The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015
The Importance of Organization
Innovation Focused on the Nexen
Heroes
Jae-Soo Do* & Kyoung-seok Kim**
*Master's Course, Department of Management, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, SOUTH KOREA.
E-Mail: dmhdjs{at}naver{dot}com
**Professor, Department of Management, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, SOUTH KOREA. E-Mail: kskim{at}knu{dot}ac{dot}kr
Abstract—This study attempted to analyze the success of the Nexen Heroes organization operated by
Centennial Investment, the only pro-sports enterprise in Korea. The Nexen Heroes was in a poor state in many
ways because of the circumstances of its parent company. The Nexen Heroes had many difficulties and spent
its tough early stage of time. But finally, the baseball club made a brilliant achievement, reaching the seasonal
playoff in 2013 and the Korean Series in 2014. The Nexen Heroes is a professional pro-sports enterprise that
has to overcome its poor state of the support from their parent company, compared to other pro-baseball clubs
in Korea, which get enough support from their parent company. However, the Nexen Heroes succeeded in
reaching the playoff in 2013 and 2014 as they won the challenges and had their strength overpowering other
pro-baseball clubs in Korea. This study was conducted focused on a review of how the Nexen heroes achieved
organization innovation and of characteristics.
Keywords—Exploration and Exploitation; KingPin; KBO; Nexen Heroes; Organization Innovation.
Abbreviations—Korea Baseball Organization (KBO).
I.
N
INTRODUCTION
EXEN Heroes team was not easy since the founding.
Nexen Heroes background as a professional baseball
teams is as follows.
1.1. Background
On January 30, Centennial Investment declared the founding
of the eighth pro-baseball club. The sports company decided
to acquire all the team members of Hyundai Unicorns in
2005. It was done in 3 years since Chairman of Huyndai
Group asked Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) to sell
Hyundai Unicorns as the group had difficulties in operating
the baseball team. There was a big concern that only 7
baseball teams would be run as the sale to STX Group, KT,
and Nonghyup, did not proceed in succession. But the
participation of Centennial Investment could prevent the
worst situation.
However, it didn’t go smoothly from the beginning.
There were difficulties in the membership fee. The sale also
ran into difficulties in the most important issue regarding
operating the club. Many players lost their desire in many
ways, such as the annual salary that significantly differ from
other club members, poor training facilities and lodging
places.
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The organization can maintain continued growth through
the chances for the environment, and thus the process of
selecting appropriate strategies and setting the internal factors
of the organization are very important for continued growth
[Pettigrew et al., 5]. In addition, the necessity of the
organizational changes generally come from the internal and
external, organizational pressure, serve as the external,
environmental factors that destroy the harmony and balance
between the components that make up the corporate
organizational activities through rapid changes in product
technology, saturation of the market, intense competition
among enterprises, increasing diversity and uncertainty of
customer needs, and unstable and unpredictable market
demands. This lack of suitability continuously lowers the
performance of the organization and needs the reorganization for new harmony and balance [Kim In-soo, 1].
The Nexen Heroes of Centennial Investment largely
differ from the existing operating systems of Korea's
professional sports teams. In other words, it has no parent
company. Unlike Centennial Investment, Korea's professional
sports clubs have been operated with the annual support for
promotion costs from their parent company. This operating
system has been adopted by other 9 clubs (including kt wiz)
except for the Nexen Heroes. In this way, brand promotion
has been made for corporate marketing taking an advantage
© 2015 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ)
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The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015
of the adhesion of the community. The biggest problem for
the Nexen Heroes was to ensure the operating expenses for
the team and thus Centennial Investment tried to solve this
problem by securing sponsor enterprises. The Nexen Heroes
might have difficulties in the basic problems regarding supply
and demand players, which other clubs could solve fully
funded by their parent companies. Thus, in spite of many
accusations, the Nexen Heroes had their tough time to operate
the club by using such a method of trading key players for
securing cash.
It was natural that the Nexen Heroes’ performance was
crushing, failing to reach the playoff for five consecutive
years. The failure in reaching the playoff led to a situation
that the Nexen Heroes without the parent company throw a
cold blanket over attracting baseball fans. Table 1 is a team
scores the last seven years.
