The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of retailers and wholesalers on the employment in the manufacturing industry in Korea. So, this study would like to provide the basic data about the reason why small and medium sized retailers and wholesalers should be protected and promoted. For the empirical analysis, this study used the labor demand model based on the economic theory, built the panel data, and estimated this model using the first difference GMM and system GMM developed by Arrelano and Bond (1991) and Blundell and Bond (1998). Results of estimation showed that small retailers and wholesalers had a strongly positive effect on increase employment in manufacturing industry in Korea. Thus, policies targeted at making small sized retailers more competitive are able to say valid for Korean economy. Meanwhile, small sized retailers and large sized retailers should not see each other as only competitors, but as complementary in the wider context. The retail and distribution industry plays an important role in the nation's economy and therefore efforts to establish a healthy system for the development of this industry are needed.

Since Chesbrough (2003) brought up the idea of “open innovation”, many firms have used open search strategy. This paper tries to examine the effect of external search on innovation performance and speed in SMEs. Based on Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) of 1353 SMEs of manufacturing firms in Korea, we find that searching deeply from external sources is positively related to radical innovation performance. In contrast, searching broadly from external sources is positively related to incremental innovation performance. In addition, search breadth is negatively related to innovation speed. These findings implicate that aligning open search strategy with a firm’s goal is important. In other words, searching deeply or broadly may depend on whether the firm intends to introduce “new to world” products or “new to firm” products. Also, firms should consider innovation speed in applying search strategy.

Due to the intense competition in the Korean financial market and the increasing importance of Asian market after 2008 financial crisis, it is inevitable for financial institutions to expand the operation into the global market including Asian market. Hana Financial Group (HFG), a Korean banking leader, considers how best to expand overseas in order to wrest itself from a competitive stalemate in its domestic market. HFG expanded by a “choose-and-focus” strategy in China and localization strategy in Indonesia, while establishing a foothold by an acquisition of a local bank into the US. This paper evaluates the expansion strategies of globally-integrated players, regionally-focused players, and evolving challengers especially since the 2008 global financial crisis. And we point out relevant lessons HFG can learn in building its own expansion strategy in the dimensions of market entry, management, and corporate governance. Drawing on these lessons and HFG’s own strengths and opportunities, this paper suggest HFG pursue a ‘Global-Local’ strategy, with further discussion revealing a critical opportunity in the area of small and medium enterprise (SME) banking. Since there are many challenges to overcome barriers such as the incumbent first mover banks from advanced countries, Korean banks’ intense competition in specific regions and local regulation on banking industry, HFG needs to develop a set of refined specialized strategies in promoting SME banking services, while minimizing risks associated with the international expansion.

This study examines the differences in the value-relevance of revenue between KOSPI firms and KOSDAQ firms during the 1998-2012 period. First, this study finds that revenue is incrementally value-relevant only for KOSPI firms. Second, this study examines the value-relevance of revenue over time. Result reveals that revenue has been incrementally value-relevant in recent years for KOSPI firms, whereas revenue is not reliably value-relevant for KOSDAQ firms. Prior literature has investigated whether revenue is particularly important in situations where revenue (earnings) are perceived as more (less) informative. This study adds to the existing revenue research by documenting the differential usefulness of revenue between stock markets with different features.