• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.11-26
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• 2022

Purpose: Manufacturers rely on interfirm governance mechanisms to reduce the risks inherent in uncertain environments; however, it is unclear which governance mechanisms are developed to manage relationships with suppliers. This study sought to enhance knowledge of how environmental uncertainty affects interfirm governance mechanisms under conditions reflecting varying levels of structural holes. To this end, the study investigated the relationships between manufacturers and major first-tier and sub-suppliers. In particular, the moderating effect of structural holes is examined. Research design, data and methodology: A questionnaire survey was conducted with a major first-tier supplier of a Korean engineering firm. Proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Results: The results show that while the relationship between environmental uncertainty and unilateral governance is positive but statistically insignificant, with bilateral governance is negative and statistically significant. The study also demonstrates that when structural holes are considered, the effects between environmental uncertainty and governance mechanisms are attenuated. Conclusions: This study suggests some theoretical and managerial contributions between exchange partners, especially, the results suggest that structural holes have a critical competitive advantage in uncertain environments. Therefore, manufacturers should carefully consider how they deal with environmental uncertainty when they make a business decision under structural holes situations.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.83-92
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• 2014

Purpose - A business ecosystem refers to mutually dependent systems interconnected by a loose foundation of various ecosystem members such as customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders. The ecosystem-based strategy attempts to achieve competitive advantage for firms by enriching a business ecosystem or building a sustainable business ecosystem through the collaboration and co-evolution of its members. A sustainable business ecosystem is a source of competitiveness for firms anda manageable resource for gaining a competitive advantage. Customers represent the core membership of the business ecosystem and play a pivotal role in building a sustainable business ecosystem. This study examines the effects of customer participation on economic and social value in the business ecosystem and suggests a course of action for building a sustainable business ecosystem. Research design, data, and methodology - Two business cases of South Korea are selected from two different business types: business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) firms. Business ecosystems for B2B and B2C firms reflect contrasting characteristics. Data was collected from in-depth interviews with four representatives of four firms. Results - The study suggested seven propositions for the relationships between customer participation and a sustainable business ecosystem through multiple case studies based on in-depth interviews. The results reveal the following four strategic actions for building sustainable business ecosystems based on the suggested propositions: alignment, systemization, socialization, and co-evolution. Alignment refers to achieving a harmonic balance or virtuous circle among the firm's mission, investment, and value creation. Systemization refers to building and implementing management and infrastructure systems rooted in the corporate culture. Socialization of customers in the business ecosystem reinforces the harmony or virtuous cycle. Finally, co-evolution is associated with the relationship between firms and customers as buyer firms in a restricted business ecosystem. Conclusions - This study considers multiple cases for the execution of a sustainable business ecosystem in collaboration with customers and suggests seven propositions and four strategic actions. The results are based on qualitative data from interviews with business associates from two firms in an open business ecosystem and two firms in a restricted business ecosystem, both in South Korea. Our research results regarding two contrasting business ecosystems shed light on business issues and policy making in Asian business environments, which are in the transition stages from a traditional conglomerate-driven to an inclusive growth-driven economy. The business ecosystem itself should be considered a manageable resource for firms' competitive positions in the market. A customer is a member of the business ecosystem and should thus be viewed not only as a purchasing entity and an object of relationship management but also as a co-creator of value. Therefore, firms should collaborate with customers to build sustainable business ecosystems. For this, firms must create social value, which cannot be created by customers alone, within the business ecosystem. Then, customers participate in a business ecosystem and build it to be favorable to them. Implications for academics and practitioners were suggested.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 2017

