Earticle

In this paper, we argue that the process of cross-functional knowledge sharing is not merely a psychological issue determined by individuals' willingness. More so, it is a process by which organizational members penetrate various types of boundaries to obtain and utilize the knowledge required to improve competitiveness and productivity. Three distinctive but interrelated types of boundaries, identified by this study, are created by the geographical dispersion of organizational units, subcultural differences among organizational communities, as well as the context-dependent nature of functionally specific knowledge. It is found, moreover, that these three types of boundaries inhibit the process of knowledge sharing across organizational units in rather different ways. Evidence derived from an analysis suggests that the boundary-penetration process is not only an intellectual activity but also an emotional one. The paper closes with an elaboration of the factors that influence the penetration process and, thereby, enhance productivity, namely mutual learning, perspective taking, social networks, and trust.

The effect of cultural clash has been emphasized as a main source of M&A failure. This study investigated the effect of cultural clash on merged employee's identity change and subsequent changes in attitudes and behaviors. Based on cultural self-representation theory (CST) proposed by Erez and Earley, this study investigated the effects of cultural difference and HR changes on employee social identity. Through the survey of 128 employees, this study showed that cultural difference as well as changes in HR affects employees’ self-concept, i.e, personal and social identity, which, in turn, has an impact on their turnover intention and intergroup conflict.

This paper presents a system thinking approach on the quality management education for the purpose of exploring the relationship between quality management and the firm's productivity. This study figured out several controversial points in current quality management education, and argued that the relationship between quality cost and productivity enhancement should be explored based on the system thinking approach, especially a Casual Loop Diagram(CLD) method, in order that a student could understand how quality decision making influences productivity of whole company. Moreover, this paper, based on quality cost, first decoupled the impact of quality cost decision on an operations management part and a marketing part, and then integrated these two causal loops in the value chain of a company dimension.

Efficiency alone cannot be a correct measure of the well-being of a pharmaceutical industry due to rapid technical progress. The rapid technical progress may result in lower efficiency even if DMUs were increasingly productive over time. This paper examines the productivity changes in Korean pharmaceutical companies for the period of 2001-2005 by MPI(Malmquist Productivity Index). DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis) is employed to estimate the production frontier. MPI is broken down into ΔPTE, ΔSE, and ΔTECH. According to the results, ΔTECH and ΔPTE have jointly led to a decrease in productivity, while ΔSE have contributed to an increase in productivity.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the wage gap by the education standards and productivity gap in Korea. The empirical findings are as follows; 1. The estimated earning function shows as follows. First, the wage gaps for each education level are observed significantly, because the higher education level means to get more earnings. 2. The gender wage gap in higher education level is lower. 3. The wage gap by discrimination has not reduced and furthermore takes a larger part of gender wage gap, particularly in lower education level. According to Human Capital Theory, the differentials of human capital investments result in productivity gap which affects individuals' income. Therefore, it can be explained that an individual in the higher education level earns more than in the lower education level because of productivity differences between men and women. These empirical results support Human Capital Theory.

This study analyzes the impact of restructuring and reorganization on the life insurance industry after the Asian financial crisis by examining the efficiency in the perspective of sales efficiency and investment efficiency respectively. For this we introduced directional distance function(DDF) in the case undesirable output was included. In other words, by introducing premium paid with negative effects as undesirable output in the perspective of sales efficiency, we attempted to prevent distortion of the efficiency analysis that could occur in the case this was not considered. According to analysis results, since 1997 the overall efficiency of insurance companies was improved due to continuous restructuring. Specifically, since 2000 investment efficiency continuously improved due to the reduction of investment operating costs, but sales efficiency on the other hand dropped. In other words, the overall increase of efficiency of insurance companies stems from improved efficiency of asset management instead of rationalization of business.

For several decades, government loan program for small business has been justified by enabling them to mobilize sufficient financial resources which could not be possible without loan program because of market failure problems. However, recently, government loan program has been under fierce criticism for its inefficiency and required to be fully examined for its performance and productivity. Following this background, this study intends to evaluate the performance and productivity of government loan program, specially on Venture Business Start-up Program by Small Business Corporation. As a result, the small corporations participated in Venture Business Start-up Program have shown considerable amount of productivity effects. Especially regarding with return on sales, participated corporations have shown more than 34.8% improvement compared with other non-participated corporations. In addition, Venture Business Start-up Program has resulted in more improved performance compared with other government loan programs, such as Business Restructuring Loan Program. This study presents positive conclusion on the performance of government loan program which gives lots of controversy in recent years. In addition, this result suggests that government loan program could show better performance and productivity when the program is focused on better targeted corporations such as innovative venture corporations.

This study is to examine the effect of large discount store characteristics(product value, product assortment, in-store atmosphere, and service) and positive emotion on customer satisfaction and loyalty which represent customer-based productivity at store level. The data were collected 475 customers and analyzed using LISREL. The results are as follows. First, product value has a positive effect on positive emotion and satisfaction directly, and in turn, increases loyalty indirectly. Second,product assortment and in-store atmosphere have a positive effect on positive emotion directly, and in turn, increases customer satisfaction and loyalty indirectly. Third, service has a significant effect on customer satisfaction directly, and in turn, increases loyalty indirectly. Fourth, positive emotion has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, but does not have a significant effect on loyalty. Finally, customer satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty.

