• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.79-94
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• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine firm-level attributes related to Korean manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs') decisions to implement smart factories. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses the provided by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups of Korea and the Korea Federation of SMEs. Manufacturing SMEs' decisions to implement smart factories in 2018-2019 were analyzed using multinomial logit and ordered logit models. Findings - The findings of this study suggest that firms' decisions to implement smart factories were positively related to firm size, R&D intensity, international market scope, and transactional relationships with customers. However, smart factory implementation decisions were not related to firm age and CEO gender. Research implications or Originality - This study illuminates firm-level attributes that may drive organizational innovation in the era of Industry 4.0 and thus contributes to the innovation adoption literature. This study also contributes to growing research on smart factories by analyzing the actual, progressive decisions to implement smart factories, as opposed to perceived intentions to implement them.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.171-193
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• 2005

Small firms are considered as the last mile in electronic networks of business enterprises. Since small firms lack in their resources and capabilities for IT deployment, it seems a challenging project to make them electronically linked to their trading partners. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the intent of small firms to adopt electronic linkage to their trading partners. This study considers the context where small firms already have transaction relationships with partner firms and where their adoption of electronic linkage may influence the nature and performance of the transactional relationships. This study considers the expected value of electronic linkage and the joint actions of the trading firms as the major factors. Its research model also includes traditional factors such as influences from the industry and the trading partner, the support of CEO, and the readiness of the trading partner. Based on the survey data from more than 1000 small firms, the present study performs regression analysis and finds that all but one factor are significant in explaining the variations in the adoption intention of small firms. The exception is the joint action, which is shown to decrease the intention. Based on the results, this study offers business and policy implications that would be useful to business managers and policy makers.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.39-55
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• 2022

Purpose - This study empirically examines the effect of the Korean government export promotion program (EPP) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) export performance using firm-level data. Unlike most previous studies that investigated some specific samples of firms, this study analyzes a vast amount of SME data of the Korean Small and Medium Business Administration over the period 2005 to 2008. Design/methodology - An endogeneity problem arises when a firm's probability of being selected is correlated with the likelihood of successfully implementing EPPs. To control for the endogeneity of the EPPs in a relatively short-period sample, we employ 2-Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) RE-Tobit and bivariate Tobit procedure. Findings - Analyses show that Korean government EPPs have positive significant effects on SME exports. Empirical results also show that SME export activities are significantly encouraged by R&D investment and capital intensity, but not obviously by labor productivity. Originality/value - This study provides evidence that SME capital intensity, R&D investment, and the number of workers are significant determinants to SME exporting activities, whereas per worker labor cost and employee education are not. These results imply that even for SMEs, firm size is a major factor in promoting exporting activities.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.1-14
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• 2023

As markets and industries continue to evolve rapidly, technology opportunity discovery (TOD) has become critical to a firm's survival. From a common consensus that TOD based on a firm's capabilities is a valuable method for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and reduces the risk of failure in technology development, studies for TOD based on a firm's capabilities have been actively conducted. However, previous studies mainly focused on a firm's technological capabilities and rarely on business capabilities. Since discovered technologies can create market value when utilized in a firm's business, a firm's current business capabilities should be considered in discovering technology opportunities. In this context, this study proposes a TOD method that considers both a firm's business and technological capabilities. To this end, this study uses patent data, which represents the firm's technological capabilities, and trademark data, which represents the firm's business capabilities. The proposed method comprises four steps: 1) Constructing firm technology and business capability matrices using patent classification codes and trademark similarity group codes; 2) Transforming the capability matrices to preference matrices using the fuzzy function; 3) Identifying a target firm's candidate technology opportunities using the collaborative filtering algorithm; 4) Recommending technology opportunities using a portfolio map constructed based on technology similarity and applicability indices. A case study is conducted on a security firm to determine the validity of the proposed method. The proposed method can assist SMEs that face resource constraints in identifying technology opportunities. Further, it can be used by firms that do not possess patents since the proposed method uncovers technology opportunities based on business capabilities.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1309-1318
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• 2014

In the past few years, data leakage of information assets has become a prominent social issue. According to the National Industrial Security Center in South Korea, 71 percent who suffer from technology leakage are small and medium sized enterprises. Hence, establishment and operation of ISMS (Information Security Management System) for small and medium sized enterprises become an important issue. Since it is not easy to obtain ISMS certification for a small or medium sized enterprise by itself, consultation with an expert firm in information security is necessary before the security implementation. However, how to select a proper security consulting company for a small or medium sized firm has not been studied yet. In this study, we analyze empirically the selection factors of ISMS certification consulting company for a small or medium sized firm through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Our study identified the following four important factors in selecting a security consulting company: expertise of the staffs and human resource management proficiency, market leading capability, competence to make progress during the consultation, and the performance and the size of the physical assets and human resources.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.812-841
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• 2006

