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Comparison of Innovation Efficiency of Pre-IPO and Post-IPO in Korea: Case of Pharmaceutical Industry (IPO 전후 혁신의 효율성 비교 연구: 의약산업 중심으로)

  • Kim, Eunhee
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.143-167
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    • 2016
  • The purpose of this study is to analyze changes of innovation activities and their performance in pre-IPO and post-IPO of KOSDAQ IPO listed companies in medical and pharmaceutical fields, which require high R&D investment, from 2000 to 2005 in Korea. The innovation efficiencies of the IPO companies were measured before and after three years based on the DEA model. The financial data and patent information of the listed company during total 6 years, which were 3 years before IPO and 3 years after IPO, were collected. The main results of this research are as follows. First, it took an average 12.86 years until IPO in the start-up of the IPO companies in the pharmaceutical sector, and innovation was on average more active than the IPO before. R&D investment was higher than the IPO before, and the number of the applied patent during 3 years after IPO was 16.67 which was increased from 8.43 during 3 years before IPO. In addition, the average scope of technology of the IPO companies was expanded from 11 to 22 technology fields during previous 3 year and after 3 year each, and financial growth after IPO was lower than the previous IPO. Second, the financial performance of R&D investment and the performance of patent activity were weakened in the efficiency after the IPO, and the integrated performance from the patenting activities and the R&D investment was decreased after the IPO. Finally, the efficiency of the financial performance of the patenting activity was lower than the efficiency of the financial performance of the patent and R&D investment and patent activities under the R&D investment. In particular, the inefficiency of the firms' patenting activities performance after the IPO was caused by the decreasing return to scale, according to the results of this study. This results implicate that the expansion of R&D investments through the IPO had not lead to the financial performance of the market, and that the overall inefficiency since the IPO is due to the inefficiencies at the stage for the outcome of innovation activity rather than the output obtained through the R&D investments that appear to lead the performance of the market.

Value of Information Technology Outsourcing: An Empirical Analysis of Korean Industries (IT 아웃소싱의 가치에 관한 연구: 한국 산업에 대한 실증분석)

  • Han, Kun-Soo;Lee, Kang-Bae
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.115-137
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    • 2010
  • Information technology (IT) outsourcing, the use of a third-party vendor to provide IT services, started in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Korea, and has increased rapidly since 2000. Recently, firms have increased their efforts to capture greater value from IT outsourcing. To date, there have been a large number of studies on IT outsourcing. Most prior studies on IT outsourcing have focused on outsourcing practices and decisions, and little attention has been paid to objectively measuring the value of IT outsourcing. In addition, studies that examined the performance of IT outsourcing have mainly relied on anecdotal evidence or practitioners' perceptions. Our study examines the contribution of IT outsourcing to economic growth in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period, using a production function framework and a panel data set for 54 industries constructed from input-output tables, fixed-capital formation tables, and employment tables. Based on the framework and estimation procedures that Han, Kauffman and Nault (2010) used to examine the economic impact of IT outsourcing in U.S. industries, we evaluate the impact of IT outsourcing on output and productivity in Korean industries. Because IT outsourcing started to grow at a significantly more rapid pace in 2000, we compare the impact of IT outsourcing in pre- and post-2000 periods. Our industry-level panel data cover a large proportion of Korean economy-54 out of 58 Korean industries. This allows us greater opportunity to assess the impacts of IT outsourcing on objective performance measures, such as output and productivity. Using IT outsourcing and IT capital as our primary independent variables, we employ an extended Cobb-Douglas production function in which both variables are treated as factor inputs. We also derive and estimate a labor productivity equation to assess the impact of our IT variables on labor productivity. We use data from seven years (1990, 1993, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007) for which both input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables are available. Combining the input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables resulted in 54 industries. IT outsourcing is measured as the value of computer-related services purchased by each industry in a given year. All the variables have been converted to 2000 Korean Won using GDP deflators. To calculate labor hours, we use the average work hours for each sector provided by the OECD. To effectively control for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation present in our dataset, we use the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) procedures. Because the AR1 process may be industry-specific (i.e., panel-specific), we consider both common AR1 and panel-specific AR1 (PSAR1) processes in our estimations. We also include year dummies to control for year-specific effects common across industries, and sector dummies (as defined in the GDP deflator) to control for time-invariant sector-specific effects. Based on the full sample of 378 observations, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.012~0.014% increase in gross output and a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.027% increase in gross output. To compare the contribution of IT outsourcing relative to that of IT capital, we examined gross marginal product (GMP). The average GMP of IT outsourcing was 6.423, which is substantially greater than that of IT capital at 2.093. This indicates that on average if an industry invests KRW 1 millon, it can increase its output by KRW 6.4 million. In terms of the contribution to labor productivity, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.009~0.01% increase in labor productivity while a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.025% increase in labor productivity. Overall, our results indicate that IT outsourcing has made positive and economically meaningful contributions to output and productivity in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period. The average GMP of IT outsourcing we report about Korean industries is 1.44 times greater than that in U.S. industries reported in Han et al. (2010). Further, we find that the contribution of IT outsourcing has been significantly greater in the 2000~2007 period during which the growth of IT outsourcing accelerated. Our study provides implication for policymakers and managers. First, our results suggest that Korean industries can capture further benefits by increasing investments in IT outsourcing. Second, our analyses and results provide a basis for managers to assess the impact of investments in IT outsourcing and IT capital in an objective and quantitative manner. Building on our study, future research should examine the impact of IT outsourcing at a more detailed industry level and the firm level.

