• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.40-40
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• 2009

Construction firms have long sought success in the global construction market through diversifying revenue sources and project portfolios. The volume of international contracts has contributed to firms' sustained growth by mitigating the impact of the domestic market's cyclical nature. In spite of the importance of international construction, the uncertainty and dynamic changes surrounding global construction pose serious threats to global contactors. Over the last decade, the international construction industry has changed drastically in many ways, particularly including financial resource diversity, competition rules for the selection of contractors, and the terms of delivery systems requiring more competent total service providers. This paper investigates the important changes for global contractors through various documentation analysis as well as in-depth interviews with industry experts. This paper then analyzes the common strategies and lessons obtained from the cases of leading global contractors that have sustained their growth in the competitive global construction during the last decade. In addition, the authors further analyzed the comparisons between those firms and Korean contractors to discern any difference in sustaining their growth in the competitive market. It was found that those leading firms were quite proactive and responsive to changing markets by diversifying their market revenues to stabilize their revenue structure and enhancing their competency through a wide range of 'business convergence'. In addition, they significantly increased their upstream/downstream functional capabilities; hence becoming more competent service providers, able to grow in these rapidly changing market conditions. Finally, this paper benchmarks the critical strategies that support growth, which in turn can provide a strategic guideline for expansion into the global construction market.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.59-72
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• 2017

Purpose - This paper evaluated the efficiency performance of the three major maritime transport markets and examined the determinants of the performance. The firms' revenue fluctuates with the changes of the economic cycle; hence it is important for them to set up business strategies to improve efficiencies. A lack of efficiency measurements for shipping firms leads to a significant gap in determining their overall performance. Research design, data, and methodology - Each of DEA scores was adopted for the evaluation and panel regression was used to examine the impact of determinants on the performance. The analysis included 50 shipping firms from three maritime transport markets as follows; 15 firms of container liners, 18 firms of bulk carrier and 17 firms of tanker carriers, and its period was from 2010 to 2016. Results - In the CCR model, container liners were the highest, tanker carriers were the second, and bulk carriers were the lowest in operation efficiency and financial efficiency. By region, operation efficiency and financial efficiency was high in the order of America, Asia, and Europe. Conclusions - This study suggests business strategies for maritime transport companies based on the analytical results of determinants of operational and financial efficiency.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.28-36
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• 2009

