• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2020

The study aims to identify economic interdependencies between regions and define functional economic areas of Korea by analyzing inter-firm transaction networks. Previous research has relied on pre-given administrative boundaries or cultural homogeneity and used data such as commuting, population movement, and cargo flows which could not fully explain economic activities. To overcome the limitations, this study applies a community detection method to inter-firm transaction networks derived from the CRETOP+ database of Korean corporate data. The novel dataset and the network analysis enables us to identify Korea's functional economic areas based on actual inter-firm linkages. The result shows that there are six to seven economic blocs in the networks as of 2018. In particular, one huge economic bloc is formed integrating the Seoul metropolitan area, Chungcheong, and Gangwon provinces. Meanwhile, North Jeolla and South Jeolla provinces form two economic blocs separately rather than being tied up in one bloc due to the low frequency of transactions between each other. The two big economic blocs of Daegu-Gyeongbuk and Busan-Gyeongnam exist, and interestingly, Ulsan, Gyeongju, and Pohang form a separate middle-sized bloc across the administrative boundaries. The results reveal that the future balanced national development policies should be implemented based on functional economic areas derived from empirical data.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.171-193
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• 2005

Small firms are considered as the last mile in electronic networks of business enterprises. Since small firms lack in their resources and capabilities for IT deployment, it seems a challenging project to make them electronically linked to their trading partners. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the intent of small firms to adopt electronic linkage to their trading partners. This study considers the context where small firms already have transaction relationships with partner firms and where their adoption of electronic linkage may influence the nature and performance of the transactional relationships. This study considers the expected value of electronic linkage and the joint actions of the trading firms as the major factors. Its research model also includes traditional factors such as influences from the industry and the trading partner, the support of CEO, and the readiness of the trading partner. Based on the survey data from more than 1000 small firms, the present study performs regression analysis and finds that all but one factor are significant in explaining the variations in the adoption intention of small firms. The exception is the joint action, which is shown to decrease the intention. Based on the results, this study offers business and policy implications that would be useful to business managers and policy makers.