This study observes the phenomenon and derives 20 propositions of management succession in 6 Korean Small and Medium sized Enterprises founded in 1960～1970. These are all family business, which have successfully accomplished management succession. The Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970, have faced several issues of management succession from founder to 2nd generation successor. Because the Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 have played a key role in the development of the South Korean economy, it is very important for them to make successful management successions. Successful management succession can help the South Korean economy grow continuously.
Most past research about family business has focused on family succession, but has not yielded the in-depth knowledge of family succession training and development. Especially, it is necessary to do academic research about succession training and development of the Korean Small and Medium sized family business SMEs. At this time, we need to start from the following research questions, how Korean family succession training and development is planned and uted, what educational contents and methods of the succession training and development are adopted, what issues Korean Small and Medium sized family business have encountered with succession training and development, and what stages does the management succession process of Korean family business SMEs have.
This study uses the case study method through in-depth interviews with two founders and six 2nd generation successors. The case study method is more relevant than surveys and statistical analysis. The data collected through in-depth interview is analyzed by content analysis, and we produce deliberate and qualitative information about the contents, methods, stages, periods, characteristics of trainee and trainer of succession training and development in Korean family business SMEs.
We have derived 20 propositions of management succession training and development, based on observable facts in 6 Korean Small and Medium sized family businesses. The Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely not to have a succession plan, in addition, Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely not to plan for succession training and development. (Proposition 1), the founder is likely to put the stress on the son as a 2nd generation successor when ing him as a succession development trainee. In addition, the founder is likely to put stress on the sincerity and the volition of family business of 2nd generation successor. (Proposition 2), the criteria of ion for 2nd generation successor are 'the son', 'integrity of 2nd successor', 'intention to taking family business of 2nd successor'. Also, the founder is likely to put stress on diligence and frugality, taking initiative, need for achievement, and trustfulness as the educational contents of succession training and development (Proposition 3), the founder is likely to put stress on the meaning of family business succession and businessman, management philosophy and insight of money as educational contents. (Proposition 4), the founder is likely to put stress on the capability of decision making and good judgment as educational contents. (Proposition 5), the 2nd generation successors want to learn personnel management know-how to get along with 1st generation business members. (Proposition 6), the 2nd generation successors are likely to learn practical knowledge and skills of the principal jobs and organizational culture and practices, while working as a employee. (Proposition 7), the 2nd generation successors want to learn the language and socio-cultural experience of foreign market countries. (Proposition 12), the 2nd generation successors want to experience the organizational life of larger local or global firms. (Proposition 13), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of 2nd generation successor's career development from an employee to the CEO with various jobs. (Proposition 7), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of apprentices (1:1 tutoring) for 2nd generation succession training and development (Proposition 8), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of management case study, discussing some management issues between founder CEO and 2nd generation successor. (Proposition 9), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of planning and managing actual business projects that 2nd generation successor takes charge of. (Proposition 10), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of joint management with founder and 2nd generation CEO. (Proposition 13), the founder CEOs are likely to be a model or exemplary for the 2nd generation successors to mimic or follow with observation. (Proposition 14), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of 2nd generation successor's getting experience at another larger company as an employee. (Proposition 14), Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are likely to adopt the educational method of 2nd generation successor's getting scholarships in other developed countries. (Proposition 15), ‘Discerning eye on people' or ‘Hungry spirit' can be trained through training and development programs, therefore 2nd generation successors should do self-directed learning. (Proposition 16), the term of succession training and development in Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 is from the childhood of the 2nd generation successor to the death of the founder. (Proposition 16), the stages of succession training and development in Korean SMEs founded in 1960～1970 are composed of observation learning (1st stage), OJT of principal job (2nd stage), training management decision making and judgement (3rd stage), and joint management training (4th stage). (Proposition 17), the founder is likely to control and train the management decision making or judgement of the 2nd generation successor when he is co-managing the enterprise. (Proposition 18), the 2nd generation successor's self-directed learning volition is likely to be the key success factor of succession training and development. (Proposition 19), there is a high possibility of conflict between founder and 2nd generation successor, because they have the duplex relationship of employer-employee and father-son. The relationship of father and son naturally facilitate competition each other. The positive or negative relationship between founder and 2nd generation successor is the important determinant of successful succession training and development. (Proposition 20).
This study sheds light on the importance of transferring implicit knowledge through long-term interaction and role change between the founder and 2nd generation successors. This study provides practical guidance to Korean family business founders and 2nd generation successor who are anticipating a succession through the derived observations. In addition, academically, this study can contribute to showing visible knowledge of Korean small and medium sized family business.
Korean small and medium sized family business are likely not to prepare systematic succession training and development in advance, but we can find several management succession training contents and techniques. It is likely to be the key success factor of succession training and development that the 2nd generation successor does self-directed learning with high achievement needs and motives. It is necessary to create a learning environment and opportunities to support him.

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).

Economically operating, a franchise system is being widely recognized as an organizational system that can flexibly respond to a fast-changing business environment. The system is of particular use, in that it could help small businesses with resource constraints to be competitive by providing an opportunity of utilizing outsourcing strategies rather than an integrated structure of firms. In this sense it appears that such a decentralized structure system is greatly attractive to franchisees. Research on the franchise system is based on three theoretical foundations: resource dependence theory, agency theory and transaction cost theory. From the resource dependence perspective, for instance, it is plausible to assume that a franchiser who establishes a new franchise system easily and usefully can attempt to overcome its own resource deficiency by securing a sufficient number of franchisees. This clearly indicates that the franchise system can be beneficial to both of parties.