While existing literature has focused extensively on the strengths and weaknesses of the Chaebol and their ownership and governance, there have been few studies of Korean non-Chaebol firms. However, Lee, Lee and Pennings (2001) did not specifically investigate the competitive strategies that non-Chaebol firms use to survive against the Chaebol in the domestic Korean market. The motivation of this paper is to document, through four exploratory case studies, the successful competitive strategies of non-Chaebol Korean companies against the Chaebol and then offer some propositions that may be useful to other entrepreneurial firms as well as public policy makers. Competition and cooperation as conceptualized by product similarity and cooperative inter.firm relationship respectively, are major dimensions of firm.level marketing strategy. From these two dimensions, we develop the following $2{\times}2$ matrix, with 4 types of competitive strategies for non-Chaebol companies against the Chaebol (Fig. 1.). The non-Chaebol firm in Cell 1 has a "me-too" product for the low-end market while conceding the high-end market to a Chaebol. In Cell 2, the non-Chaebol firm partners with a Chaebol company, either as a supplier or complementor. In Cell 3, the non-Chaebol firm engages in direct competition with a Chaebol. In Cell 4, the non-Chaebol firm targets an unserved part of the market with an innovative product or service. The four selected cases such as E.Rae Electronics Industry Company (Co-exister), Intops (Supplier), Pantech (Competitor) and Humax (Niche Player) are analyzed to provide each strategy with richer insights. Following propositions are generated based upon our conceptual framework: Proposition 1: Non-Chaebol firms that have a cooperative relationship with a Chaebol will perform better than firms that do not. Proposition 1a; Co-existers will perform better than Competitors. Proposition 1b: Partners (suppliers or complementors) will perform better than Niche players. Proposition 2: Firms that have no product similarity with a Chaebol will perform better than firms that have product similarity. Proposition 2a: Partners (suppliers or complementors) will perform better than Co.existers. Proposition 2b: Niche players will perform better than Competitors. Proposition 3: Niche players should perform better than Co-existers. Proposition 4: Performance can be rank.ordered in descending order as Partners, Niche Players, Co.existers, Competitors. A team of experts was constituted to categorize each of these 216 non-Chaebol companies into one of the 4 cells in our typology. Simple Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in SPSS statistical software was used to test our propositions. Overall findings are that it is better to have a cooperative relationship with a Chaebol and to offer products or services differentiated from a Chaebol. It is clear that the only profitable strategy, on average, to compete against the Chaebol is to be a partner (supplier or complementor). Competing head on with a Chaebol company is a costly strategy not likely to pay off for a non-Chaebol firm. Strategies to avoid head on competition with the Chaebol by serving niche markets with differentiated products or by serving the low-end of the market ignored by the Chaebol are better survival strategies. This paper illustrates that there are ways in which small and medium Korean non-Chaebol firms can thrive in a Chaebol environment, though not without risks. Using different combinations of competition and cooperation firms may choose particular positions along the product similarity and cooperative relationship dimensions to develop their competitive strategies-co-exister, competitor, partner, niche player. Based on our exploratory case-study analysis, partner seems to be the best strategy for non-Chaebol firms while competitor appears to be the most risky one. Niche players and co-existers have intermediate performance, though the former do better than the latter. It is often the case with managers of small and medium size companies that they tend to view market leaders, typically the Chaebol, with rather simplistic assumptions of either competition or collaboration. Consequently, many non-Chaebol firms turn out to be either passive collaborators or overwhelmed competitors of the Chaebol. In fact, competition and collaboration are not mutually exclusive, and can be pursued at the same time. As suggested in this paper, non-Chaebol firms can actively choose to compete and collaborate, depending on their environment, internal resources and capabilities.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-58
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• 2014

This study investigates the effects of product strategies and CEO characteristics on the growth of venture firms. These factors are related with strategic behaviors and managerial capabilities of small and dynamic firms. According to empirical results of FGLS regression with the data of the Korean venture firms, both product strategies and CEO characteristics have significant effects on firm growth and additionally explanatory powers. In general, the growth rates of venture firms tend to increase with the level of product's diversity and marketing-enhancing strategy, but decrease with the degree of product's innovation-enhancing strategy. The growth rates are higher when CEO is non-founder and has sufficient experience related to current business, and CEO's career development is focused on general management area. The effects of product strategies and CEO characteristics are moderated by the firm-internal factor such as organizational growth stage. The positive effects of some product strategies (e.g. marketing-enhancing strategy) and CEO characteristics(e.g. career focused on general management) become stronger for firms operating in the stage of start-up or initial growth, while their effects become negative or insignificant for firms operating in the mature or declining stage in which the negative effect of innovation-enhancing strategy does not exist.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to empirically ascertain how the fitness between marketing strategy each firm chooses and environment facing each firm affects the performance of firms measured by the growth rate of market share and the growth rate of profit/sales ratio. In doing so, firms are divided into three groups. With regard to the marketing strategy, firms are classified into three groups based on marketing strategy type; prospector, analyzer, and defender. The main result of this study are as follows: First, responding firms are classified into prospector, analyzer, and defender following Miles & Snow's marketing strategy types. This classification is made using a self typing method and further confirmed by a factor analysis using a number of variables relating marketing objectives and marketing mix. Second, the results show that there are significant differences across marketing strategies in the performance measures of the growth rate of market share and profit/sales ratio. It seems, however, that there is no straight forward relationship between the marketing strategy and the performance measures. This strongly implies that the type of marketing strategy to be adopted by each firm should depend on the environment facing each firm. Third, the result indicates that the growth rate of market share tends to depend only on the marketing strategy type regardless of sufficiency and variation of environment, but profit/sales ratio tends to depend on the fitness between marketing strategy type and environment. It implies that a firm should adopt different marketing strategies for different environment characteristics, in order to enhance the efficiency of resources used reflected in the profit/sales ratio.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.128-145
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• 2021

