• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.13-25
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• 2024

Local decline can be caused by business closures or the departure of the youth. Most countries have been striving to overcome regional inequality through local or community entrepreneurship using assets or contents obtained from differentiated and original embedded resources. The purpose of this study is to conceptualize local contents and local entrepreneurship. To reach the research goals, this paper utilizes the grounded theory as qualitative methodology. From the main findings, this paper suggests that entrepreneurship in the local is influenced by informal alley or specific location (regions) institution outputs so called as local contents which are local norm, culture, local identities. This paper conceptualizes local contents as 'product of creative scenario'. And this work also suggests the liner model for local content innovation. The contribution of this work are two: 1) showing how the local content creation process; 2) analyzing the how local entrepreneurship configures. It can be inclusive potential startups items rooted at the unique resources and assets of the locals and reflecting the originality of locality. In terms of local institutional perspectives, local development takes pace when advancing application of local entrepreneurship. In order for that, practical challenging is more needed by using informal local institutions. Also 'three step linear model' will be applied to educate the new creators. Local contents and local entrepreneurship can definitely rehabilitate locality.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.191-204
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• 2010

Recently, the CO2 emission and energy consumption have become critical global issues to decide the future of nations. Especially, the spread of IT products and the increased use of internet and web applications result in the energy consumption and CO2 emission of IT industry though information technologies drive global economic growth. EU, the United States, Japan and other developed countries are using IT related environmental regulations such as WEEE(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), RoHS(Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substance), REACH(Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of CHemicals) and EuP(Energy using Product), and have established systematic green business/IT strategies to enhance the competitiveness of IT industry. For example, the Japan government proposed the "Green IT initiative" for being compatible with economic growth and environmental protection. Not only energy saving technologies but energy saving systems have been developed for accomplishing sustainable development. Korea's CO2 emission and energy consumption continuously have grown at comparatively high rates. They are related to its industrial structure depending on high energy-consuming industries such as iron and steel Industry, automotive industry, shipbuilding industry, semiconductor industry, and so on. In particular, export proportion of IT manufacturing is quite high in Korea. For example, the global market share of the semiconductor such as DRAM was about 80% in 2008. Accordingly, Korea needs to establish a systematic strategy to respond to the global environmental regulations and to maintain competitiveness in the IT industry. However, green competitiveness of Korea ranked 11th among 15 major countries and R&D budget for green technology is not large enough to develop energy-saving technologies for infrastructure and value chain of low-carbon society though that grows at high rates. Moreover, there are no concrete action plans in Korea. This research aims to deduce the priorities of the Korean green business/IT strategies to use multi attribute weighted average method. We selected a panel of 19 experts who work at the green business related firms such as HP, IBM, Fujitsu and so on, and selected six assessment indices such as the urgency of the technology development, the technology gap between Korea and the developed countries, the effect of import substitution, the spillover effect of technology, the market growth, and the export potential of the package or stand-alone products by existing literature review. We submitted questionnaires at approximately weekly intervals to them for priorities of the green business/IT strategies. The strategies broadly classify as follows. The first strategy which consists of the green business/IT policy and standardization, process and performance management and IT industry and legislative alignment relates to government's role in the green economy. The second strategy relates to IT to support environment sustainability such as the travel and ways of working management, printer output and recycling, intelligent building, printer rationalization and collaboration and connectivity. The last strategy relates to green IT systems, services and usage such as the data center consolidation and energy management, hardware recycle decommission, server and storage virtualization, device power management, and service supplier management. All the questionnaires were assessed via a five-point Likert scale ranging from "very little" to "very large." Our findings show that the IT to support environment sustainability is prior to the other strategies. In detail, the green business /IT policy and standardization is the most important in the government's role. The strategies of intelligent building and the travel and ways of working management are prior to the others for supporting environment sustainability. Finally, the strategies for the data center consolidation and energy management and server and storage virtualization have the huge influence for green IT systems, services and usage This research results the following implications. The amount of energy consumption and CO2 emissions of IT equipment including electrical business equipment will need to be clearly indicated in order to manage the effect of green business/IT strategy. And it is necessary to develop tools that measure the performance of green business/IT by each step. Additionally, intelligent building could grow up in energy-saving, growth of low carbon and related industries together. It is necessary to expand the affect of virtualization though adjusting and controlling the relationship between the management teams.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.113-145
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• 2009

