• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.63-82
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• 2022

Purpose - Drawing on relational institutional theory, we explored how demographic similarity between board members of a firm and newly emerged political elites led to firms' increased financial resource acquisition such as leverage ratio and decreased export intensity amidst the Asian financial crisis. We also studied how a firm's leverage ratio and export intensity can further affect firm profitability and financial credit rating. Design/methodology - We revisited and explored a unique, unprecedented crisis that affected most Korean firms: the Asian financial crisis that coincided with a governmental shift from a conservative to a liberal party. We collected demographic information from 432 listed Korean firms' board members and 43 political elites of the Blue House from 1998-2000 to create a demographic similarity measurement. We collected firms' financial information, built panel data, and used ordinary least squares regression to test our theory. Findings - Our results showed that demographic similarity between a firm's directors and newly emerged politicians had a positive association with a firm's leverage ratio but a negative association with a firm's export intensity. A firm's leverage ratio had a negative relationship with firm performance measured by firm profitability and financial credit rating. A firm's export intensity showed a positive effect on firm performance. Originality/value - We highlighted that during an economic crisis that coincided with a governmental shift and change of leading political actors, firms exerted efforts to survey the environment and build new external stakeholder relationships to cope with the changing landscape. We proposed that in an emerging market like Korea where low levels of trust and favoritism are prevalent across society, one of the relational institutional strategies that firms can employ is the selection of directors with similar demographic characteristics to political elites based on factors including birthplace and school affiliations. We examined the efforts of firms to build political networks with newly empowered political elites during a financial crisis, and the consequences of establishing such networks. We highlighted that during a financial crisis, the demographic similarity between a firm's board members and newly emerged politicians can provide firms with access to financial resources but can also result in poor management and reduced effort to enhance its international competitiveness.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.479-486
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the relationships between strategic planning, strategic maneuverability, and firm performance in the current dynamic business environment. It employs a quantitative research method and reports on a survey, using a questionnaire, of service companies in Indonesia's oil and gas industry. Of the 337 companies selected by simple random sampling from a vendor database, responses were received from 70 companies. The analysis was performed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling and SmartPLS software. The analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, evaluation of the measurement model, evaluation of the structural model, and hypotheses testing. The results show that both strategic planning and strategic maneuverability have a positive relationship with firm performance. In addition, there is a positive relationship between strategic planning and firm performance through the mediating role of strategic maneuverability. The findings suggest that the organizational agility, organizational flexibility, and organizational responsiveness that constitute strategic maneuverability have a positive direct and indirect effect on firm performance, namely financial performance, customer performance, internal process performance, and learning and growth. This study contributes to the strategic management literature and the theory of maneuvers by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between strategic planning, strategic maneuverability, and firm performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.525-532
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• 2021

The study investigates the mediating effect of Korean firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the relationship between Korean executives' religiosity, their individual social responsibility (ISR), and corporate financial performance (CFP). As executives lead the firms' strategies and policies, their religiosity or ISR may have a significant influence in attaining the firm's CSR and influencing CFP. The upper echelon theory, agency theory, and stakeholder theory are used to explain the link between individual-level drivers of CSR, a firm's CSR, and CFP. The upper echelon theory, agency theory, and stakeholder theory are integrated into the conceptual model, which explains the relationships between proposed constructs in this study. This study employs survey data of 421 Korean companies. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) technique was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The main result shows that Korean executives' religiosity and their ISR positively influence CFP when mediated by CSR. The findings of this study suggest that Korean executives' personal values such as their religiosity and ISR can impact the firm's CSR activities or financial performance. Overall, this paper responds to the recent calls in the CSR literature to examine the individual-level drivers from non-western contexts by shedding more light on the Korean context.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.39-76
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• 2021

This article examines the effect of CEO's political connections on firm performance in Chinese private firms. Following the upper echelon theory and human capital theory, CEO's personal characteristics affect the strategic decision-making of the firm, and it is also firm-specific advantages that work as the human capital for the sustainable growth of the firm. In this regard, this article tries to empirically confirm whether CEO's political connections have positive effects on firm performance as the firm's human capital by dividing the Chinese local governments, which is a direct subject of political connections hierarchically. In addition, this research examines the mediating effects of government subsidies between political connections and firm performance. To verify these questions, we use a sample of 9,849 observations of 1,451 private firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2008 to 2016, the results show that the CEO's political connections are positively related to firm performance. Moreover, we find that only political connections with the provincial local government had a positive effect on firm performance. It indicates that values and influences of human capital held by CEOs only affect when they are related to the highest local government. Finally, when CEOs have political connections with city-level, it shows complete mediating effect. It provides empirical evidence to find that CEO's political connections affect firm performance as the results of non-market strategic of firms.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.57-81
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• 2008

