• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2020.11a
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• pp.131-153
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• 2020

'기업 생태계'에서 '유니콘'이란 표현법은 2013년 'Aileen Lee'에 의해 명명된 이래, 특히 한국에서 '스타트업 생태계'의 국제적 수준 비교의 차원에서 활발하게 다루어졌다. 정부 차원에서는 이를 정책적 목표로 설정하여, '2022년까지 유니콘 기업 20개 목표'를 제시한 바 있다. 이와 같이 '유니콘 클럽 기업'에 대한 현상이 정책적 목표 차원에서 다루어지며, 대중적으로 더욱 확산된데 반해, 이에 대한 실체적 및 본질적 이해 목적의 학술적 연구는 충분치 못하였다. 본 연구는, 첫째, 2018년 기준 '유니콘 클럽' 기업 326개 및 2019년 479개의 기업을 대상으로 이들의 특성을 심층적이고 다면적으로 분석하였다. 그동안 주로 국가 별 '유니콘 기업' 수 및 산업 분류 기준 일반현황 중심의 대중적 소개가 주된 내용이었다. 그러나, 본 연구는 투자자를 포함한 기초 현황을 상세 분석하였고, 사례분석을 포함한 질적 탐색을 수행하였다. 또한 군집분석, 판별분석, 다층 회귀분석 등 양적 탐색을 함께 수행하였다. 개별기업의 '기업가 요인-산업(시장)환경 요인-자원 요인-전략 요인', 즉 'ERIS 모델'에 기반하여 그 특성을 살펴보았다. 둘째, 기업가치에 영향을 미치는 요인들을 앞서 분석한 특성 요인 및 투자자 특성과 연계하여 살펴보았다. 그리고 마지막으로는 이들을 토대로 '기업 생태계' 관점에서 유니콘 현상'을 바르게 이해하고, 또한 정책적 측면에서 이를 생산적으로 활용하는 방향을 제시하였다.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.63-77
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• 2022

The importance of start-ups and venture companies in the Korean economy is growing. However, the successful growth of startups and venture companies are still challenging as 70% of startups fail within 5 years. A new perspective on innovation is essential to overcome the liability of newness and the liability of smallness in the existing market and obtain the competitive advantage. Recent phenomenon in the Korean startups ecosystem is the remarkable growth of unicorns and future unicorns. Their business models, types of business, and success cases serve as a good example. Neverthless, the process of unicorn and future unicorn startups making new industries and innovative business has poorly understood. In this paper, we first define 175 unicorns and future unicorn startups participating in the K-unicorn project as a unicorn group and analyze current trends of the group. Then the in-depth analyses of industry sectors are conducted. Specifically, focusing on the unicorn forming the new market, we examine the unicorn making the processes of industry category innovation through the business innovation model. Lastly, broadening the scope of the analysis to the unicorn group, policy implications in startups and venture ecosystem are suggested.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1-26
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• 2020

The term 'Unicorns' in the corporate ecosystem was firstly introduced by Aileen Lee in 2013. It has been actively discussed in South Korea particularly to compare the level of the 'start-up ecosystem' from a global perspective. Accordingly, the Korean government has recently set a policy goal 'to nurture 20 Korean unicorn companies by 2022'. While the phenomenon of 'Unicorn Club Company' has been brought to the level of policy objectives and spread more widely to the public, existing academic research to understand its substantial and underlying implications has been insufficient. First, in this study, the characteristics of 479 'Unicorn Club' companies in 2019 were analyzed in-depth. Previous research has focused on the general status and trend by analyzing the number of unicorn companies by country and industry classifications. However, this study conducted a qualitative exploratory analysis by investigating descriptive statistics about unicorn companies, including their investors, while providing case studies. Also, cluster analysis, ANOVA, and multi-level regression were employed for quantitative exploration. The characteristics of individual companies were examined based on the "ERIS Model (Entrepreneur - Industry(Market) - Resource - Strategy Model)". Secondly, factors influencing its valuations were examined in connection with the previously analyzed characteristic variables and investor characteristics. Finally, based on these, the future direction of the "Unicorn Phenomenon" from the perspective of "Enterprise Ecosystem" and productively using it from the perspective of the public policy is suggested.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

Increasing the number of unicorn startups has recently received much attention. In this study, we attempt to investigate that startups achieving an extremely high valuation could postpone their exit to raise more investment and receive more benefits. This study tested the hypotheses using data from Crunchbase, World Bank, Global Competitiveness Report, and Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Using 140 unicorn startups that have already exited through an initial public offering (IPO) or mergers and acquisitions (M&A), we find out that unicorn startups tend to acquire higher valuation as their investment duration increases. Furthermore, we also examined the moderating effects of governmental policy and institutional distance from foreign investors in order to consider the institutional aspects of startups. The results of the moderating variables show significant supports. We expect to provide a better understanding with respect to making an exit decision of unicorn startups. Furthermore, managers and investors need to acknowledge the institutional factors of startups when they decide to fund.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.165-186
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• 2021