Season
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Table 1: Nexen Heroes Season Ranking
Ranking
Number of Club
7
8
6
8
7
8
8
8
6
8
3
9
2
9
1.2. Research Questions
The Nexen Heroes completely changed from the season of
2013. Since Yeom Kyeong-Yeom took up his job as a head
coach, organization innovation was achieved and the team’s
performance also became noticeable. In that year, the Nexen
Heroes made it into the playoff for the first time. In 2014, it
became one of the best organizations enough to expect to win
the Korean Series.
How did he achieve organization innovation and make
the organization that had become at the bottom became one
of the best organizations enough to attempt to win the Korean
Series in 2014?
This study tried to review what organization innovation
the Nexen Heroes of Centennial Investment, the only probaseball enterprise without its parent company compared to
other Korean pro-baseball clubs, has made to be the best
organization.
II.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. In Aspects of Managers
Many researchers have argued that the organization needs an
ability to respond to significant changes in the environment
[Child, 3; Pfeffer & Salancik, 6; Romanelli & Tushman et al.,
9] and that people playing a decisive role in order to adapt to
the business environment are a chief executive officer. They
thus stressed out that the most important mission for the chief
executive officer is to carry out the task of resetting the
direction in the relationship between the environment and
organization and of continuing to coordinate the
ISSN: 2321-242X
organizational commitment to continue [Romanelli &
Tushman, 7].
Thus, the chief executive officer and senior executives’
roles are important for the organization to achieve some
innovative results and good results.
2.2. In Aspects of the Organization
The organization’s structural inertia depends on its size and
age, which affects strategic changes [Ginsberg & Buchholtz,
4]. The organization’s behavior becomes strict and rigid.
Thus, the possibility of strategic changes can be reduced. In
addition, they regarded the organization’s age as one of the
important characteristics that affect strategic changes [Singh,
8]. The higher the organization’s age becomes, organizational
members can learn from each other and mutually interact
while affecting new routines (Stinchcombe, 1965). On the
other hand, the organization may try to settle down into the
current situation, rather than create new things (Nelson
Winter, 1982).
Additionally, they defined an organization that can
successfully perform short-term gradual changes and longterm rapid changes at the same time as an ambidextrous
organization and divided the organization into an structural
ambidextrous organization and a contextural ambidextrous
organization. Structural ambidexterity refers to carrying out
ambivalent change efforts by distinguishing a heterogeneous
organization from others, whereas contextural ambidextrous
organization means forming an organizational context to
allow the organizational members to be equipped with
exploration activities and application abilities [Birkinshaw &
Gibson, 2].
III.
METHODS
3.1. Approach
This study proceeded in the order of determination of case
organizations, literature review, setting of methods for data
collection and research, analysis of success factors, and
description of conclusions.
3.2. Case Organization
This study was conducted of the Nexen Heroes funded by a
pro-baseball enterprise, not a large enterprise, which is
unusual for Korean pro-baseball teams. Heroes is
characterized by its unique method of running the
organization and by that organization itself. Studies found
that the performance of the Nexen Heores leads to that as a
sports (baseball) professional organization.
3.3. Data Collection and Analysis
Data were collected based on research reports, periodicals,
newspapers, and corporate websites. The research period was
set from 2008, the year when the Nexen Heroes was founded,
to 2014. The performance was measured divided into records
of individual players and records of the entire organization.
© 2015 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ)
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The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015
This study attempted to secure the reliability and validity
of data in reference with the following methods.
First, the researchers invested sufficient time for
researchers to reduce errors regarding research purposes,
research methods, and research integrity.
Second, this study credibly presented the evidence of the
study based on the data extracted from accurate data sources.
Third, this study applied a method of confirming the
aspects that the researchers have not recognized by giving an
explaining to the colleagues with more exact ad detailed
knowledge than the researchers.
IV.