Previous studies have shown that the ex-ante financial ratios, mainly used by financial institutions for loan evaluation purpose, are related to the ex-post finn's performance of venture firm's. The main objective of this study is to examine whether non-financial variables such as 'technology', 'marketability', and 'other business indexes' have extra explanatory power in forecasting the ex-post firm's performance of small and medium size venture firm's in Korea. The implications and results of this study are expected to be useful in loan evaluation, investment decision and internal management decisions of venture firms. Among small and medium sized manufacturing firms funded in the year of 1999 through 2005, 416 firms are selected for our analysis. The relationship between evaluation indexes and firm's success/failure is investigated using binary logistic regression analysis and factor analysis with an aid of SPSS program. The summarized results are as follows. First, current evaluation model, used for loan evaluation purpose for small and medium size manufacturing firms show the same discriminatory power as previous prediction model. Second, among the tested additional variables, significant indices are 'technological capability of CEO', 'managerial capability of CEO', and 'business feasibility'. Third, while previous studies on evaluation structure had 3 factors, this study showed that valuation's structure has 6 factors.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.37-46
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• 2018

Purpose - This paper explores the determinants of bank lending to firms during and after the global financial crisis using firm- and bank-level data to answer the questions what caused the contraction of lending to firms despite the loosening monetary policy during this crisis period. Research design, data, and methodology - We investigate the effects of the monetary policy that followed the global financial crisis on firms borrowing. We use a dynamic panel model to address how firms lending respond to monetary policy. The data are obtained from CRETOP and we consider the manufacturing sector for the analysis to control for unobserved heterogeneity such as industry-specific shocks. Results - The findings from the empirical analysis suggest that both bank- and firm-level characteristics are significant determinants of bank lending. Especially, we find that corporate risk, measured by default risk, is one of the key factors that led to a decline in lending during the crisis. Conclusions - This paper shows that companies borrow more from liquid banks, and high bank capital can also contribute to an increase in a firm's borrowing from banks. Especially, the results confirm that the default rate measured at the firm level has increased during and after the global financial crisis, which implies that default risk interplays with other firm and bank-level characteristics.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.769-781
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• 2020

This study attempts to examine the relationships between transformational leadership, learning orientation, firm innovativeness, and financial performance. Specifically, the moderating effect of learning orientation and firm innovativeness. The data collected from 606 SMEs in Thailand were evaluated using the structural equation modeling, typifying that quantitative research. The results revealed that transformational leadership had a positive effect on learning orientation. Similarly, transformational leadership had a positive effect on firm innovativeness. Further, the study found that transformational leadership had a positive indirect effect on financial performance through the mediation of learning orientation. The results of the study found that transformational leadership had a positive indirect effect on financial performance through the mediation of firm innovativeness. Transformational leadership and learning orientation to improve innovation within the organization, including organizations and leaders among themselves. Especially, innovative firms inculcate ideals of promise to learning, open-mindedness, and shared vision. Furthermore, practitioners can use the findings of this study when they perform their role of leaders to challenge creativity and innovation among followers. Finally, those developments would influence a procedure of evidence procurement, evidence distribution and shared explanation that escalations equally individual and administrative effectiveness owing to its influence going on products.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.173-180
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• 2014

In this research, we aim to analyze how different external knowledge search strategies of small and medium enterprises affect technological innovation. In particular, since there has been little comparison between Korean small and medium firms, we investigated the differences of the two groups by employing the "Korean Innovation Survey 2010." As a result, it was found that "external search breadth", which refers to expanding the spectrum of external knowledge search due to lack of resources and capabilities inside small firms, spurred technological innovation. On the other hand, "external search depth", which implies seeking a long-term and close relationship with the subjects that provide outside knowledge for medium firms, catalyzed technological innovation. These results emphasize that we need to separately analyze technological innovation of small and medium firms, which was, in most previous studies, viewed as one group, i.e. SMEs. In addition, the results can be, from the perspective of a firm's growth, interpreted as follows. That is, it is more effective to formulate a "diversity" pursuing strategy in the "small firm" stage where little time has passed since its establishment, whilst it is more useful to apply a "focus" strategy on sophisticated knowledge in the "medium firm" stage where a firm has grown to some extent.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.41-47
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• 2017

This study is an empirical analysis of the welfare of small and medium venture company trade. In the past, although the study analyzes the trade welfare for representative firm, this research is focusing on the distribution of an entire industry of companies analyzed. In this study, medium-to venture enterprise-scale for logarithmic normal distribution and Pareto distribution is estimated, and this study investigates the trading welfare changes. Results of the analysis can be summarized as follows. First of all, greater trade benefits enterprise-scale heterogeneity appeared to be significant. The result of this finding appeared to be the same to large firms as well as small and medium ventures. Trading welfare, assuming the distribution of Pareto rather than logarithmic normal distribution it's supposed to be overwhelmingly large. Secondly, the case of large corporations shows the more trade welfare than that of small and medium venture companies. Third, assuming homogeneous distribution of enterprise-scale trade welfare differences did not exist. Finally, from the point of view of increasing the welfare of trade, the diversity aiming of venture business is a very important role in the long term, because of the small and medium-sized ventures trade role.