Literature highlights that the key is to mitigate opportunistic behavior by franchisees for a successful operation of a franchise system. The transaction cost theory provides a sound theoretical explanation of why the success of the franchise system in business relies, to a great extent, on effectively managing the opportunism.
This study explores the nature and characteristics of opportunistic behavior acted by a franchisee and its antecedents and attempts to analyze their causal relationships in a franchise system. Regarding moderators in the linkages between opportunistic behavior and its antecedents, a vast majority of research focuses on how the concept of trust can be well built up to reduce the opportunistic behavior. From this point of view, a particular emphasis is placed on the moderating effects of environmental dynamism between the linkages.
Drawing on relevant literature, six major research hypotheses are developed to empirically clarify the effect of the antecedents on the opportunistic behavior and a conceptual model that illustrates the hypothesized paths is constructed.
H1 : In a franchise system, quality of relations between a franchiser and franchisee will have a negative effect on the propensity to act opportunistically or on opportunistic behavior.
H2 : In a franchise system, firm-specific investment in terms of franchisees will have a negative effect on the propensity to act opportunistically or on opportunistic behavior.
H3 : In a franchise system, the higher the extent of centrality, the greater the possibility of acting with opportunism.
H4 : In a franchise system, network size measured as the number of franchisees will have a positive effect on the propensity to act opportunistically or on opportunistic behavior.
H5 : In a franchise system, dependency will have a negative effect on the propensity to act opportunistically or on opportunistic behavior.
H6 : In a franchise system, environmental dynamism will moderate the relationship between all the antecedents and opportunistic behavior.
To test the hypotheses, data is gathered from a total of 831 franchisees that are identified as operating in domestic franchise systems using questionnaires and multiple regression analyses are run.
Results reveal that quality of relations between a franchiser and franchisee is found to significantly and positively affects opportunistic behavior. This finding indicates that franchisees could seek to avoid acting with opportunism when the franchisees perceive and recognize positively support provided by a franchiser and the franchisees voluntarily cooperate with their franchiser toward a mutual gain. It is also found that the higher the extent of centrality, the greater the possibility of acting with opportunism. In general, centrality tends to go hand in hand with the relatively lower level of opportunism in an organization. In a franchise system, however, it is clear that a franchise's headquarter has a limited level of control over franchisees as it has a form of the horizontal structure due to geographical disperse. Because of this line of reasoning, an attempt to get the level of control high could make franchisees recognize that a franchiser has a lower degree of trust for them, thereby leading to the high extent of opportunism. The results also indicate that network size measured as the number of franchisees has a positive effect on the propensity to act opportunistically in a franchise system. On the contrary, two other independent variables are found to insignificantly affect the consequence.
More importantly, the results of moderated regression analysis show that environmental dynamism is a significant moderating variable in the relationship between all the antecedents of opportunistic behavior suggested in the present study and the consequence. It is also found that the moderator is even significant in the linkage between the dependent variable and two independent variables - firm-specific investment and dependency - which are found to be insignificant in a linear regression analysis. This finding proves that franchisees that operate in a very dynamic business environment have a tendency to be strongly tied to their franchiser.
From these findings, several implications are presented. Since this research would be the first to place emphasis on environmental dynamism as a moderator that is expected to reduce an opportunistic propensity in a franchise system, it broadens the theoretical scope for research into a franchise system. This research also pays attention to the importance of network size in elucidating one of the reasons for opportunistic behavior of franchisees. Results indicate that the size of the network must be taken into careful account so as for a franchisee to avoid acting opportunistically to a significant extent. It provides a managerial implication that the franchise business should be run with the appropriate number of franchisees that a franchiser can take control over effectively. Additionally, the result shows that interaction between firm-specific investment and environmental dynamism plays a significant role in decreasing franchisees' opportunistic behavior. This denotes that, under an intensified dynamic and competitive environment, a franchisee is likely to invest firm-specific assets toward its franchise' policy.
Although it has these contributions and many practical implications, the present study also has some limitations. The analysis depends totally on one-way based data obtained by franchisees, which has the limitation of not reflecting the intention of the franchiser, thereby having room of occurring bias. This suggests that it would be meaningful if further research is conducted with dyadic data. Including the quality of communications and reputation of a franchise, more antecedents of opportunistic behavior need to be taken into consideration to have more robust results. In addition, it should be fruitful to link opportunistic behavior to performance. To perform a more robust test, it would be necessary to take account of other extraneous factors such as the prior business experience of a franchise's founder and ownership types which also could be influential on opportunism of franchisees in the relationship.

Credit loans for small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) have been one of the major issues on justification for supporting small-and-medium sized firms by governments because the capital flow into small-and-medium sized firms is not easy due to asymmetric information and market failure. It has been well known that the supporting policies of the Korean government for small-and-medium sized firms are various and broad compared with those in advanced countries. However, there has not been enough research on objective evaluations of policy supporting for small-and-medium sized firms and there have been different opinions on the evaluation methods and data used in analyses.
