• Korean small business review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.209-223
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• 2010

Korea's business is composed of a few large-sized enterprises (which can be abbreviated as LSE) and a majority of small-sized enterprises (SSE). Although there has been a growing recognition of the need for the development of medium-sized enterprises (MSE) which can serve as a link between SSE and LSE, as yet there has not yet been a consensus on the definition, characteristics and the function of the MSE in Korea. Nowadays, the world is being globalized, and Japan and China are in competition to ne a great economic power. While East Asia is experiencing rapid changes, promoting MSE which can secure flexibility and efficiency through covering up the limitation of LSE and SSE is needed in order to respond the global market which is being specialized. The features of MSE in Japan can be listed as follows. First, the MSE in Japan is developing the company through getting into niche markets which are hard for major companies to enter rather than developing markets in order to compete against major companies directly. While MSEs are endeavoring to build the business firmly in the domestic market, they can possess special and competitive technical skills through trials and errors; so that they can get a chance develop their business through independent business system rather than putting their effort to compete against major companies. Second, from the MSEs with competitive edge in the market, there are many contributions to the national exportation. Those MSEs produce in domestic and maintain the quality of high price products which need cutting-edge technology, while they relocate the low and middle priced goods to the country where manufacturing costs are low, so that they can maintain the price competitiveness. Third, the industrial structure in Japan is formed from dual structure between major companies and small sized companies. In other words, in Japan's industrial structure which are composed of subcontract structure, this dual structure has taken a major role of small sized companies' growth and manufacturing businesses' international competitive power. Forth, MSE in Japan adopt a strategy of putting their value on qualitative scale growth rather than quantitative scale growth. In this paper, the case of Japanese MSE is analyzed. Along with its long history of Industrialization, Japan has a corporate environment where the SSEs can develop as a MSE and later a LSE through a full-support system. Among its SSEs, there are a number of world class corporations equipped with a large domestic market, win-win cooperation with the LSEs and an independent technology development. It can also be observed that these SSEs develop into MSEs with sustainable growth potentials. This study will focus on the condition under which the MSEs of Japan have been developed, and how they have survived the competition between SSEs and LSEs. Through this study, this paper attempts to offer solutions to Korea's polarization between the SSE and LSE, while providing the basis for SSEs revitalization. In general, if both extremities phenomenon deepen between LSE and SSE, there are possible fears of occurring disutility in national economy by the monopolization of LSE. For that reason, enterprise group, which can make SSE or MSE compete LSE in some area and ease the monopoly and oligopoly problem, is needed. This awareness has been shared for ages long. Nevertheless, there is no legal definition for MSE in Japan, and there is no definition about the enterprise size or unified view of MSE between scholars, but it is defined differently by each of academical person or research institution and study meeting. For that reason, this paper will organize the definition of MSE in Japan, and then will propose the characteristics of the background which has made MSE secure competitiveness and sustainable growth in global market. This study focus on that because through this process, the positive change to the awareness of MSE can be proposed in Korea and to seek the policy direction for building institutional framework which can make SSE become MES. Through this way, the fundamentals for SSE to become MSE can be managed and some appropriate suggestions which will be able to make MSE enter the global market in the future can also be proposed. Due to these facts, this study is very important and well timed task. In a sense of this way, this study will examine the definition and role of MSE in Japan. after this examination, this study will deal with the status, special feature, and promotion policy for MSE. Through this analysis of MSE in Japan, the foundation which be able to set the desirable role model for MSE in Korea can be proposed. Also, the political implication which is needed to push ahead to contribute to creating employment and economic growth through sustainable growth of MSEs in economic system of Korea can be offered through this study. It has been found that Japan's MSE functions as an indispensable link among various industrial structures by holding a significant position in employment rate, production and value added. Although the MSEs took up less than 1% of the entire number of businesses with 2700 manufacturing firms and 7000 non-manufacturing firms, its employment ratios are about 15%, while taking about 25% of the manufacturing industry's exports. In industries such as machinery and electronics which is considered Japan's major industry, the MSEs showed a higher than average ratio of manufacturing exports and employment rate. It can be analyzed that behind Japan's advantageous industries, close and deeply knit MSEs exist. Although there are no clearly stated policies geared towards the MSEs by the Japanese government, various political measures exist such as the R&D Project and the inducement of cooperation between enterprises which gives room for MSEs to participate in the SSE policies. In relation to these findings, the following practical measures can be considered in order to revitalize Korea's MSEs: First, there is a need for a legal definition of MSE and the incentives to provide legal support for its growth. Second, if a law to support the MSEs is established, it could provide a powerful inducement for the SSE to grow as a MSE, rather than stay as a SSE. Third, there is a need for a strategy of MSEs to establish a stable base in the domestic market and then advance to the global market with the accumulated trial and error and competitiveness. Fourth, the SSE themselves need the spirit of entrepreneurship in order to make the leap to a MSE. Because if nothing is to be changed about the system on the firms that grew, and the parts of the past custom was left to be managed alone, confusion and absence of management can take place. No matter how much tax favors the government will give and no matter how much incentive there could be through the policies, there are limits for industries to higher the ability to propagate. And because of that it is a period where industries need their own innovative skills to reform their firms.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.63-101
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• 2013