Knowledge is an essential strategic weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and is the key determinant for organizational growth. When knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout the organization, it increases an organization's value by providing the ability to respond to new and unusual situations. The growing importance of knowledge as a critical resource has forced executives to pay attention to their organizational knowledge. Organizations are increasingly undertaking knowledge management initiatives and making significant investments. Knowledge sourcing is considered as the first important step in effective knowledge management. Most firms continue to make an effort to realize the benefits of knowledge management by using various knowledge sources effectively. Appropriate knowledge sourcing strategies enable organizations to create, acquire, and access knowledge in a timely manner by reducing search and transfer costs, which result in better firm performance. In response, the knowledge management literature has devoted substantial attention to the analysis of knowledge sourcing strategies. Many studies have categorized knowledge sourcing strategies into intemal- and external-oriented. Internal-oriented sourcing strategy attempts to increase firm performance by integrating knowledge within the boundary of the firm. On the contrary, external-oriented strategy attempts to bring knowledge in from outside sources via either acquisition or imitation, and then to transfer that knowledge across to the organization. However, the extant literature on knowledge sourcing strategies focuses primarily on large organizations. Although many studies have clearly highlighted major differences between large and small firms and the need to adopt different strategies for different firm sizes, scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in small firms and what are the differences between small and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on small firm performance from a holistic perspective. By drawing on knowledge based theory from organization science and complementarity theory from the economics literature, this paper is motivated by the following questions: (1) what are the adoption patterns of different knowledge sourcing strategies in small firms (i,e., what sourcing strategies should be adopted and which sourcing strategies work well together in small firms)?; and (2) what are the performance implications of these adoption patterns? In order to answer the questions, this study developed three hypotheses. First hypothesis based on knowledge based theory is that internal-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. Second hypothesis developed on the basis of knowledge based theory is that external-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. The third one based on complementarity theory is that pursuing both internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing simultaneously is negatively or less positively associated with small firm performance. As a sampling frame, 700 firms were identified from the Annual Corporation Report in Korea. Survey questionnaires were mailed to owners or executives who were most erudite about the firm s knowledge sourcing strategies and performance. A total of 188 companies replied, yielding a response rate of 26.8%. Due to incomplete data, 12 responses were eliminated, leaving 176 responses for the final analysis. Since all independent variables were measured using continuous variables, supermodularity function was used to test the hypotheses based on the cross partial derivative of payoff function. The results indicated no significant impact of internal-oriented sourcing strategies while positive impact of external-oriented sourcing strategy on small firm performance. This intriguing result could be explained on the basis of various resource and capital constraints of small firms. Small firms typically have restricted financial and human resources. They do not have enough assets to always develop knowledge internally. Another possible explanation is competency traps or core rigidities. Building up a knowledge base based on internal knowledge creates core competences, but at the same time, excessive internal focused knowledge exploration leads to behaviors blind to other knowledge. Interestingly, this study found that Internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing strategies had a substitutive relationship, which was inconsistent with previous studies that suggested complementary relationship between them. This result might be explained using organizational identification theory. Internal organizational members may perceive external knowledge as a threat, and tend to ignore knowledge from external sources because they prefer to maintain their own knowledge, legitimacy, and homogeneous attitudes. Therefore, integrating knowledge from internal and external sources might not be effective, resulting in failure of improvements of firm performance. Another possible explanation is small firms resource and capital constraints and lack of management expertise and absorptive capacity. Although the integration of different knowledge sources is critical, high levels of knowledge sourcing in many areas are quite expensive and so are often unrealistic for small enterprises. This study provides several implications for research as well as practice. First this study extends the existing knowledge by examining the substitutability (and complementarity) of knowledge sourcing strategies. Most prior studies have tended to investigate the independent effects of these strategies on performance without considering their combined impacts. Furthermore, this study tests complementarity based on the productivity approach that has been considered as a definitive test method for complementarity. Second, this study sheds new light on knowledge management research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and small firm performance. Most current literature has insisted complementary relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies on the basis of data from large firms. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study identifies substitutive relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies using data from small firms. Third, implications for practice highlight that managers of small firms should focus on knowledge sourcing from external-oriented strategies. Moreover, adoption of both sourcing strategies simultaneousiy impedes small firm performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm performance in China, plus the moderating effects of advertising intensity and environmental pollution. Design/methodology/approach - We analyzed our dataset that consists of 188 public Chinese firms drawn from the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges during 2010-2020. Findings - Based on the stakeholder theory and signaling theory, we proposed the positive relationship between the CSR level and the firm performance. Further, we configured consumers and the government as major stakeholders in China, suggesting positive moderating effects of advertising intensity and environmental pollution, respectively. Research implications or originality - The results show that the CSR level increases the firm performance. The advertising intensity positively moderates the relationship between the CSR level and the firm performance, but there was no significant moderating effects of environmental pollution. The findings confirm the importance of consumers for the CSR stakeholders. While the Chinese government strongly reinforces environmental regulation, CSR itself does not seem to be the fine-aligned action prioritized for mitigating environmental pollution.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.9 no.14
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• pp.49-58
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• 1986

