일반 논문 : 중소기업의 마케팅 환경과 역량이 마케팅 성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

김동현 ( Dong Hyun Kim ),신건철 ( Geon Cheol Shin ) 한국중소기업학회 2011 中小企業硏究 Vol.33 No.1

오늘날 기업의 마케팅 활동은 기업의 생존에 중요한 역할을 담당하고 있다는 사실을 알고 있지만 마케팅 계획과 활동에 대한 명확한 성과로의 연계성에 대한 확신을 못하고 있다. 특히 중소기업의 마케팅 성과측정에 대한 방법과 성과에 미치는 요인들에 대한 실증적 연구는 부족한 편이다. 본 연구는 Kotler의 마케팅 성과모델을 근간으로 우리나라 중소기업의 마케팅 성과에 영향을 주는 요인들을 살펴보고 경영의 시사점을 제시함으로써 학문적인 마케팅 성과측정의 연구뿐만 아니라 현업의 마케팅 실무자들에게 마케팅의 실행력과 성과를 높이기 위한 목적으로 이루어졌다. 우리나라 수도권에 위치한 중소기업을 대상으로 경쟁지향성을 비롯한 5개의 마케팅 환경요인과 시장조사와 마케팅 관리를 포함하는 매개변수로서의 마케팅 역량이 마케팅 성과에 미치는 영향을 분석하기 위한 연구모형을 설정하고 가설검정을 하였다. 요인분석결과 중소기업의 특성으로 경쟁지향성, 마케팅전략과 인력이 마케팅 역량에 유의한 영향을 주는 요인으로 나타났으며 시장조사와 마케팅 관리로 측정된 마케팅 역량은 마케팅 성과에 높은 정(+)의 관계가 있다는 검을 밝혔다. 그러나 중소기업의 특성으로 인하여 마케팅 조직의 영향력은 마케팅 역량과 성과에 크게 좌우되지 않는 것으로 나타났다. It is a well known fact that the marketing activities of a company play a pivotal role in surviving in the current competitive business world. There is, however, no certainty or logical explanation of the correlation between corporate marketing activities and their business performance. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) do not have enough empirical analysis on the correlation between the measurement of marketing activities and their business performance. This study, mainly based on Kotler`s marketing performance model, shows what factors affect their performance in the context of input level. Existing studies mainly focus in explaining the relations between specific environments such as market orientation, new product development, innovation capabilities and SMEs business performance. The purpose of this study is to find and analyze a mechanism that explains the relation as a process between internal and external environmental factors and the organization`s internal capacity. It also provides some implications for the marketing practitioners of SMEs to enhance their marketing management capability and execution quality as well. Samples are from SMEs located in Seoul and the surrounding areas. Four latent variables in marketing environmental factors are composed of competitor orientation, marketing oriented organization, top manager`s marketing orientation, and marketing strategic orientation. In particular, we assume that the marketing capacity will directly lead to better firm performance between the marketing environment and performance variable besides the expected significant effect of the mediating variable. In the research model, marketing capacities as parameter including market research and marketing management serves as a dependent variable of the marketing environment and an independent variable of marketability. A set of hypotheses for the model was constructed to analyze the impact of the independent variable on the dependant variable with the viewpoint of marketing research. The following hypothesis are proposed: H1: Competitor orientation will positively influence marketing capacity. The measurement factors of competitor orientation which is one of the market orientations (Narver and Slater, 1993) contain 3 items such as ⅰ) Amount of competitor information, ⅱ) Response of competitor, and ⅲ) Competitor recognition. H2: Marketing oriented organizations positively influence marketing capacity.To assess marketing oriented orientation, a questionnaire composed ofⅰ) Phase marketing organization, ⅱ) Organization marketing department, and ⅲ) Cooperation between departments, was sent out to SMEs. H3: CEO`s marketing orientation will positively influence marketing capacity.This extraneous variable is composed of ⅰ) Processional knowledge ⅱ) Understanding of marketing by the CEO and ⅲ) Leadership of the CEO. H4: Marketing strategic orientation will positively influence marketing capacity. Marketing strategic orientation is measured by ⅰ) Organizing strategies, ⅱ) Share of marketing strategy, ⅲ) Degree of marketing experience, ⅳ) Marketing mindset, and v) Marketing education and training. H5: Marketing capacity will positively influence marketing performance. Marketing capacity which is assessed from excellent previous studies (Vorhies and Mason, 2009) is measured by ⅰ) Market research ability, ⅱ) Development program, ⅲ) Application of market information ,ⅳ) Professional market research, ⅴ) Segment of market, and ⅵ) Program management. A web-based e-mail questionnaire was sent to, and direct interviews were conducted with not only the manager level including CEOs, but also marketing staff and other division`s employees of sample firms. Of those, 228 responses were used in the analysis. The fitness of the model was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and reliability and validity were tested. To hypothesize and analyze the causality effect, this study uses the AMOS program, which identifies interrelationships among variables through structural equation modelling. The results showed that all factors are significantly affecting the marketing capacities of SMEs except for the marketing oriented organization. This analysis also shows that there is high causal relationship between marketing capacities and marketing performance. From the hypothesis testing result, a main path for the business performance is "market orientation & marketing strategic orientation? marketing capacity? marketing performance". In