Determining factors for the adoption of e-business: the case of SMEs in Korea

This study investigates the determining factors of the successful adoption of e-business by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Korea using survey data. After the major determining factors were identified from the innovation adoption literature and were extracted by applying the principal component analysis to the survey data and by adding the country-specific characteristics of Korea, we conducted empirical analyses to determine the critical success factors for the adoption of e-business by Korean firms. The empirical results which are based on t-tests of the differences between adopters and non-adopters, the linear probability model, and the logit model, all suggest that the important determinants of the successful adoption of e-business by SMEs in Korea are: the CEO's knowledge of information technology (IT)/e-business, relative advantages and benefits from implementing e-business, governmental support, globalization strategy and the North Korean factor. Business size, the cost of e-business adoption and competitive pressure of the industry do not seem to play an important role in the adoption of e-business by Korean SMEs. The policy implications of this study on promoting e-business adoption by SMEs in emerging economies, such as Korea, are also discussed.     

中国与越南增值税制比较

中越两国都是在建设社会主义市场经济,实现经济体制转轨的大背景下引进增值税这一税种的,现在都已成为各自的第一大税种.同时两国在增值税纳税人、征税对象、税率、增值税类型、计算方法、进项税额的确定等方面都存在诸多差异.从比较中可以得到一些有益的思考,对于推动我国的增值税改革有着借鉴意义.     

An alternative approach to evaluating the agreement between financial markets

This research investigates that the price relationship between a stock index and its associated nearby futures markets can be explained by the cost-of-carry model using the concordance correlation (CC) coefficient in the US financial markets. The main purpose of this research is to confirm that the CC coefficient is an appropriate methodology to determine ex post arbitrage opportunities and to maximize ex ante arbitrage profits through the analysis of the price relationship derived from the cost-of-carry model. To increase the robustness of the results and to enable us to generalize our conclusions, this analysis is carried out in consideration of external uncertainty, including the marking-to-market procedure of futures contracts and the transaction cost on the stock index and its futures markets, under several assumptions related to the conditions of transactions. Examining transaction price data on the S&P 500 stock index and its futures markets shows that the CC coefficient gives a good result for ex ante arbitrage profits and is appropriate for analyzing the relationship between the observed stock index futures market price and its theoretical price derived from the cost-of-carry model.     

Exploring the Attitudes of Bottled Wine Distributors Toward Wine Producers in the Portuguese Wine Sector

The wine sector has unique features that have not been deeply studied. This study aims to explore the attitudes of bottled wine distributors toward wine producers in the Portuguese wine sector. Eleven interviews (about 60 min each) were carried out with all major wine distributor managers. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using qualitative software. Content analysis shows that distributors develop six main attitudes toward producers: (a) Long-term Relationship, (b) Cooperation, (c) Interdependence, (d) Product Quality, (e) Trust, and (f) Brand Image. Findings may help managers of the wine sector and promote favorable relationships with the distributing customers.     

The Role of NSOs in Assuring National Prosperity: A Case Study of Korea

As changes in the socio-economic environment become more rapid, so the role of statistics in society becomes more important. At the same time, the role of a national statistical office (hereafter NSO) as a provider of official statistics attracts increasing interest because the function of an NSO in a country assuredly depends on changes in the economic and social surroundings in pursuit of national prosperity.
In this paper, the strong relationship between the social and economic development of a country and the development of a national statistical office will be explicated using the example of Korea, which has experienced dynamic take-off in both economic and social sectors during the last 40 years. The progress of the Korean NSO will be studied in three time periods by looking at the socio-economic changes in each period, and how the NSO responded. In addition, as the Global Age emerged in the late 1990s, the Korean NSO started to encounter new demands at a time of limited resources and a worsening statistical environment. In light of this, several current issues and corresponding strategies for NSOs will be suggested.     

Inflation and Structural Change in 50 Developing Countries

This study provides evidence on whether the inflation rate is stationary or nonstationary using quarterly inflation rate data from 50 developing countries. As Johansen [Johansen, Soren. “Testing Weak Exogeneity and Order of Cointegration in UK Money Demand Data,” Journal of Policy Modeling, 14, 3, June 1992, pp. 313–334] put it, “some time series such as the log of prices (P), have the property that even the inflation rate ΔP is nonstationary, whereas the second difference Δ²P is stationarity.” Results from fractional integration analyses provide evidence of long memory and confirm that the nonstationarity threshold of d³0.5 is satisfied in the majority of the cases. Results from recursive analyses indicate that, despite the finding that structural changes influence the behavior of the estimated integration parameters, evidence of long memory and nonstationarity can be found in each subsample as well as the full sample data.     

Credit Management: An Examination of Policy Choices, Practices and Late Payment in UK Companies

A central element in developing credit management policy involves design choices on the extent to which credit activities are best managed internally or through specialist market intermediaries. This paper draws on the findings of a survey on the credit management practices and policies of large UK companies to: (1) Examine the type of firm most likely to enter into specialist external credit management structural arrangements; and (2) Identify contextual and credit policy choices influencing the credit period taken and late payment of debts. The study found that specialist intermediaries are not particularly common in large firms. The paper also identifies a number of contextual and policy variables that help explain variation in debtor days and late payment by customers.     

Information and adjustment in a local housing market

Existing studies on bubbles have been mainly concerned with investigating the stationarity properties of stock prices and market fundamentals. We develop a new method of testing for bubbles that relates the bubble component of stock prices to the probability of bursting in the context of the Weibull distribution. There were several eruptions and subsequent collapses of seeming bubbles over the past three decades: 1987 (Black Monday), 2000 (information technology (IT) boom) and 2007 (housing market boom). Using US monthly data for the S&P 500 and NASDAQ series, we have found that the S&P 500 series contained an explosive bubble only during the boom of the housing market that occurred before the 2007 global economic crisis, and the NASDAQ market contained an explosive bubble during the surge of stock prices peaking in 1987 and 2007, although our stationarity tests fail to detect the bubbles. No bubble was found in both the S&P and NASDAQ series during the 2000 IT boom. Our evidence corroborates the criticism that the traditional unit root and cointegration tests may not be able to detect some important class of bubbles.     

The fashion‐conscious behaviours of mature female consumers

Under‐appreciation of mature consumers as a numerous and comparatively wealthy market segment has resulted in not only lost revenues for business, but also lost consumption and service opportunities for the elderly. In response to expressed needs for more research into actual and desired consumption by older consumers, this study examined the apparel and shopping preferences of mature women in America. Independent living residents were surveyed concerning fashion consciousness, fashion information sources and shopping behaviours. Young and mature consumers’ reactions to female apparel ensembles were compared. Mature subjects purchased apparel for pleasure or need, but less for conformity. Decisions were influenced more by fit and comfort than by fashion, despite suggestions that dressing stylishly was important. New fashions were encountered via catalogue illustrations, social gatherings and window displays. Subjects high in fashion consciousness had greater financial and social involvement with fashion, greater chronological‐to‐cognitive age differences and larger clothing budgets. Young and mature consumers’ responses to apparel illustrations differed significantly. As the mature market expands, attention to age‐divergent definitions of fashion (such as those based upon admiration of comfort) will determine the success of apparel businesses. Assessment of cognitive age will facilitate identification of those mature consumers most predisposed toward fashion consumption.