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The studies focusing on inbound logistics in the automobile industry have been limited because of the relatively small portion of logistics cost. But now it is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of supply chain management (SCM). The survey of suppliers in the automobile industry conducted in this study indicated significant relationships among logistics performance, logistics outsourcing, and performance evaluation level. This research is three-fold. First, current status of part supplier's logistics was analyzed by interviews with inbound logistics providers and suppliers. Second, management type of logistics was analyzed. There were three kinds of logistics -two kinds of logistics outsourcing and direct control by the supplier. Each type of logistics management showed differences about performance. Third, logistics performance evaluation and its relation with the actual logistics performance were presented. Comparable performance evaluation factors were selected, and it is shown that they had a correlation with actual performance.

Enterprise systems are commonly implemented by firms through outsourcing arrangements with software vendors. However, deriving benefits from these implementations has proved to be a challenge, and a great deal of variation has been observed in the extent of value generated for client and vendor firms. This research examines the role of co-specialization as a strategy to make the most out of outsourced enterprise systems. The authors develop hypotheses relating resource co-specialization with two indicators of success for implementation of enterprise software: (1) exchange success and (2) firm growth.

The hypotheses are tested using a unique panel data set of 175 firms adopting Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software, a type of enterprise system used for managing manufacturing and logistics. The authors identify organizational factors that support co-specialization and then examine how co-specialization is associated with enterprise software implementation success, controlling for the endogenous choice to co-specialize.

The empirical results suggest that resource co-specialization is positively associated with implementation success and that the two resource co-specialization pathways that are examined complement each other in providing performance benefits.

This paper contributes to the research literature on outsourcing. The study also provides a new empirical test using a unique data set of 175 firms adopting APS Software.

Competition among seaports is rapidly increasing due to various factors such as the global recession, resurgence of COVID-19, tight environmental regulations of IMO, sharp rise in ocean freight charges, increasing global uncertainties and growth in ship sizes. It is essential to have precise knowledge of shipping companies' port selection factors to secure the competitive advantage of seaports. This study aims to empirically analyze recent changes in the importance of port selection factors.

By employing a longitudinal study, this study conducted the t-test analysis. The first survey was conducted from January 2005 to April 2005. Then, the second survey was conducted in May 2021.

First, the importance of port facilities (berth length and the number of berths, shed and terminal areas, possession of adequate equipment and maximum berth size) increased significantly. Second, while ship and cargo safety were the critical port service factors in previous studies, speed, flexibility and reliability for handling cargo and berthing schedule were found to be crucial in this study. Third, the importance of ship arrival/departure frequency, route diversity and ship arrival/departure information systems increased when shipping companies selected the port.

This study has academic significance in that it reveals the changing importance of port selection factors in the 2020s and has taken the form of a longitudinal study on the importance of port selection factors from 2005 to 2021, moving beyond the cross-sectional approach. This study can provide valuable insights into and implications for port policymakers and managers when developing and formulating port policies and strategies.

There are two aims of this research: one is to prove the interactive effect of supply chain integration (SCI) on performance and the other is to ascertain gaps in performance among levels of SCI. The population of this research is international freight forwarders and the collected data is used in testing hypotheses through various analytical methods such as factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, cluster analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, ANCOVA, post hoc analysis and regression analysis. First, the interaction between internal integration and external integration improves customer performance and financial performance. The forwarders improve internal processes following information acquired from customers and the information is shared with logistics service providers, followed by high performance. Second, gaps in performance among levels of SCI are verified. Managers of the forwarders make strategic decision making on the basis of their recognition of environment and, as a result, the forwarders enjoy different performance.

There are three aims of this research. One is to verify the mutual effects between internal collaboration and external collaboration, another is to prove performance improvement among different levels of supply chain collaboration, and the third is to analyze gaps between the two viewpoints. The population is Korean FDI firms in China and 208 data are used in the analysis. The data are treated with various methods: exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, SEM, cluster analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA and post hoc analysis. The results are as follows. First, external collaboration and internal collaboration have positive effects on each other, which have a positive effect on performance. This means that efficiency of internal processes is the cause of promoting connection with external processes and information generated from the market is the basis of a variance of internal processes, followed by high performance. Second, service performance improvement is more definite than cost performance improvement among different levels of supply chain collaboration. Firms can achieve more definite results in service performance when they perform supply chain collaboration. Third, this research verifies both the viewpoint of directions of supply chain collaboration and the strategic choice viewpoint of supply chain collaboration to better understand supply chain collaboration. Both viewpoints approach supply chain collaboration from different viewpoints but they do explain the methods for performance improvement.