other words, Small and Medium Enterprises competitor orientation and marketing strategic orientation for the marketing capacities were significant factors affecting the results. Here are the conclusions the estimation model derives from this study in detail: Firstly, there is high correlation between the competitor orientation of organization as a environmental factor and marketing capacities. Secondly, a marketing oriented organization is not statistically significant in affecting marketing capacities. This result can be interpreted in two ways. One is that a self-marketing organization is not complete in terms of performance, especially in the short term period, as the organization of the system lacks organizational resources, due to the nature of SMEs, the other demonstrates the fact that the marketing organization and by default, capacity and performance of activities leading to performance-based empirical analysis from the correlation, is not relevant. Thirdly, since factor analysis shows high path coefficient between one factor that is a combination of marketing strategic orientation and marketing capacities, the hypothesis is accepted. Hypothesis testing on CEO`s marketing orientation was excluded because of low goodness-of-fit. Finally, the hypothesis on the positive influence of marketing capacities on marketing performance is accepted. In conclusion, this study shows that in order for SMEs to obtain high marketing competency, they must have systematic marketing strategic orientation environment with marketing-oriented mindsets. These are pre-conditions to be met. Marketing organization measured with the fame of marketing organization or organization power has no influence on marketing capacities in SMEs. This result proves, in part, empirically that the marketing performance model for global or big companies in our country can be of little use for SMEs. Medium-Small size companies` marketing capacities narrow down to the managing power of the marketing program built around information gathering on customers and competitive companies and utilizing its power. This implication differentiates this study from other precedent studies focusing on the conventional 4P`s. In other words, focusing on building marketing capacities in line with the integrated concept of valuing ``on-spot`` market information, is much more important for SMEs than making separate marketing efforts under the conventional concept of price, product, channel, promotion, although their marketing efforts, size-wise, is relatively small. This empirical study also indicates that these companies create competitive cultures and pay systematic attention to marketing strategy and marketing staff resources to increase their capacities. In addition, the indirect effects of the mediating factors suggested to verify the role of marketing capacity and then adding the direct path between the marketing environment and business performance which is respectively an extraneous variable and an experimental variable. As a result, it did not show statistically significant results. Accordingly, you can see a significant mediating effect of marketing capacities. This is also consistent with the previous studies (Matsuno, et al., 2002; Kim, 2006; Lee, Jung, 2009; Hean K. et al., 2007), of market orientation, innovation, business performance information, technology innovation, and entrepreneurship with business performance that were carried out with empirical research. After dividing samples into 2 groups, the manufacturing industry and the service industry, an additional analysis shows that marketing strategy is statistically significant between them. As the t-test results show, marketing strategic orientation is of a statistically significant level factor, and adopt the hypothesis within the significance levels of 5%. The result showed that the level of marketing strategic orientation levels is higher in the service industry (3.31) than the manufacturing industry (3.1) using a 5 point Likert scale. But other hypotheses (gap of competitor orientation so on) are rejected. In conclusion, this study is placed emphasis on the role of marketing capacity, which is the kernel to lead business performance as well as to manage the process from the environment to substantial outcomes. The contribution of this paper shows a conceptualized and operationalized the marketing environment and capacity relatedness as a sequential process concept to access business performance. The paper presents an integrative framework and provides supportive evidence on the effects of competitor orientation, marketing strategic orientation culture of internal organization, and marketing capacity after due consideration of SMEs nature and special circumstances. The limitation of this study is that the samples for developing the marketing performance-measuring model are limited to only SMEs with more than 10 employees located in Seoul and the capital area instead of doing a nation-wide sample. Nation-wide large sampling is difficult because the definition and scope of Medium-Small Size Company is arbitrary. After considering each sample companies` characteristics and classification, a selection of samples representing the whole population should be done. Further study in this aspect is necessary.