There has been some literature on the relationship between policy loan supporting and performances of SMEs in Korea. Kim (2004) used data on policy loan at firm-level over the period of 1998～2003 and analyzed the ratio of operating gains to revenue between firms with policy loan and firms without policy loan. Kim (2004) found that there is no difference between the two groups in the performance of the ratio of operating gains to revenue. However, there is some positive effect, in the short term, of policy loan on management improvement for the business establishment firms.
Noh (2010), using firm-level data, empirically analyzed the outcomes of SMEs investment associated with policy loans from 'Small and medium Business Corporation', a representative non-profit, government-funded organization. The sample size in Noh (2010) was about 20,000 SMEs supporting policy loans over the period of 2002～2008. He was concerned whether the policy loans made firms more profitable or do recipients simply have easier access to commercial credit without policy loans. According to the empirical results in Noh (2010), the policy loans, other things being equal, improved profitability of SMEs for the short-term period after the program was applied. The positive profit-enhancing effect is also stronger for start-up SMEs and SMEs in the earlier stages rather than older SMEs. Secondly, policy loans that have a significantly positive effect on the growth rates of sales is greater for the loans associated with venture SMEs in their start-up and early growth stages and with the commercialization of intellectual property rights and R&D results. Third, the effect of financial accessibility of the recipients to the commercial credit without policy loans has not been found in our financial data. These findings imply that when providing policy loans it is more desirable to target the prospective young SMEs rather than matured ones.
This paper analyzes the trends of productivity performances of the manufacturing sector in Korea by separating the manufacturing sector into three groups over the period of 2000～2008 and empirically examines the determinants of productivity by focusing on government's policy loans and market structure only for small and medium manufacturing sector over the period of 2005～2008 due to a data availability problem. In estimating total factor productivity, this paper uses the Malmquist productivity change index method, which decomposes productivity change index into efficiency change index and technical change index by using data envelopment analysis. In investigating productivity performances by industry size, this paper categorizes the sample of the Korean manufacturing sector used in this paper into three groups: small and medium sized manufacturing industries with less than 300 workers, middle-large sized ones with 300 or more workers and less than 1000 workers, and large-sized manufactures with 1000 or more workers. Based on three-digit manufacturing industry classification, the number of small and medium sized manufacturing industries, middle-large ones, and large sized ones is 82, 31, and 25, respectively, over the period of 2000-2008. The data used in estimating productivity performances is from the website of the Korean National Statistics Office. In estimating productivity, output is measured by value-added at industry-level and inputs are the number of workers as a proxy variable of labor and tangible fixed asset as a proxy of capital in production function. The data for policy loans is from the Small and medium Business Corporation.
According to the results on total factor productivity using the Malmquist productivity change index, large-sized manufacturing industries achieved the highest productivity performance and small and medium sized manufacturing industries achieved the lowest productivity performance over the whole period. In finding the sources of productivity performance, technical progress has played a more important role in small and medium sized manufacturing industries, while efficiency improvement has played an important role in middle-large and large sized manufacturing industries.
When we focus on the productivity performances by industry for small and medium sized manufacturing industries, manufacture of watches, clocks and its parts (C274), manufacture of articles of cork, straw and plaiting materials (C163), manufacture of weapons and ammunition (C252), manufacture of man-made fibers (C205), and manufacture of knitted fabric mills and fabric products (C133) are ranked the top 5 in productivity performance. On the other hand, major industries in Korea such as semiconductors, electronics and communication apparatuses, and motor vehicles are ranked in the middle class.
This paper also empirically analyzed the determinants of productivity performances in the small and medium sized Korean manufacturing sector by focusing on government policy loans to support small and medium sized firms and market structure. The sample used in this paper is eighty industries for small and medium sized manufacturing sectors over the period of 2005~2008. In estimating the determinants of productivity performances, this paper uses panel data methods, that is, fixed effect model and random effect model, and one of them has been ed by the Hausman test.
In measuring market structure, this paper calculates CR3 (concentration ratio of top 3 firms' sales share in the market) by industry based on 3-digit industry classification. According to the empirical results, there is a negative relationship between the degree of market power and productivity and the effect of government policy loans on productivity is very inelastic even though it has a positive relation with productivity performance.
Furthermore, both government policy loans and tangible fixed assets also have a positive effect on value added per worker. However, the latter has more important role in improving productivity rather than the former. The empirical findings in this paper imply that a more effective government loan policy is required to improve the productivity performance of small and medium manufacturing firms in Korea.
The limits of this paper are as follows: First, this paper uses the data at industry level rather than at firm level. However, firm level data would be more affordable because government loans are for individual firms and individual firm's management behavior would be reflected in productivity performances. Therefore, research on firm level data might be more reasonable. Second, the time period for the empirical test is relatively short, but there are short-term and long-term effects of policy loans on productivity. However, due to data availability this paper deals with only short period data..

With the recent utilization of information technology to secure competitive advantage, information system holds a key post in the business sector. Hence, minimizing information loss is the core competitive advantage that determines the ultimate fate of organizations, and information security is a crucial element for businesses.
