• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.71-88
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• 2009

The Korean online gaming industry has seen rapid growth since the boom of information technology (IT) related industries, especially Internet and PC-bang or local area network (LAN) use, throughout the country. Online games are real-time games in which two or more players meet, compete, and cooperate in the same game space using the same communication network. Even though the growth rates of IT-related industries have recently slowed, the growth of the online gaming industry has increased, and Korean firms are expanding their businesses to countries all over the world. However, the online gaming industry is becoming an oligopoly, in which 4-5 leading companies occupy most online gaming markets. This situation presents a disadvantage to the Korean online gaming industry, since online players usually seek a diversity of online gaming contents and high quality online game services. Therefore, small- and medium-sized game developers must survive in this market by upgrading the quality of their online gaming services in an effort to provide differentiated goods and services in monopolistic competition markets. However, most venture companies in the online game industry, whether new or previously existing, are not able to obtain adequate financing. The objective of this paper is to examine the management environment for medium- and small-sized game developers in the Korean online gaming industry. By introducing the case of Grigon Entertainment, we try to identify the source of difficulty obtaining external financing for Korean venture firms in the online gaming industry.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.171-190
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• 2011

As competition has deepened between business institutions, it has been difficult to predict and respond quickly to business environment. Most business firms have started to introduce Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in order to improve their business environment. However, it increases the probability of failure to implement the systems without considering the structural characterisitcs of the organizations. The paper studies what influence the characteristic variables of organizational structure and management system have on the performance of the ERP systems of small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, since it is important to compare the level of information system of Korea and China in the midst of the rapid growth of Chinese economy, the paper&nbs p;compares the ERP performance of Chinese and Korean small and medium sized enterprises that implemented ERP system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.115-128
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• 2019

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are being faced with rapid changes in their business environments due to evolution of technologies and innovation in societal eco-systems. Particularly, dynamic interactions between such environments and enterprise activities have become significant, so technology planning, which is a process of identifying appropriate directions regarding product and technology development, has received much attention to cope with such dynamics proactively. However, SMEs typically have limits in performing independent, strategical and systematical technology planning activities due to the lack of human, material and financial resources. This paper proposes the development of a product roadmapping method so that SMEs carry out efficient technology planning activities with interconnections of external business environments. The present work provides product roadmap templates that directly accommodate the influence of business environments on the product's system and its associated super/sub-systems with the use of external environment analysis techniques including TRIZ methodology, PEST and 5Forces analysis. These templates are useful to efficiently forecast the directions of product's development and evolution, which arise from changes in external environments. Consequently, the present work enables SMEs to flexibly cope with the era of the next R&D generation, which pursues value creation through mutual interconnection between business environments and technology development.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.103-117
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• 2022

The recent corporate economy, such as the COVID 19 pandemic that has spread all over the world since the beginning of 2020, the acceleration of the 4th industrial revolution, and supply chain management risks triggered by the US-China conflict and the Ukraine crisis, is more serious than ever before. CEOs who have started and managed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more concerned than ever about the sustainability of their businesses in this reality. Nevertheless, there were few empirical studies on the factors that influence the intention of SME CEOs to discontinue business. In this study, the perception of the business environment of SMEs (intensity of competition in key business areas, difficulty in manpower management), corporate competency (employee competency, company product or service competitiveness, supply chain and consumer relations, digital competency and technical expertise), and CEO's competency(trust between employees and the CEO, management competency and perceived health status of CEO) on CEO's intention to discontinue business was discussed. As a result of the study, the intensity of competition in the main business field, and the difficulty in manpower management had a positive (+) effect on the intention to discontinue the business, and the employee competency, product (service) competitiveness, digital competency of the company, and the CEO's Health status had a negative (-) effect on intention to discontinue business. The relationship between these influences was found in the order of CEO's health status, product competitiveness, employee competency, digital competency, competitive strength in the main business, and difficulty in manpower management. It was analyzed that supply chain and consumer relations, trust between employees and the CEO, and management capabilities did not significantly affect the intention to discontinue business. On the other hand, business confidence has a mediating effect between the intensity of competition in the main business field, the difficulty in manpower management, product or service competitiveness, digital competency, trust between employees and the CEO, and the management capability and intention to discontinue business was tested. This study had academic significance in that it empirically analyzed factors related to intention to discontinue business targeting small and medium-sized business CEOs. In practice, as it has been found that business environment awareness, corporate competency, managerial competency, and business confidence are factors that influence the intention to discontinue business, if an action ideas that can reinforce this part can be found, SMEs can achieve sustainable growth or it may help CEO find an meaningful exit.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.425-444
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• 2014