개방형 혁신이 혁신성과에 기여하는가? : 한국 중소기업으로부터의 실증적 증거

권영관 한국중소기업학회 2010 中小企業硏究 Vol.32 No.2

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in national economy and are also important objects of economic and industrial policies in industrialized economies. On the other hand, innovation is a critical factor for sustainable competitive advantage of firm as well as for long-run economic growth. Therefore, most innovative firms invest much resource in innovation activities including R&D, one of important business activities in firms. However, innovation can be more difficult challenge for SMEs because SMEs, in general, have lacks of innovation resources and complementary assets such as marketing and production capabilities, etc. for commercializing innovative outputs. In addition, environmental changes around innovation characterized by decreasing product life cycles, increasing uncertainty and risk of R&D, etc. are also other barriers for innovation of firms including SMEs. Accordingly, many firms tend to search new knowledge from various external sources and to pursue to achieve innovations through cooperation with broadly distributed external innovators for gaining access to or sharing innovation resources or knowledge of external innovators. This innovation strategy can be incorporated within a new conceptual framework called ‘Open Innovation', which nowadays is recognized as a new innovation paradigm by many academic scholars and business managers and is spreading rapidly to academics and business practices even though there is a controversy surrounding the open innovation. As a result, theoretical discussions and case studies related to the open innovation are fast growing. Nonetheless, there are lacks of empirical literatures dealing with the open innovation activities of firms, particularly SMEs, and thus we have little empirical evidences about how opening for innovation can shape innovation performance of firms (including SMEs). Under this context, this research empirically investigates the relationship between open innovation and the innovation performance of firms by focusing on SMEs in South Korea in basis on a large scale survey, named ‘Survey on Technology of SMEs', which has been conducted by a public organization, Korea Foundation of Small and Medium Enterprises, in South Korea from 1995. Objective of this empirical research is to complement previous literatures on open innovation and to give some implications to business managers and policy-makers interested in development and implementation of innovation strategy or policy. To do so, this research explored the effectiveness of the open innovation on innovation performance of SMEs especially by focusing on ‘Inbound' open innovation (outside-in process) even though there are many important open innovation mechanisms categorized into ‘Outbound' type (inside-out process) and the coupled process of Inbound and Outbound. More concretely speaking, the paper examined the effectiveness on SMEs' innovation performance of opening R&D processes in two perspectives of the openness, investments in open R&D activities and networking for open R&D. Open R&D activities were divided by two different categories such as ‘collaboration R&D' and ‘bought-in R&D', whereas networking for open R&D was focused on formal relationship with different types of external innovators and examined in a viewpoint of network size. Furthermore, this empirical paper also investigated how the internal R&D effort influences innovation performance of SMEs because most firms invest much resource in internal innovation activities simultaneously in spite of pursuing to open innovation strategies. In addition, this study tried to obtain empirical evidences about how interactions between the internal R&D effort and the open R&D efforts influence the innovation performance of SMEs. The data used in this study were those that had been collected for total 3,400 sample SMEs that had conducted R&D during the past two years (from 2005 to 2006), which is a largest survey of i... 혁신은 경제성장 뿐 아니라 기업의 지속가능한 경쟁우위 확보에 있어서 매우 중요한 요인이다. 최근 개방형 혁신(Open Innovation)이라는 새로운 혁신패러다임으로 급속히 전환되고 있는 시대적 상황하에서 본 연구는 이론적 논의나 주로 대기업을 대상으로 한 사례연구 내지 소규모 조사자료를 바탕으로 한 기존의 연구를 보완하고, 나아가 경영실무자나 정책입안자에게 혁신전략 또는 혁신정책에 있어 중요한 시사점을 제시하는 것을 목표로 하고 있다. 이를 위해 한국 중소기업을 대상으로 한 대규모 설문조사자료를 바탕으로, 한국 중소기업들의 개방형 혁신활동과 혁신성과와의 관계에 대한 실증분석을 수행하였다. 본 연구는 개방형 혁신의 다양한 방식들 중에서 특히 ‘Inbound(outside-in process)' 개방형 혁신에 초점을 맞추고 있다. 실증분석결과는 다음과 같이 요약된다. 첫째, 중소기업의 혁신성과 향상을 위해서는 우선 자체 R&D 노력이 중요하다는 증거를 얻었다. 둘째, 자체 R&D노력과는 별도로 개방형 혁신을 위한 R&D노력은 중소기업의 혁신성과 향상에 유효하며, 그러한 유효성은 개방형 R&D의 유형에 관계없이 일치된 결과가 얻어졌다. 셋째, 개방형 혁신을 위해 외부 혁신주체들과 공식적인 네트워크를 확대하는 것은 외부 혁신주체들로부터 획득하는 지식의 다양성을 증가시킬 수 있기 때문에 중소기업의 혁신성과에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 마지막으로 자체 R&D노력과 개방형 혁신을 위한 R&D노력을 동시에 강화시키는 것은 중소기업의 혁신성과에 오히려 부정적인 상호작용을 초래하는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 이러한 실증적 증거들은 그 동안 개방형 혁신에 대한 이론적 논의 및 주로 선진국의 대기업을 중심으로 한 사례연구들이 보여주는 개방형 혁신의 유효성이 한국 중소기업에도 유효한 혁신패러다임이라는 것을 확인시켜주고 있으며, 혁신 내지 개방형 혁신을 연구하는 학자는 물론 경영실무자, 정책입안자에게 개방형 혁신 전략 내지 혁신정책에 대한 중요한 시사점을 제공해준다는 점에서 그 의의가 크다.

일반 논문 : 관계금융이 중소기업 대출구조와 경영성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

김문겸 ( Moon Kyum Kim ),이규옥 ( Kyoo Ok Lee ),김순철 ( Soon Choul Kim ) 한국중소기업학회 2011 中小企業硏究 Vol.33 No.2

