• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.962-969
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• 2009

The market of building construction has been competitive in Hong Kong, perhaps as anywhere else in the world. The barrier to entry is low because there are relatively low requirements on the three factors of production - technology, manpower and finance. The prevailing building technology is traditional and labour-intensive. There is also not much need of capital because clients' periodic payments have been the main source of project finance. Further, capitalizing on trade sub-contracting, contractors have been able to keep their direct labour-force small and to transfer much of their business risk to the sub-contractors. Based on interviews to solicit the perception of a sample of building contractors on the particular issues of construction finance, we present the findings in this paper and discuss the various implications. We believe that the current practice of construction financing is both the cause and effect of the competition within, and the competitiveness of, the building construction sector in Hong Kong. We conclude that the building construction sector is "locked or stuck" in this "equilibrium" of traditional technology, reliance on clients' finance and exploitation of sub-contracting. In this "equilibrium" state, there is hardly any motivation for contractors to engage themselves in product or process innovation. Consequently, any talk of industry reform or innovation could only remain just that. We believe that this problem is not unique in Hong Kong. The building construction sector in many other developed and developing economies is posed with similar if not the same problems and constraints. We conclude that there has to be some "external forces" to bring this "equilibrium" state to a higher level "equilibrium" one where higher value-added building construction services are supplied and demanded. This is a state where building contractors possessing innovative technology, better financial and manpower resources could thrive to build better buildings with innovative building methods and processes.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2024

Objectives: The objective of this study is to develop a specialized clinical research protocol for acupuncture treatment specifically designed for disaster survivors based on insights from an expert survey. Methods: An expert panel comprising specialists in neuropsychiatry, acupuncture, and clinical research methodology was assembled. Initial data to inform the clinical research protocol design was collected utilizing open-ended responses, multiple-choice questions, and a 5-point Likert scale to gauge agreement levels. Next, this data was disseminated to a panel of experts. A cohesive clinical research protocol was then formulated during a core panel meeting by integrating insights from a panel of 10 experts. Results: The protocol developed herein entails a non-randomized controlled study involving participants aged 19~64 years old who have been identified as high-risk or cautious according to the National Trauma Center screening test. The study design includes the establishment of an active control group, which allows for the assessment of an additional effect through comparison with conventional therapy. The selected acupuncture approach involves a combination of manual acupuncture and ear acupuncture. For clinical outcome assessment, the Clinician-Administered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale for DSM-5 was proposed to gauge trauma symptoms. Representative scales for various domains such as depression, anxiety, anger, insomnia, pain, and quality of life were also provided for reference. Conclusions: The developed protocol is anticipated to streamline the swift design and initiation of clinical trials during disaster scenarios. It is also designed to be scalable, thereby enabling its application in both non-randomized control group studies and single-group before-and-after comparisons.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2009

Prior bankruptcy studies have established that bankrupt firm's pre-filing financial ratios are different from those of healthy firms or of randomly selected going concerns. However, they may not be sufficiently different from the financial ratios of other firms in financial distress to allow the development of a ratio-based model that predicts bankruptcy with reasonable accuracy. As the result, in the multiple discriminant model, independent variables divided firms into bankrupt firms and healthy firms are retained earnings to total asset, receivable turnover, net income to sales, financial expenses, inventory turnover, owner's equity to total asset, cash flow to current liability, and current asset to current liability. Moreover four variables Retained earnings to total asset, net income to sales, total asset turnover, owner's equity to total asset indicate that these valuables classify bankrupt firms and distress firms. On the other hand, Owner's Equity to borrowed capital, Ordinary income to Net Sales, Operating Income to Total Asset, Total Asset Turnover and Inventory Turnover are selected to predict bankruptcy possibility in the Logistic regression model.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.114-122
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• 2015

Real estate development requires significant amount of capital investment. The project duration has been increased according to its enlarged size. For this reason, cost overrun and time delay are important risk factors that should be managed properly. As a method to hedge the risk, varoius real option methods have been presented. However, conventional project value assesment methods such as NPV(Net Present Value) have weakness to support decision making by reflecting dynamic situations in terms of variation of cost and time. Furthermore, the decision making process is serious of actions rather than discrete event. The purpose of this paper is to present a multiple real option valuation method to overcome the deterministic aspect of real option presented in previous research and practice. The method is developed as following: firstly, to select the model that can be applied in the real estate development project through a survey from previous literature on real options analysis; secondly, to apply data from office development case in order to verify the model by applying conventional real option and multiple real option valuation. According to analysis result, multiple real option provides enhanced values comparing to NPV and single real option.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.79-103
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• 2016

