• Title/Summary/Keyword: small business owners

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Effects of the Occupation and Activity Nature of the Middle-Aged on Retirement Preparation (중년층의 직업특성과 활동특성이 은퇴준비에 미치는 영향)

  • Shin, Gye-Soo;Cho, Sung-Sook
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.11 no.11
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    • pp.296-312
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    • 2011
  • Korea has been suffering from financial hardship with low birth rate and rapid growing of advanced aged people because low economic growth and low interest rate have continued after IMF foreign-exchange crisis. Under these circumstances, it is necessary for the middle-aged people to have well-prepared retirement plan in the sense of physical, psychological, social and economical preparedness. The study intends to find out how the occupation and activity characteristics affect the physical, psychological, social and economical preparation for their remaining old age. For the purpose, questionnaires were collected from 344 middle-aged people working in private companies, public offices and small-business owners in metropolitan and Chungcheong province. The findings are as follows: First, they were physically well-prepared, as they thought their leisure activity was more important, their occupational role was more stable and they were old and healthy. Second, Women had notion about their occupation if they kept a good relationship with their colleagues. And they were psychologically prepared well as they valued their leisure activities. Third, if they perceived their occupations as stable and had more social and leisure activities, they were socially well-prepared. Fourth, Although the level of economical preparation depends on their wealth, the occupation and activity characteristics had no effect on the economical preparation. These findings imply that the retirement preparation as a recent social issue has been influenced by the nature of occupation and activity and suggest that the definite policy and program will be required for the retirement preparation of the middle-aged people from various aspects.

Developing Response Plan for the Direct Buying System for SME's Construction Materials based on the Analysis of Material Procurement Management Load: Focused on the Owner Providing Public Apartment Housing (지급자재 조달관리부담 평가에 기초한 중소기업 공사용자재 직접구매제도 대응방안: 공공아파트를 공급하는 발주자를 중심으로)

  • Song, Sang-Hoon;Bang, Jong-Dae;Sohn, Jeong-Rak
    • Land and Housing Review
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    • v.4 no.4
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    • pp.425-434
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    • 2013
  • The Small and Medium Business Administration specified 123 construction materials mandatory to purchase directly and forced the public owners to provide the contractors with materials as required by related law. This study extensively reviewed various characteristics and management factors of the owner-providing materials consumed in the public apartment housing under Direct Buying System(DBS) from the public owner's perspective. Subsequently, the major managed materials were identified, and the proper response plan was developed along the material procurement process. The Procurement Management Load Indices (PMLI) of 43 materials were evaluated according to rating criteria with procurement path, project-specified level, user requirement level, supplier's responsibility, on-site work requirement, additional parts, and inspection standards. The tile and aluminum windows were classified in the group needing high-level procurement efforts to reduce the errors and ensure the efficiency. The accurate quantity estimation method, definite purchase details, management activity definition before and after production, additional quantity for rework, interference coordination were defined as the essential activities for effectively responding to DBS.

Evaluation on the impact of Lowest Bid Contracts on Site Operations in times of Severe Economic Downturn (건설경기 침체기의 최저가 낙찰제 건설현장의 운영 실태분석과 개선 방안 도출)

  • Koo, Bon-Sang;Jang, Hyoun-Seung
    • Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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    • v.10 no.6
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    • pp.146-153
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    • 2009
  • The year 2008 was a hard year for Korea's construction companies. The real estate downturn resulted in halting new construction and stopping existing work, and inflation of global oil prices caused price hikes in rebar and concrete materials. As a solution to reducing the budget, the newly appointed government announced plans to increase low cost bid contracts from 10 billion to 30 billion won. When such economical and political factors negatively impact the construction market, projects based on low cost contracts are the hardest hit. Many problems already inherent in low cost bid contracts become accentuated. Consequently, this provides an opportune time to actually study and analyze the issues in these projects. This paper introduces the findings made from investigating four projects struggling to make ends meet in the year 2008. Results show that flow of cash (i.e., liquidity), or lack thereof, was the root cause which in turn was hampered by failed mechanisms for design changes, material inflation. Attributing cash flow risk to the bottom of the production structure (i.e., small business subcontractors) was also a problem within the industry. Contractors need a better way to prepare against material price fluctuations, and owners need to assist in expediting payment during times of extreme downturn.