Fifty years of economic geography in Korea:research trends and issues (한국경제지리학 반세기:연구성과와 과제)

  • ;Park, Sam Ock
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.160-197
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    • 1996
  • The purpose of this study is to review research trends and issues of economic geography in Korea for the last fifty years by sub-fields of agricultural geography, industrial geography, commercial and service geography, and transportation geography. Research in Korean economic geography has progressed significantly in terms of the scope and the number of papers published during the last a half a century. Agricultural geography was a leading field of economic geography in Korea before mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, agricultural geography has turned over the leading role in economic geography to industrial geography. Classification and structure of agricultural region has been the most popular research theme in Korea, even though diverse topics has been dealt in the research of agricultulal geography in Korea during the last fifty years. In recent years, emphasis is given to study on the dynamics of agricultural region and regional differentiation of part-time farming. It is suggested that the future issues of research in agricultural geography in Korea are agricultural restructuring and changes in agricultural space under the WTO system, changes in rural area and agricultural region with the progress of informatization, changes in agricultural structures and rural society by the increase of part-time farming, governments agricultulal policy and its impacts, competitive advantages of Korean agricultulal products, and environmental impacts of agricultural restructuring. Research in industrial geography has remarkably progressed since the 1980s. Locational changes, regional industrial structure and formation of industrial region were the major topics of interest in the research of industrial geography in Korea before 1980. Since the early 1980s, in addition to the topics which were interested in before 1980, changes of industrial organization and industrial location, changes of production systems and industrial space development of high technology industries and science parks, industrial restructuring and regional economy, foreign direct investments, industrial linkages and industrial districts, and industrial policy and regional development have been the major research themes of industrial geography in Korea. Considerable number of papers has been published both in Korean journals and in foreign journals during this period. Considering global changes in the organization of industrial space, future research should be more focused on firms strategy for regaining competitive advantages, local and global perspectives of industry, industry and environmental changes, in addition to the topics which have been dealt in recent years. Research in commercial and service geography and transportation geography was negligible in Korea before the late 1970s. These two sub-fields in economic geography have begun to develop since 1980s. Periodic markets, structure of commercial area, and distribution of products were the major topics of interest in the 1980s in the commercial and service geography in Korea. In the 1990s, however reserch in producer services has been active with growth of producer services in Korean economy. It is suggested that regional changes with progress of informatization and technology, changes of international trade and regional changes, development of efficient distribution system, role of producer services in regional development, and network of producer services are the major issues to be studied in the future in the field of commercial and service geography in Korea. Commuting, distribution of products, and transportation networks have been the major topics of research in transportation geography in Korea. Diverse quantitative techniques have been applied in the most of the researches in transportation geography. It is required that future studies in transportation geography should also focus on societal and behavioral issues, policy issues regional impacts of new transportation facilities, an analysis of transportation system at the global or international level. Since the 1980s economic geography in Korea has considerably progressed with publication of papers and books. The progress can be regarded as successful in quantitative aspect, but not in quantitative aspects. For the development of Korean economic geography in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, it is necessary to promote international collaborative researches and interdisciplinary cooperations. Attention should also be given to the research on changes in competitive advantages and economic restructuring, changes of economic space with the development of high technology and the progress of informatization. economic development and culture. and foreign regional studies.