RESULTS
4.1. Performance of the Organization and Members
4.1.1. Phase 1 (2008 ~ 2012)
At the time of foundation, the Nexen Heroes attempted to
maintain the then team strength while taking over all the
members of Hyundai Unicorns. But the organizational team
spirit did not rise through the season, which has been low due
to annual salaries decided to be low and poor training
facilities. And this poor spirit did not end in a year and
continued even till 2012, the year before Yeom Kyeong-eop
went to his post as a head coach, and the recognition as a
lower organization lasted.
In addition, in winners of Golden Gloves, the Nexen
Heroes produced only 5 members during this period due to
poor performance.
Table 2: Phase 1 Organization Grade & Individual Grade
Team
Golden
Team
Total
Season Ranking
Batting
Golve
Era
Team
Average
0.266
4.43
7
Zero
(fourth
(six in
8
2008
in total)
total)
0.272
5.40
One
6
(six in
(six in
8
2009
player
total)
total)
0.262
4.55
One
7
(six in
(fourth
8
2010
player
total)
in total)
0.245
4.36
8
Zero
(eighth
(seventh
8
2011
in total)
in total)
0.243
4.02
Three
6
(eighth
(fifth in
8
2012
player
in total)
total)
4.1.2. Phase 2 (2013 ~ Present)
The Nexen Heroes made a remarkable change under the
baton of Yeom Kyeong-eup from the 2013 season. And the
change went on throughout the season, creating a recording
of its first reaching the playoff and showing us amazing skills
even in the playoffs.
The more surprising season was the next year 2014. The
Nexen Heroes showed formidable skills enough to expect a
win in the first regular season and took a second place in the
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regular season, as well as played the historic matches to the
6th game of the Korean Series.
In addition, the Nexen Heroes showed a remarkable
achievement than the situation of Phase 1 (2008-2012). From
2013, the players achieved much better results in the situation
when 9 teams competed more seriously with 1 team being
joined. In 2013, 3 players from the Nexen Heroes won the
Golden Gloves, the same number as the previous year. In
2014, the Nexen Heroes became an organization that showed
its best results in the 4 positions among the total of 10 ones in
the Golden Gloves, winning the most number of Golden
Gloves.
Table 3: Phase 2 Organization Grade & Individual Grade
Team
Golden
Team
Total
Season
Ranking
Batting
Golve
Era
Team
Average
0.272
4.12
Three
3
(three in
(fifth in
9
2013
player
total)
total)
0.298
5.25
Four
2
(two in
(fifth in
9
2014
player
total)
total)
4.2. Exploration and Strategies
The Nexen Heroes have raised players by nurturing them in
the team’s own system instead of recruiting star players
through FA from the outside, as Samsung Lions does. The
player recruited most recently is Lee Taek-geun (the Nexen
Heroes took back him who once played for the Nexen
Heroes. This case is different from others). For the Nexen
Heroes, trades are done for the positions only to reinforce; it
does not gaze at the FA requiring huge money. Eventually,
the Nexen Heroes have 3 ways for the supply and demand
regarding players. The 3 ways include a strategy of utilizing
new players and the existing new players who are known
through the Nexen Heroes’ own nurturing system, another
strategy where utility and exploration are mixed for raising
the players from other teams who did not have an
opportunity, and the last strategy of selecting the imports.
The players who now became a key player are Seo Gunchang, Kang Jeong-ho, Yoo Han-joon, Han Hyeon-hee, and
Joe Sang-woo.
Those who grew through the exploration strategy include
Park Byeong-ho who became as the best batter in Korea, Van
Hekken who recorded 20 wins, Kim Min-seong, etc.
4.3. Voiceless Strong Leadership
The owner Lee Jang-seok was not a manager with a strong
charisma but had the leadership of leading decisions to be
made through the communication with several members. He
said, “What he tries to find from a player are humanity and
passion” (In an interview with YTN December 21, 2014). It
is said that he is a subject who started the Nexen Heroes, and
moderate and reliable. And he said that he watches all of
team’s matches during a season and even at a pre-season
camp and shares opinions with coaching staffs. He said that
he always pays attention to the possibility of the future
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The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015
players and carry out duties with an attitude of tolerance all
the times. Since the owner Lee Jang-seok was not a probaseball player, he could think freely out of the existing one.