The Self-employed and Preference for the Speed of Minimum Wage Hike -Focused on the Moderating Effect of Income Class- (자영업자와 최저임금 인상 속도에 대한 선호 -소득 계층의 조절효과를 중심으로-)

  • Lee, Jae-Wan
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.403-412
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    • 2019
  • There has been a lively debate between self-employed and wage workers on the speed of minimum wage hikes. Minimum wage is a redistributive policy that evokes confrontation and conflict whereby individuals' views on the policy coincide with their material self-interest. With this in mind, the researcher analyzed whether an individual's labor market status was explanatory to his/her view on the speed of minimum wage hike. Moreover, in light of the likelihood that the varying degree to which self-employed can afford minimum wage hike affects their differential preferences for the policy, the researcher attempted to identify whether there was a moderation effect of income class on the relationship. In the actual analysis, the researcher investigated employment policy survey dataset using a multinomial logit model. The results suggest that, among self-employed, 'gradual increase' and 'rapid increase' of minimum wages are less preferred $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ 'minimal increase,' which is the reference. As to the moderation effect, when a self-employed has a middle-income class status, his/her negative preference for the policy is likely to be attenuated. One implication of this study is that subsidizing self-employed small business owners, who are most dissatisfied with the current speed at which minimum wages rise, would be an effective prescription on reducing social conflicts.

The Effect Analysis of COVID-19 vaccination on social distancing (코로나19 백신접종이 사회적 거리두기 효과에 미치는 영향분석)

  • Moon, Su Chan
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.67-75
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    • 2022
  • The purpose of this study is to present an appropriate management plan as a supplement to the scientific evidence of the currently operated distancing system for preventing COVID-19. The currently being used mathematical models are expressed as simultaneous ordinary differential equations, there is a problem in that it is difficult to use them for the management of entry and exit of small business owners. In order to supplement this point, in this paper, a method for quantitatively expressing the risk of infection by people who gather is presented in consideration of the allowable risk given to the gathering space, the basic infection reproduction index, and the risk reduction rate due to vaccination. A simple quantitative model was developed that manages the probability of infection in a probabilistic level according to a set of visitors by considering both the degree of infection risk according to the vaccination status (non-vaccinated, primary inoculation, and complete vaccination) and the epidemic status of the virus. In a given example using the model, the risk was reduced to 55% when 20% of non-vaccinated people were converted to full vaccination. It was suggested that management in terms of quarantine can obtain a greater effect than medical treatment. Based on this, a generalized model that can be applied to various situations in consideration of the type of vaccination and the degree of occurrence of confirmed cases was also presented. This model can be used to manage the total risk of people gathered at a certain space in a real time, by calculating individual risk according to the type of vaccine, the degree of inoculation, and the lapse of time after inoculation.

A Study on the Effect of Traditional Market Revitalization Factors on Management Performance (전통시장 활성화 요인이 경영성과에 미치는 영향)

  • Se-Yong Kwon;Mi-Rye Kang;Hyung-Ho Kim
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.307-317
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    • 2024
  • The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of merchants' perceptions of service quality, youth mall creation, and traditional market revitalization on management performance to derive factors that can improve the self-sustainability of the traditional market. In particular, it was intended to predict the practical effect of the youth mall creation project by including merchants' perceptions of the rapidly emerging youth mall to revitalize the traditional market. In this study, 430 small business owners from five private traditional markets in Iksan were surveyed, the research model was verified by analyzing the technical statistics, reliability, and validity of the data collected using the SPSS 21.0 program, and the hypothesis was verified through correlation and regression analysis. Although youth malls are actively promoted at the government level to revitalize traditional markets and improve management performance, this study confirmed that the creation of youth malls in traditional markets does not directly affect traditional market revitalization and management performance, confirming that policies to create youth malls that can actually help revitalize traditional markets and improve management performance in the future need to be promoted.