'Venture firms' in Korea are the firms who are certified as 'venture', whose certification types are defined by a law ('Special Law for the Support of Venture Firms'), and therefore encompass not only the venture capital-financed companies, which are usually regarded as ventures in USA and European countries, but also other types of firms such as R&D-intensive firms and the firms with financial guarantee or loans through technology evaluation ('technology finance or loan firms'). This paper examines the differences in the Korean venture firms' growth between the venture certification types. For the empirical analysis, this paper uses the lists of venture-certified firms from 1998 to 2010 which are then linked with their financial data in Korea Enterprises Database (KED). According to the results of empirical analyses, the companies in the 'venture capital-financed firms' type show greater growth rate in sales and the number of regular employees 3 and 5 years after first venture certification than the firms in type of 'technology finance/loan firms'. Moreover, the newly certified companies in 'R&D-intensive firms' type are also showing faster growth than the 'technology finance/loan firms' since 2003 where the venture industry has undergone a consolidation phase after the blast of so-called 'IT venture bubble' in 2001~2002. These results imply that the so-called 'venture firms' in Korea are composed with heterogeneous firm groups with different characteristics and that the companies selected through market mechanism ('venture capital-financed firms') outperforms the companies selected on the basis of policy interests ('technology finance/loan firms') in terms of the growth in sales and employment. On the basis of these findings, this paper suggests that the current venture-support policy should consider the different policy demands of firms across the type of venture certification more actively and that should refocus the objective of policies on facilitating venture capital market rather than emphasizing the nominal increase in the number of venture-certified firms.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.844-847
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• 2014

'Healthcare 3.0' paradigm, which comes from the convergence of medical and department of ICT(Information and Communication Technology), meets the government's 'creative economy'. It has emerged as new higher value-added markets and industries, created jobs, and got the 'land of opportunity'. Despite of the global recession, the health care market in the world from 2009 to now has earned a steady growth. The annual growth rate in domestic industrial scale is expected to more than 10% higher based on 153 trillion won in 2010. In particular, combination of health care and ICT, BT(BioTechnology), NT(NanoTtechnology), which is so called 'super-convergence', leap in the health care industry, is expected to open up a new paradigm. In addition, by 2020 all of the health care industry, the IT convergence industries account for the largest proportion, and more than 50,000 of the employment are to be expected. In this study, we survey and analyze problems of medical and IT convergence technology, the future of the medical and health care industry, the demanded healthcare IT staff, finally suggest education plan of human resources required in convergence industry of medical and IT.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.95-110
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• 2011