The Nexen Heroes keenly felt the necessity of
organizational changes due to the failure in reaching the
playoff for consecutive 5 years till 2012. After the season was
over, the Nexen Heroes appointed the running coach Yeom
Kyeong-eup as the 3rd head coach of the Nexen Heroes in
2012 when the season was over. It was a card that no one
expected. The Nexen Heroes made a surprising decision as it
appointed Yeom as a head coach, who was not a star player at
all and played in the first team or in the farm team during his
career. It was a dangerous gamble seeing that even baseball
fans did not know about him. But the results turned out a real
savior. Yeom allowed the team to reach the post season with
the results of 3rd place in the regular season. It was the first
achievement since the team was founded. In addition, in the
following year 2014, Yeom rewarded the team for its choice
of him with the incredible results of taking the second place
in the regular season and reaching the Korean Series. He
started his baseball career in Pacific Dolphins, the former of
Hyundai Unicorns, and put an end as a pro-baseball player in
Hyundai Unicorns. He knew the importance about many parts
while experiencing various positions such as defence coach,
and running coach, including many fields other than baseball
itself, such as deputy chief of scout dept, and director of
operation dept. Additionally, since he was not a star player,
he rather knew about candidate players and farm team players
better than anyone else. Thus, he could discover their
potential.
4.4. Sustainable Organizational
through “People” Eventually
Innovation
is
made
In the ceremony of selecting the best players of the 2014
season, Seo Gun-chang cut a fine figure. He is the first player
who recorded more than 200 hits during a single season for
the first time in 33 years of Korea Professional Baseball. The
record that star players, like Lee Jong-beom and Yang Joonhyuk, did not exceed, was broken by a trainee. The reason
why this record is great is that he has to make 1.57 hit or
more per game. He spent the best year winning MVP in the
2014 regular season and a Golden Glove for the second
baseman as his main position.
In addition, there is another player compared as the pear
in mud is Park Beong-ho. He was drafted in the 1st round
into LG Twins in 2015 and evaluated as a potential player.
He repeated the bench life and the farm team life before
traded to Nexen Heroes in July, 2011. But since moving to
the Nexen Heroes, he turned into Korea's best hitter as he
took part in games as a clean-up man. He won a Golden
Glove for the 1st base position for three consecutive years
from 2012 to 2014 and won MVP, the best title as a baseball
player. And In 2014, he recorded 50 home runs in 9 years
since the last record of Korean pro-baseball league.
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The third player is Kim Min-seong. Before traded to the
Nexen Heroes in July 2010, he was young and potential but
was only a unrefined player. Since traded, his ability rapidly
grew and was appointed as a member of the national team for
the Incheon Asian Games and played an active part,
contributing to winning an gold medal.
The fourth player is Van Hekken, a foreign import. He
started his career in Korea in the Nexen Heroes from the
2014 season. In 2012, he recorded 11 wins in 2012, 12 wins
in 2012, and 20 wins in 2014 in 7 years, winning a Golden
Glove. It was the first time that a foreign player won a
Golden Glove.
As such, the Nexen Heroes initially believed the players
who did not cut a fine figure and allowed them to play games
constantly. This made some players to grow as the ones
representative of the country. If a team lets the player who
can make a performance right away play games, good results
may be guaranteed for the year. However, if you do not
prepare for sustainable competitive edge, the player will be
pushed away from competition and be avoided by fans.
Baseball is not a game that ends going through only one
season. To go after a sustainable competitive advantage, it is
necessary to continue to explore and train human resources
capable of ensuring a short-term competitive advantage.
4.5. Find the Kingpin, An Influence that Intermediate
Leaders have on Organization Innovation
A kingpin refers to the #5 pin in the middle third in bowling,
meaning it is necessary to throw down the kingpin for the
biggest effect. It is a core objective and a core of a problem to
solve the problem when it occurs.