The Korean Army has to construct a system that will enable it to cope immediately with the flexible military relationships in Northeast Asia by systematizing and improving the efficiency of operations. These improvements include building a smart and strong army, concentrating on cost-effective combat skills, maximizing the utilization of private resources, and establishing a military structure based on information and technology. Accordingly, this study proposes solutions to solve the problems affecting the success of outsourcing in the defense industry. Unlike outsourcing in other government ministries, outsourcing in the national defense sector may be unrealistic because this strategy is related to the renovation project of the Ministry of the National Defense. In general, the objective of outsourcing in the defense industry, similar to other businesses, is to improve efficiency and not to reduce troops and national defense budget. Several factors, such as identification and security guarantee, risk reduction, cost saving, quality improvement, the reliability of enterprise, and professional technology, are necessary to ensure outsourcing success in the national defense sector. In terms of effectiveness, the improvement in service quality significantly influences outsourcing success in the national defense sector. Eventually, the national defense forces must be strengthened to prevent the provocative actions of North Korea and other threats by improving identification, sense of national security, and quality unlike the current outsourcing of the government, as well as emulating German GEBB or PMC, which utilizes social capital.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1990

In most of studies on market efficiency, the stability of risk measures and the normality of residuals unexplained by the pricing model are presumed. This paper re-examines stock splits, taking the possible violation of two assumptions into accounts. The results does not change the previous studies. But, the size of excess returns during the 2-week period before announcements decreases by 43%. The results also support that betas change around announcements and the serial autocorrelation of residuals is caused by events. Based on the results, the existing excess returns are most likely explained as a compensation to old shareholders for unwanted risk increases in their portfolio, or by uses of incorrect betas in testing models. In addition, the model suggested in the paper provides a measure for the speed of adjustment of the market to the new information arrival and the intensity of information contents.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.265-290
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• 2023

Even though crowdfunding has become popular as a novel means of raising capital for early-stage ventures and startups through an Internet-based platform, it is unclear how a funder's characteristics, such as motivation and ability, influence their information processing and pledging decision. This study aims to propose and test a research model for determining the relationships between a funder's personal attributes, information processing style, and funding intention. To test the research model, we collected data from 139 Amazon Mechanical Turk participants through an online questionnaire survey. The findings indicate that a funder's self-efficacy has a positive effect on heuristic processing but has no significant effect on systematic processing. By contrast, a funder's personal relevance positively influences both systematic and heuristic processing. Furthermore, heuristic processing, as well as perceived value and perceived risk, influence pledging intentions positively. Our findings potentially contribute to improving the design of crowdfunding platforms to better support a funder's information needs. Based on our findings, we discuss the implications of our study as well as the directions for future research.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 2016

Korean government had used public 'credit guarantee schemes' (CGS) as a counter-cyclical measure. However, it is still controversial about the effectiveness of policy financing on the SMEs. Criticism on policy financing involves the argument that supporting enterprises hampers competition and innovation of SMEs by increasing their dependence on the government and delays the exit of marginal firms. In this paper, we investigate how to effectively build up the rationale of running public CGSs. At the same time, we propose the ways to coexist of public credit guarantee and market-based private finance system for SMEs. First, CGS, as a counter-cyclical function, must coexist with the private financial system by compensating the market failure caused by pro-cyclical behavior of the private financial market. Second, CGS has the comparative advantages, compared to both the interest rate policy of the central bank and fiscal policy of the government. The credit guarantee is the symptomatic treatment that could revitalize the economy shortly by providing liquidity. Also, knowing that CGS is provided based on the leverage ratio defined by outstanding guarantee divided by capital fund, public 'credit guarantee' (CG) has an advantage that is free from the risk of government deficit. Third, the reason for existence of the CGS should be founded in supporting services for SMEs, available only in a public sector that is difficult to expect from private banks. In this regard, it is desirable to strengthen the publicness of credit guarantee over the support for start-ups, growing companies, the improvement of productivity, increase of exports, a long-term investment in facilities, the employment-creating businesses, and innovative enterprises.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.43-52
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• 2024

