Wonjoon Kim

Effect of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on global public acceptance of nuclear energy

The Fukushima nuclear disaster has significantly changed public attitudes toward nuclear energy. It is important to understand how this change has occurred in different countries before the global community revises existing nuclear policies. This study examines the effect of the Fukushima disaster on public acceptance of nuclear energy in 42 countries. We find that the operational experience of nuclear power generation which has significantly affected positive public opinion about nuclear energy became considerably negative after the disaster, suggesting fundamental changes in public acceptance regardless of the level of acceptance before the disaster. In addition, contrary to our expectation, the proportion of nuclear power generation is positively and significantly related to public acceptance of nuclear energy after the Fukushima accident and government pressure on media content led to a greater decrease in the level of public acceptance after the accident. Nuclear energy policymakers should consider the varied factors affecting public acceptance of nuclear energy in each country depending on its historical, environmental, and geographical circumstances before they revise nuclear policy in response to the Fukushima accident.

The effect of the triple helix system and habitat on regional entrepreneurship: Empirical evidence from the U.S.

The ‘triple helix’ of the university–industry–government relationship and habitat are accepted as important determinants of innovation and entrepreneurship. However, empirical explorations of the effects of these variables and their interrelationships on regional entrepreneurial activities are highly limited. To fill this gap, we investigate the effect of the triple helix system and habitat on birth and death rates of U.S. firms at the state level. As expected, we find that industrial R&D expenditure plays an important role in promoting regional firm birth. However, university and government R&D also generate a synergistic effect that indirectly influences regional firm birth rates. In addition, we find that the synergy between university and industrial R&D enhances the sustainability of firms, while the interactions between (1) university and government R&D and (2) government and industrial R&D are associated with an increase in firm death. Other factors linked to more favorable conditions for firm formation include higher educational attainment in a region, lower tax rate, and habitat factors affecting quality of life, such as lower housing prices and higher rates of health insurance coverage. In regions with high entrepreneurial activity, we find positive synergistic effects of the interactions between (1) university and government R&D and (2) university and industrial R&D on firm birth rate, suggesting that university R&D plays an important role as an ‘entrepreneurial mediator’ among the three spheres in the triple helix system. In low entrepreneurial regions, the only triple helix system factors significantly influencing firm birth rate were tax rate. This finding suggests that the independent and interdependent components of the triple helix system and habitat are less powerful in low entrepreneurial regions.

The heterogeneous effect of WOM on product sales: why the effect of WOM valence is mixed?

Previous literature on WOM has consistent findings on the positive and significant effect of WOM volume on product sales, but literature on WOM valence has been mixed. In this study, we explain the reason for the mixed effect of WOM valence on product sales by considering heterogeneous characteristics of products, especially in a movie market, by segmenting products into mass and niche movies. We find a significant effect of WOM valence on box office revenue only in the case of niche movies, which have relatively smaller marketing budgets than mass movies. Our findings suggest that as marketing communication channels become more diverse with larger marketing budgets, the effect of online WOM valence on product sales can be diluted. In addition, we find that the effect of WOM volume on box office revenue is greater for mass movies, suggesting that consumers place greater credibility on products with larger WOM volume, especially for experience goods of uncertain quality. Our findings explain the weak relationship between WOM valence and product sales, which have been controversial in WOM literature, and broaden our understanding of WOM effect on product sales.

Dynamic patterns of technological convergence in printed electronics technologies: patent citation network

The importance of the convergent approach to technology development has increased recently. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of technology convergence, which refers to the combination of two or more technological elements in order to create a new system with new functions, is an important issue not only for researchers in technology development, but also for company directors for their successful management of product competitiveness. Therefore, in order to investigate the patterns and the mechanism of technological convergence, we examine the printed electronics technology which has typical characteristics of technology convergence. Based on the printed electronics-related patents registered between 1976 and 2012, we perform network analysis of the technology components in order to identify key technologies which played a central role among the groups of convergence technologies and to examine their dynamic role corresponding to the development of technology convergence. The results show that control technologies which control the role of other technologies over the technology convergence process play significant role. The centrality value is highest in the case of control technology, and devices related technologies have the largest number of patents quantitatively, thereby confirming the results. In addition, the trajectory analysis of the centrality value reveals a co-evolution pattern in technology convergence.

Measuring the Role of Technology-Push and Demand-Pull in the Dynamic Development of Semiconductor Industry: The Case of the Global DRAM Market

This paper reexamines and resolves the long dispute over the source of technological innovation by suggesting an integrated technology-push and demand-pull model. We derive an equilibrium model within the framework of differentiated product analysis and explain the dynamic interaction between these two sources of innovation. Based on the empirical analysis of the global DRAM market, we show that the relative importance of technology-push and demandpull in technological innovation is described by an L-type curve which describes the phenomenon where technology-push is greater than demand-pull in the early stages and then decreases as demand-pull becomes greater. Our finding suggests that the role of supply and demand is different in inducing technological change and their relative importance changes with product development over the technological life cycle; the marginal prices of products are an important factor in determining the principal forces of technological innovation between these two sources.

