연구홍보포털

논문 초록 (Abstract)

Product liability (PL), which began enforcement in 2002, refers to the legal responsibility of the manufacturers or sellers (wholesales or retailers) for the property damage or bodily harm caused by their product. With a strong enforcement of theProduct Liability (PL) Act, companies are required to structure and operate a response syste m to defend or prevent productaccidents efficiently, but small and m edium enterprises (SMEs) are unable to respond more aggressively due t o limitation of management resources. In this manner, it is import ant to develop response strategies for SMEs to efficiently cope with th ePL Act. In this paper, the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) analysis is performed to reveal the impact of t he PL Act on SMEs in macro-economic point of view. To formulate SME’s P L response strategy, SWOT analysis isperformed to categorize ea ch factors from PEST analysis and AHP is applied to identify the intensities of SWOTfactors. The prioritized SWOT factor, res ults of PEST-SWOT-AHP analysis, are used to formulate SME’s PL respo nse strategies. The study results are briefly summarized as follo ws. To reduce product defects, it is necessary for SMEs to formulate PL response strategies for each phase of the product life cycle by continuously collecting and analyzing PL cases in the same i ndustry or for similar products. In addition, SMEs should invest more technological effort to ensure product safety. Further, SMEs should spread PL awareness to all staff members by training internal PL experts. Moreover, a S ME should enroll in PL insurance and spread this information to its cus tomers so that they become aware that the companyis proactively conform ing to the PL law.