Purpose: This study aims to overcome the problem of private education market environment which is polarized into commercialized large private education institutions and small and medium sized private education institutions in a poor business environment, and develop systematic performance measurement model applicable for small and medium sized private education institutions. Methods: To develop the BSC which measures financial and non-financial indicator in a balanced manner and introduce the BSC into private education institutions that contain conflicting goals "EDUCATION" and "PROFIT". In particular, Utilizing the methodology of AHP, the priority of strategies and execution assignments are derived. Results: BSC model was developed and introduced by cooperating with executives of the private education institution. Moreover, the study permits to achieve the strategy, enterprise-wide vision and mission by deriving strategy map and applying it to the private education institution. To measure the performance of BSC model instruction, KPI corresponding to the strategic objectives of each perspective was derived. Conclusion: BSC model generally introduces to large-sized companies and public institutions. In this study, BSC model is developed by focusing on small and medium sized private institution. Furthermore, this study is more than simple model development, it makes a connection with achievement of strategic objectives, enterprise-wide vision and mission through strategy map and strategy execution method. Through the developed BSC model and strategy execution method, utilization plan in practice and customized model for private education institutions coexisting profit and non-profit objectives were developed, and academic implications were presented.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.66-77
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• 2008

Six sigma is a business strategy and a systematic methodology using statistically oriented approach to process and product quality improvement. Many cases have reported significant benefits from six sigma implementation. But, some organizations have been reported that six sigma methodology has not given the expected benefits. Further, small and medium sized companies have faced various barriers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the successful case study on the improvements of partnership between large and small/medium-sized companies via six sigma activities. Data were collected using in depth interviews of six sigma champion, master black belt, and black belt from one large company and five medium-sized companies in Gumi industry zone.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.55-64
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• 2014

While small and medium-sized companies are suffering from a shortage of workers as a result of social tendency to avoid those companies, college graduates still prefer large companies or governmental positions, which consequently results in inconsistencies in the demand and supply of work forces. The gap between them is getting so bad that employment difficulties are exacerbating. Accordingly this study tries to search for potential employee's expected value factors which make people select small and medium companies not big companies. A survey was conducted from October 1 to october 30, 2012 with university students in the Seoul metropolitan area. a total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and 335 were collected. of these, 332 questionnaires were used for data analyses excluding questionnaires with missing values. Data was analyzed by frequency, descriptive factor, reliability, and regression with SPSS win 18.0 program The result of this study were as follows. A factor analysis extracted four factors comprising small and medium companies, which we named career(factor 1), working environment(factor 2), working achievement(factor 3), job security (factor 4). This study showed that small and medium companies' preference were affected by the career, working environment, job security, corporate reputation, salary.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.47-63
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• 2015

