• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.297-306
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• 2015

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute in establishing the objectives of government policies through an empirical analysis on the relational characteristics surrounding the self-employed creative enterprises under the current circumstances where the specific empirical studies on the self-employed creative enterprises haven't been performed. According to the result of verification, the social capitals such as reliability, reciprocity and network are necessary due to the characteristics possessed by the self-employed creative enterprises while the reliability between cooperative enterprises is created and the cooperative relationship continues when the enterprises are faithful to their intrinsic activities such as the improvement of productivity rather than the entrepreneur spirit. Such win-win cooperation was eventually shown as having a positive effect on the performance of enterprises.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.317-321
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• 2016

Background: This study was conducted with aim of providing an overview of the current status of occupational health services and identifying the most common harmful agents at workplaces of Iranian self-employed enterprises (Nano-Scale Enterprises). Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among a random sample including 1,758 employees engaging in self-employed enterprises with 5 and less employees. Results: Coverage of occupational health surveillance was very poor, annual health examinations were been conducted only for 64 (3.64%) of males and 31 (1.76%) of females, and occupational health trainings were not included of the services at all. Personal Protective Equipment were available in 462 (26.3%) of the enterprises. only in 0.4% of the enterprises working processes were been equipped by a local exhaust ventilation system. Difficult postures were the most common (81.5%) adverse working conditions. Conclusion: This study revealed a poor level of the implementation of occupational health services in Iranian self-employed enterprises. Based on the findings, providing basic training on the occupational health, more enforcing in conduction of health examinations and providing PPE, and taking appropriate strategies aimed at eliminating or minimizing work environment harmful agents are the major factor that should be considered to improve the level of occupational health services among the studied enterprises.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.224-228
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• 2019

Background: European policymakers encourage individuals to become self-employed because it is a way to promote innovation and job creation. It can be assumed that health and well-being among the self-employed and managers in small-scale enterprises are particularly crucial in this enterprise group because the smallness of the enterprise makes its members vulnerable. Earlier studies have indicated that the self-employed have a high working pace and work for long and irregular hours, indicating that it can be difficult to stay at home because of sickness. The purpose of this study is to investigate the occurrence of sickness presenteeism among the self-employed in relation to the organizationally employed and to analyze whether any differences can be explained by higher work demands among the self-employed. Methods: The study is based on the fifth European survey on working conditions (2010) and includes the northwestern European countries in the survey. The questions cover a wide range of topics designed to meet the European Union's political needs. The main variables in this study are sickness presenteeism and several indicators of time demands. Results: The results show that the self-employed report a higher level of sickness presenteeism than the employed: 52.4 versus 43.6%. All indicators of time demands are significantly related to the risk for sickness presenteeism, also when controlling for background characteristics. Conclusion: The results confirm that the level of sickness presenteeism is higher among the self-employed and that high time demands are a major explanation to this.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.412-422
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• 2020

Objectives: This study was conducted to identify the job characteristics and health status of sales and service workers at micro-enterprises. Methods: Multivariate analyses were conducted using data on respondents to the 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey who were business owners (7,572 persons) or employees (3,317) working in sales or service positions at micro-enterprises. Results: Among those analyzed, business owners were found to experience worse health conditions than employees. Business owners also differed from workers in terms of job characteristics. More than employees, they engaged in tiring or painful postures that negatively affected subjective health condition, experience of muscle pain, and experience of depression or anxiety. While employees' health was negatively affected by dealing with angry customers, the health status of business owners was negatively affected even by dealing with ordinary customers. Conclusions: These results show that the owners of micro-enterprises were in a more vulnerable state of health rather than their employees. In order to address this, it is necessary to correct work posture and reduce the stresses that come from customers.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.101-109
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• 2023

This study examined the relationships among owner-manager characteristics, e-commerce adoption, and performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Although the growth of e-commerce was encouraging in many countries, studies of e-commerce adoption among SMEs in developing countries such as Malaysia are insufficient. Furthermore, studies that investigated individual characteristics and e-commerce adoption are still low in number. This study specifically employed the technology-organization-environmental (TOE) framework to develop its research model. The sample was selected by using a non-probability judgmental sampling technique because the desired population frame was unavailable. A total of 111 owner-managers of SMEs were surveyed using online self-administered questionnaires. Subsequently, the data was analyzed through partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results revealed significant relationships between owner-manager characteristics and e-commerce adoption, as well as between e-commerce adoption and the performance of SMEs. The findings suggested that owner-manager characteristics played an important role in determining e-commerce adoption among SMEs. Moreover, e-commerce adoption was crucial in affecting the performance of SMEs. This paper provided new insights into factors affecting e-commerce adoption and firm performance. It could further benefit the government and SMEs in strategizing e-commerce adoption and development, especially in the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) and the post-COVID-19 pandemic.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.135-144
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• 2021

Social and economic polarization such as the collapse of self-employed people and job losses are becoming social problems due to the COVICD-19 crisis, and the role of social enterprises in providing social services to vulnerable people in various business sectors is very important. Social enterprises are complaining of difficulties in sustainability due to the hybrid nature of creating social value and economic value. Support for professionals matching the business sector of social enterprises is urgently needed for sustainability, but support for professionals is very insufficient due to insufficient budget. This study studied how specialized personnel affect the sustainability of social enterprises through the medium of social enterprise characteristics, indicating that specialized personnel affect the expansion and sustainability of the corporate main business sector. Based on the above findings, practical implications of social enterprise financial support projects were presented.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.171-186
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• 2020