In the last decades, technology-oriented small firms, i.e. venture businesses, have been increasingly engaged in R&D collaborations with external parties as strategic means for technological innovation. Despite ample evidence on the benefit of such collaborations for the firms, there has been less attention to examining whether and how the firms' social interactions with cooperating partners and their managerial characteristics contribute to that benefit. Drawing on the theories of social capital and entrepreneurial orientation, this study is to remedy this gap. The theory of social capital, referring to a sum of the value and potential resources embedded in social relationships of collectives, provides an integrated view of social factors among cooperating partners, e.g. strong ties, network stability, trust, reciprocity, shared vision and value. It categorizes these factors into structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions of social capital. Entrepreneurial orientation theory captures firms' managerial characteristics as a combination of innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking. This addresses firms' managerial process to utilize and combine internal and external resources for wealth creation and opportunity realization. Against this background, this study investigates what roles social capital among cooperating R&D partners and entrepreneurial orientation of the collaborating firms play for collective performance improvement in R&D collaborations. In terms of the collective performance, this study adopts two indicators: technological competitiveness and business performance. Technological competitiveness refers to the contribution of a technology developed by a cooperative R&D project to competitive advantage of a firm while business performance is defined as the financial and economic outcome of a collaboration. Using a sample of 218 Korean ventures engaging in R&D collaboration with external parties, the author finds the significant effects of social capital (i.e. structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions) and entrepreneurial orientation (i.e. innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking) on both of the technological competitiveness and the business performance. Further, the higher the social capital among R&D partners, the more likely it is to foster the entrepreneurial orientation at firm-level. Most importantly, the entrepreneurial orientation at firm-level is an significant mediator of the relationship between social capital and collective performance. Beyond these novel empirical findings, this study contributes to the literature on R&D collaboration. The findings' implications for management and policy are deeply discussed in the conclusion.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.38
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• pp.377-408
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• 2008

Globalization of R&D activities of multinational firms is becoming important in compared with the past, because of increasing globalization of world economy. So, every country tries to attract foreign investment including R&D activities. In this paper, effects of several factors, which determine the scale of foreign subsidiary's R&D activities in local market, are analyzed. Through the review of previous literature, I found that three groups of determinant factors. The first one is the factor which is related to characteristics of local market, such as competitive situation of local market, accessability to research institutions, etc. The second group is the factor which is related to relationship between foreign subsidiary and its mother company. The dominant factors of this group are operation strategy of foreign subsidiary, competitiveness of mother firm, and equity structure of foreign subsidiary. Finally the characteristics of industry affect to the scale of foreign subsidiary's R&D activities. Among these factors, 6 factors are chosen to investigate empirically. For the empirical investigation, 107 foreign subsidiaries among KOITA(Korea Industrial Technology Association)'s list are chosen. Each subsidiary has more than 50% of foreign equity and implement R&D activities in Korea. The results show that sales volume of foreign subsidiary is dominant influencing factor in determining scale of R&D activities in Korean market. And also I found that currently established firms are implementing more R&D activities than old established firms. This is quite interesting finding. However, R&D activities of foreign subsidiary are not vitalized in Korean market. It probably means that Korean government and Korean business partners have to make effort to enhance foreign firms/ R&D activities, because it could contribute technological and economic development of Korean market.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2010

Demands onenterprise applications are changing drastically in terms of service and value. Currently enterprises have started to view these applications as service systems, as they combine technology with organizational networks designed to deliver services that satisfy the needs of customers and marketing operations. Social networking is playing a crucial role in this direction and provides organizations with the critical data that enable to build strong relationships with their customers and partners. Enterprises have started using this concept, by integrating social networking services with their enterprise applications such as CRM. In this paper, we combine an open source social networking engine with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application to constitute a social CRM system. This can bring the customers closer to the enterprise and facilitate better communication with them. Social Networking Analysis constructs were used to analyze the effectiveness of service system. In the current competitive and economically challenging conditions, salespeople needs to quickly and effectively establish meaningful communication with customers. Our approach can address this issue, by handling the changing customer demands in minimal time, and increases service quality and business value.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2013

Despite the rapid growth of digital signage market with diffusion of digital media, there has been little case study in digital signage research area. More specifically, this case study of Intellian Systems, one of the leading digital signage companies, reveals how it made the successful growth by developing signage technology and its service in such a market. This study also describes how Intellian Systems strengthen and extend their digital signage business. By introducing Intellian Systems and its technology with service, this study provides some practical implications for firms which are relevant to using digital signage in Korea. In particular, we found that IT manpower who has specialized knowledge, excellent components of technologies and IT solutions as well as strategic alliance with a variety of partners as critical success factors in order to gain competitive advantages in digital signage industry.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.956-964
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• 2017