As global economic conditions are getting uneasy and polarization of our economy is intensified, the economic sentiment of small businesses is still low and unstable. The collapse of worldwide banking systems due to sub prime crisis in 2007 became the catalyst that shakes financial industries in each country in the world; the most sentiment people, small businesspersons, also have hard time facing survival way out, facing a great crisis. All organizing powers including manufactures, wholesales and retails are being gradually greater in mutual relations and dependence, and unstable factors about risks are also increasing. For exterior environmental and physical risk factors which cannot make small businesses survive themselves by developing ways out are eventually increasing, those who cannot cope with these factors face a great crisis. Although the government tries hard to overcome this situation conducting many ways, the effect does not continue. It is the real state that independent business markets including overall employment and establishing business have vicious cycle that they cannot be improved, due to increase of employment centered on short-term labors which lack durability in creation of employment and decline of household income. Recently, growth shows indication of slowdown because of multinational risk factors including financial crisis in each country in Europe, the death of Kim Jung-il, relationship with North Korea, and unstability of war situation in the Middle East Asia. Experts expect that growth rate will be about 4%, and independent business that ordinary people feel is still gloomy. It's reality that there is no adequate alternative for lack of jobs, unstable employment and a means of living after retirement. Also, the fact that large companies enter the market which is narrow and in the excessive competition should be an environmental factor that makes the situation worse. The business concept, a franchise, is the part we should think about whether it is the institutional solution that can guarantee independent businessmen stable life. Major companies are frightfully entering the market today, breaking the barrier to entry and shouting of a win-win with independent businesses. It's the small businesspersons who go through painful domestic recession, cannot predict the future and manage confusing and unstable independent business. It's very important to restore the domestic economy through wisely boosting consumption as soon as possible. It's also important to lead the situation by gathering powers of the government and related organizations, agonizing, suggesting solutions, and establishing accurate directions. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to suggest ways to strengthen competitiveness of small businesspersons by examining small business support policies which are currently implemented.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.149-163
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• 2016

Seafarers are an essential resource in maritime industries, which provide navigation skills, vessel maneuvering skills and fishing skills in the fishery industry. They also work as a driving force in pilotage, port operation, vessel traffic service, and marine safety. Other areas in maritime services, which rely on seafarer include safety management of ships, supervisory activities, and maritime accident assessment. In these ways, Korean seafarers have contributed to the growth of Korean economy. However, there have been issues of high separation rate, shortage of supply, multi-nationality, multiplicity of culture caused by employment of foreign seafarers, and aging. The present paper finds that maritime officers and fishery officers demonstrate differences in the statistics of on-board job taking and separation: the separation rate of fishery officers is higher than that of maritime officers. The existing data and statistics by the Korea Seafarer's Welfare & Employment Center could be improved by changing its structure from time series to panel data. The Korea Seafarer's Welfare & Employment Center is the ideal institution for collecting the panel data, as it has already accumulated and published relevant statistics regarding seafarer. The basic design method of the panel data is to adopt and improve it by including the information on ratings of maritime and fishery industries, ranks in a ship, personal information, family life, and career goal. Panel data are useful in short- and long-term forecasts of supply of Korean seafarers; demand evaluation of education, training, and reeducation of the seafarers; demographical dynamic analysis on Korean seafarers; inducement policy of long-term on board job taking in harmony with man-power demands in marine industries such as pilotage service; implementation of job attractiveness policy on Korean seafarers; and employment stabilization of Korean seafarers.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.53-62
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• 2020

The COVID 19 pandemic has led to a new global recession and is still causing a lot of issues because of the delays in the employment of people. This scenario has severe consequences for many countries' labor markets in the world. This problem's complexity and importance requires an integrated method of subjective and objective evaluation rather than intuitive decisions. This research aims to investigate sustainable indexes for assessing the unemployment problem by using a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Model (MCDM). Grey theory and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (GDEMATEL) are deployed to transform the experts' opinions into quantitative data. The analysis based on 20 crucial criteria is employed to determine the weights of sustainability of unemployment problems. The results revealed that the top ten of determinants are Economic growth, Industrialization, Foreign direct investment, Real GDP per capita, Education level, Trade Openness, Capacity Utilization Rate, Urbanization, Employability skills, Education system expansion, which have the most significant effects on the unemployment rate under COVID 19 impacts. Furthermore, GDEMATEL could effectively assess the sustainable indicators for unemployment problems in "deep and wide" aspects. The study proposes the Grey MCDM model, contributes to the literature, provides future research directions, and helps policymakers and researchers achieve the best solutions to the unemployment problems under "economic shocks."