Small and medium-sized organizations are also introducing various information technology and IT systems in order to secure competitiveness. Behind the information solution, however, lie a number of other issues: Lack of prevention systems and awareness of adverse effects of information technology as well as the possibility of leakage, allows exposure to even more risk. Numerous cases related to information security leakage have been reported both at home and abroad, stressing the need for constant alertness; thus, for small-medium companies to grow beyond survival, there must exist informationization as well as consideration of the possible detrimental effects of informationization, including preventative measures for such effects.
However, most companies introduce technical elements only as measures for information security, and subsequent measures for individuals within an organization are minimal. This is due largely to a lack of consideration of situational factors, such as corporal culture and environment; thus, information security should begin from companies' recognition of its undeniable importance. The fundamental issue of information security is based on human will and behavior; to protect information and system, it is important to configure effective policies-which is a management aspect, rather than a technical one-and motivate members of organizations to exercise the system.
The effectiveness of information security measures used by many companies today has not yet been verified; furthermore, consideration of members of organizations, from a private perspective, is insufficient.
Therefore, the study conducted empirical verification on the effect of behavior and information security awareness on a personal level, of the members of organization on information security performance, such that there should be a change of consciousness among members of small-medium companies in implementing information security of organizations in a new management environment.
In particular, the study broke away from the old fragmentary perspective that the information security awareness of members will lead information security performance, and presumed that information security awareness will influence information security behavior and also affect information security performance. To prove the affect of information security awareness on information security behavior, the study used rational behavior hypothesis correction, an intention-based model from the perspectives of cognitive behavior theories and social psychology, TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior), and TAM (Technology Acceptance Model). Cognitive behavior theories and intention-based models of sociological perspective suggest that human reasoning or cognition influence human emotion and behavior; based on these theories, the study applied the relations of information security awareness and information security behavior as a framework, presuming that the awareness people have of information security results in behavioral consequences.
The study conducted a survey targeting small-to-medium-sized companies with less than 1,000 employees, and the survey respondents were members of organizations. While many previous studies have focused on the IT or information security personnel of companies, the survey conducted in this study targeted general members of organizations, including IT personnel, considering the expansion of the use of information systems.
To verify the effects of the information security awareness of members of organizations on information security behavior of the company through information security awareness, we utilized structural equation modeling. For analyzing the causality of study variables, AMOS 18.0-which provides model-related assessment data-was used by estimating the computational results of unknown variables, thus confirming the goodness of fit of the models.
Hence, the study used structural equation modeling in order to statistically verify the human relations between independent variable (information security awareness), parameters (information security behavior) and subordination variables (information security performance) included in the study model.
The result of the first analysis of the study shows a significant difference in the path analysis of information security awareness and information security behavior.
It suggests that in order to induce information security behavior of members of an organization, information security awareness promotion should be carried out in advance.
However, the study showed a gap between the information security awareness and the information security behavior of respondents. While the respondents have relatively higher information security awareness and specialization, the study shows low information security behavior. That is, the results show that compared to the information security level of respondents, they have a low information security behavior level. Therefore, measures to increase information security behavior are required in addition to security education for remedial measures.
Second, the study showed that the information security behavior of organization members reduces the frequency of information security incidents and loss caused by incidents of organizations. Hence, based on the preceding research that information security awareness and information security behavior will affect information security performance, the study has proved that the information security of organizations is affected by psychological and behavioral factors of members. Unlike preceding research conducted under the assumption that awareness will affect performance, seeing information security awareness and behavior in the same line, the study confirmed that information security awareness affects information security performance through behavior.
Through the study result, we confirmed that improvement of information security awareness affects information security behavior, and when the level of information security behavior of organization members is improved, it will also enhance information security performance. As such, information security of organizations can be achieved when the level of information security awareness of members improves and from awareness to action. Ultimately, for successful information security in an organization, information security action is required through information security awareness promotion reaching every member.
For an organization to effectively implement information security management, information security awareness promotion for members is indispensable. With companies’ recent increased reliance on information technology, each member of organizations is required to practice information security awareness promotion and information security behavior in order to embody successful information security, as information loss will directly affect organizations performances.
The study result demonstrates the reason behind the direct affect of information security awareness of an individual on information security performance shows the importance of the roles of members of organizations. Consequently, companies desperately need measures for members of organizations’ spontaneous security information awareness, which will also protect technology - crucial information assets of companies. The study therefore, may suggest a foundation to find rational operation methods and configure information security direction according to behavior and awareness promotion on a personal level among members, and contribute further to decision making as well as effective information security investment.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model that depicts some crucial antecedents of relationship endings between exporters and importers across the border. Accordingly, this research model suggested the determinants of the relation end and path of termination process. Especially, this research identified the importance of voice (communication) types on the termination process
First, this paper discussed the determinants of distribution relationship ending in the international context. The determinants were divided into transaction cost related factors and social exchange factors.
Second, this research suggested the voice types as the mediator in the interaction phase. Therefore, the model presents what kind of voice type affects exit propensity.
Third, the effect of moderating variables (relationship length and psychic distance) between voice type and exit propensity were suggested
For the empirical test, the samples were randomly ed from 1650 manufacturing exporters which are registered with the KITA and KOCHAM. On the basis of MTI code, 9 industries were ed and then samples were collected by each industry rate. In order to test only for small-medium sized companies, companies with more than 300 employees were excluded. Finally, 398 samples (24.1%) were used for further analysis. To test the hypothesis, the structure equation model and path analysis were used. Warp PLS 1.0 (Partial Least Square) program was used for statistical analysis.