From valence to emotions

Word-of-mouth (WOM) in the form of online customer reviews has received considerable attention by practitioners and academics. Prior literature has focused more on the understanding of the phenomenon using the frequency or overall rating/valence information of WOM, while questions on how firms can potentially use or design online WOM platforms and benefit from it based on the content of WOM are still open, and need more attention from researchers. In addition, an important antecedent for the generation of word-of-mouth is a strong emotional imbalance known as schema discrepancy, which is considered to trigger the consumer to post a customer review online. However, only a limited number of studies to date have actually examined the emotional content of reviews to validate this line of reasoning. To fill this gap, we analyzed the emotional content of a large number of online product reviews using Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods. We find that there is a difference in the emotional content of reviews across search and experience goods in the early stages of product launch. However, interestingly, these differences disappear over time as the addition of reviews reduces the information asymmetry gap. This suggests that traditional experience goods are evaluated more like search goods in online environments, because consumers can easily evaluate attributes of products prior to purchase based on the reviews accumulated. In addition, we find that more extreme reviews have a greater proportion of emotional content than less extreme reviews, revealing a bimodal distribution of emotional content, thereby empirically validating a key assumption that underpins much of the extant literature on online WOM. Furthermore, reviews have a greater proportion of positive emotional content within positive extreme ratings as compared to negative emotional content within negative extreme ratings which is a major factor in online WOM generation, and helps explain the commonly observed J-shaped distribution of reviews. Our findings suggest important managerial implications regarding product development, advertisement, and platform design using WOM content. Analyzed emotional content of online product reviews using Natural Language Processing methods.Experience goods have more emotional content in the early stages of product launch.As reviews are generated, they end up having the same emotional makeup as search goods.Suggests that traditional experience goods are evaluated more like search goods in online environmentsReview length peaks at mid rating reviews suggesting the most rational reviews at mid ratingsGreater proportion of positive emotional content within positive extreme ratings as compared to negative case

The effect of a firm's strategic innovation decisions on its market performance

Until recently, different types of innovation strategy have been introduced in innovation studies. However, their effects on firms’ market performance have been underexplored. To overcome this limitation, we empirically examined the effect of different innovation strategies on firms’ market performance using the panel data for 2496 firms obtained from Korea Innovation Survey (2010). In doing so, we categorise firms depending on whether their products are new to the firm or to the market and whether they are incremental and radical, giving us a 2×2 matrix of innovation strategy. We found that, in high-tech industries, an innovation strategy of ‘new product targeting existing markets’ and ‘improved product targeting new markets’ was less effective for increasing sales growth than ‘improved product targeting existing markets’. However, in the case of medium-high tech industries, an innovation strategy of ‘new products targeting existing markets’ was the most effective strategy.

Improvements in electrical properties of (Ba,Sr)TiO3 capacitor with chemical vapor deposited Pt top electrode using Pt hexafluoroacetylacetonate

Electrical properties of (Bs,Sr)TiO3 (BST) thin films are characterized with sputtered and metal organic chemical vapor deposited (MOCVD) Pt top electrodes. BST films with MOCVD Pt top electrodes, which were deposited using Pt(CF3COCHCOCF3)2 (Pt-HFA) as a precursor, showed less leakage current without bulged curves and a higher dielectric constant than those with sputtered Pt top electrodes. The improvement of electrical properties seems to result from the reduction of interface trap sites with the incorporation of fluorine atoms from HFA ligands.

Identifying the structure of knowledge networks in the US mobile ecosystems: patent citation analysis

ABSTRACT With the emergence of smartphones, the paradigm of the mobile ecosystem has changed rapidly. In particular, global mobile firms focus on technological competition when jostling for market position in recognition of the strategic need to secure a strong mobile platform. In this paper, we analyse the network structure of technological knowledge flows in mobile ecosystems using US patent citation information. We find that two subsectors, platform providers and application and software providers, are at the centre of knowledge exchange activity and play a brokerage role as the key knowledge mediator. Then, we categorise mobile firms into five different groups based on the patterns of their network centrality: knowledge keystone players, knowledge-distributing mediators, knowledge-absorbing mediators, catch-up players, and pure knowledge receivers. The categorisation of firms demonstrates that knowledge flows in the mobile industry converge towards a few leading firms, and such patterns are shaping the mobile ecosystem with respect to technological knowledge. The firms categorised as catch-up players have played a brokerage role within their group, while the firms categorised as knowledge keystone players play a brokerage role across different groups.

Reference Quality-Based Competitive Market Structure for Innovation Driven Markets

Innovation-driven durable goods markets see substantial changes in quality and available choice sets and subsequent changes of the reference quality in the market over time. Considering the multi-attribute characteristics of these goods, it is important for businesses to identify attribute-specific competitive landscapes and develop competitive innovation strategies at the product attribute level. Therefore, this paper proposes a reference-dependent choice model for product quality at the product attribute level that can capture the asymmetric effect of innovation shocks on product demand, i.e., the innovation elasticity of demand, as well as the competitive market structure in product innovation. Moreover, we confirm that there is a certain quality span for a product attribute where the values of products depreciate most significantly due to innovation shocks, which we refer to as the innovation shadow zone. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in developing attribute-specific product innovation strategies using U.S. mobile telephone market data.