With the progress of convergence between telecommunications, media and IT sectors, bundling becomes an important business strategy. Therefore it is worthwhile to presume the effect of bundling on telecommunications markets and prepare appropriate remedies that can reduce adverse effects of the bundling. In this paper, to presume the effects and design appropriate remedies, we survey the economic theories of bundling and compare the modeling assumptions of the theory and the current Korean telecommunications market situations. From this comparison, we suggest the following. First, pure bundling should be exceptionally allowed, provided that some technological reason justifies pure bundling, rather than being considered as perse illegal. Second, to prevent bundling being used as bypassing method of price regulation, price regulation for the bundles including price regulated services should be imposed. Last, to guarantee the competitors can compete by making similar bundles, competitors' equal access for the market power possessing services should be imposed.

This study examine the effects of interactional, functional, and environmental knowledge stores on productivity and profitability after reviewing alliance literature based on organizational learning perspective. An empirical test is performed on a sample of companies under online marketing alliances. We gathered 185 samples of survey data via email or fax and the results show that all three knowledge stores have positive impacts on productivity profitability performance. And also the relationship between alliance performance and alliance satisfaction was positive. Among the knowledge stores interactional knowledge was the only one that has direct and indirect impact on alliance satisfaction.

Given that the attention has increasingly been paid to the real estate brokerage service in recent years, this study tries to elucidate certain characteristics of broker and brokerage office that influence on the sales productivity, for the purpose of improving sales productivity of real estate brokerage service. Through literature review, this study finds various factors that can influence sales productivity of brokerage office, such as office size, office location, type of brokerage service, franchise affiliation, computer usage. With regard to broker, this study finds broker's personal and behavioral characteristics can influence sales productivity of broker. With empirical research, this study finds out office size, location, type of brokerage service, franchise affiliation, computer usage have an impact on sales productivity of brokerage office. It also becomes manifest that broker' education, age, experience in brokerage service, customer orientation, listening behavior, adaptive selling behavior have an effect on sales productivity of broker. The result of brokerage office sales productivity model shows that real estate brokerage office can enhance sales productivity by choosing right location and right brokerage service type, joining franchise and using information technology. And the result of broker sales productivity model shows that real estate broker can enhance sales productivity by changing their brokerage behavior such as his orientation, listening behavior and adaptive selling behavior.

In Korea, local governments introduced double-entry bookkeeping, accrual basis accounting system in 2007, and the government is scheduled to introduce it from 2009. In this study, useful accounting information were compared and researched to compare the government and local government accounting with business accounting, and desirable way to raise usefulness of the government and local government accounting information were proposed by grasping characteristics of the government and local government accounting. Based on these, desirable way to raise usefulness of the government and local government accounting information are as follows: First, in order to secure connection between budget and accounting, amendment of related law should be promoted. Second, CFO system should be introduced, and systematic education on public official should be carried out. Third, development of appropriate computerized accounting system should be done beforehand. Fourth, practical guide should be made and provided, and Q&A center should be set up and operated.

Most of marketing literature and studies consistently identified customer satisfaction as a key antecedent to customer loyalty, WOM and repurchase, but current knowledge fails to explain CS' contribution to firm's profitability in full capability. Thus, it is difficult to confirm the relationship between customer satisfaction and firm's profitability. The main objective of this study can stated as follows. Therefore, this study examine relationship between customer satisfaction and willingness to pay. Second, this study concentrated on customer loyalty and how willingness to pay is affected by customer loyalty. These tests will be done to a group of customers who have used the product of a same brand repeatedly and those who have not. Lastly, this study explore moderating effect on customer satisfaction into willingness to pay. As a result of the empirical research, we can reconfirm the fact that the relationship between CS and WTP, the primarily purpose of the research, is affirmative. In case of durable goods like cellular phones, there are no differences in a willingness to pay between loyal customers and those who are not. Finally, increase in CS of a product have affected price customers are willing to pay for the product.

The purpose of this research investigates the relationship among value diversity, intention to remain, and innovative attitude with mediating role of job conflict and moderating role of career. With 225 participants from 38 teams, it was found as follows. First, the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the measurement model was composed of four latent variables as mentioned. Second, after controlling variables such as gender, tenure, and past performance, value diversity increases job conflict. Third, value diversity influences innovative attitude and intention to remain. Job conflict plays a partial-mediating role on innovative attitude while it plays a complete-mediating role on intention to remain. Fourth, the interaction effect between value diversity and tenure influences innovative attitude in a negative way while the interaction effect between value diversity and past performance enhances innovative attitude in a positive way. Some implications of these results are discussed.

The Selling of a service rather than a product is often termed "servicizing". In order to sustainable society, it is necessary to transform industrial structure to the one that does not reduce the Earth's resources. Servicizing promotes dematerialization and has potential to minimize environmental impacts of both production and consumption. So, this article attempts to build a theoretical framework for servicizing and to introduce successful cases where enterprises have been able to accomplish the transformation from product seller to service provider. Finally, it is recommended that servicizing concept needs to be examined as a research effort, and environmentally sound product policy needs to be systematically organized. In this sense three main research agenda is identified : the readiness of companies to adopt servicizing, the readiness of consumers to accept servicizing, and its environmental implications.

Although exuberant academics investigated the causal logic between information technology investment and productivity improvement of private corporations, there have been few researches to examine whether the causal logic of productivity improvement in private corporations could be applied to the business organization in government. So, we elucidated the recent case of information technology investment at Seoul Regional Communications Office which is the cardinal sub-organization in Korea Post, one of the momentous business organizations of government in Korea. Most of all, organizational antecedents which should be satisfied to enhance the productivity of information technology investment in the case of business organization in government were scrutinized and several exploratory propositions were suggested for future research.