As knowledge is paid attention as a new production factor that generates added value, studies continue to apply knowledge management to business environment. In addition, as ICT (Information Communication Technology) was engrafted in business environment, it leads to increasing task efficiency and productivity of individual workers. Accordingly, the way that a business achieves its goal has changed to one in which its individual members are willing to take part in the organization and share information to create new values (Han, 2003) and studies for the system and service to support such transition are carrying out. Of late, a new concept called 'Enterprise 2.0' newly appears. It is the extension of Wen 2.0 and its technology, which focus on participation, sharing and openness, to the work environment of a business (Jung, 2013). Enterprise 2.0 is being used as a collaborative tool to prop up individual creativity and group brain power by combining Web 2.0 technologies such as blog, Wiki, RSS and tag with business software (McAfee, 2006). As Tweeter gets popular, Enterprise Microblog (EMB), which is an example of Enterprise 2.0 for business, has been developed as equivalent to Tweeter in business circle and SaaS (Software as a Service) such as Yammer was introduced The studies of EMB mainly focus on demonstrating its usability in terms of intra-firm communication and knowledge management. However existing studies lean too much towards large-sized companies and certain departments, rather than a company as a whole. Therefore, few studies have been conducted on small and medium-sized companies that have difficulty preparing separate resources and supplying exclusive workforce to introduce knowledge management. In this respect, the present study placed its analytic focus on small-sized companies actually equipped with EMB to know how they use it. And, based on the findings, this study examined their knowledge management strategies for EMB from the point of codification and personalization. Hypothesis -"as a company grows, it shifts EMB strategy from codification to personalization'- was established on the basis of reviewing precedent studies and literature. To demonstrate the hypothesis, this study analyzed the usage of EMB by small companies that have used it from foundation. For case study, the duration of the use was divided into 2 spans and longitudinal analysis was employed to examine the contents of the blogs. Using the key findings of the analysis, this study is aimed to propose practical implications for the operation of knowledge management of small-sized company and the suitable application of knowledge management system for operation Knowledge Management Strategy can be classified by codification strategy and personalization strategy (Hansen et. al., 1999), and how to manage the two strategies were always studied. Also, current studies regarding the knowledge management strategy were targeted mostly for major companies, resulting in lack of studies in how it can be applied on SMEs. This research, with the knowledge management strategy suited for SMEs, sets an Enterprise Microblog (EMB), and with the EMB applied on SMEs' Knowledge Management Strategy, it is reviewed on the perspective of SMEs' Codification and Personalization Strategies. Through the advanced research regarding Knowledge Management Strategy and EMB, the hypothesis is set that "Depending on the development of the company, the main application of EMB alters from Codification Strategy to Personalization Strategy". To check the hypothesis, SME that have used the EMB called 'Yammer' was analyzed from the date of their foundation until today. The case study has implemented longitudinal analysis which divides the period when the EMBs were used into three stages and analyzes the contents. As the result of the study, this suggests a substantial implication regarding the application of Knowledge Management Strategy and its Knowledge Management System that is suitable for SME.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.221-233
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• 2019

In Korea, small and medium sized domestic enterprises(SMEs) play an pivotal role in the national economy, accounting for 99.9% of all enterprises, 87.9% of total employment, and 48.3% of production. and SMEs was driving a real force of the development of national economy in many respects such as innovation, job creation, industrial diversity, balanced regional development. Despite their crucial role in the national development, most of SMEs suffer from a lack of R&D capabilities and equipments as well as funding capacity. Public R&D institutes can provide SMEs with valuable supplementary technological knowledge and help them build technological capacity. so, In order to effectively support SMEs, government and public R&D institutes must be a priority to know about the factors influencing the performance related to technology transfer and technological collaborations. In particular, SMEs are not only taking up a large portion of the national economy, but also their influence in politics and economy so strong that raising the competitiveness of small and medium-sized companies is a national policy goal that must be achieved in order to achieve sustained economic growth. For this reason, it is necessary to look specifically at the relationship between concepts such as the environment, strategy, and organizational culture surrounding the enterprise to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs. The paper analyzes 665 companies to find out which organizational culture affects their performance by classification and type of business of SMEs. This study demonstrated that when SMEs seek consistency in their external environment, strategies, and organizational structure to maintain their continued competitiveness. According to three-way analysis of variance (3-way ANOVA) indicates that classification of industries in SMEs has statistically significant main effects, but the type of business and organizational culture do not have significant effects. However, the company's organizational performance (operating profit) of SMES were found to differ significantly in comparison between groups according to classification standards of industries, and therefore adopted some parts. In addition, an analysis of the effect of interaction between the three independent variables of small and medium-sized enterprises has shown that there are statistically significant interaction effects among classification, types of business, and organizational cultures. The results shows that there is an organizational culture suitable for each industry classification and type of business of an entity, and is expected to be used as a basis for establishing promotion policies related to the incubation and commerciality of small and medium-sized venture companies in the future.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.235-250
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• 2020

This study surveyed the perception of university students about employment in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises(SME) in the Chungbuk area to prepare improvement measures. In particular, the data were collected in descriptive questions along with the existing survey methods, and the perception of SME and decent work was identified using text-mining. As a result of the analysis, there are positive perceptions of jobs at SME such as various work experiences and low job competition rates, while there are generally many negative perceptions in pay, work and welfare. However, as a result of co-occurrence network analysis of responses to decent jobs, 'Information' was derived as a keyword. Currently, college students' negative perception of SME is affected by the lack of sufficient information, which needs to be improved first. To solve this problem, it was proposed to establish and operate a platform that can provide information on employment of SME and select necessary personnel.