analysis target company. The results are as below. First, The results showed that R&D investment had a positive effect on management as well as technology innovation, but technology innovation did not affect management performance. Also, technological innovation did not mediate the relationship between R&D investment and management performance. This shows that in the case of small SMEs, even if technological innovation occurs through R&D investment, the technological innovation does not lead to management performance. Also, the relationship between technological innovation and management performance was not changed by marketing capabilities. This shows that technological innovation in small SMEs is not easy to lead to business performance.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.473-488
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• 2021

The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a standardized and advanced business process that many companies are implementing now-a-days through customization. However, it affects the efficiency of operations as these customizations are based on uniqueness. In this study, we analyzed the impact of customized modules and processing time on customer service request (CSR), by utilizing the stacked CSR data during the construction and operation of ERP, focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result, a positive correlation was found between unit companies and the length of ERP implementation; ERP modules and the length of ERP implementation; ERP modules and unit companies; and the type of ERP implementation and ERP module. In terms of CSR, a comparison of CSR processing time of CBO (customized business object) module and STD (standard) module revealed that while the five modules did not display statistically significant differences, one module demonstrated a statistically very significant difference. In sum, the analysis indicates that the CBO-type CSR and its processing cost are higher than those of STD-type CSR. These results indicate that companies planning to implement an ERP system should consider the ERP module and their customization ratio and level. It not only gives the theoretical validity that should be considered as an indicator for decision making when ERP is constructed, but also its implications on the impact of processing time suggesting that the maintenance costs and project scheduling of ERP software must also be considered. This study is the first to present the degree of impact on the operation and maintenance of customized modules based on actual data and can provide a theoretical basis for applying SW change ratio in the cost estimation of ERP system maintenance.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.665-684
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test and verify on the interrelationship among Service Quality, and Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in the Humidifier Goods industry. Especially, we study on the relative importance of each CS variables by distribution channel. Nowadays, most of manufacturing companies are proceeding the product servitization, which is combined service contents with product characteristics in the field of manufacturing industries. Methods: We surveyed humidifier purchaser about the some of CS variables and analyzed it using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 as a statistical analysis tool. We use the frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, multi-regression analysis and structural equation modeling analysis for our empirical study. Results: As the result of study, we find that Service Quality(SQ) influence Customer Satisfaction(CS) and CS influence Customer Loyalty(CL). Also, we verify that CS works mediate interaction on the effects between SQ and CL. And there are the significant relative effect of SQ to Customer Satisfaction in some of distribution channel. Conclusion: Finally, we make certain that the market size of the Humidifier goods industry will be increased rapidly. And the distribution channe l is more important to medium and small-sized enterprise. So, we have to pay attention to the study on the distribution channel of the Humidifier goods industry. And then, we expect more researches and studies on Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in the field of manufacturing industries.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.352-364
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• 2018

Objective: The Korean Industrial Hygiene Association(KIHA) held a forum on "Improvement of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) regulations for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency in the field" at its 2018 Winter Conference(February 2, 2018). This article summarized the major consensus opinions developed at the forum. Methods: Since the initial implementation of the MSDS system, the contents of the system have changed and related studies have been reviewed. Before the forum, online questionnaires were developed and opinions on the effectiveness of MSDS program were collected from various strata of the occupational health field. We also summarized the key opinions of companies, trade unions, experts, and government officials as discussed at the forums. Results: A total of 265 opinions were gathered through online questionnaire surveys from safety and health managers, trade unions, government officials, and health professionals. The results of online surveys and discussions showed some differences of opinion, but it was a common perception that the current MSDS system is not working effectively in the workplace. It was considered necessary to strengthen MSDS education and to make it easier for workers to understand and deliver the necessary information. In addition, it was confirmed that the supply of and education on MSDS to small- and medium-sized enterprise workers is not being well executed. In particular, MSDS training for subcontract workers should be carried out under the responsibility of the contracting employer. Conclusions: In order for the MSDS system to serve more effectively in the field in the future, it needs to be improved in terms of the effective education and training considering the type of industry and employment.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.313-323
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• 1998

This study is to develop the model on the joint employment system of occupational health nurse practitioners for medium or small sized enterprises in Korea based on the comparison opinions between employers and occupational health nurses (OHN). The data were collected by questionnaires from Oct. to Nov. in 1997. The number of subjects was 210 OHNs and 176 employers, response rate was 47.1% for OHNs and 23.2% for employers. The SAS PC program was used for the descriptive statistics. The results were as follow: 1. More than three years career was preferred for qualification of OHN by employers and OHNs. OHNs preferred that all instruments and materials should be equipped in each industry, but employers preferred that they should be equipped by OHN. 2. For the limit number of industries and employees per one OHN, employers preferred average 2.25 industries and 307 employees, OHNs preferred average 3.0 industries and 448 employees. Both of them preferred two times visit per week for all day long. 3. OHNs wanted that the local office of Ministry of Labor could act as mediator, but employers preferred direct contact individually. For the average wage, employers preferred 887,000 won per month, but OHNs preferred 1,960,000 won per month. 4. OHNs preferred the Korean Association of Occupational Health Nurse as the recruit agency. Finally, employers and OHNs have the opinions that they can choose this system depending on the condition. There is in need of development of effective strategy for this new system such as manpower development, cost-benefit analysis, establishment of occupational health service standard, advertisement for employers, and government supported project.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 2013

In digital age export expansion is the key fact of promoting Korea's economic growth. The policy that encourages exportation is being more emphasized to develop of the nation's economy. From the 90's, regionalism has been widespread throughout the world with globalization and internationalization led by WTO and FTA. The world is now becoming one economic bloc. It is necessary to understand how enterprises contribute to the exportation to establish and manage the policy that encourage and support the exportation. This study estimates SME's level of contribution on gross exports and understands the problem, while looking for better statistical alternatives and finding SME's export energizing policies. It is estimated that domestic SMEs contribute about 40-50% of gross exports. SME bureau and national statistical office should select optimal size of population of each industry, design and extract sample to conduct the export related survey extensively. SMEs should analyze the product and skills of the industry that is dominated by major companies to contribute to the exportation more efficiently. This effort will increase the level of contribution to gross exports in general.