According to the test result, trust and satisfaction are identified as important determinants to improve constructive voice in the export channel relationship. However, transaction cost variables, like switching cost and investment, were not significant factors to improve constructive voice in the export channel relationship. In addition, this research showed that a more constructive voice would decrease the possibility of exit in the channel relation. Finally, all moderators were identified as the significant variables.

Many policy makers as well as scholars believe that stimulating new firm formation is a promising way to achieve economic growth since existing firms are not creating a lot of jobs. So, developing countries, including South Korea, tend to implement government policies to boost new start-ups through industrial policy programs such as tax exemptions, employment subsidies, and streamlining start-up procedures. However, the empirical evidence concerning the effects of new firm formation on economic development is far from being entirely clear. We still do not have sufficient proof or knowledge about the ways in which new firm formation shapes employment changes and what time period it takes until the effects become visible in empirical data.
This paper analyzes the short-term, medium-term and long-term effects of business start-ups on employment, and compares the degrees of the effects depending on the startup businesses' types of industries and levels of technologies. We calculate startup rates using the data from the Report on the Census on Basic Characteristics of Korean Enterprises by the Korean government (Korean Statistical Office), and estimate the relationship between the “start-up rates” and the rates of employment changes, using Almon polynomial lag procedure, which may reduce the multicollinearity problem using a lag distributed model. To decide the adequate length of lags, we use not only the Residual Mean Square, F-values, adjusted R2, and the Akaike Information Criterion(AIC) but also likelihood ratio tests. We do the homoskedasticity test and find that the data have heteroskedasticity. So, we use Huber-White Robust regression, which is known to correct the heteroskedasticity problem.
Scholars usually use the “start-up rates” meaning one of the two approaches: the ecological approach (business stock approach) and the labor market approach. We use the latter approach which defines the start-up rate as the number of workers divided by the number of start-up businesses, as Garofoli (1994) suggests, from 1995 to 2006. In the process of analysis, we control for the population density of 2006, lagged dependent variable, and spatial autocorrelation. The population density of regions may have a high correlation with various characteristics of the regions including their development levels, labor quantities, and wage levels. The lagged independent variable is included because of the possible reversed causality that a high employment rate may cause a high start-up rate. The spatial autocorrelation variable is included because a change in the start-up rate of a region may interact with that of adjacent regions.
We have observed that there are positive effects of business start-ups on employments for 1 to 10 years, which have three steps of the “direct effect,” the “replacement effect,” and the “inducement effect” like previous analyses such as Fritsch and Muller (2004). The effects of new business formation on employment changes over time in Korea show a wave (“S”) pattern, which is similar to the analysis on Germany (Fritsch and Muller, 2004), the United Kingdom (van Stel and Storey, 2004), Spain (Arauzo-Carod, Liviano-Solis and Marin-Bofarull, 2008), Portugal (Baptisa, Escaria, and Madrugo, 2008), South Korea's 7 major cities (Lee, 2009), and 21 OECD countries (Carree and Thurik, 2008).
The direct effect from t to t-1 time periods increases the employment rate by 0.320%p, the replacement effect from t-2 to t-6 years decreases the employment rate by 0.396%p, and the inducement effect from t-7 to t-10 years increases the employment rate by 0.139%p. The direct effect is larger than the inducement effect in Korea, and the indirect effect period is longer than that of the previously studied countries. Taking the 3 effects altogether, start-ups increases the employment rate by 0.062%p, which means one unit of new start-up out of 1,000 employees increases the employment rate by 0.062%p for 10 years. The regression results have the adjusted R2 of 0.179.
We have also shown that there are differences in the effects and the effecting periods among industries. Hospitality industries have a direct effect of 0.307%p, an indirect effect of -0.501%p, and an inducement effect of 0.224%p, and the overall effect is 0.029, which is the smallest in all industries due to the frequent entries and exits. Manufacturing industries show a direct effect of 1.276%p, an indirect effect of -2.677%p, and an inducement effect of 1.450%p, and the overall effect is 0.048%p, while the knowledge-based service industries have a direct effect of 3.170%p, an indirect effect of -3.229%p, and an inducement effect of 1.081%p, and its overall effect is 1.022%p, where there are the most pronounced ups and downs among the 3 categories.
The analysis shows that the effect of start-ups on the employment rate is larger in the knowledge-based service sectors than in manufacturing ones, where the former has a stronger direct effect, while the latter has a stronger inducement effect. In addition, service sectors, such as hospitality industries, show a strong short-term job creation effect, meaning that start-ups in knowledge-based industries have the largest effect on the employment rate at least for 10 years, while start-ups in manufacturing industries may have a larger effect for longer than a 10 year period because of the lingering technology spillover effects. Therefore, we believe that balanced startup promotion strategies between types of industries are desirable for continuous job creation and economic growth.
In addition, the paper analyzes that the effects of startups on the employment rate according to the level of technologies. The overall effects of start-ups of the high-, medium-, and low-technology sectors on the employment rate are -0.351%p, 0.982%p, and -0.208%p, respectively. The high technology manufacturing sectors have negative effects on the employment rate, which is contrary to our expectation, and which is probably because the time-horizon for the analysis is only 10 years and not long enough to catch the entire effect.