Purpose - The main purpose of this study is thus to investigate the contingent effect of imitation strategies on firm performance in transition economies such as China, focusing on pure and creative imitation. Design/methodology - We conducted a survey targeting department heads of each company who have more than 10 years work experiences. We assessed that the ability to gain trust and to access information from high-ranking informants would be greater if the firms were from the same country - Korea - as the lead researcher. A total of 200 highly reliable samples were obtained, which could effectively explain the nine variables set in the study. Relevant hypotheses were tested using a hierarchical linear model (HLM). Findings - The findings suggest that SMEs' technology level also had a positive impact on performance. Firms with better technology had a positive impact on performance, irrespective of pure or creative imitation. This reflects the cases where many Korean SMEs entering China without high technology level lose their competitiveness due to Chinese firms' technology catch-up within a short period of time. Originality/value - SMEs that lack technology and know-how need to focus on pure imitation strategies. It is possible that SMEs can perform creative imitation, but it seems difficult under the current circumstances. Therefore, SMEs with limitations in technology and know-how should maintain their competitive advantage for a while, by maintaining their pure imitation strategy.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.45-70
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• 2012

Based on the usage levels of target costing systems(TCS) and information technology (IT) infrastructure, this study aims to develop a framework useful for classifying four types of knowledge management(KM) strategies in manufacturing firms: process-oriented, product-oriented, mixed and negative. We adopted a multi-methodological approach by mixing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Before developing a framework, through a case study of the H Motor Company in Korea, this paper investigated and showed the functions of TCS in the management of tacit knowledge. The results from the case study indicated that with the use of TCS, a firm can create, transfer, and share diverse kinds of tacit knowledge among employees for the facilitation of process innovation. We also empirically confirmed the four types of KM strategies, and demonstrated the characteristics(i.e., size, total sales, age, and knowledge intensity) of the organizations adopting each strategy.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.1076-1082
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• 2005

Breaking from the past convention, most construction firms are lotting out their apartments with their own brand names. They don't have, however, differentiated marketing strategies based on unique brand awareness. Rather, virtual absence of marketing strategies has brought about unfiltered introduction of architectural elements of the competition and excessive advertising efforts. Consequently confusion is at hand for consumers' purchase decision since they are not aware of the differences between the apartments. The purpose of this study is to make consumers have clear brand awareness by presenting appropriate brand strategies based on sound marketing theories for construction firms.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.173-192
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• 2002

Internet-based on-line firms have focused on the development of new business models with an assumption that this new model would create their competitiveness. At the same time, off-line firms have opened new marketing channels on the internet in order to defend their position against on-line firms. Based on Porter's well-known generic strategy, this study compares between on-line firms and on-offline firms i) whether these two types of firms take different strategies among cost reduction, marketing differentiation, innovation differentiation, and focus and ii) how the performance of these two types of firms is affected by different strategy types. The result shows that on-offline firms prefer the strategy of marketing differentiation and innovative differentiation while the strategy of cost reduction and focus are taken without significant difference between online firms and on-offline firms. Also it is found that even though the strategy of marketing differentiation and innovation differentiation are more preferred by on-offline firms than on-line firms, these two strategy types have a significant influence on the on-line firms' performance while the focus strategy has a significant influence on the on-offline firms' performance. Other managerial implications are discussed.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.13
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• pp.195-206
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to compare the service strategies of foreign service firms between Singapore and Korea, relative to the country where their headquarters are located. Specifically this study investigates (1) how the service strategies are adaptively executed based on local circumstances, (2) to what extent the cultural and legal environments of the two countries are different, and (3) how the differences in the environments affect the adaptation of the service strategies. The findings of this study indicate that there exists the perceptual differences in the legal environments between Singapore and Korea, but no significant differences are found in the cultural environments. The differences in the legal environments, however, do not affect the adaptation of the service strategies. Interestingly enough, the foreign service firms in Singapore perceive less sensitively the need for adapting service strategies. But the foreign service firms in Korea perceive more sensitively the need for the adaptation.