본 연구는 중소기업에 있어서 관계금융의 효과가 대출구조와 경영성과에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지에 대해 기업의 규모와 업력으로 구분하여 살펴보았다. 본 연구는 관계금융의 편익과 비용 측면에서 벗어나 중소기업의 금융에서 중요한 역할을 하는 규모와 업력에 따라 관계금융이 금리수준과 금융비용에 미치는 영향에 있어 유의미한 차이가 있는지와 관계금융이 중소기업의 규모와 업력에 따라 수익성과 성장성에 차별적인 영향이 있는지를 분석하였다. 연구결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다. 첫째, 관계금융은 중소기업 창업 초기에 자금의 가용성 확보를 위한 유인으로 작용하게 된다. 둘째, 중소기업은 관계금융 형성 시 은행의 우월적 지위를 수용하게 된다는 것이다. 이는 창업 초기의 중소기업이 다양한 방법으로 자금을 조달할 수 없기 때문에 이를 극복하기 위해서는 금융기관과의 유대가 절대적으로 필요하기 때문인 것으로 판단된다. 셋째, 중소기업은 규모가 커지고 성장함에 따라 관계금융의 효익이 낮아진다는 것이다. The fact asymmetric information problems are apt to be much more serious in SMEs than in large companies makes the ways in which they raise debt capital differ significantly. In other words, SME financing through commercial banks often involves a long-term relationship that may mitigate these information problems. As Berger and Udell (2002) mentioned, one of the features of small and medium enterprise (SME) financing is that personal experience and subjective judgment of loan officer in financial intermediaries, particularly commercial banks, can affect decisions and terms of loan for SMEs while large companies typically obtain credit in the public debt markets. This close relationship between banks and companies in financing is called ``relationship banking`` and Boot (2000) mentioned that the relationship banking is established when banks make investments to get clients` information exclusively and provide various financial services through consistent and a wide range of interactions. The relationship banking in Korea has evolved from the one which resembles the ``main-bank system`` in Japan. Korea had adopted the main-bank system to control credit for large business conglomerates in 1982. Those main-banks played roles of controlling client companies financing plans and investments, performing financial analyses, and even promoting the improvements of capital structures. This study tried to investigate how the relationship banking affects financing costs of SMEs and SME performance from perspectives of traditional corporate finance and SME theories. Most existing researches have tried to figure out which party in the relationship banking, between companies and banks, has a superior position in terms of marginal profits and costs. They used the data of public companies, which usually are not SMEs, to analyze the relationship banking. We, however, believe that there must be a different shape of the relationship banking for SMEs and try to find impacts on the level of interest rates charged by banks, the size of interest payments by SMEs, and the managerial performance of SMEs from the perspective of the relationship banking. This study has several features differentiating it from other researches. First, this study has used only non-public SMEs in analysis, which expands our understanding of the relationship banking into the area of non-listed SMEs. Second, we tested if there exists any difference in effects of the relationship banking according to the capitalization size and ages of SMEs. Lastly, this study tried to see not only how the relationship banking affects the level of financial cost, but also the performance of SMEs, which would be the first attempt to relate relationship banking to company performance like profitability and growth. The data used in this study were obtained from the Industrial Bank of Korea data base. The Industrial Bank of Korea is a commercial bank with a focus on SME financing, so it maintains a consistent and complete database for SMEs. The data analyzed in this study was three year panel from 2006 through 2008 which encompasses a total of 7,618 SMEs with more than debt of about 0.9 million US dollars (1 billion Korean won). Classification of firms is made by capitalization size of 6.5 million US dollars (7 billion Korean won), which requires external auditing. If the size of capitalization is greater than 6.5 million US dollars, firms are categorized as a medium firm and a small firm with less capitalization. Also each category is divided into two subsequent categories, so that a total of four categories are involved in the analyses. Also, another classification was introduced in terms of age: one to five years, six to ten years, eleven to twenty years and more than twenty years. Spread between interest rate charged to SMEs and three month-KORIBOR (CDS) and ratio of interest payment and total borrowing (RAB) are employed as dependent variables to figure out how relationship banking affects interest payments of SMEs. Two other dependent variables, ratio of operating income to total assets (INR) and growth rate of assets (GRO), are adopted to investigate a relationship between SMEs` performance and relationship banking. A dummy variable of DBANK as an independent variable is included specifically to see if one main-bank relation has any peculiar impact on the level of interest and company performance. Proxies for relationship banking are borrowing period (LLT), degree of client contribution to bank (CGI), portion of loans without collaterals (NLL), and number of client`s accounts (CRS). It is found that as Pertersen and Rajan (1994), Berger and Udell (1995), and D`Auria et al. (1999) reported, an effect of lowering interest rate through one bank relationship is significant for SMEs with more than 7 billion KRW capitalization, which is required to be externally audited. But, in the group of less than 2 billion KRW, a positive relationship between a one bank-relationship and the level of interest payment is evident. This complies with the arguments of Sharpe (1990) and Rajan (1992) which reported a one bank relationship raised interest rates charged to small firms because banks monopolized information. Banks may require a risk premium based upon their monopolized information when they make loans to SMEs which do not have credit records or collateral, but SMEs can expand their availability of funds through a one bank relationship. Thus, these contradicting results from those previous researches indicate that the effects of relationship banking on the level of interest rates are different depending upon the size of firms. Also, other proxy variable such as CGI (client contribution) reassures that benefits of relationship banking exists for SMEs over a certain size while small firms can not enjoy the benefits of relationship banking in terms of the level of interest rates. Relationship banking, however, increases the availability of funds, especially for smaller firms. Also, as previous studies show, TAR (ratio of tangible assets to total assets) has a meaningful negative relationship with the level of interest rates and the size of interest payments, and OCF (ratio of operating cash flow to total assets) has a meaningful negative relationship with the level of interest rates, which implies that SMEs with larger fixed assets and operating cash flow have more debt capacities. The one bank relationship does not have a clear impact on the actual size of the interest payment. But, other proxies of LLT and NLL indicate the benefits of relationship banking exist in expanding availability of funds, especially for smaller firms. There are not many differential effects of relationship banking on the level of interest rates and the size of interest payments according to the different ages of SMEs. The results of analysis investigating effects of relationship banking on SME performance indicates that there exists differential effects of relationship banking according to the different sizes of SMEs. The one-bank relationship has a generally negative effect on profitability while any significant effect is not found in the largest group with more than 20 billion KRW capitalization. When this is combined with the relationship between proxies of relationship banking (LLT and CGI) and company growth, we can derive another implication that banks tend to maintain long time relationships with clients which are rather stable in their performance. Banks prefer stability of SMEs to growth. Also, the positive coefficient of NLL with company growth indicates that SMEs utilize augmented fund availability through relationship banking to raise their profitability in all groups. It is found that while CDS (level of interest rates) has a negative effect on profitability in the group of greater than 7 billion KRW, RAB (size of interest payment) contributes to increasing profitability in the group of less than 7 billion KRW. This implies that smaller SMEs raise profitability by taking advantage of financial leverage obtained through relationship banking. Meanwhile, it fails to find any meaningful relationship between the number of banks and growth, so that the one-bank relationship does not affect the growth of SMEs, which is contrary to Houston and James (1996).