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.185-194
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• 2012

Population aging in Korea is in progress rapidly, though it isn't recognized as a critical situation now. Absolute scale of population will decrease since 2030 and that of 2050 will stay in 2005 levels. But most serious problem is that the core working age group, 25-54 ages will begin to decrease since 2012 because of low fertility and population aging. In these situation of population aging, we will face inevitably great amount of labor force shortages and we should build up policy alternatives for solving these problems. I proposed some policy alternatives. firstly, pronatalism policies including state-supported child-care system for preventing decreases of absolute scale of population. Second, facing up to labor shortages under population aging, I proposed policy alternatives for increasing labor market participation, measured by employmeny rate, of aged (or aging) people including wage-peak system of extending retiring ages and women including lowering opportunity costs of women labor market participation rates, given laboer forces. And to conclude, we should approach to the aging problems by steady state equilibrium ecnomic growth, under inevitable population aging.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.335-348
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• 2014

This study investigates the technical level and industrial structure for the case of the Gazelle industry in Chungnam Province. As a results of the empirical study, the Gazelle industry of Chungnam Province shows a competitive position in terms of scale and growth capacity, which. in turn, provides income and tax collection effects due to the high level of industrial efficiency. Among the Gazelle industry of Chungnam Province, low-level technology industry, compared to high and middle-level technology industries, accelerates higher level of agglomeration and industrial growth, which provides a rapid change of industrial structure of the province. Theses research results imply that research and development investment in the Gazelle industry is essential and industrial development strategy should be conducted via step-by-step with business scale quotient (BQ) and industrial growth rate (IG). Meanwhile, there should be a serious policy review whether low-level technology industry is better off for the province compared to high and middle-level technology industries. This study expects that regional industrial policy applying the concept of Gazelle industry can accelerate regional development since the Gazelle industry contributes to the high level of income growth and employment creation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.215-222
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• 2018

This study aims to compare and analyze the quality of life of residents between those living in coastal and non-coastal areas. The indicators for the quality of life were divided into three different sectors. First, the economic sector observed the rate of population growth, the number of businesses per 1000 people, the employment and unemployment rate. The second was the environmental sector, which included the number of car registrations per capita, water supply and sewer service ratio, the urban park composition area per 1000 people and the road pavement rate. Thirdly, the social sector comprising data about the number of students per teacher, the number of sickbeds in medical institutions per 1000 people, the rate of traffic accidents per 1000 cars and the portion of social welfare budget in general accounting. The analysis method of standardized indicators and T-Test were carried out in 24 coastal cities and 51 non-coastal cities across the country. Results of the indicator comparison suggested there were significant differences in the number of businesses per 1000 people, the road pavement rate and the rate of traffic accidents per 1000 cars. From the results of each sector comparison, the coastal cities showed a higher value than non-coastal cities only in the economic sector. The quality of life comparison showed that coastal cities were better than non-coastal cities but were not statistically significant.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 2023

Currently, almost all product development in the jewelry industry utilizes 3D CAD and 3D printing. In this situation, 3D CAD modeling and 3D printing ability units in colleges, Tomorrow Learning Card Education, and Course Evaluation-type jewelry design related education are conducted with developed curriculum based on the standards for training standards, training hours, training equipment, and practice materials presented by NCS. Accordingly, this study analyzes 3D CAD modeling and 3D printing training facilities, training hours, training equipment, etc into three categories of NCS precious metal processing and jewelry design, and studies the development of educational systems such as 3D CAD/3D printing curriculum and various environments that meet these standards. Education using this 3D CAD/3D printing education system will enable us to continuously supply professional talent with practical skills not only in the jewelry industry but also in the entire 3D CAD/3D printing manufacturing industry, which is called as one of the pillars of the 4th Industry. The quality of employment of trainees receiving education and the long-term retention rate after employed can also have a positive effect. In addition, excellent educational performance will help improve the recruitment rate of new students in jewelry jobs or manufacturing-related departments, which are difficult to recruit new students in recent years.