• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether the cash policies of retail firms listed on Korean stock markets are consistent with the evidence provided in the study of Almeida et al. (2004). Liquidity management is an important issue for financially constrained firms relative to financially unconstrained firms. Because there are few sources of external funding, the optimal liquidity policies of financially constrained firms should reflect their own earnings or cash inflows to create opportunities for current and future real investments. According to this simple idea, we estimate the sensitivity of cash to cash flows and simply check whether the estimated sensitivity to cash flows of the cash retained by constrained retail firms is greater than that of the cash retained by unconstrained retail firms. Through this work, we aim to explain why the cash policies of the retail firms listed on the Korean stock markets differ from those of listed manufacturing enterprises. Research design, data, and methodology - To explain a firm's cash holdings, we use only three explanatory variables: earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), Tobin's q, and size. All the variables are defined as the value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets. Thanks to this definition, it is possible to treat all the sample firms as a single large firm. The sample financial data for this study are collected from the retail enterprises listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013. We can obtain these data from WISEfn, the financial information company. This study's methodology has its origin in Keynes's simple idea of precautionary liquidity demand: When a firm faces financial constraints, cash savings from earnings or cash inflows become important from the corporate finance perspective. Following this simple idea, Almeida et al. (2004) developed their theoretical model and found empirical evidence that the sensitivity of cash to cash flows varies systematically according to different types of financing frictions. To find more empirical evidence for this idea, we examined the cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by Korean retail firms. Results - Through several robustness tests, we empirically showed that financially constrained Korean retail firms display significant positive propensity to save cash from earnings before interest and taxes, while the estimated cash flow sensitivity of the cash held by unconstrained retail firms is not significant. Despite the relatively low earnings of retail firms, their sensitivity is three times greater than that of manufacturing enterprises. This implies that Korean retail firms have greater intentions of facilitating future investments rather than current investments. Conclusions - The characteristics of the cash policies of Korean retail firms differ from those of manufacturing firms. This contrast may be attributable to industry-oriented policy planning, regulations, and institutional differences. However, the industrial policymakers should observe signals of the long-term growth options of retail firms based on their high propensity to save from their cash inflows.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2001

Major deficiencies of current automation scheme including various robots for bioproduction include the lack of task adaptability and real time processing, low job performance for diverse tasks, and the lack of robustness of take results, high system cost, failure of the credit from the operator, and so on. This paper proposed a scheme that could solve the current limitation of task abilities of conventional computer controlled automatic system. The proposed scheme is the man-machine hybrid automation via tele-operation which can handle various bioproduction processes. And it was classified into two categories. One category was the efficient task sharing between operator and CCM(computer controlled machine). The other was the efficient interface between operator and CCM. To realize the proposed concept, task of the object identification and extraction of 3D coordinate of an object was selected. 3D coordinate information was obtained from camera calibration using camera as a measurement device. Two stereo images were obtained by moving a camera certain distance in horizontal direction normal to focal axis and by acquiring two images at different locations. Transformation matrix for camera calibration was obtained via least square error approach using specified 6 known pairs of data points in 2D image and 3D world space. 3D world coordinate was obtained from two sets of image pixel coordinates of both camera images with calibrated transformation matrix. As an interface system between operator and CCM, a touch pad screen mounted on the monitor and remotely captured imaging system were used. Object indication was done by the operator’s finger touch to the captured image using the touch pad screen. A certain size of local image processing area was specified after the touch was made. And image processing was performed with the specified local area to extract desired features of the object. An MS Windows based interface software was developed using Visual C++6.0. The software was developed with four modules such as remote image acquisiton module, task command module, local image processing module and 3D coordinate extraction module. Proposed scheme shoed the feasibility of real time processing, robust and precise object identification, and adaptability of various job and environments though selected sample tasks.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.49-56
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• 2019

Purpose: Corporate social responsibility is a self-regulating business model that helps a firm be socially accountable to the public. By practicing corporate social responsibility, firms can be conscious of the kind of impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental. Corporate social responsibility activities are not directly linked to increasing corporate performance and corporate value, but rather involve spending expenses. Based on these facts, this study verifies whether the effects of corporate social responsibility activities differ depending on the firm's situation. Research design, data and methodology: This study analyzed the effect of market competition on corporate social responsibility activities using logistic regression analysis on listed companies in the KOSPI and KOSDAQ for fiscal years 2014 through 2016. In this study, market competition was measured using the Herfindahl-Herschman Index(HHI). Higher HHI value can be interpreted as a lower degree of market competition. We also measured corporate social responsibility activities using the KEJI Index published by the Korea Economic Justice Institute (KEJI). If a firm-year is included in the top 200 companies of the KEJI Index, it is classified as a good corporate social responsibility activity firm. Results: We find that companies in less competitive market were not included in the KEJI Index. This result indicates that firms in the market with lower market competition perform less corporate social responsibility activities that incur costs. An additional analysis showed that there was a significant negative relationship between the market competition and the corporate social responsibility activity scores published by the KEJI Index. These result adds robustness to the result of the hypothesis that firms that have a monopolistic place in the market practice passive corporate social responsibility activities. Conclusions: The results show that managers of a firm in the lower market competition have a lower incentive to use limited resources for projects that are not directly related to revenue. The results of this study imply that corporate social responsibility activities vary according to the position of the business. Therefore, this study suggests that market investors should consider the degree of competition in the market when they evaluate corporate social responsibility activities.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.57-70
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• 2009

A CAD design drawing based on vector data that is very important art work in industrial fields has been considered to content that the copyright protection is urgently needed. This paper presents a watermarking scheme based on k-means++ for CAD design drawing. One CAD design drawing consists of several layers and each layer consists of various geometric objects such as LINE, POLYLINE, CIRCLE, ARC, 3DFACE and POLYGON. POLYLINE with LINE, 3DFACE and ARC that are fundamental objects make up the majority in CAD design drawing. Therefore, the proposed scheme selects the target object with high distribution among POLYLINE, 3DFACE and ARC objects in CAD design drawing and then selects layers that include the most target object. Then we cluster the target objects in the selected layers by using k-means++ and embed the watermark into the geometric distribution of each group. The geometric distribution is the normalized length distribution in POLYLINE object, the normalized area distribution in 3DFACE object and the angle distribution in ARC object. Experimental results verified that the proposed scheme has the robustness against file format converting, layer attack as well as various geometric editing provided in CAD editing tools.