특별섹션 논문 : 중소기업의 생산성 경영시스템이 생산성 성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 자동차부품산업을 중심으로

박우종 ( Woo Jong Park ),박광호 ( Kwang Ho Park ) 한국중소기업학회 2011 中小企業硏究 Vol.33 No.2

국내 중소 제조 기업은 장기적인 저 생산성 구조를 벗어나지 못하고 있어 요소투입 주도형에서 생산성 주도형으로 성장 전략을 혁신해야 하는 상황이다. 이와 같이 중소기업이 생산성 주도 성장을 하기 위해 생산성 경영시스템 관점에서 지속적으로 기업구조를 혁신해야 한다. 본 논문은 한국생산성본부가 개발한 생산성 경영시스템 진단 모델을 기반으로 중소기업의 생산성 경영성과에 영향을 주는 핵심적인 역량을 규명하고자 한다. 6개의 범주, 19개의 핵심프로세스와 생산성 경영성과로 구성되어 있는 생산성 경영시스템 진단 모델은 심사원이 현장 실사를 통해 중소기업의 생산성 성과를 진단하도록 설계되어 있다. 본 논문은 자동차부품 중소기업 50개를 직접 현장 진단 한 연구 결과이다. 실증 연구결과 자동차 부품 중소기업의 생산성 경영시스템의 수준은 243점으로 중소기업 평균 295점 보다 낮게 나타났다. 리더십은 전체적인 범주에 모두 영향을 주고 있는 것으로 확인이 되었으며, 생산성 경영성과는 유의한 인자가 없었으나, 현장진단 결과 우수 중소기업은 끊임없는 생산성향상 활동으로 생산시스템의 탁월성을 확보하고 있었다. 진단 이후 중소기업의 86%가 리더십 범주에 해당하는 과제를 선정하여 실행하고 있는 것에서 시사점이 있다고 볼 수 있다. 본 논문은 중소기업이 생산성주도의 혁신을 하기 위하여 어떠한 핵심프로세스에 집중하고, 개선해야 하는지를 제시해주고 있다. In the wake of the global financial crisis, an equation that sounds convincing is that competitiveness of SMEs is that of Korean enterprises. Still, in terms of productivity, Korea lags behind the U.S. and Japan by 1/2 and 1/3, respectively. Further, productivity in SMEs amounts to 32.4% of that in of large enterprises. As for contributions to TFP (total factor productivity), the U.S. and Japan are higher than Korea by 5.7 and 2.4 times, respectively. Those figures suggest that domestic productivity is characterized by growth still dependent on traditional factor inputs. Given the fact, Korean manufacturers should be transformed to productivity-led from input-led growth structures. As a fundamental cause, there is a substantial consensus that Korean companies hardly have established advanced business management systems driving productivity-led growth. The government and relevant organizations supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) focus on continuous changes in corporate structures from the perspective of business management systems and productivity-led growth. The present study categorized productivity management system models into four aspects: leadership, productivity development, value realization (customer and market management, human resource management, process operation) and performance measurement to identify the most salient property of productivity management system models, that is, to find out the "core processes significantly influencing productivity performance." Briefly put, the present thesis is to investigate core competencies influencing productivity performance in SMEs by means of an empirical study. Based on SME productivity management system models to build a productivity system as set out in the Article 30 in the Industrial Development Act, 50 SMEs in the field of the auto parts industry were chosen from January to June in 2010 to diagnose productivity management systems. As part of the productivity management system diagnosis, six core process categories and 19 core processes were examined to determine their influences on productivity management performance through direct on-site surveys. First, auto part SMEs have lower level of productivity management systems compared to the electricity and electronics sector. The diagnostic score of productivity management systems in auto part SMEs was 243 on average, which corresponds to approximately 80% of the previous average score (295) in electricity and electronics SMEs. Categorically, leadership and process categories showed over 100-point differences, and auto part SMEs were found low in strategic accessibility and process complexity. The distribution of categorical scores indicates that production operation (299), quality control (297) and strengthening customer relations (285) are relatively higher and that employee`s learning growth (171), knowledge and information management (179) and strategic planning (182) earned lower marks. The diagnostic finding confirms that business operation in small and medium enterprises targets customer relations, production operation and quality control. Second, the analysis found that leadership influences every category. Based on the proposed study model, leadership was found to affect productivity, customer market, measurement analysis, human resource and process. Further, the verification of the consequence hypothesis on productivity management performance on the basis of the estimation in the structural equation found that leadership is significant in overall categories, which agrees with the hypothesis. The field diagnosis of firms confirmed that top management in small and medium businesses is unequivocally concerned about productivity improvement actions and core workforce operations. Unlike general expectations, it was reconfirmed that top management pays less attention to customers and process control than to leadership that efficiently drives such factors. Third, no significant factor was found influencing productivity management performance. This warrants further analysis with more extensive samples in the future. In the field diagnosis, the interviews with a number of small and medium enterprises found that productivity management performance requires consistent actions for productivity improvement at the management level, and that such actions contribute to excellence in the production system. Based on the diagnosis of the productivity management system, financial goals and maturity in the productivity management system were set to propose innovation challenges to achieve such goals. The selected innovation challenges were divided into each type of challenges SMEs would pursue and the win-win ones parent companies wished to improve. 86% of SMEs wanted to build a leadership-associated management system such as business goal setting and development, performance system establishment, business administration planning and vision strategy system implementation. Such challenges selected, as seen from the analysis abovementioned, can be translated as significant influences of leadership on every category. The win-win challenges on the side of parent companies were entirely related to product quality, delivery and cost improvement. Although both sides wanted to achieve goals, their solutions indicated that suppliers and parent companies would take different approaches. Parent companies of suppliers were grouped and final results were reported to the parent companies including the following suggestions for suppliers: First, structural adjustment in products and logistics is required to enhance competitiveness of suppliers. For seamless demand and supply flows, parent companies tend to segment suppliers into dual or triple parts, leaving suppliers less competitive in production and supply. In sum, supply module units should be kept with 2 exclusive suppliers, who are to achieve cost competitiveness, while parent companies can keep quality and demand and supply uninterrupted. Second, technical support from parent companies is required for early quality stabilization of new developments. Auto parts suppliers earn revenues through OEM development, and stabilization in early stages of development controls revenues. As such, development engineers need to provide technical support for each supplier in early stages of development, and some effort needs be made to find common ground between parent companies and suppliers on key issues. Particularly, suppliers often have a hard time coping with incompatible gauges, measuring tools and work processes with parent companies in early stages of development. Third, consistent and further support for suppliers is needed. The global financial crisis has caused overall support programs for suppliers to grind to a halt, hence support programs for suppliers should be resumed and sustained. In addition, support programs must include funds to help suppliers. Suppliers in the auto parts industry have fragile financial structures, and they must buy raw materials with cash while their revenues depend on conventional payment terms and conditions. For that reason, auto part suppliers are faced with vulnerable cash flows and highly disagreeable ratio of net profits to net sales compared to other industries. Hence, a fund to help suppliers with urgent cash flow problems is a must. The present study deals with SMEs in the auto parts industry. Future studies need extended sample sizes of SMEs to analyze overall flow and further to delve into key processes necessary for SMEs to grow into middle-sized companies. The findings in this study implicate what processes need focusing on to improve productivity through auto parts SMEs. This paper suggests which core process SMEs should concentrate on and make improvements on in order to make productivity-driven innovation.

