• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.44-58
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to prove the Korean Internet company, Kakao's resilience capacity. For it, this paper reviews the previous literatures regarding Kakao's business models and discusses 'resilience' theory. Then, it organizes the research questions based on the theoretical background and explains the research methodology. It investigates the case of Kakao's business and organization. The case analysis shows that five levers of resilience are a good indicator for a successful platform business evolution. The five levers are composed of coordination, cooperation, clout, capability, and connection: First lever, coordination that makes the company to restructure its silo governance in order to respond to actual business flow starting from the basic asset like game and music content; second lever, cooperation where the firm provides creative people with playground for startups such as KakaoPage; third lever, clout where the company shares its data by opening its API of AI and chatbot to $3^{rd}$ party developers; fourth lever, capability where the firm establishes AI R&D center, KakaoBrain as the function of multi-domain generalist for developing diverse platforms tackling customer needs; and the last fifth lever, connection where the firm continues to expand its platform business to the peripheries, O2O businesses such as KakaoTaxi, KakaoOrder, KakaoPay, and KakaoBank. In conclusion, this study proposes Internet companies to be a resilient platform utilizing those five levers of resilience in order to form successful platform. This study contributes to the agile innovation of Internet platform with ecological sense.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.71-94
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• 2020

Purpose - Multi-National Enterprises (MNEs) tend to face a high level of institutional pressures in regions with high institutional development level. When complying with institutional pressures, firms try to make decisions to maximize profit while minimizing the risks to them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the institutional development level on institutional compliance timing by MNEs and the relationship between compliance speed and corporate performance. Design/methodology - The research focuses on three main variables, which are the institutional development level (as a determination of the institutional pressure level), the firm's compliance speed (as a determination of the compliance timing), and the firm's financial performance (as a determination of the corporate performance). We collected 19,869 firm-level data from CSMAR (the China Stock Market and Accounting Research), 6,922 CSR data from RKS (the Rankins CSR Ratings), and province and city-level data from the NERIM (National Economic Research Institute Index of Marketization) and NBSC (National Bureau of Statistics of China). The firms in China were chosen for analysis, and the analysis period was from 2008 to 2017. Random Effects GLS Regression was used to test the relationships among the variables. Findings - This study examined the effect of the institutional development level on the firm's compliance speed, together with the effect of compliance speed on the firm's financial performance of the MNEs in China. We found that the institutional development level positively influenced firms' financial performances, which means the firms' financial performances are better in the region with a high institutional development level. The compliance speed of institutional practice by firms was faster in the higher level of institutional development. However, the firm's delayed compliance led to better financial performance. Originality/value - Studies in the resource dependence view of Institutional Theory often fall short in understanding the theory by overlooking the firm's active decision-making. Thus, the findings do not present a full scope of corporate performance in this regard. This study not only found a way to test the role of a firm's independent decision-making (i.e., compliance timing) when facing the institutional pressure but also prove the significant role of the compliance timing on corporate performance. Also, we were able to test the effect of institutional development level, controlling location-specific variables because we used CSR performance data for MNEs operating in China. Lastly, by doing the above, the findings of this study suggest practical implications to the industry practitioners in MNEs.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2019

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility is related to the degree of asymmetric information in the Korean financial market. Recent theory argues that there is a negative relationship between a firm's corporate social responsibility and its information asymmetry. To test this hypothesis, we use the environment, social and governance (ESG) score, published by the Korean Corporate Governance Service, to proxy a firm's management practices toward socially responsible activities. In the entire sample of the Korean firms, we find contrasting results; the ESG score shows negative relationships with the price impact measure but statistically insignificant relationships with the dispersion of analyst forecasts. However, the ESG score shows negative relationships with both measures when we exclude chaebol affiliates from the sample. These findings are robust when we examine environmental, social and corporate governance scores separately. This set of results argues for the extant theory, expecting a negative relationship between a firm's engagement in corporate social responsibility and asymmetric information. It further argues for the importance of firm characteristics in determining the influence of socially responsible activities.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2018

Purpose - to examine the theories related to the internationalization of multinational corporations as well as theories related to internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises. Research design, data, and methodology - traditional theories, e.g. eclectic paradigm and behavioral theory and product life cycle etc. were examined and recent advances theories - network theory, entrepreneurship - were also examined to outline the theory of internationalization of firm. Results - the main schools of international researches are divided into two; one is the economics school, the other is the behavioral school. The economics school has considered internationalization as a pattern of investment in foreign markets explained by rational economic analysis of internalization, ownership, and location advantages. Apart from the economics approach, a theory relevant to smaller firms highlights slow and incremental overseas market commitment. Recent research on the network perspective is fast emerging and it can be applied and well explained on the internationalization of smaller firms, focusing on firm behavior in the context of a network of interorganizational and inter-personal relationships Conclusions - Small medium-sized enterprises have been recently rising, however, there has still been little consolidation of literature in internationalization and most of the relevant theories have been still focusing on explaining the globalization of multinational corporations. Little studied on the internationalization in the context of smaller firms which are distinctly differentiated from larger firms including international new ventures, which the motivation to study strongly calls for more information and studied on small medium-sized enterprises.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2015