Compactin and pravastatin are competitive cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase and belong to the statin drugs; however, the latter shows superior pharmacokinetic characteristics. Previously, we reported that the bacterial P450, CYP105D7, from Streptomyces avermitilis can catalyze the hydroxylation of 1-deoxypentalenic acid, diclofenac, and naringenin. Here, we demonstrate that CYP105D7 could also catalyze compactin hydroxylation in vitro. In the presence of both bacterial and cyanobacterial redox partner systems with an NADPH regeneration system, the reaction produced two hydroxylated products, including pravastatin (hydroxylated at the C6 position). The steady-state kinetic parameters were measured using the redox partners of putidaredoxin and its reductase. The $k_m$ and $k_{cat}$ values for compactin were $39.1{\pm}8.8{\mu}M$ and $1.12{\pm}0.09min^{-1}$, respectively. The $k_{cat}/K_m$ value for compactin ($0.029min^{-1}{\cdot}{\mu}M^{-1}$) was lower than that for diclofenac ($0.114min^{-1}{\cdot}{\mu}M^{-1}$). Spectroscopic analysis showed that CYP105D7 binds to compactin with a $K_d$ value of $17.5{\pm}3.6{\mu}M$. Molecular docking analysis was performed to build a possible binding model of compactin. Comparisons of different substrates with CYP105D7 were conclusively illustrated for the first time.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.207-226
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• 2004

SCM is one of the important key issues in Internet-based business environment. Most of companies related to B2B electronic commerce are making their efforts to innovate their existing business process into new integrated supply chain process. SCM system using XML/EDI provides competitive advantage to them by reshaping the relationship between traditional trading partners. This study intends to suggest a prototype of SCM system using XML/EDI. To implement SCM system, we analyze and design the supply chain process by using Unified Modeling Language, with a firm engaged in Korean automobile industry, which is a first vendor to produce a set of LAMP. The implementation of SCM system using UML shows excellent performance in software reuse, extensibility, and the interoperability with corporate internal information systems.

• Journal of Information Technology Application
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.67-82
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• 2001

The ILOF project addresses the needs of logistics industrial organizations to reduce information processing time, improve added and residual value of information and reduce processing and transportation costs. It deals with the information supply chain information systems shared by vertical partner as important entity, whose performance and optimization very significantly affects the efficiency and performance of logistics industries. This paper deals with logistics information exchange systems based on supply chain management, focusing on sharing database and processes between partners such as shipper, logistics broker, transportation company, shipping company etc., for smoothing the information flow, enhancing consumer service and reducing communication fee and labour costs. The significance of contribution of this research is the provision of a model for logistics information exchange including entity relationship diagram, data flow diagram and functions which is able to facilitate the formulation of a customer driven supply chain information network, there by enhancing the competitive edge of companies in logistics industries on local and global basis.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.81-103
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• 1994

Increasing costs and competition in the global trade and transportation arena have led to a search for effient, cost-effective, particularly through the application of computer and information technologies. Most recently the introduction of Electronic Data Interchange(EDI) technologies in both trading and trade facili-tation activitiess have bagun to change the complextion of the international transport space. Korea as well as the other developing countries has become aware of the need to embrace EDI strate-gies in order to maintain a competitive market position with their more technologically advanced neighbou-ring and international trading partners. A way of EDI implementation, KMPA has invested large budgets in the research of the EDI since 1990. As the result of study in EDI of transport, KL-Net(Korea Logistics Network) was organized for the EDI business in cargo logistics. In spite of these KMPA's activities, the development plan of container logistics data interchange is not good and useful. So a new model of EDI in transportation is required by using the concepts of cargo data sharing. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new way of container logistics data interchange model. This paper therefore analyze the information flow in the current container logistics and find the problem in the area to derive a new model. The followings are the results of this paper : (1) There are many problems and user's requirements in container logistics data interchange in Korea. (2) Many messages of UN/EDIFACT are able to be used in container logistics data interchange. (3) The container cargo data are stored in Container Logistics Network(CL-Net) database. And when necessary by requesting message transmission, the container logistics data interchange is possible. (4) Customs cargo clearance system and PORT-MIS can be linked to CL-Net. If the systems, however, are to introduce EDI in data interchange, the quality of user's software has to be assured.