A Study on the Current Fire Insurance Subscription and Solutions for Ensuring the Safety of the Traditional Market (전통시장 안전성 확보를 위한 개선방안: 화재보험 가입실태를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Yoo-Oh;Byun, Chung-Gyu;Ryu, Tae-Chang
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.43-50
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    • 2011
  • Concerning the risk factors of the outbreak of a fire in a traditional market, most of those markets are located in downtown areas or residential areas; thus, although their location may be favorable in terms of marketability, they face a potential risk in that a fire may develop into a large blaze owing to poor environment or the absence of facilities prepared for disaster during a fire. Moreover, as many people are densely poised in the markets, it is very probable that a fire may occur owing to the excessive use of heaters in the winter as well as the reckless use of electric and gas facilities. It seems that traditional markets encounter difficulty being insured against fire, because of their vulnerability and that the vast majority of small-scale sellers are likely to suffer mental anguish and tremendous physical injury in case of a fire. However, most of those sellers in the traditional markets are hand-to-mouth sellers, and they lack awareness of safety concerns and have insufficient experience in safe facility management. As small-scale sellers constitute the majority in the traditional market, the subscription rate of fire insurance in most of the traditional markets is low for the reasons of their needy circumstances and their financial burden. Statistically, the subscription by street vendors is non-existent; therefore, these vendors have a fairly limited access to indemnification after fire damage. Because of these problems, this study's purpose is to identify the current level of insurance subscription by these markets, which are exposed to poor facilities and vulnerability to fire. In order to fix this, it appears that shop owners and consumers will have to band together. For this study, we executed a fire policyholder fact-finding mission at traditional markets with approximately 108 and 981 stores. The research method was executed by an investigation using one-on-one individual interviews using a questionnaire. The contents investigated current insurance subscriptions. The method of analysis looked at the difference of insured amount according to volume size through cross-tabulation of the difference of insured amount by possession form, difference of insured amount by market form, difference of insured amount by category of business, difference of insured amount by market size, etc. Furthermore, the study should be used to propose solutions for problems through theoretical review with the use of a literature research, because the field case study was through interviews with the persons concerned, and the survey of the current insurance subscriptions by traditional market shopkeepers. The traditional market would generally have difficulty affording fire insurance. Fire insurance subscription rates of most of the market proved to be inactive, because of the economic burden of payment. Lack of funds is thought to be the main factor that causes a lack of realization about the necessity of fire insurance. In addition to expensive insurance premiums, sometimes, the companies' valuation of the businesses is lower than their actual valuations, and they do not pay out enough during a claim. The research presents an improvement plan that, when presented at the traditional markets, may strengthen their ability to procure fire insurance through the help of the central government. Researchers connected with the traditional market mainly accomplish the initial research. However, although this research has its limitations, it offers considerable benefits. For future researchers, I would suggest looking at several regions for comparison.

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A Study on Forest Insurance (산림보험(山林保險)에 관한 연구(硏究))