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A Study on the Job Productivity by the Smart Work Investment - Focused on the Organizational Change Resistance and the Communication - (스마트워크 투자에 따른 직무 생산성에 관한 연구 - 조직 변화저항과 의사소통을 중심으로-)

  • Jung, Byoung-Ho
    • Management & Information Systems Review
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    • v.37 no.3
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    • pp.83-113
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    • 2018
  • The purpose of this study to empirically examine a smart work investment and job performance by change resistance. Firstly, There investigates mediating role of the communication between the smart work investment and the job performance. Secondly, It will identify the job productivity differences through a level of organizational change resistance that reduced smart work investment. The smart work is to provide the flexibility of time and location and is a working method to improve a work productivity of organization members. The introduction of smart work means the adoption of new organizational culture, institution and technology and requires a novel change of a custom and pattern on existing organization culture and institution because of transformation form of communication and collaboration. The method of this study adopts a structural equation model to test a mediating effect of communication and a moderating effect of change resistance level. This model confirms whether smart work investments provide a positive impact on communication and organizational productivity. In addition, I will classify a change resistance level of smart work by cluster analysis and then check a critical path difference of job productivity between each group. As a result, The organizational IT, institution and culture on the smart work investment appeared to important influencers in communication and also had a direct influence of individual performance. Also, The three independent variables of smart work investment have an indirect influence of individual and organizational performance through communication mediating variables. However, the organizational IT and institution as independent variables do not provide direct influence of organization performance. Nevertheless, two independent variables of organizational IT and institution have an indirect influence the organization performance through communication mediating variables. As a result of confirming a productivity of three groups on organization resistance, there was a difference the individual and organizational performance among groups. The low-level group of organizational resistance showed high coefficient value of performance compared to other groups. The group analysis implications, The smart work investment appeared significantly to revise the institution first, build culture secondly and advanced technology lastly. The theoretical implication from this study contributes an extension of social science theory through socio-technical systems, institution, culture, change resistance and job performance based on smart work. The practical implications explain the smart work success in step-by-step investment rather than radical investment as level management of change resistance. In future research, the smart work performance between private and public firms will analyze a difference of the organizational culture, institution, technology and performance.

A Conceptual Review of the Transaction Costs within a Distribution Channel (유통경로내의 거래비용에 대한 개념적 고찰)

  • Kwon, Young-Sik;Mun, Jang-Sil
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.29-41
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    • 2012
  • This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.