Although the interaction effects of knowledge sourcing strategies vary depending on environmental conditions such as knowledge intensity, most prior empirical research have failed to prove the effects of environmental conditions on the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. In order to fill this gap, this study examines how knowledge intensity affects the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. The results of this study indicate the interaction effects of knowledge sourcing strategies in high knowledge intensity environment are different from the effects in low knowledge intensity environment. This study expands knowledge management research by identifying the effects of knowledge intensity on the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. Furthermore, it offers valuable practical guidelines for managers in selecting successful combinations of knowledge sourcing strategies with the consideration of knowledge intensity.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.93-114
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• 2009

This paper presents a knowledge-based view of the multi-business firm. The multi-business firm has advantages in technological innovation and knowledge creation to the extent that it embodies various ideas and resources, and recombines them more effectively and efficiently than market contracts. The purpose of this paper is to identify how to organize the multidivisional form (M-form) structure to realize such advantages. We first differentiate within-division innovation and cross-division innovation, and explain why cross-division innovation, despite its higher performance potential, would be more difficult to achieve, compared to within-division innovation. Then, we offer the propositions about how to promote cross-division innovation with references to resource capability and coordination capability that is, in turn, composed of structural and control system, social capital, and human resource management system. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.5 no.7
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• pp.33-42
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• 1982

The standard theory of production treats human and non-human inputs in the same way. Inert Areas Theory drops this assumption. One distinction is obvious. Human capital, the source of human inputs, can not be purchased outright by firms. Usually what is purchased are units of labor time. What is critical is directed effort, at or beyond some level of skill. Direct effort, however, involves choice and motivation, and these are the critical variables left out of the standard theory. Leibenstein introduces the concept of "inert areas" by which he means "a set of effort positions whose associated levels of utility are not equal but in which the action required to go from a lower to a higher utility level involves a utility cost that is not compensated for by the gain in utility." This idea is used when discussing the behavior of firm's management.f firm's management.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.307-317
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• 2012

We investigate the long-term effect of servitization strategy on firm value. Manufacturing companies recognize servitization as their competitive strategies. While most of existing literature have focused on developing theory, presenting framework, or cases, only a few papers examine effects of servitization strategy empirically. We aims to empirically test the long-term relationship between servitization strategy and firm value. Service ratio and Tobin's q are used to measure the degree of servitization and firm performance, respectively. Data set covers 130 manufacturing companies for 12 years from 1998 to 2009.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.35-44
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• 2022

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to find out the impact of ownership structure on firm performance in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry of Bangladesh. Research design, data and methodology: The study has been conducted on 28 listed pharmaceutical and chemical companies from 2012 to 2020. Return on Assets (ROA) and Tobin's Q are selected as indicators of internal and market performance of the firms respectively whereas institutional ownership, directors' ownership and foreign ownership are selected as proxies of ownership structure. Panel analysis using random effects, lag method and time dummy method is used to analyse the relationship. Results: The study has found the existence of highly concentrated directors' ownership, a low percentage of institutional ownership and a very insignificant proportion of foreign ownership in the industry. The regression results show that directors' ownership has a positive and significant impact on firm performance, supporting the concept of agency theory. The study has also found a positive and significant impact of foreign ownership on firm performance. Unfortunately, the impact of institutional ownership is found to be insignificant. Conclusions: Directors' ownership and foreign ownership decreases agency cost that ultimately increases firm performance. However, the role of institutional investors is not significant enough to improve firm performance. It is suggested that institutional investors should be more active and involved in monitoring the activities of the organisations to improve performance.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-29
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• 2014

To provide a fundamental understanding on the inherent relationship between IT capabilities and sustainable firm heterogeneity, we investigate the dual roles that institutional pressures play, namely, as antecedents of IT capabilities and as moderator of the relationship between IT capabilities and IT innovation success, where IT innovation success plays a mediating role between IT capabilities and firm performance. The structural model was tested, and the results of the PLS analysis provided general support for the proposed hypotheses. IT capabilities had an indirect effect mediated by IT innovation success on firm performance. With IT activities assumed to be embedded in the institutional context, the dual roles of institutional pressures are verified. This study contributes to the literature on IT capabilities by considering both the determining role of institutional pressures on IT capabilities and the institutional context of the chain that connects IT capabilities to firm performance. The results suggest that a firm not only manages various institutional pressures to foster its IT capabilities but also adapts to different contexts with a certain level of institutional pressures to facilitate its IT capabilities and outperform its competitors, which could be sustained through IT innovation success.