Those facts I have studied on the theoretical characteristics of stock price earning ratio related with firm evaluation are as followings. First, I have investigated stock valuation analysis under certainty in view of Miller's, Modigliani's and Linter's theories in Chapter Ⅱ, and it is found that stock valuation under uncertainty to which the basic model of MM theory and the concept of capitalization ratio are applied is the same output, as in the case under certainty. And I have examined the stock valuation of growth corporations in which net investment, total capitals and operating profits are expected. Second, I have reexamined the fact that stock price profits are the erotical indices of firm valuation and the firm valuation on the basis of stock price earning ratio in Chapter III. As a whole, I have surveyed the stock price earning ratio theory of the growth stocks and there have been found some problems as such scholars as Malkiel and others have suggested focusing on the stock price structure of growth stocks. To conclude, there must be incessant efforts for the study of security analysis to make it develop ideally.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.690-716
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• 2019

Open innovation has attracted significant attention from both academics and practitioners. However, theoretical and empirical researchers disagree on how open innovation improves firm performance. The inconsistent results reported in the literature may be attributed to the fact that they failed to provide an integrative view of how to make use of internal and external knowledge to enhance innovation performance. Furthermore, although the adoption value of innovation approaches varies depending on firm size and IT capabilities, their impacts have not been adequately taken into consideration. Drawing on complementarity theory, this study revisits the research problem and develops eight hypotheses. Surveys collected from 339 Korean firms were analyzed to test the hypotheses using the supermodularity functions. The results indicated that an internal knowledge-oriented innovation approach has a positive impact on innovation performance regardless of firm size. However, an external knowledge-oriented innovation approach has a positive effect on innovation performance in large firms while having no significant effect on innovation performance of SMEs. Results also confirmed a complementary relationship between internal and external knowledge-oriented innovation approaches in large firms, whereas substitutable relationships were confirmed in SMEs. This study sheds new light on open innovation by identifying the role of different types of innovation approaches, firm size, and IT capabilities.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.31-54
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• 2012

This study examines whether employees' legitimacy perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) affect their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It also investigates whether CEO's visionary leadership can moderate this causal relationship. CSR legitimacy is defined in the current study as employees' personal beliefs about the appropriateness of corporate CSR activities. In fact, employees evaluate the appropriateness of CSR activity based on its consistency with corporate philosophy (e.g. corporate mission, vision, and values) which functions as employees' referencial belief structure. If CSR activity is perceived as one of firm's effort to fulfill its mission, vision, and values, which means that espoused theory and theory-in-use of CSR activity are congruent, employees will consider firm's CSR activity as legitimate. If, however, employees think that CSR activity is not congruent with firm's mission, vision, and values, which means that espoused theory and theory-in-use of CSR activity are inconsistent, they will perceive that CSR activity of their firm is not legitimate. In the current study, we propose that employees who perceive that the CSR activity of their firm is legitimate are more likely to engage in OCB. In addition, we hypothesize that CEO's visionary leadership can strengthen the positive effect of employees' perception of CSR legitimacy on their OCB. We tested these hypotheses with the sample of 383 employees from 32 companies listed on DJSI (Dow Jones Sustainability Index) Korea 2009. We employed the HLM (hierarchical linear modeling) program to decompose the multi-level random effects. We found that CSR legitimacy perceptions of employees increase employees' OCB and that CEO's visionary leadership moderates this relationship. We discussed implications of these findings in more detail.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2014

It is widely confirmed that online retailers can obtain crucial resources and greater growth potential by depending on the external web portal sites as it is explained in resource dependence theory. Nevertheless, recent studies show that the effect of dependence may not always be beneficial for firms and stress the importance of finding relevant contingent factors. In this study, we identify and suggest that firms' age and niche width strategy, whether generalist or specialist, are contributing factors on moderating the positive relationship between resource dependence and firm growth. To test our hypotheses based on the theory, we have collected monthly web traffic data of online retailers and portals from March 2000 and July 2008. The empirical results lend support to our theory of the firm age having a negative interaction effect on web traffic dependence. Moreover, results verified that positive effect of depending on the portals may become greater if the online retailer is a specialist in terms of niche width.