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Bankruptcy Forecasting Model using AdaBoost: A Focus on Construction Companies (적응형 부스팅을 이용한 파산 예측 모형: 건설업을 중심으로)

  • Heo, Junyoung;Yang, Jin Yong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.35-48
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    • 2014
  • According to the 2013 construction market outlook report, the liquidation of construction companies is expected to continue due to the ongoing residential construction recession. Bankruptcies of construction companies have a greater social impact compared to other industries. However, due to the different nature of the capital structure and debt-to-equity ratio, it is more difficult to forecast construction companies' bankruptcies than that of companies in other industries. The construction industry operates on greater leverage, with high debt-to-equity ratios, and project cash flow focused on the second half. The economic cycle greatly influences construction companies. Therefore, downturns tend to rapidly increase the bankruptcy rates of construction companies. High leverage, coupled with increased bankruptcy rates, could lead to greater burdens on banks providing loans to construction companies. Nevertheless, the bankruptcy prediction model concentrated mainly on financial institutions, with rare construction-specific studies. The bankruptcy prediction model based on corporate finance data has been studied for some time in various ways. However, the model is intended for all companies in general, and it may not be appropriate for forecasting bankruptcies of construction companies, who typically have high liquidity risks. The construction industry is capital-intensive, operates on long timelines with large-scale investment projects, and has comparatively longer payback periods than in other industries. With its unique capital structure, it can be difficult to apply a model used to judge the financial risk of companies in general to those in the construction industry. Diverse studies of bankruptcy forecasting models based on a company's financial statements have been conducted for many years. The subjects of the model, however, were general firms, and the models may not be proper for accurately forecasting companies with disproportionately large liquidity risks, such as construction companies. The construction industry is capital-intensive, requiring significant investments in long-term projects, therefore to realize returns from the investment. The unique capital structure means that the same criteria used for other industries cannot be applied to effectively evaluate financial risk for construction firms. Altman Z-score was first published in 1968, and is commonly used as a bankruptcy forecasting model. It forecasts the likelihood of a company going bankrupt by using a simple formula, classifying the results into three categories, and evaluating the corporate status as dangerous, moderate, or safe. When a company falls into the "dangerous" category, it has a high likelihood of bankruptcy within two years, while those in the "safe" category have a low likelihood of bankruptcy. For companies in the "moderate" category, it is difficult to forecast the risk. Many of the construction firm cases in this study fell in the "moderate" category, which made it difficult to forecast their risk. Along with the development of machine learning using computers, recent studies of corporate bankruptcy forecasting have used this technology. Pattern recognition, a representative application area in machine learning, is applied to forecasting corporate bankruptcy, with patterns analyzed based on a company's financial information, and then judged as to whether the pattern belongs to the bankruptcy risk group or the safe group. The representative machine learning models previously used in bankruptcy forecasting are Artificial Neural Networks, Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost) and, the Support Vector Machine (SVM). There are also many hybrid studies combining these models. Existing studies using the traditional Z-Score technique or bankruptcy prediction using machine learning focus on companies in non-specific industries. Therefore, the industry-specific characteristics of companies are not considered. In this paper, we confirm that adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) is the most appropriate forecasting model for construction companies by based on company size. We classified construction companies into three groups - large, medium, and small based on the company's capital. We analyzed the predictive ability of AdaBoost for each group of companies. The experimental results showed that AdaBoost has more predictive ability than the other models, especially for the group of large companies with capital of more than 50 billion won.

Evaluation and Improvement Measures on the Status of the Installation and Operation of Facilities for Recycling Food Waste into Resources (음식물 자원화시설의 설치·운영에 대한 일반현황의 평가 및 개선 방안)