지역 중소기업의 환경 역량 전략이 수출성과에 미치는 영향

김승호,허무열 한국유통과학회 2015 유통과학연구 Vol.13 No.3

Purpose – Exports have long been regarded as significant drivers of sustainable competitive advantage and growth among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The export activities of SMEs are particularly important in the context of export-oriented economies such as Korea. Although many studies have examined the determinants of exports, it is difficult to find empirical studies about the determinants of the export performance of regional SMEs. This study investigates the determinants of export performance in the regional SME context based on an integrated approach that combines the environment factor of industrial organization theory, competitive strategy theory, and the competences of the resource-based view. Research design, data, and methodology – To empirically analyze the determinants of export performance in the regional SMEs, data were collected from firms in the Daegu metropolitan area. Data were collected directly through questionnaire surveys; in addition, secondary financial data were also taken from the KIS-VALUE database. Out of the 175 responses that were received, 143 were considered to be worth examining. After testing the reliability and validity of the variables through multiple items such as environmental turbulence and competitive strategy, hypotheses were verified by using five multi-regression models. These models were: a control model with organizational size and age, an environmental model with technology and market turbulence, a competency model with R&D and foreign distribution channels, a strategy model with product and market differentiation, and an integrated model including all of these variables. Results – First, as a control variable, the organization size has significant positive effects on export performance. Second, technology turbulence based on industrial organization theory has significant positive effects on export performance, but market turbulence does not affect export performance. Third, the foreign market distribution competency of the resource-based view has strong positive effects on export performance, but the R&D competency does not affect export performance. Fourth, the product differentiation strategy from competitive strategy theory positively impacts export performance, but market differentiation does not affect export performance. Finally, in the integrated model, only the foreign distribution competency of the resource-based view has a significant effect on export performance. Conclusions – The empirical results of this study verified the usefulness of the rationales behind the three theories to explain the export performance of the regional SMEs, especially the importance of the foreign market distribution competency from the resource-based view. With regard to practical considerations, this study’s implications suggest that the use of technological environmental changes by industries is better than the use of market changes. Further, the use of the product differentiation strategy is more effective than the use of the market-driving strategy, and the distribution channel competency plays a stronger role than the technology-oriented competency with regard to the export performance position of regional SMEs. Future studies should examine relational perspectives, such as trust among channel partners. Therefore, the configuration approach is more useful in enhancing pragmatism by comparing high- and low-export companies.