Medium technology manufacturing start-ups, however, contribute a net increase of job creation due possibly to the shorter period of waiting time for mass production, while low technology start-ups do not. The analysis shows that not the number of startups but the quality of start-ups matters, meaning that high and innovative technology startups have an important effect on the market efficiency and overall job creation. The results also suggest that building the infrastructure for risk-taking for innovative start-ups can contribute economic growth through economic restructuring and hence the enhanced competitiveness.
The paper analyzes the effect of start-ups for only 10 years, so a more general conclusion can be drawn for a longer time effect. In addition, we have not controlled for possible regional characteristics, which may have significant effects on the employment rate. Scholars could make a significant contribution to start-ups' job creation effects for further studies by considering demographic, industrial, environmental differences into analysis, using fixed effect or random effect models.

[Background] Local public technology centers, administrated by the prefectural and municipal government, have engaged in technological support for small local firms. The initiation of this regional innovation policy dates back to the modern economic growth in the 1880s. Local public technology centers offer various kinds of technological services such as testing, inspection, usage of experimental equipments, workshops for technology diffusion, technological consultation, funded research and joint research. They also conduct their own research, patent inventions and license out their patents chiefly to small local firms. Recently two structural changes forced local public technology centers to redefine their strategies in regional innovation systems. First, after a prolonged recession in the 1990s, the local authorities became highly cost-conscious, which led them to cut centers' budgets and to evaluate them more rigorously. Second, the reform of national innovation systems, symbolized by the incorporation of national universities in 2004, made knowledge interactions between small local firms and national universities more active, which has created a new source of knowledge for small local firms that performed R&D.
[Purpose] Under such circumstances, local public technology centers are required to establish their own strategies that match the characteristics of regional innovation systems. Since local public technology centers are administrated by local authorities, their strategy development represents regional innovation policy. Their strategies are predicted to be most effective when they are developed in accordance with the characteristics of regional innovation systems. Using a comprehensive database on local public technology centers, this study aims to quantitatively examine whether regional innovation policy represented as centers' resource allocation strategies during 2000 and 2008 is contingent on, or regardless of, the characteristics of regional innovation systems.
[Structure] First, I established the model to describe the characteristics of regional innovation systems. The model conceptualizes the local market for public technological services, such as technological consultation, workshops for diffusion of new technologies, material inspection, and joint research, from demand-side and supply-side perspectives. Demand-side factors are represented as the absorptive capacity of small local firms. Regions with more R&D-active small firms would exhibit more needs for high-quality public knowledge and more interactive channels, such as joint research, for knowledge transfer. Supply-side factors are represented as the activeness of national universities in the region to interact with small local firms via joint research. Regions with a national university willing to interact with small local firms would require local public technology centers to establish distinct strategies that do not overlap with the universities' role in the local market for public technological services. Second, I identified two key strategies that characterize technology transfer channels offered by local public technology centers. Based on factor analysis, various technological services provided by centers were integrated into two factors: the tendency to enhance the centers' own research capabilities; and the tendency to directly support small local firms. Then, I developed theoretical predictions about the relationships between regional innovation policy represented as resource allocation strategies of the centers and the characteristics of regional innovation systems where the center is located. Third, using a comprehensive dataset of local public technology centers, a statistical analysis was conducted to test whether centers' strategies were developed so that they would match the characteristics of regional innovation systems.
[Method] Based on the model that describes the characteristics of regional innovation systems, I introduced a proxy variable for demand-side factors of the local market for public technological services, i.e., the ratio of R&D-active small firms to the whole small firms in the region. A proxy variable for supply-side factors was the ratio of joint research projects between small local firms and national universities to all joint research projects conducted by national universities in the region. Two proxy variables were enabled to draw a scatter chart, where vertical axis denotes demand-side factors and horizontal axis denotes supply-side factors, representing the location of the 47 local authorities in Japan.
[Result] Four quadrants were identified by dividing a scatter chart by introducing averages of demand- and supply-side factors in the chart. For instance, a region (prefecture) in Quadrant II has small local firms with above-average absorptive capacity while universities in that region have below-average activity in knowledge interactions with small local firms. This implies that in such region, local public technology centers with high-quality technological knowledge can act as a significant spillover pool for small R&D-intensive firms in that region. An analysis of variance was conducted to test whether local public technology centers’ strategies adopted between 2000 and 2008 aligned with the regional environmental characteristics identified as four quadrants. The results show that there is no statistically significant difference in centers’ resource allocation strategies according to the characteristics of regional innovation systems. This implies that local public technology centers’ resources may not have been fully utilized as an engine for regional economic development.