  • Ryu, Ji-Young;Kong, Kyu-Sik;Shin, Dae-Yewn;Phae, Chae-Gun
    • Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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    • v.12 no.3
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    • pp.63-75
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    • 2004
  • This research sought to determine the status of the installation and operation of domestic public resource-making facilities of resource-making facilities and come up with corresponding improvement measures. Currently compost is most numerous set-up out of facilties already established ever since, then the rest of them are feeds, anaerobic degradation, sewage combination, and combination of compost and feeds in order. As such, food waste is processed more into compost than into feeds, presumably because relevant facilities, which were originally designed for processing into feeds, were converted into composting facilities due to little demand for the processed feeds. The finding says that many related firms had yet to register their businesses in accordance with feeds and fertilizers management laws, and that food waste resources-making facilities used various basic facilities but few of them treated food waste in linkage with leaching water, bad odors, and energy. Some of current facilities were found to be 7 years old and thus outdated. Due to lack of skilled operational manpower, many facilities had less than 300 days of normal operation yearly, and some needed minor and serious repairs periodically. In overall facilities, 87% of the planned food waste was rolled in, thus requiring measures to treat the whole planned volume. For costs of resource-making facilities, some with a capacity of below 50 tons topped 100 million won, and facilities with a capacity of over 50 tons required less installation costs. Overall, installation costs ranged from 10 million to 20 million, and to 200 million won per ton, and this suggests a need to establish the installation cost calculation criteria, as well as to reshape the facility criteria. With operating costs varying greatly according to the size and treatment methods of facilities, the finding indicates a need to rationalize the operating costs, and to plan appropriate-size installation and operation of facilities to ensure economic operation.

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A Study on Quality Improvement of Exporting Wood Products (수출용 목재 가공품의 품질개선에 관한 연구)

  • Chung, Byung-Jae;Lee, Eun-Chol;Oh, Kwang-In;Kim, Jong-Yeung
    • Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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    • v.2 no.2
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    • pp.22-24
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    • 1974
  • 1. Object and importance of the research. The exports of plywood are increasing annually and it has ranked first in the world market because of the high quality product developed and manufactured using modern techniques. However, it is known that the exports of the other wood products, except plywood, is inactive because of their low quality. Accordingly, to increase the exports of various wood products investigations were carried out on kiln drying techniques to improve the quality of the wood. 2. The details and scope of the research Wet wood should be kiln dried before use to prevent various drying defects such as distortion, shrinkage etc, which would develop after processing, and also wet wood is not suitable for cutting, gluing and finishing. Therefore, the kiln drying properties of lumber from such species as Persimmon, Oak, Ramin and Meranti which are used in large quantity for manufacturing exporting wood products have been studied. Also the real state of kiln drying industry in Korea was investigated. 3. Results and proposal for practical use of the research 3. 1 Results of the research 3.1.1 The end checks and the time for drying from intial moisture content of about 40 percent to 5 percent moisture content in ovendry were investigated as Table 1. 3.1.2 The kiln dried results, for 30mm stock, which are presented by using kiln schedule Table 2 are as Table 3. 3.1.3 The kiln schedule for Persimmon which has a normal drying properties is given in Table 4. However, the persimmon which has easy checking properties should be air dried under a relative humidity of above 85% until reaching about 25 percent moisture content. 3.1.4 The kiln schedules for ramin, meranti and oak are given respectively as follows. Ramin kiln schedule ............ Table 5 and Table 6 Meranti kiln schedule ............ Table 7 Oak kiln schedule ............ Table 8 3.2 Proposal for practical use of the research Firms using the above species should be informed the results of the research so they can be used to preventing drying defects and shortening drying time.

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A Study on Recent Research Trend in New Product Development Using Keyword Network Analysis (키워드 네트워크 분석을 이용한 NPD 연구의 진화 및 연구동향)