The proportion of micro-enterprises and self-employed in Korea is excessively high compared to that of major developed countries, and frequent start-ups and business closures are repeated, causing enormous damage to the national economy. In order to solve this problem, various studies are underway for micro-enterprises, and the government provides commercial district information analysis services using big data for micro-enterprises. Among the commercial district information analysis services, the commercial district information analysis of our village store operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government is continuously improving its service to provide the big data analysis service related to micro-enterprises. Since the service was built by integrating big data provided by various organizations, however, there are limitations in data reliability, data analysis, and service composition. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a location-based survey system that can be analyzed in conjunction with big data-based commercial district services. The proposed questionnaire survey system established the basis for expending the big data commercial district analysis service by linking the survey information and commercial district information.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.881-889
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to descriptively reveal the demographic and business profile and personal-entrepreneurial characteristics in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi, and secondly to associate these profiles and characters to their business progress. A sample size of 21 respondents was drawn - selected from those who warmly welcomed the interviewers for an open-ended structured questionnaire. SPSS 24 has been employed to descriptively reveal the sample distribution according to demographic factors and business entities and to determine the dominant factors affecting the progress of the business by testing the hypothesis on the association of variables under study using specified statistical analytical tools, such as regression analysis, especially stepwise regression formula, between specified dependent variables and independent variables and /or between all variables. The stepwise regression analysis has enabled the researcher to determine which variables are the most important reflecting the personal characteristics theorized as "locus of control": self-efficacy, needs for achievement, personal traits, and barriers to business progress The analysis reveals that the progress of business does have an association and is dependent on the source of capital and education, needs for achievement and locus of control.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.73-84
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• 2015

Purpose - Various social issues have arisen since the beginning of the 21st century therefore, enterprises that disregarded social issues have become unsustainable, and social enterprises have appeared to address these issues. A social enterprise is a social mission-focused organization that uses a market-based strategy and has a vulnerable business structure. To be self-sustainable, a social enterprise should make consumers aware of the value that it provides and secure its profitability through consumer consumption. From this perspective, this study investigates the relationship between perceived value (utilitarian and hedonic) and loyalty, and examines how memory and attitudes play mediating roles between perceived value and loyalty. For these purposes, the author developed a structural model consisting of several variables. In this model, perceived value, which was utilitarian and hedonic, was proposed to affect the memory and attitudes toward social enterprise products, thus increasing loyalty. Therefore, memory and attitudes were proposed as core mediating variables between perceived value and loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - To analyze the proposed model, data were collected from 582 respondents and analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0. To test unidimensionality and the nomological validity of the measures of each construct, we employed a scale refinement procedure. The results of the reliability test with Cronbach's α and confirmatory factor analysis warranted the unidimensionality of the measures for each construct. In addition, the nomological validity of the measures was warranted from the results of the correlation analysis. The result of the overall model analysis demonstrated a good fit (χ²=529.881, df=144, χ²/df=3.680, p-value=0.000, GFI=0.905, NFI=0.948, CFI=0.961, RMR=0.036, RMSEA=0.068). Results - The findings are summarized as follows. First, the hedonic and utilitarian value of social enterprise products had positive effects on memory and attitudes. Second, the hedonic value of social enterprise products more strongly affects memory and attitudes than utilitarian value. Third, memory and attitudes had positive effects on loyalty. Lastly, memory had a stronger effect on loyalty than attitudes. Conclusions - The purchase rate of social enterprises' products increases only if the products are included in the "information search" and "alternative evaluation" processes in consumers' purchase decision-making processes. Therefore, a social enterprise must actively promote the fact that it pursues a social value, and shares both the hedonic and utilitarian values of its products. Accordingly, because hedonic value has a more significant impact on a company and attitudes, a social enterprise should develop hedonic values for product consumption, thereby leading consumers who care about value consumption to purchase its products. Moreover, a social enterprise must maintain good memories and attitudes for consumers because memory does not change over time, although attitude does. The limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are as follows. This study viewed "consumer loyalty" as the success factor of social enterprises, thereby considers an "increase in sales" as the success factor. Therefore, in future studies, diverse factors, including social contribution and word-of-mouth intention, should be regarded. In addition, future studies need to thoroughly review and make assurances about the relationship between memory and attitude.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.21-36
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the enterprise's score index calculated from atypical data and corrected data. Research design, data, and methodology: In this study, news articles which are non-financial information but qualitative data were collected from 2,432 SMEs that has been extracted "square proportional stratification" out of 18,910 enterprises with fixed data and compared/analyzed each enterprise's score index through text mining analysis methodology. Result: The analysis showed that qualitative data can be quantitatively evaluated by region, industry and period by collecting news from SMEs, and that there are concerns that it could be an element of alternative credit evaluation. Conclusion: News data cannot be collected even if one of the small businesses is self-employed or small businesses has little or no news coverage. Data normalization or standardization should be considered to overcome the difference in scores due to the amount of reference. Furthermore, since keyword sentiment analysis may have different results depending on the researcher's point of view, it is also necessary to consider deep learning sentiment analysis, which is conducted by sentence.