This paper examined the nonlinear R&D-innovation relationship of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and the interactions between technology intensity of sectors on R&D-innovation relationship. Using 3,435 firm-year panel data in South Korea, this study found that R&D investment has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovative sales and applied patents such that innovative sales and applied patents increase at a decreasing rate as R&D investment increases. In addition, the R&D-innovation relationship of SMEs in high-tech sectors become more linearly strengthened and the mechanism of diminishing returns to R&D investment become weakened as R&D investment increases. However, the innovation performance of SMEs in low-tech sectors, measured as innovative sales, was better than those of SMEs in high-tech sectors. In addition, the average marginal effects of SMEs in low-tech sectors were higher than those of SMEs in high-tech sectors.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between supply chain sustainability antecedent, supply chain competence, and supply chain sustainability. The relationship between supply chain sustainability antecedence factor and supply chain competence, supply chain competence and supply chain sustainability and to identify the differences between sustainability antecedence factors, capacity and sustainability depending on the size of the firm. To accomplish this, each research hypothesis was established and the results are as follows.
First, compliance with environmental regulations, NGO response activities, CSR activities, and trade fairness were found to have a significant positive impact on manufacturing agility, environmental management, and social capital. And manufacturing agility, environmental management, and social capital has been confirmed that most of the economic, environmental and social sustainability have a significant positive influence. In addition, it has been confirmed that there are differences in the factors of supply chain sustainability, capacity, and sustainability depending on the size of the company.
According to the results of the study, environmental regulation compliance, NGO response activities, CSR activities, and fairness factors ed as the leading factors of supply chain sustainability play a role as fundamental prerequisites for supply chain competence to achieve sustainability. Manufacturing agility, environmental management, and the formation of social capital have confirmed that they can raise the level of economic, environmental and social sustainability. Therefore, it was confirmed that the enhancement of supply chain sustainability precedence factors can lead to enhancement of supply chain competence, and furthermore, sustainability of supply chain. Compared with large corporations, SMEs' supply chain sustainability precedence factor, capacity and sustainability should be further improved.

This study investigates the effect of CEO tenure on firm performance with the data from 281 large publicly traded companies from 2001 to 2015. In addition to the conventional variables used in the CEO tenure-firm performance research such as age, education, area of expertise, and equity position, we focus on the role of CEO’s career concerns, a psychological variable, in mediating the relationship between CEO tenure and firm performance. Results of the analysis show that CEO tenure has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance. Shorter-tenured CEOs, who have not had enough time to build their reputation and, as a result, have a higher level of career concerns, are more likely to do their best to improve firm performance. However, longer-tenured CEOs, whose reputation have already been established and have less career concerns, have less incentive to maximize firm performance. This research is expected to contribute to the literature by incorporating CEO’s psychological state in explaining the CEO tenure and firm performance relationship.

This study investigates the effects of the dynamics of the firm’s reputation on performance. Particularly, we argued that not only the level of reputation but also the trend and volatility of reputation plays an important role in formulating the stakeholders’ perception about the firm. From our empirical analysis of the U.S. venture capital firms between 1990 and 2010, we found that the level and trend of reputation are positively related to performance and that these relationships are weakened when the volatility of reputation increases. This paper discusses the theoretical contributions and practical implications of these findings.

Impact investing refers to investment made into social enterprises and social funds with the intention to generate a measurable social or environmental impact alongside a financial return. In this study, we examine the current state and industry recognition of impact investing in South Korea. The survey was conducted on ten financial intermediaries working in the Korean impact investing sector. The result shows that Korean impact investing market is still in the emerging stage and has not yet begun to invest in the growth stage of social enterprises. Korean intermediaries’ opinion on the problems of impact investing is in the same line with foreign impact investors’. They focused on a few key constraints as the most significant challenges; the shortage of high quality investment opportunities with track record, and the lack of appropriate capital source and innovative deal/fund structures across the risk/return spectrum. Theses challenges are mainly related to the market failure problem embedded in social enterprises. Impact investing has higher risk of deficit than commercial investment and so this risk should be resolved by new financial mechanisms such as various mix of grant, guarantee, and catalytic patient capital which the public and philanthropic sector usually provide with. This study presents a set of policy imperatives to nurture the impact investing ecosystem in South Korea; raising national fund of social finance, developing an innovative deal structure with catalytic capital, nurturing intermediary organizations, reforming regulations, developing new tax incentives, enhancing investment-readiness of investees, disseminating social impact assessment, and establishing an impact investing network across the sector.