The Effects of Entrepreneurial Capability on the Dynamic Capability and Corporate Performance of Chinese SMEs

Qing-Lou Cao,Tae-Won Kang,Yong-Taek Lim 한국무역연구원 2017 무역연구 Vol.13 No.5

This research is designed to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial capability, dynamic capability and corporate performance in Chinese SMEs. The dimensional structure and scale of entrepreneurial capability, dynamic capability of enterprise and corporate performance are proposed to analyze the reliability and validity of entrepreneurial capability, dynamic capability and corporate performance in Chinese SMEs. A questionnaire survey is adopted to collect data, and it is assumed that the entrepreneurial capability of Chinese SMEs exerts a significant influence on the dynamic capability of an enterprise, while the entrepreneurial capability of Chinese SMEs exerts significant influence on corporate performance, in order to investigate the path model of the influences that entrepreneurial capability and dynamic capability exert on corporate performance. SPSS and AMOS are adopted for analysis, and the results indicate that entrepreneurial capability has a significant influence on the dynamic capability of an enterprise; an enterprise’s integration and reallocation capability and reform and innovation capability have a significant influence on corporate performance, an enterprise’s organizational learning capability exerts no significant influence on corporate performance. An entrepreneur’s capability of seizing opportunities has significant influence on corporate performance, and an entrepreneur’s innovation capability has a significant influence on the financial performance of enterprise, but has no impact on market performance. In this research, the relationship between entrepreneurial capability and corporate performance, and the relationship between entrepreneurial capability and corporate performance are verified so as to provide an important theoretical basis for improving corporate performance. Therefore, fully utilizing and improving entrepreneurial capability can improve the dynamic capability of an enterprise and further improve corporate performance.

소재부품 중소기업 수출성과의 선행요인 경로 및사회적 자본의 조절효과 분석

원동환 한국유통과학회 2016 유통과학연구 Vol.14 No.2

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the moderating effects of social capital on antecedents factors path of export performance in the materials and components SMEs(Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) of Busan and Kyungnam region. In case of materials and components SMEs, they are always trying to achieve business performance including export sales and market share, but it is difficult for them to increase performance due to the limitation of inner & tangible resources. Therefore intangible asset such as technology capability and its antecedents factors which are technology innovation and learning orientation are getting more important to SMEs. In addition, it is supposed that social capital such as local network including distribution channel in overseas market plays an essential role to enhance export performance. Accordingly, the main goal of this study is to find out the relationship between export performance and antecedents factors and the validity of social capital as a moderating valuable. Research design, data, and methodology – Technology innovation, learning orientation and technology capability have been used as antecedents factors for export performance and social capital such as network diversity and intensity has been used for moderating effects analysis. In order to select these valuables mentioned above, this study examined the existing researches on a basis of Resources Based View, Organizational Learning Theory and Social Capital theory. To achieve the objective of this paper, 7 hypotheses including the moderating effects have been proposed with 6 potential variables measured by 24 questions. The survey was carried out from December 2014 to March 2015 and 137 samples out of total 175 were selected for the analysis. PLS(Partial Least Squares) has been used for the methodology of empirical analysis for both antecedents factors path and moderating effects. Results – Research findings are as follows. First, technology innovation has a significant impact on learning orientation, learning orientation has a positive effect on the technology capability and technology capability also has a significant impact on export performance. Therefore 3 valuables are proved as antecedents factors of export performance. Second, the social capital(both network diversity and intensity) plays a moderating role with learning orientation to technology capability. However, there is no moderating effects between both of social capital and technology capability regarding export performance. Conclusions – According to path analysis results, it is suggested that the materials and components SMEs should raise technology innovation and learning orientation in order to improve technology capability and export performance. Meantime, the moderating effect analysis shows that SMEs should consider local network diversity and intensity along with learning orientation to add up technology capability. But local network diversity and intensity does not work systematically with technology capability for export performance and it means that SMEs should find the appropriate local partners for the purpose of establishing concrete distribution channels based on marketing perspective, not for improving technology capability.

Innovation Capabilities and Small and Medium Enterprises' Performance: An Exploratory Study

ALI, Hazem,HAO, Yunhong,AIJUAN, Chen Korea Distribution Science Association 2020 The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Busine Vol.7 No.10

Research underlined that Small and Medium Enterprises' performance is enhanced by different types of innovation capabilities. This research tends to present a comprehensive model to explain the relationship between innovation capabilities and SMEs' financial and operational performance. Specifically, this study tends to achieve three objectives: explores the set of product, process, organizational and marketing innovation capabilities possessed by owners/managers of SMEs and their impact on Chinese manufacturing SMEs' operational and financial performance dimensions, identify the determinants of innovation capabilities, and determine the contextual factors that moderate innovation capabilities and SMEs' performance. This research employed a qualitative research method using in-depth interviews with eight owners/managers of Chinese manufacturing SMEs. Research findings revealed that product and marketing innovation capabilities have a significant impact on SMEs' financial performance while process and organizational innovation capabilities positively influence SMEs' operational performance. The major determinants of innovation capabilities involved availability of sufficient organizational resources, entrepreneurial orientation, knowledge development and external networks. The contextual moderating factors on the relationship between innovation capabilities and SMEs' performance involved internal factors which are: SME size, SMEs' owner/manager work experience, entrepreneurial mindset; and external factors: market dynamism and cooperation strategies. This paper ends by drawing some concluding remarks and proposing future research avenues.

