• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.91-116
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• 1991

Market liberalization progressing simultaneously with high and rapidly rising domestic wages has created an adverse business environment for domestic firms. Korean firms are losing their international competitiveness in comparison to firms from LDC(Less Developed Countries) in low-tech industries. In high-tech industries, domestic firms without government protection (which is impossible due to the liberalization policy and the current international status of the Korean economy) are in a disadvantaged position relative to firms from advanced countries. This paper examines the division of roles between the private sector and the government in order to achieve a successful structural adjustment, which has become the impending industrial policy issue caused by high domestic wages, on the one hand, and the opening of domestic markets, on the other. The micro foundation of the economy-wide structural adjustment is actually the restructuring of business portfolios at the firm level. The firm-level business restructuring means that firms in low-value-added businesses or with declining market niches establish new major businesses in higher value-added segments or growing market niches. The adjustment of the business structure at the firm level can only be accomplished by accumulating firm-specific managerial assets necessary to establish a new business structure. This can be done through learning-by-doing in the whole system of management, including research and development, manufacturing, and marketing. Therefore, the voluntary cooperation among the people in the company is essential for making the cost of the learning process lower than that at the competing companies. Hence, firms that attempt to restructure their major businesses need to induce corporate-wide participation through innovations in organization and management, encourage innovative corporate culture, and maintain cooperative labor unions. Policy discussions on structural adjustments usually regard firms as a black box behind a few macro variables. But in reality, firm activities are not flows of materials but relationships among human resources. The growth potential of companies are embodied in the human resources of the firm; the balance of interest among stockholders, managers, and workers of the company' brings the accumulation of the company's core competencies. Therefore, policymakers and economists shoud change their old concept of the firm as a technological black box which produces a marketable commodities. Firms should be regarded as coalitions of interest groups such as stockholders, managers, and workers. Consequently the discussion on the structural adjustment both at the macroeconomic level and the firm level should be based on this new paradigm of understanding firms. The government's role in reducing the cost of structural adjustment and supporting should the creation of new industries emphasize the following: First, government must promote the competition in domestic markets by revising laws related to antitrust policy, bankruptcy, and the promotion of small and medium-sized companies. General consensus on the limitations of government intervention and the merit of deregulation should be sought among policymakers and people in the business world. In the age of internationalization, nation-specific competitive advantages cannot be exclusively in favor of domestic firms. The international competitiveness of a domestic firm derives from the firm-specific core competencies which can be accumulated by internal investment and organization of the firm. Second, government must build up a solid infrastructure of production factors including capital, technology, manpower, and information. Structural adjustment often entails bankruptcies and partial waste of resources. However, it is desirable for the government not to try to sustain marginal businesses, but to support the diversification or restructuring of businesses by assisting in factor creation. Institutional support for venture businesses needs to be improved, especially in the financing system since many investment projects in venture businesses are highly risky, even though they are very promising. The proportion of low-value added production processes and declining industries should be reduced by promoting foreign direct investment and factory automation. Moreover, one cannot over-emphasize the importance of future-oriented labor policies to be based on the new paradigm of understanding firm activities. The old laws and instititutions related to labor unions need to be reformed. Third, government must improve the regimes related to money, banking, and the tax system to change business practices dependent on government protection or undesirable in view of the evolution of the Korean economy as a whole. To prevent rational business decisions from contradicting to the interest of the economy as a whole, government should influence the business environment, not the business itself.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.149-175
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• 2014

This study analyzed the effect of corporate innovation strategies on patent production and ultimately on technological change and new product development of firms in South Korea. The intent was to derive efficient strategies for enhancing technological performance of the firms. For the empirical analysis, three sources of data were combined: four waves of the Human Capital Corporate Panel Survey (HCCP) data collected by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET), corporate financial data obtained from the Korea Information Service (KIS), and corporate patent data provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). The patent production function was estimated by zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression. The technological performance function was estimated by two-stage regression, taking into account the endogeneity of patent production. An ordered logit model was applied for the second stage regression. Empirical results confirmed the critical role of corporate innovation strategies in patent production and in facilitating technological change and new product development of the firms. In patent production, the firms' R&D investment and human resources were key determinants. Higher R&D intensity led to more patents, yet with decreasing marginal productivity. A larger stock of registered patents also led to a larger flow of new patent production. Firms were more prolific in patent production when they had high-quality personnel, intensely investing in human resource development, and adopting market-leading or fast-follower strategy as compared to stability strategy. In technological performance, the firms' human resources played a key role in accelerating technological change and new product development. R&D intensity expedited new product development of the firm. Firms adopting market-leading or fast-follower strategy were at an advantage than those with stability strategy in technological performance. Firms prolific in patent production were also advanced in terms of technological change and new product development. However, the nexus between patent production and technological performance measures was substantially reduced when controlling for the endogeneity of patent production. These results suggest that firms need to strengthen the linkage between patent production and technological performance, and take strategies that address each firm's capacities and needs.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.72-81
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• 2020