  • Park, Tai Sik
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.1-38
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    • 1972
  • 1. Objective of the Study The objective of the study was to make fundamental suggestions for drawing a forest insurance system applicable in Korea by investigating forest insurance systems undertaken in foreign countries, analyzing the forest hazards occurred in entire forests of Korea in the past, and hearing the opinions of people engaged in forestry. 2. Methods of the Study First, reference studies on insurance at large as well as on forest insurance were intensively made to draw the characteristics of forest insurance practiced in main forestry countries, Second, the investigations of forest hazards in Korea for the past ten years were made with the help of the Office of Forestry. Third, the questionnaires concerning forest insurance were prepared and delivered at random to 533 personnel who are working at different administrative offices of forestry, forest stations, forest cooperatives, colleges and universities, research institutes, and fire insurance companies. Fourth, fifty three representative forest owners in the area of three forest types (coniferous, hardwood, and mixed forest), a representative region in Kyonggi Province out of fourteen collective forest development programs in Korea, were directly interviewed with the writer. 3. Results of the Study The rate of response to the questionnaire was 74.40% as shown in the table 3, and the results of the questionaire were as follows: (% in the parenthes shows the rates of response; shortages in amount to 100% were due to the facts of excluding the rates of response of minor respondents). 1) Necessity of forest insurance The respondents expressed their opinions that forest insurance must be undertaken to assure forest financing (5.65%); for receiving the reimbursement of replanting costs in case of damages done (35.87%); and to protect silvicultural investments (46.74%). 2) Law of forest insurance Few respondents showed their views in favor of applying the general insurance regulations to forest insurance practice (9.35%), but the majority of respondents were in favor of passing a special forest insurance law in the light of forest characteristics (88.26%). 3) Sorts of institutes to undertake forest insurance A few respondents believed that insurance companies at large could take care of forest insurance (17.42%); forest owner's mutual associations would manage the forest insurance more effectively (23.53%); but the more than half of the respondents were in favor of establishing public or national forest insurance institutes (56.18%). 4) Kinds of risks to be undertaken in forest insurance It would be desirable that the risks to be undertaken in forest insurance be limited: To forest fire hazards only (23.38%); to forest fire hazards plus damages made by weather (14.32%); to forest fire hazards, weather damages, and insect damages (60.68%). 5) Objectives to be insured It was responded that the objectives to be included in forest insurance should be limited: (1) To artificial coniferous forest only (13.47%); (2) to both coniferous and broad-leaved artificial forests (23.74%); (3) but the more than half of the respondents showed their desire that all the forests regardless of species and the methods of establishment should be insured (61.64%). 6) Range of risks in age of trees to be included in forest insurance The opinions of the respondents showed that it might be enough to insure the trees less than ten years of age (15.23%); but it would be more desirous of taking up forest trees under twenty years of age (32.95%); nevertheless, a large number of respondents were in favor of underwriting all the forest trees less than fourty years of age (46.37%). 7) Term of a forest insurance contract Quite a few respondents favored a contract made on one year basis (31.74%), but the more than half of the respondents favored the contract made on five year bases (58.68%). 8) Limitation in a forest insurance contract The respondents indicated that it would be desirable in a forest insurance contract to exclude forests less than five hectars (20.78%), but more than half of the respondents expressed their opinions that forests above a minimum volume or number of trees per unit area should be included in a forest insurance contract regardless of the area of forest lands (63.77%). 9) Methods of contract Some responded that it would be good to let the forest owners choose their forests in making a forest insurance contract (32.13%); others inclined to think that it would be desirable to include all the forests that owners hold whenerver they decide to make a forest insurance contract (33.48%); the rest responded in favor of forcing the owners to buy insurance policy if they own the forests that were established with subsidy or own highly vauable growing stock (31.92%) 10) Rate of premium The responses were divided into three categories: (1) The rate of primium is to be decided according to the regional degree of risks(27.72%); (2) to be decided by taking consideration both regional degree of risks and insurable values(31.59%); (3) and to be decided according to the rate of risks for the entire country and the insurable values (39.55%). 11) Payment of Premium Although a few respondents wished to make a payment of premium at once for a short term forest insurance contract, and an annual payment for a long term contract (13.80%); the majority of the respondents wished to pay the premium annually regardless of the term of contract, by employing a high rate of premium on a short term contract, but a low rate on a long term contract (83.71%). 