중소기업 ESG 경영성과 분석을 통한 ESG 규제 정책 방향 제언

양오석,한재훈 한국경영컨설팅학회 2023 경영컨설팅연구 Vol.23 No.3

The main research question to be addressed in this article is to discover whether a company's non-financial attribute, ESG management activities, has a statistically significant positive relationship with SMEs' financial performance and market performance. To find an answer to this, this study conducted a panel model analysis using time-series data of 900 domestic SMEs during the period from 2011 to 2021, focusing on a research model consisting of ESG items and variables representing a series of financial attributes. As a result of the empirical analysis, the findings are as follows: 1) The ESG total score was confirmed to have no statistically significant relationship with ROA and ROE, which are financial performances, while it had a statistically significant positive (+) relationship with Tobin’s Q, which is market performance. 2) By sector, business activities in the environment (E) sector showed a positive (+) relationship with financial performance, but no significant relationship with market performance. In addition, 3) management activities in the social (S) sector had no impact on financial performance, but had a significant negative (-) relationship with market performance. 4) Management activities in the governance structure (G) sector were found to have a positive (+) effect on performance. 5) Some of the financial attribute variables showed a significant negative (-) relationship with market performance, while many variables showed a positive (+) or negative (-) relationship with financial performance. From this result, it can be seen that ESG management activities generally have a positive effect on financial performance in SMEs, while positive and negative relationships with market performance coexist. Nevertheless, considering a higher level of generalization, it is difficult to conclude that the relationship between ESG management activities and SMEs' financial performance and market performance is positive or negative. This can be said to be a result that disproves that the ESG management activities of domestic SMEs have not yet reached maturity.

혁신형 중소기업의 국제화 결정요인과 성과간의 관계

박경수 ( Park Kyung Su ),신진교 ( Shin Jin Kyo ) 한국인적자원관리학회 2017 인적자원관리연구 Vol.24 No.2

지난 20여년 동안 글로벌화의 진전으로 중소기업의 해외진출의 중요성이 높아지면서 중소기업의 국제화에 관한 연구관심이 지속적으로 증가되고 있다. 여기에는 수출관련 연구, 국제화 결정요인 연구, 국제화 과정 연구, 그리고 국제화 성과에 관한 연구 등이 있다. 이 가운데 중소기업의 국제화 결정요인에 관한 연구가 중심적 위치를 차지하고 있다. 나아가, 중소기업의 국제화가 경영성과와 어떤 관계를 가지는가에 관한 연구관심 역시 크게 확산되고 있다. 한편, 최근 10여년 동안 중앙정부는 혁신적인 기술이나 상품 혹은 경영기술의 개발 또는 도입을 통해 수익을 창출하는 혁신형 중소기업을 적극적으로 육성해 오고 있다. 혁신형 중소기업의 경우 차별화된 기술역량을 바탕으로 국제화를 전향적으로 추구할 가능성이 높으므로 이들 기업에 관한 국제화 결정요인에 관한 실증연구가 필요하다. 이에 본 연구에서는 혁신형 중소기업의 국제화 결정요인을 실증적으로 규명하고자 하였다. 구체적으로는 혁신형 중소기업의 기업가정신, 기술역량, 그리고 국내시장 환경이 국제화에 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 알아보고자 한다. 나아가 혁신형 중소기업의 국제화가 성과에는 어떤 효과를 가지는지를 규명하고자 한다. 233개 혁신형 중소기업으로부터 설문자료를 수집하여 분석한 결과 혁신형 중소기업의 기업가정신, 기술역량, 그리고 국내시장환경 모두 국제화에 긍정적으로 유의한 효과를 가지는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 혁신형 중소기업의 국제화는 순이익증가율에는 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으나, 영업이익율에는 유의한 영향을 미치지 못하는 것으로 나타났다. 이와 같은 연구결과를 바탕으로 이론적 및 실무적 시사점들을 제시하였다. 나아가 본 연구의 한계점 및 향후 연구방향에 대해서도 논의하였다. Over the last two decades, with the advancement of globalization, the importance of SMEs to global market expansion has increased, and research on internationalization of SMEs is steadily increasing. These researches include export-related research, internationalization determinants, internationalization process research, and research on internationalization performance. Among these, research on the determinants of internationalization of SMEs is one of the main topics. Moreover, there is a growing interest in research on how the internationalization of SMEs has influences on management performance. For the past decade, the central government has actively fostered innovative SMEs that generate profits through the development or introduction of innovative technologies, products, or management technologies. Innovative SMEs are more likely to proactively pursue internationalization based on their differentiated technology capabilities, therefore, empirical studies on the determinants of internationalization of these SMEs are necessary. The purpose of this study is to analyze the determinants of internationalization of innovative SMEs. Specifically, we will examine how entrepreneurship, technological competence, and domestic market environment of innovative SMEs influence internationalization. In addition, we will investigate the effect of internationalization of innovative SMEs on performance. As a result of collecting survey data from 233 innovative SMEs, entrepreneurship, technological capability and domestic market environment of innovative SMEs have positive effects on internationalization. However, the internationalization of innovative SMEs positively affects the growth rate of net profits, but not the operating profits. Based on the results, the theoretical and practical implications are suggested. The limitations of this study and future direction of research are also discussed.