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are designed to promote human and social development and address challenges related to sustainable economic development, in addition to creating quality employment. SDGs create new market and business opportunities that enable companies to effect business changes through innovative solutions. To tackle structural problems and create infrastructure for future societies, a national-level digital transformation strategy is being developed in Korea. The Korean government announced an investment plan for living social overhead capital (SOC) to address various social and structural problems caused by low economic growth. This study emphasizes the importance of building SOCs in accordance with the requirements of future societies. This study primarily aims to suggest business opportunities created by achieving SDGs, by analyzing business cases involving 3D printing-based construction. Implementing living SOCs through ingenious thinking will not only create new businesses and jobs through digital transformation, but also improve the economic and social value by encouraging community members to be proud of their future society.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.43
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• pp.47-75
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• 2016

This study has analyzed the history of the subcontract animation in Korea that began with Golden Bat of TBC Animation Division in 1966 to 1980s and shed the light on the history of subcontract animation that has been processed over 30 years in Korean animation. For this purpose, through the outlined status of subcontract animation, such as, production company, production status, scale of industry and so forth, the status of the OEM industry then has been checked and it links the solidified background of animation into subcontract production industry with the situation in time for analysis. In addition, on the basis of the foregoing, it is intended to broaden the horizon of the history of animation through the analysis on new search for facilitating the creative animation by overcoming the issues and limits generated by the subcontract animation industry. 1970s was the time that the national objective is to advance heavy-chemical industry and export-led economic growth. From the late 1970s, the animation has been spot lighted as the main-stream export industry through the overseas subcontract orders for animation. Expansion of the subcontract animation production has been influenced from the national policies on public culture, dispersion of color TV, facilitation of video production market and other media changes of the time that led the decline of animation audiences in theaters, and another cause would be in lack of platform of broadcasting companies that avoided the independent animation production for its economic theory. The subcontract animation industry may have the positive evaluation in the aspect of expanding the animation environment, such as, structuring of animation infra, development of new human resources and etc. However, the technology-incentive 'production'-oriented advancement has created distorted structure in advancing the professional human resources due to the absence of 'pre-production' of planning and others as well as the insufficient perception on 'post production (post work)', and it was unable to formulate domestic market by re-investing the capital accumulated for OEM industry into the production of creative animation and it has been assessed as negative aspect. Animation is a cultural and spiritual product of a country. Therefore, the systematic support policy for the facilitation of the creative animation, such as, development of professional human resources, creation of outstanding work, formation of market to make the pre-circulation structure and so forth has to be sought. However, animation is an industry, but there is no perception that it is a cultural industry based on the creativeness, not hardware-oriented manufacturing business. Such a lack of recognition, there was no policies to make the market and facilitate the creative animation by the animation of Korea for this period through the long-term plan and investment for independent work production. Such an attempt is newly begun through diverse searches for protection and advancement of creative animation in Korea after 1990s.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.25-37
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to survey startup founders within 7 years of founding the importance and satisfaction of the components of the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem at the national level in Korea and analyze the direction of scale-up policy by component using IPA (importance-performance analysis). Since the perception of founders, who are the subjects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, affects the quantity and quality of start-ups, research is needed to analyze and diagnose the perception of scale-up components. For the development of the national economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem, companies that emerge from startups to scale-up and unicorns must be produced, and for this, elements for the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem are needed. The results of this study are as follows. First, the importance ranking of the components of the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem recognized by founders was in the order of "Financial support by growth stage," "Support for customized scale-up for enterprises," "Improvement of regulations," "Funds dedicated to scale-up," "large-scale investment," and "nurturing technical talents." Second, the factors that should be intensively improved in the importance-satisfaction matrix in the future were 'Pan-Government Integration Promotion Plan', 'Scale-Up Specialized Organization Operation', 'Company Customized Scale-Up Support', 'Regulatory Improvement', and 'Building a Korean Scale-Up Model'. As a result, various and large financial capital for the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem, diversification of scale-up programs by business sector, linkage of start-ups and scale-up support, deregulation of new technologies and new industries, strengthening corporate-tailored scale-up growth capabilities, and providing overseas networking opportunities can be derived. In addition, it is expected to contribute to policy practice and academic work with research that derives the components of the domestic scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem and diagnoses its perception.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.29-58
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• 2007

We develop a model to estimate the value of growth opportunities, which is based on the seminal papers of M&M(1961, 1963) and Lee(2006). Making use of the estimation model, we estimate a new proxy variable of the growth opportunities, other than the usual proxy variables such as quasi Tobin's Q, MBR, and so on. The new proxy variable of growth opportunities can represent a necessary condition to identify whether the increase in new investments are successful or not. The empirical findings on the growth opportunities during the IMF currency crisis period and the post-IMF period are as follows; First, the overall success rate of new investments is as low as 50%, that means only half of the listed firms were increasing new investments when they had the growth opportunities. Second, during the crisis, one third of the listed firms were experiencing negative growth opportunities. However, during the post-IMF period, the growth opportunities on new investments were turned to be positive due to the turnaround efforts of listed firms. Third, the value of intangible assets, which are resulting from the investment of R&D and human capital, are becoming more important than ever. It seems to be true that larger portions of the value of growth opportunities are coming from the intangible assets, not from the increases in new investments of the physical assets.