12) Institutes in charge of forest insurance business A few respondents showed their desire that forest insurance be taken care of at the government forest administrative offices (18.75%); others at insurance companies (35.76%); but the rest, the largest number of the respondents, favored forest associations in the county. They also wanted to pay a certain rate of premium to the forest associations that issue the insurance (44.22%). 13) Limitation on indemnity for damages done In limitation on indemnity for damages done, the respondents showed a quite different views. Some desired compesation to cover replanting costs when young stands suffered damages and to be paid at the rate of eighty percent to the losses received when matured timber stands suffered damages(29.70%); others desired to receive compensation of the actual total loss valued at present market prices (31.07%); but the rest responded in favor of compensation at the present value figured out by applying a certain rate of prolongation factors to the establishment costs(36.99%). 14) Raising of funds for forest insurance A few respondents hoped to raise the fund for forest insurance by setting aside certain amount of money from the indemnity paid (15.65%); others wished to raise the fund by levying new forest land taxes(33.79%); but the rest expressed their hope to raise the fund by reserving certain amount of money from the surplus money that was saved due to the non-risks (44.81%). 15) Causes of fires The main causes of forest fires 6gured out by the respondents experience turned out to be (1) an accidental fire, (2) cigarettes, (3) shifting cultivation. The reponses were coincided with the forest fire analysis made by the Office of Forestry. 16) Fire prevention The respondents suggested that the most important and practical three kinds of forest fire prevention measures would be (1) providing a fire-break, (2) keeping passers-by out during the drought seasons, (3) enlightenment through mass communication systems. 4. Suggestions The writer wishes to present some suggestions that seemed helpful in drawing up a forest insurance system by reviewing the findings in the questionaire analysis and the results of investigations on forest insurance undertaken in foreign countries. 1) A forest insurance system designed to compensate the loss figured out on the basis of replanting cost when young forest stands suffered damages, and to strengthen credit rating by relieving of risks of damages, must be put in practice as soon as possible with the enactment of a specifically drawn forest insurance law. And the committee of forest insurance should be organized to make a full study of forest insurance system. 2) Two kinds of forest insurance organizations furnishing forest insurance, publicly-owned insurance organizations and privately-owned, are desirable in order to handle forest risks properly. The privately-owned forest insurance organizations should take up forest fire insurance only, and the publicly-owned ought to write insurance for forest fires and insect damages. 3) The privately-owned organizations furnishing forest insurance are desired to take up all the forest stands older than twenty years; whereas, the publicly-owned should sell forest insurance on artificially planted stands younger than twenty years with emphasis on compensating replanting costs of forest stands when they suffer damages. 4) Small forest stands, less than one hectare holding volume or stocked at smaller than standard per unit area are not to be included in a forest insurance writing, and the minimum term of insuring should not be longer than one year in the privately-owned forest insurance organizations although insuring period could be extended more than one year; whereas, consecutive five year term of insurance periods should be set as a mimimum period of insuring forest in the publicly-owned forest insurance organizations. 5) The forest owners should be free in selecting their forests in insuring; whereas, forest owners of the stands that were established with subsidy should be required to insure their forests at publicly-owned forest insurance organizations. 6) Annual insurance premiums for both publicly-owned and privately-owned forest insurance organizations ought to be figured out in proportion to the amount of insurance in accordance with the degree of risks which are grouped into three categories on the basis of the rate of risks throughout the country. 7) Annual premium should be paid at the beginning of forest insurance contract, but reduction must be made if the insuring periods extend longer than a minimum period of forest insurance set by the law. 8) The compensation for damages, the reimbursement, should be figured out on the basis of the ratio between the amount of insurance and insurable value. In the publicly-owned forest insurance system, the standard amount of insurance should be set on the basis of establishment costs in order to prevent over-compensation. 9) Forest insurance business is to be taken care of at the window of insurance com pnies when forest owners buy the privately-owned forest insurance, but the business of writing the publicly-owned forest insurance should be done through the forest cooperatives and certain portions of the premium be reimbursed to the forest cooperatives. 10) Forest insurance funds ought to be reserved by levying a property tax on forest lands. 11) In order to prevent forest damages, the forest owners should be required to report forest hazards immediately to the forest insurance organizations and the latter should bear the responsibility of taking preventive measures.

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