[Contributions] Theoretical and policy implications derived from empirical results are as follows. First, based on the previous literature on regional knowledge spillovers, a model to describe the characteristics of regional innovation systems was developed. The model pictures the local market for public technological services from demand-side and supply-side perspectives. Linked to two distinct centers' strategies identified by factor analysis, this model enables us to infer theoretical relationships between regional innovation policy represented as resource allocation strategies of local public technology centers and the characteristics of regional innovation systems, which can be quantitatively examined. The newly developed model to understand regional innovation systems and empirical approach to examine the relationships between regional innovation policy and regional innovation systems can be applied to the assessment of regional innovation policy in other geographies. This constitutes the strength of the study. Second, with a comprehensive dataset of the centers, the aforementioned approach enabled us to quantitatively evaluate regional innovation policy on local public technology centers for the first time. This makes a clear contrast to the existing studies on local public technology centers based on case studies, where the generality of their implications are limited. Although local public technology centers have been considered to play an important role in regional economic development, the results suggest that they need to make their strategies more efficient so that their resources will be allocated in concord with the characteristics of the regional innovation system. The policy implications of this study are that local authorities and local public technology centers should precisely recognize their relative advantage in the region. Then it would be possible for them to rebuild guidelines that would help local public technology centers to contribute to the regional economic development in a more relevant manner.

The concept of the modularity is an operation strategy that designs standardized units that process independently, but functions as a whole by effective combination. This concept of modularity has been applied to design and develop the product for the components to be assembled in maximum variety in order to respond to the diversified and specialized needs of the customers in relation to the production in the manufacturing industry. It is known that the modular product structure is more flexible and applicable to changes compared to an integrated product structure and to increase the quickness of making the product by increasing the flexibility of the manufacturing process as well as enabling mass customization by producing diversified products economically. The concept of modularity has been developed intensively in the manufacturing industry, and the research on it has been spreading to the service industry recently but it is still scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out how we can apply modularity in developing business services by exploring literature related to modularity and deploying the idea of modularity into services.
Especially the hospital service amoung the service industries requires the customized diagnosis depending on the symptoms of an individual patient. The customization and agility are very important because the complaints of the visiting patients are mostly the waiting time and rapid action is necessary for emergency patients. The structuring of the service architecture made in a module is an essential industry consideration that the reduction of cost is very serious to relieve the burden of the patients. However, it is true that it is difficult to respond to the increasing patients’ requirements because many general hospitals still have a medical school department oriented organization structure regardless of the customer needs. Therefore, this study analyzes the service system change in large scale hospitals where they are recently changing from the conventional department oriented examining system to the specialized center for each disease oriented examining system through the modularity of the service architecture and the idea for structuring and suggestions are suggested.
The case analysis has been adopted as a method of this study. The case is the Kangdong Medical Center of Hallym University which is located in Korea and it was analyzed intensively focused on the ‘Ilsong Head and Neck Cancer Center.’ Hallym University Medical Center has established a 15 center oriented medical consulting system that is focused on the diseases of the patients to overcome the shortcomings of the previous 24 department oriented system and to establish a more effective medical process. The multi cooperative consulting system by many departments is essential for head and neck cancer such as the ENT-Head and Neck Surgery, plastic surgery, diagnostic radio active department, physician, pathology, department of radio active tumor and department of rehabilitation across the diagnostic process, the treatment, restoration, and the rehabilitation after the treatment.
The previous department oriented system had difficulties to acquire accurate data for the history of disease due to the lack of a cooperative consulting system and it was hard to correspond jointly and it had the disadvantage of difficulties in post management of patients. Also it was inconvenient for the patients to have a consultation in the place where each department is located due to the characteristics of the services industry where the production and consumption occurred concurrently. Kangdong Medical Center has established a center for expansive patient customized consulting for cancer related to the head and neck to solve such problems. In the other words, these departments are made into a module organization structure and the service module is provided while these departments are combined and separated easily at the sub-platform of the center. The customized services satisfying each customer's needs can be served promptly through easier constitution of the necessary departments depending on the condition of the patients of head and neck cancer while keeping the independence of these departments through such a system.
The head and neck cancer center has established the following process for the provision of the services made in modules. First, physical space was acquired. The cooperative consulting space and the space of a meeting room to exchange the various opinions by the medical staff from many departments were acquired by means of widening the space by 4 times compared to the previous consulting space via the Head and Neck Cancer Center which is newly established in the annex building of Kangdong Medical Center. Second, the treatment guidelines were made for the patients of head and neck cancer from the foundation hospital and it was allowed for the patients information to be shared through the patients data base pool and network creation and the manpower to take the joint consulting in each department and the chasing control for the cancer patients. Third, the medical system for the Head and Neck Cancer Center has been established. Especially, the mobile operation team was constituted for the circulating consulting for the foundation affiliated hospitals and any patients who are treated by visiting any hospitals under the foundation can have a surgical operation by the mobile operation team anywhere if it is necessary, including the center. Fourth, there was a tumor board which had been performed for all the cancer patients twice a month in Kangdong Medical Center, but an independent tumor board was established as diversified approaches and treatments are necessary for head and neck cancer patients. It can be said that the cooperative consulting system for each department became easier through this.
The analyzed results from the cases in the Ilsong Head and Neck Cancer Center and Gangdong Sungshim Hospital showed that the structuring of the modularity service architecture has increased the mass customization and agility in the medical service owing to the Head and Neck Cancer Center and customer satisfaction was improved and the efficiency of the service production was improved as well. In addition, it was revealed that it ultimately made a positive influence on the financial accomplishment of the hospital.