  • Pyun, JeBum;Jeong, EuiBeom
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.5
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    • pp.119-134
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    • 2018
  • Today, many firms face the environment of high uncertainty and severe competition due to the rapid technology development and the diverse needs of customers. In the business environment, one of the most important ways to gain sustainable competitive advantage and future growth engine is related to NPD (New Product Development), which is a very important issue for practice and academia. Thus, this study intends to provide new values to practitioners and researchers related to NPD by analyzing current research trends and future trends in NPD field. For this, we bibliometrically analyzed keyword networks which consist of keywords that were already published in the eminent journals from Scopus database to generate insights that have not been captured in the previous reviews on the topic. As a result, we could understand the extant research streams in NPD field, and suggest the changes of specific research topics based on the connected relationships among keywords over the time. In addition, we also foresaw the general future research trends in NPD field based on the keywords according to preferential attachment processes. Through this study, it was confirmed that NPD keyword network is a small world network that follows the distribution of power law and the growth of network is formed by link formation by keyword preferential attachment. In addition, through component analysis and centrality analysis, keywords such as Innovation, New product innovation, Risk management, Concurrent engineering, Research and development, and Product life cycle management are highly centralized in NPD keyword network. On the other hand, as a result of examining the change of preferential attachment of keywords over the time, we suggested the required new research direction including i) NPD collaboration with suppliers, ii) NPD considering market uncertainty, iii) NPD considering convergence with the other academic areas like technology management and knowledge management, iv) NPD from SME(Small and medium enterprises) perspective. The results of this study can be used to determine the research trends of NPD and the new research themes for interdisciplinary studies with other disciplines.

Development of Sentiment Analysis Model for the hot topic detection of online stock forums (온라인 주식 포럼의 핫토픽 탐지를 위한 감성분석 모형의 개발)

  • Hong, Taeho;Lee, Taewon;Li, Jingjing
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.187-204
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    • 2016
  • Document classification based on emotional polarity has become a welcomed emerging task owing to the great explosion of data on the Web. In the big data age, there are too many information sources to refer to when making decisions. For example, when considering travel to a city, a person may search reviews from a search engine such as Google or social networking services (SNSs) such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. The emotional polarity of positive and negative reviews helps a user decide on whether or not to make a trip. Sentiment analysis of customer reviews has become an important research topic as datamining technology is widely accepted for text mining of the Web. Sentiment analysis has been used to classify documents through machine learning techniques, such as the decision tree, neural networks, and support vector machines (SVMs). is used to determine the attitude, position, and sensibility of people who write articles about various topics that are published on the Web. Regardless of the polarity of customer reviews, emotional reviews are very helpful materials for analyzing the opinions of customers through their reviews. Sentiment analysis helps with understanding what customers really want instantly through the help of automated text mining techniques. Sensitivity analysis utilizes text mining techniques on text on the Web to extract subjective information in the text for text analysis. Sensitivity analysis is utilized to determine the attitudes or positions of the person who wrote the article and presented their opinion about a particular topic. In this study, we developed a model that selects a hot topic from user posts at China's online stock forum by using the k-means algorithm and self-organizing map (SOM). In addition, we developed a detecting model to predict a hot topic by using machine learning techniques such as logit, the decision tree, and SVM. We employed sensitivity analysis to develop our model for the selection and detection of hot topics from China's online stock forum. The sensitivity analysis calculates a sentimental value from a document based on contrast and classification according to the polarity sentimental dictionary (positive or negative). The online stock forum was an attractive site because of its information about stock investment. Users post numerous texts about stock movement by analyzing the market according to government policy announcements, market reports, reports from research institutes on the economy, and even rumors. We divided the online forum's topics into 21 categories to utilize sentiment analysis. One hundred forty-four topics were selected among 21 categories at online forums about stock. The posts were crawled to build a positive and negative text database. We ultimately obtained 21,141 posts on 88 topics by preprocessing the text from March 2013 to February 2015. The interest index was defined to select the hot topics, and the k-means algorithm and SOM presented equivalent results with this data. We developed a decision tree model to detect hot topics with three algorithms: CHAID, CART, and C4.5. The results of CHAID were subpar compared to the others. We also employed SVM to detect the hot topics from negative data. The SVM models were trained with the radial basis function (RBF) kernel function by a grid search to detect the hot topics. The detection of hot topics by using sentiment analysis provides the latest trends and hot topics in the stock forum for investors so that they no longer need to search the vast amounts of information on the Web. Our proposed model is also helpful to rapidly determine customers' signals or attitudes towards government policy and firms' products and services.