As the technological gap amongst manufacturers decreases, the life cycle of products has shortened, and competition accelerates due to the development of technology, incumbent manufacturing companies face growth limitations. In order to overcome such business issues, manufacturing companies are increasingly interested in changes in business models and innovations, especially in the direction of providing services where they can maintain the competitive advantage of their products. In such context, this empirical study examines managerial leadership, differentiation strategies, and products and services pricing as ‘servitization factors’, which can be driving forces for moving into a new era of growth for Korean SMEs, focusing on the mediating effects of servitization competency. The results are as follows : First, it was confirmed that executive leadership, differentiation strategy, and information & communication technology capability have a direct effect on service sales. Second, the process competency, partnership competency, and ICT competency, which are presented as the service competence of SMEs, were found to play an important role in inducing service sales in managerial leadership, differentiation strategy, product and services pricing. It also emphasized the role of the public policy such as helping to foster SMEs as key partners in the expansion of social facilities and establishing platforms through ICT and data utilization for the convergence of manufacturing services.

As the technological gap amongst manufacturers decreases, the life cycle of products has shortened, and competition accelerates due to the development of technology, incumbent manufacturing companies face growth limitations. In order to overcome such business issues, manufacturing companies are increasingly interested in changes in business models and innovations, especially in the direction of providing services where they can maintain the competitive advantage of their products. In such context, this empirical study examines managerial leadership, differentiation strategies, and products and services pricing as 'servitization factors', which can be driving forces for moving into a new era of growth for Korean SMEs, focusing on the mediating effects of servitization competency. The results are as follows: First, it was confirmed that executive leadership, differentiation strategy, and information & communication technology capability have a direct effect on service sales. Second, the process competency, partnership competency, and ICT competency, which are presented as the service competence of SMEs, were found to play an important role in inducing service sales in managerial leadership, differentiation strategy, product and services pricing. It also emphasized the role of the public policy such as helping to foster SMEs as key partners in the expansion of social facilities and establishing platforms through ICT and data utilization for the convergence of manufacturing services.

Korea’s five leading industries-chemical, automobile, shipbuilding, metal and electronics-have been the growth engines of the Korean economy for the last 30 years. However, with their performance weakening in the past few years, Korea’s annual growth rate has dropped to less than 2%. Just as the Japanese economy struggled through the lost decades, Korea’s leading industries have been facing signals of arriving at a Strategic Inflection Point (“SIP”) since the mid-2000s. The objective of this study is to present an appropriate value strategy for Korean firms in leading industries to gain sustainable competitive advantages. This paper examines the following issues : First, it diagnoses the signs and timing of SIP for the five leading industries. Second, this study examines 78 Korean and Japanese firms in order to understand the adaptation strategies of the highest and lowest performing firms from a value strategy point of view. Third, it empirically analyzes the correlation between the indicators of value strategy and the accounting performances of the Korean and Japanese firms. The data set used in the cluster analysis were collected from KISLINE database of NICE Information Service and annual reports. The findings in the case analyses of high and low performing companies show that high value-added specialty chemical materials and electronic component manufacturers that had a strong focus on value creation were defined as high performing companies. And in the cosmetic and automobile industries, companies with a strong emphasis on value appropriation gained high performance. Furthermore, the study conducted a cluster analysis based on two indicators R&D and advertisement expense. The analysis shows that a significant gap exists in the operating incomes among three groups classified under the value strategy. The study recommends that Korean firms are requested to increase R&D expenditure, conduct M&A and collaborate with companies that own source technologies to narrow the technology gap and improve their segment portfolio from commodity to value-added products.

Korean small and medium sized software companies have tried to export their solutions or services to overseas markets. In 2016, exports of the software industry increased by 6.0% from the previous year, and the value added of the industry was 2.2 times higher than that of the manufacturing industry. From a long-term perspective, it is important to secure a global competitive advantage in order to sustain the export high value-added of the software industry. The obstacles to entry into the overseas market of small to medium enterprises are as follows: first, difficulty in product development and localization of marketing; second, lack of investment for overseas expansion; and finally, competitiveness of software technology. In particular, To overcome such obstacles, Korean small and medium sized software companies should increase the technical perfection and secure software export competitiveness. The paper presents a payment settlement framework enabling adaptive reuse and semiautomatic development of global payment settlement services. The quantitative and qualitative evaluation results are presented with domestic and overseas case studies as follows: Firstly, semi-automatic development is realized successfully by applying the framework. Secondly, it is possible to maintain consistent quality of software and to deliver maintenance services without relying on the internal human resources. Thirdly, it is possible to reduce the project duration of the same development cope to less than 50% by applying the framework. Finally, because it is based on BPMN 2.0, which is a high level design diagram, it is expected that it will be easy to implement through components connection and reduce difficulties in technology transfer and localization. Also, at the time of runtime operation, it will be effective to understand the design idea easily and to carry out additional developments without human resource who participated in the initial project.

Korea’s main manufacturing industries, which have led its economy for the past three decades, are faced with a serious downturn and loss of competitive advantages due to the current economic depression, China’s rise, and the drop of oil prices. Korean business firms must adopt the paradigm shift in their value strategies, along with a government-led industrial restructuring in order to gain sustainable competitive advantages. Business firms allocate their limited resources between value creation and value appropriation, however, what effect does strategic emphasis on value creation versus value appropriation have on a business firm's financial performance? This paper empirically addresses this issue by examining the effect of shifts in strategic emphasis on stock return. Furthermore, this study examines appropriate choices of strategic emphasis to gain differential financial performance. The data set used in this regression analysis comes from the KISLINE database of NICE Information Service. The variables that form the basis of this analysis are stock return, ROA, and Strategic Emphasis [(advertising expenditures-R&D expenditures)/assets]. The interactive effect with situational factors regarding the firm and the type of technological environment in which the firm is operating was also analyzed. Our results show that investors acknowledge a shift of strategic emphasis as a sign of stock valuation. In comparison to US, Korean business firms have weak value creation capabilities in high-technology industries, and weak value appropriation capabilities in low-technology industries. This proves Korean firms are fast followers in the global market. Our findings suggest that Korean firms have to adopt a balanced value strategy, nurturing value creation and developing value appropriation for overcoming the current economic downturn and becoming a first mover in the dawn of “Industry 4.0.”

In medium-sized enterprises that comprise of multiple business branches and companies, various types of information systems are constructed and operated. One of the difficult problems these enterprises face is that integrated information cannot be deliver

  Government-driven informatization support projects for small and medium companies turn into collaborative information technology alliances between mother companies and their suppliers. These collaboration efforts are driven by a mother company that can