Startups are undergoing a change throughout the growth process of startups that appear in existing studies as they move away from the existing B2B or B2C frame and expand their target customer groups to O2O, C2C. In this regard, a new type of startup known as unicorns, a unicorn which has grown rapidly in a short period of time, is being created by successfully attracting government support and external investment in recognition of the potential value of the startup. This study examined the relationship between investment attraction and growth after founding for five representative unicorns in the U.S. and Korea. As a result, it was found that private investment in Korea is passive and defensive, and is attracted after the Series A stage, compared to the U.S., where the growth potential of the startup ecosystem is positively evaluated. In addition, it found that government's support policy throughout the startup's growth process is an abstract and comprehensive policy focusing on initial funding for startups. Therefore, it was suggested that the scope of government policies should be expanded to forster startups as unicorns, and that it is necessary to establish and implement differentiated support policies for each growth of the scale-up of startups. This study is significant in that it presented the criteria for the growth stage and support of startups as well as policy support for scale-up through practical case analysis of unicorns.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.173-188
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• 2023

This paper analyzed the Earnings management of firms selected as preliminary Unicorn. If a manager is selected as a preliminary unicorn firm, he can receive financial support of up to 20 billion won, creating a factor in managing the manager's earnings. The motive for management's earnings management is related to the capital market. Accounting information is used by investors and financial analysts, and corporate profits affect corporate value. Therefore, if the accounting earning is adjusted upward, the corporate value will be raised and investment conditions will be favorable. In this paper, earnings quality was measured by the modified Jones model of Dechow et al.(1995) by the ROA control model of Kothari et al.(2005) among the discretionary accruals estimated using an alternative accrual prediction model. Competing similar companies in the same market as the selected companies were formed, and the discretionary accruals were mutually compared to verify the research hypotheses, and only the selected companies were analyzed for the audit year and after the audit year. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the companies selected as preliminary unicorns had higher earnings management compared to the corresponding companies in question, which had a negative impact on the quality of accounting profits. It was found that the companies selected as preliminary unicorns continued to receive incentives for management's earnings management even after being selected. These results indicate that the companies selected as prospective unicorns are recognized for their value in the market through external growth rather than internal growth, and thus, incentives for management's earnings management to attract investment from external investors under favorable conditions are continuing. In the future preliminary unicorn selection evaluation, it was possible to present what needs to be reviewed on the quality of accounting earning. The implication of this paper is that the factors of management's earnings management eventually hinder investors and creditors from judging the reliability of accounting information. It was suggested that a policy alternative for the K-Unicorn Project, which enhances reliability were presented by reflecting the evaluation of earnings quality through discretionary accruals.

• Hospice
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• s.76
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• pp.8-11
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• 2023

• KLA journal
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• v.48 no.8 s.386
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• pp.53-58
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• 2007

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.55-73
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• 2024

Unicorn companies are attracting attention around the world as they are recognized for their high corporate value in a short period of time as an innovative business models. Their growth process presents good lessons for the startup ecosystem and have a positive impact on national economic development and job creation. However, previous studies related to unicorn companies are focused on 'event studies' and 'case studies' such as characteristics of founders, environmental factors, business models and success/failure cases of companies already recognized as unicorns rather than a multifaceted approach. The occurrence of unicorn companies and Macroscopic analysis of related factors is lacking. Against this background, this study are considering the characteristics of unicorns examined through previous research and the current status unicorns with a high proportion of technology companies, the purpose was to analyze the impact of the country's technological competitiveness, such as 'technology human resource index', 'R&D index', and 'technology infrastructure index', on the increase in unicorn companies. For statistical analysis, data published by various international organizations, the Bank of Korea, and Statistics Korea from 2017 to 2020 and unicorn company data compiled by CB Insights were used as panel data for 44 countries to be tested by multiple regression analysis. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that the number of science majors had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies in the case of technology human resource index, and in the case of R&D index, the total amount of R&D investment had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies, while the number of Triad Patents Families and the number of scientific and technological papers published had a negative (-) effect on the increase of unicorn companies. Finally, in the case of technology infrastructure index, it was confirmed that the number of the world's 500th-ranked universities had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies. This study is the first to reveal the causal relationship between national technological competitiveness and unicorn company growth based on country-specific and time-series empirical data, which were insufficiently covered in previous studies. and compared to the UN's ranking of the global industrial competitiveness index and the OECD's total R&D investment by country, Korea is considered to have technological and growth potential, while the number of unicorn companies driving growth as leaders of the innovative economy is relatively small, so the research results can be used when establishing policies to discover and foster unicorn companies in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.568-574
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• 2021

According to the Framework Act on Sustainable Infrastructure Management, which has been enforced since 2020, reservoirs should be managed to minimize life cycle costs caused by aging through preemptive management such as systematic maintenance and performance improvement. For maintenance in consideration of the life cycle, it is essential to derive the end of life due to continuous performance degradation as the common period increases. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop a performance-predicting model for reservoirs. In this study, a reservoir was divided into main complex facilities to develop a model for the maintenance of the life cycle. A model was developed for each facility. For model development, maintenance information data were collected under management by the Rural Community Corporation. The data available for model development were selected by analyzing the collected data. The developed model was used to predict the expected life expectancy of the reservoir in the current maintenance system and the expected life expectancy in the case of no action. By using the developed model, it is expected that it will be possible to support decision making in operation management and maintenance while considering the life cycle of the reservoir.