Conclusively we expect that many service companies can understand the basic concept for the modular design of the service architecture and to apply it to the service process improvement based on this in the future through this case. However, the limit of this study is that it is difficult to generalize the analyzed findings because the comparison analysis has not been made for the various cases and the results from the productivity improvement has not been investigated in detail because the data for the accomplishment analysis were not sufficient. More specified and precise analysis is necessary through related case studies and practical surveys..

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 ed 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 ed, 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.

As the competition becomes more intense in the business environment, business firms are paying more attention on how to achieve and maintain competitive advantages. Recently, the concept of business excellence is receiving attention from the business firms that are trying to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
Since the concept of business excellence was first introduced in the 1980s, quality management method was usually used to achieve business excellence. This paper suggests that project management can be a good vehicle to achieve business excellence by comparing the basic principles of business excellence with those of quality management and project management. The comparison shows that project management can support the concept of business excellence in terms of process management, that is, a systematic way of developing plans, organizing workforce, and uting the tasks. The process management capability is an important enabler of business excellence concept as can be seen in the EFQM Excellence Model.
Business firms can achieve business excellence more effectively and efficiently by employing the project management skills and knowledge. In this regard, it is necessary for business firms to possess a proper level of project management capability. Project management maturity is a level indicating a business firm's capability to manage project systematically. Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM) is a model that can help a business firm assess and improve its project management capability in comparison to the best practices known in the industry.
It is important and essential for business firms to improve their project management maturity because it is the project management capability that handles the special tasks, such as R&D activities to develop new products and new technologies, which have significant impacts on the survival and long term prosperity of a business firm in the increasingly competitive business environment. These are particularly important issues for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) since they are usually at disadvantage compared to the large firms in terms of resource and management capability. Literature review shows that there is not enough research done on investigating project management maturity issues for Korean business firms although it has important implications for Korean SMEs to improve their competitiveness against large firms.
In this research, we (1) developed a tool to measure the project management maturity of a business firm in the form of survey questionnaire; (2) conducted the survey and collected data from business managers who had participated in the projects that were carried out in both SMEs and large firms; (3) analyzed the data by comparing SMEs and large firms, and by industry types and the project sizes; (4) made a few useful suggestions from the results.
An empirical study was conducted by survey method and statistical analysis of the collected data. Data was collected from 204 managers in various industries such as construction, engineering, IT and telecommunication, manufacturing and production, R&D, etc. The questionnaire measured the responses from the managers regarding the perceived project management maturity levels of the projects in which they were involved. The questionnaire contained questions regarding the ten areas of project management knowledge: they were integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communication, risk, procurement, and professional ethics. The total number of questions was 49 excluding the respondent's personal information. The data was analyzed for comparison of the project management maturity levels of the groups by firm size, industry types, and project size. The results were summarized in tables to show the differences between and among the groups.
First, the project management maturity levels of SMEs and large firms were compared in terms of average scores in Table 5. For all ten knowledge areas, SMEs showed lower scores than large firms, and most of the average score differences between the two groups were statistically significant. This result indicates that SMEs seem to be less capable in project management capability compared to large firms, which again implies that the project performance by SMEs may be less satisfactory than those by large firms in terms of cost and schedule efficiency. The lower performance may also be related to the lower productivity for the projects conducted by the SMEs.
Second, the maturity levels were compared among different industries. The data was divided into four industry groups of construction and engineering, IT and telecommunication, manufacturing and production, and R&D industry. In each industry group, the data was again divided into the two groups of SMEs and large firms. Table 6 shows the results of the analysis. Except for very few cases, large firms showed higher scores of maturity levels compared to SMEs regardless of the industry type. One notable thing is that the differences between SMEs and large firms were the smallest for manufacturing and production industry. These results again confirm the superiority of large firms against SMEs in project management capability regardless of the industry type and the knowledge area.
Third, the differences in project management maturity levels were investigated by the project size measured in terms of budget assigned to the project. This analysis was motivated from the conjecture that large scale projects tend to use more human and capital resources compared to smaller scale projects, and therefore the project management process tends to be more systematic and structured, thus leading to higher scores of maturity levels. The projects were grouped into five categories based on the budget amount of the projects, and the number of projects assessed for each of the five maturity levels was counted. The results were presented in Table 7. The results showed that the large scale projects, e.g. with a larger budget, tend to have higher scores of maturity level than smaller scale projects, e.g., with a smaller budget. One possible explanation may be that the large scale projects use more resources in terms of manpower, capital, and equipment, and the business firms have greater necessity and motivation to manage the resources systematically and efficiently. Also, large scale projects may have better capability to establish structured project management processes and systems as well as to invest more time and effort in training the people. Therefore, large scale projects showed higher scores for project management maturity.
The results showed that there were clear and significant differences of project management maturity levels between SMEs and large firms, and among the industry types and the project sizes. The firms with different project management maturity levels may have different levels of project management capability, which will again lead to different levels of performance in terms of cost and time efficiency, and productivity. These days, all business firms desire to achieve business excellence. Project management capability is a very effective way to achieve excellence and sustainable competitiveness. Business firms need to pay attention and invest their time and effort to gain knowledge and to accumulate experience, which are essential elements for developing and establishing a mature project management processes and systems. PMMM will provide useful guidelines and an effective tool for assessing and improving the project management capability for business firms.