The Nexen Heroes that has recorded the lowest rank in
the 2011 season fell into the overall crisis. Trading key
players for cash due to financial difficulties turned out the
butterfly effect, leading to a disgrace of the lowest rank. The
team had to find a kingpin. What did the kingpin really mean
to the team? It was to take back Lee Taek-geun, who was a
key player till the 2009 season. By bringing a player traded to
LG Twins due to financial difficulties, the team gave players
an unspoken signal that there would be no unreasoning trade
for cash that does not reflect the player’s will. Lee has played
a role as an intermediate leader representing the players after
appointed as a captain since July 2012. The amazing
performance that Nexon Heroes has made since the full-time
season 2013 after he became a captain is the evidence that his
leadership played a sufficient role in the communication
between players, coaches, and the owner. After he became
responsible as a captain, he put an emphasis on the respect
among players. Respect means that each considers each. In
other words, it means that you have to give consideration to
the other person before taking care about yourself. By
thinking the other person and sympathizing with each other,
the cohesion of the organization of the Nexen Heroes got
harder and gave each other faith. This belief led to the
improvement of the organization’s progress.
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The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015
V.
CONCLUSIONS
5.1. Implications
The Nexen Heroes without the parent company, which is the
only case, compared to other sports clubs, provides
significant implications in the stark reality of professionals. It
is because the team has to make interests through efficient
finance, marketing promotion, and business strategies.
Unlike other clubs that are surely supported from their
parent company and run with sufficient finance, the Nexen
Heroes is almost in a daily war situation. Thus, trading key
players for cash was an evitable choice. It was also difficult
to run the club as a problem with a main sponsor occurred.
But the Nexen Heroes held its ground despite of a negative
view from baseball circles and other circles.
And now is the time to make efforts to be ranked as one
of the best clubs. The major players in the team are becoming
the heart of the organization not being conceited,
communicating with each other, and fighting. And new
players and other players traded from other clubs adopt the
best players as their role model and make efforts to improve
their own skills. This thus makes the organization operate
well in a virtuous circle. Because of this, the Nexen Heroes’
sustainable organization innovation is thought to be possible
in the future as well.
5.2. Limitations and Future Research
This study examined an influence of the organization of the
Nexen Heroes on its success for the past 7 years. But there
are some limitations. First of all, 7 years of the organization's
history are a short period to assess organization innovation.
The setting of 7 years as the study period, compared to other
clubs, and the study on organization innovation during this
period may not allow us to find out the success and failure
factors accurately because assessment is made in a step when
organization innovation is in progress. The analysis above is
done in a 5-year period of the Nexen Heroes, so it may be a
little early to analyze the success and failure of the club that
has not reached Phase 2 yet.
Second, there have been lots of cases for 33 years of probaseball when players, such as Park Byung-Ho or Seo Gunchang, were unsuccessful in the existing organization but
were fully improved in their skills after traded. More
attention is paid only because their lately improved individual
skills got better and their individual performance and
organizational achievement led to good results at the same
time. If performance was not good, those records have not
received much attention and have not been assessed as a
success factor.
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Third, the Nexen Heroes made the good results of
reaching the playoffs at once after head coach Yeom Gyeongeup was appointed. But the good results may be because of
the organizational atmosphere already formed before Yeom
took charge and of the good communication among players
so far. Thus, it may be analyzed that the reason why the
performance of the organization was maximized, leading to
good results, is not because Yeom was appointed as head
coach.
Fourth, a professional sports enterprise, such as the
Nexen Heroes, does not exist in other sports, so the Nexen
Heroes now has a representative of professional sports
businesses. But it is a single case, so it is likely to lower the
external validity and reduce the generalization of the
findings, which thus may serve as limitations.
This study investigated for the reasons directing its
attention to the case that a baseball club of the Nexen Heroes
achieved surprising development as an organization and as
individual players. Since the investigation was done from the
outside point of view, such contents as psychological changes
that players actually felt or experienced were not included. In
future research, if interviews and questionnaires are done
more focused on players, better results are thought to come
out.
In addition, it is expected to making the potential of
higher validity and generalization exist by paying attention to
several records and making up for the existing problems.
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