The centralized processes of today’s power trading systems are complex and pose a risk of price tampering and hacking. The decentralized and unmodifiable nature of the blockchain technology that has recently been highlighted offers the potential to improve this power trading process. The purpose of this study is to implement a system to apply the blockchain technology to the problem of power trading.

The authors modeled the power trading problem as the interaction between admin, producer and consumer nodes. And a power trading scenario has been created for this model using a blockchain platform called Multichain which is both fast and highly scalable. To verify this scenario, they implemented a trading system using Savoir, a Python-based JsonRPC module.

Experimental results show that all processes, such as blockchain creation, node connectivity, asset issuance and exchange transactions have been correctly handled according to the scenario.

In this study, the authors have proposed and implemented a power trading method that determines price according to the pure market principle and cannot be manipulated or hacked. It is based on the nature of blockchain technology that is decentralized and cannot be tampered.

China is currently developing and promoting an industrial cluster policy at the government level. By enacting the ‘Opinion on promoting industrial cluster development’, China is supporting the development of industrial clusters. Building an industrial cluster is done by using a single factor but requires many additional factors like regional characteristics, competitiveness factors are also diversified. To evaluate the competitiveness of the Chinese automobile industry cluster, a competitiveness element index should be developed and a competitiveness evaluation method is needed to evaluate the importance of each element. To accomplish this objective, this research applied the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and focused on the importance of the competitiveness elements.

This research investigated the character is tics regarding cases of clusters and also analyzed the competitiveness of the Changchun automobile cluster located in northeastern China. The purpose of this research is to help Korean enterprises who enter China in the hopes that Korea will emerge as a top automobile production country.

In current business management, knowledge is considered to be a strategic resource that can strengthen an organization’s competitiveness. Today, under the process of continuous globalization, almost all companies are rapidly exposed to global competition regardless of their scale or type of business. However, multinational management is very complicated and uncertain and it is hard for multinationals to effectively coordinate and manage their global value chains. In light of this, the utility of multinational management based on knowledge is increased. The present study examines multinational firms’ knowledge management systems, knowledge creation processes and global supply chain performance and attempts to reveal any significant linkages between these latent variables. For this research interest, we proposed 18 items to measure four types of knowledge creation processes (SECI) designed by Nonaka (1994) and revised by authors considering the global business environment, in particular involving the global supply chain management concept. Utilizing the confirmed SECI model, 128 sample companies were classified into four groups according to the levels of their knowledge creation processes. The empirical results of this study reveal important linkages between a multinational firm’s knowledge management system and knowledge creation process, as well as between its knowledge creation process and global supply chain management performance. In particular, the current work suggests that the creation and conversion of tacit knowledge as well as explicit knowledge can be effectively supported by information and communication technology.

This study investigates the influence of theoretical determinants on the Korea sovereign CDS spreads from January 2007 to September 2009 based on structural credit risk model. For the analysis of determinants on the sovereign CDS spread, this study adopts interest swap rate as reference interest rate, and decomposes yields curve into two components, ie, interest level and slope. Considering multivariate regression in level and difference variables, Stock returns and Interest rates have a significant effect on the CDS spreads among the theoretical determinants of structural credit risk models. CDS spreads may behave quite differently during volatile regime compared with their behavior in tranquil regime. We therefore apply Markov switching model to investigate the possibility that the influence of theoretical determinants of CDS spread has a regime dependent behavior. In all regimes Korean sovereign CDS spreads are highly sensitive to stock market returns, whereas in tranquil regime interest rates also have influence on CDS spreads. We conclude that for the efficient hedging of CDS exposure trader should adjust equity hedge ratio to the relevant regime.