Recent abnormal climate conditions have increased the risk of slope collapses, which frequently result in significant loss of life and property due to the absence of early prediction and warning dissemination. In this paper, we develop a slope condition analysis system using IoT sensors and AI-based camera to assess the condition of slopes. To develop the system, we conducted hardware and firmware design for measurement sensors considering the ground conditions of slopes, designed AI-based image analysis algorithms, and developed prediction and warning solutions and systems. We aimed to minimize errors in sensor data through the integration of IoT sensor data and AI camera image analysis, ultimately enhancing the reliability of the data. Additionally, we evaluated the accuracy (reliability) by applying it to actual slopes. As a result, sensor measurement errors were maintained within 0.1°, and the data transmission rate exceeded 95%. Moreover, the AI-based image analysis system demonstrated nighttime partial recognition rates of over 99%, indicating excellent performance even in low-light conditions. Through this research, it is anticipated that the analysis of slope conditions and smart maintenance management in various fields of Social Overhead Capital (SOC) facilities can be applied.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.40-52
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• 2009

Franchising is one of the fastest growing types of business. It is already popular and well-known in the U.S., and has been growing in many other countries including Korea. Furthermore, many Korean franchising companies have expanded their business overseas actively. According to the data by the Ministry of Industry and Resource, 82 companies out of a sample of 500 franchising companies are already operating in many foreign countries and 48% of them have started their foreign business since 2006. This clearly indicates the fast growing current trend of foreign operation by Korean franchising companies. In spite of the fast growing trend of foreign expansion in the industry, academic research on internationalization of franchising companies is extremely difficult to find. Accordingly, academic research on the issue is necessary and urgent in Korea. Among the various research questions on internationalization of franchising business, this study intends to investigate the difference in organizational factors between the franchising companies doing foreign operation and those doing business only domestically. More specifically, this research has the following purposes. First, considering the lack of theoretical basis of previous studies, resource-based theory and agency theory are employed as the theoretical bases. Second, this study explains the difference in internationalization based on organizational factors such as company size, history and growth rate. Third, the five hypotheses regarding the difference in organizational factors are presented and tested empirically, which is the first attempt in the area of this topic. Finally, the study attempts to clarify the conflicting implications among theories regarding some organizational factos such as growth rate. As the theoretical background, resource-based theory and agency theory are discussed. According to resource-based theory, a firm can grow continuously when it has competence and resource, and also the ability to develop them. The competence and resource can include capital, human resource, management skill, market information, ability to manage risk, etc. Meanwhile, agency theory views the relationship between franchisor and franchisee as an agency relationship. In agency theory, bonding capability and monitoring capability are the two key factors which promote internationalization of franchising companies. Based on the two theories, a conceptual model is designed. The model consists of two groups of variables. One is organizational factors including size, history, growth rate, price bonding and geographic dispersion. The other is whether a franchising company is operating overseas or not. We developed the following five research hypotheses basically describing the relationship between organizational factors and internationalization of franchising companies. H1: The size of franchising companies operating overseas is larger than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H2: The history of franchising companies operating overseas is longer than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H3: The growth rate of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H4: The price bonding of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H5: The geographic dispersion of franchising companies operating overseas is wider than that of franchising companies operating domestically. Data for the analyses are obtained from 2005 Korea Franchise Survey data co-generated by Ministry of Industry and Resource, GS1 Korea, and Korea Franchise Association. Out of 2,804 population companies, 2,489 companies are excluded for various reasons and 315 companies are selected as the final sample. Prior to hypotheses tests, validity and reliability of the measures of size, history, growth rate and price bonding are examined for further analyses. Geographic dispersion is not validated since it is measured using nominal data. A series of independent sample T-tests is used to find out whether there exists any significant difference between the companies internationalized and those operating only domestically for each organizational factor. Among the five factors, size and geographic dispersion show significant difference, growth rate and price bonding do not reveal any difference and, finally, history factor shows conflicting results in the difference depending on how to measure it.