Recently, due to the globalization of the IT(Information Technology) market, devices and systems designed in one country are used in other countries as well. This phenomenon is becoming the key factor for increased interest on cross-cultural, or cross-national, research within the IT area. However, as the IT market is becoming bigger and more globalized, a great number of IT practitioners are having difficulty in designing and developing devices or systems which can provide optimal experience. This is because not only tangible factors such as language and a country's economic or industrial power affect the user experience of a certain device or system but also invisible and intangible factors as well. Among such invisible and intangible factors, the cultural characteristics of users from different countries may affect the user experience of certain devices or systems because cultural characteristics affect how they understand and interpret the devices or systems. In other words, when users evaluate the quality of overall user experience, the cultural characteristics of each user act as a perceptual lens that leads the user to focus on a certain elements of experience. Therefore, there is a need within the IT field to consider cultural characteristics when designing or developing certain devices or systems and plan a strategy for localization. In such an environment, existing IS studies identify the culture with the country, emphasize the importance of culture in a national level perspective, and hypothesize that users within the same country have same cultural characteristics. Under such assumptions, these studies focus on the moderating effects of cultural characteristics on a national level within a certain theoretical framework. This has already been suggested by cross-cultural studies conducted by scholars such as Hofstede(1980) in providing numerical research results and measurement items for cultural characteristics and using such results or items as they increase the efficiency of studies. However, such national level culture has its limitations in forecasting and explaining individual-level behaviors such as voluntary device or system usage. This is because individual cultural characteristics are the outcome of not only the national culture but also the culture of a race, company, local area, family, and other groups that are formulated through interaction within the group. Therefore, national or nationally dominant cultural characteristics may have its limitations in forecasting and explaining the cultural characteristics of an individual. Moreover, past studies in psychology suggest a possibility that there exist different cultural characteristics within a single individual depending on the subject being measured or its context. For example, in relation to individual vs. collective characteristics, which is one of the major cultural characteristics, an individual may show collectivistic characteristics when he or she is with family or friends but show individualistic characteristics in his or her workplace. Therefore, this study acknowledged such limitations of past studies and conducted a research within the framework of 'theoretically integrated model of user satisfaction and emotional attachment', which was developed through a former study, on how the effects of different experience elements on emotional attachment or user satisfaction are differentiated depending on the individual cultural characteristics related to a system or device usage. In order to do this, this study hypothesized the moderating effects of four cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs, collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and power distance) as suggested by Hofstede(1980) within the theoretically integrated model of emotional attachment and user satisfaction. Statistical tests were then implemented on these moderating effects through conducting surveys with users of four digital devices (mobile phone, MP3 player, LCD TV, and refrigerator) in three countries (US, Germany, and Russia). In order to explain and forecast the behavior of personal device or system users, individual cultural characteristics must be measured, and depending on the target device or system, measurements must be measured independently. Through this suggestion, this study hopes to provide new and useful perspectives for future IS research.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.111-122
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• 2017

This study analyzes the current state of entrepreneurship education and start-up foundations by country in order to find ways to improve the domestic entrepreneurial environment and to promote the recognition of desirable entrepreneurship practices. It also investigates the relationship between entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial will, and the level of opportunity-based entrepreneurships, by using data from the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Trend Report (GETR). First, the results show the urgent need for the expansion of entrepreneurship education in Korea. In the GETR category of 'experience of entrepreneurship education in elementary, middle and high schools', Korea was ranked very low (19th place), among the 20 countries. In the 'college' and 'lifelong entrepreneurship education' categories, it procured a mid-level ranking (15th). While entrepreneurship education for all ages is being promoted globally, entrepreneurship education for middle-aged individuals in Korea is relatively weak. This implies that the expansion of entrepreneurship education to lifelong education and education for employees and retirees is required. Second, the individual's entrepreneurial intention in Korea was 3.8 points, implying a mid-level ranking (15th), and it ranked the lowest in terms of opportunity-based entrepreneurship (20th). In comparison to China (4.55) and the United States (4.01), the entrepreneurial intention of Koreans was found to be low. The level of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship was also found to be very low, compared to China (4.35), Japan (4.04) and the United States (4.59). In general, the proportion of the level in opportunity-driven entrepreneurship, increases from the factor-driven and efficiency-driven, to the innovation-driven type. In Korea, the percentage of entrepreneurial ventures centered around involuntary entrepreneurship and small businesses is high. It is also interpreted that opportunity-based entrepreneurships are low in number because of this high proportion of involuntary start-up and small businesses. Last, the entrepreneurial intention in all types (factor-driven, efficiency-driven, and innovation-driven) was exceptionally high. It has been confirmed that exposure to all entrepreneurship education (elementary, junior high, university, and lifelong education) in innovation-driven countries, greatly increases entrepreneurial intention. In the case of Korea, which is an innovation-driven country, qualitative improvement based on quantitative expansion of entrepreneurship education is expected to be a major driving force for individuals' entrepreneurial intention to obtain a mid-level ranking (15th).

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.89-101
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• 2022

This study investigated the effects of individual characteristics (entrepreneurial self-efficacy) and environmental characteristics (social support, government support policy) on entrepreneurial intention for college students in Korea and China. In particular, the moderating effect of differences between countries (Korea and China) was demonstrated in the relationship between individual and environmental characteristics and entrepreneurial intention. The results of the empirical analysis of 626 Korean and Chinese university students are as follows. First, all of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social support, and government support policies perceived by Korean college students had a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention. In particular, Korean college students' entrepreneurial intentions were influenced in the order of social support, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and government support policies. Second, all of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social support, and government support policies perceived by Chinese college students had a positive effect on start-up intention. In particular, entrepreneurial intention of Chinese college students was influenced in the order of government support policy, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and social support. Third, the relationship between environmental characteristics (social support, government support policy) and entrepreneurial intention was adjusted by differences between countries. First, the positive relationship between social support and entrepreneurial intention was generally higher for Chinese college students than for Korean college students. In addition, the positive relationship between government support policy and entrepreneurial intention was higher for Chinese college students than for Korean college students as the level of awareness of government support policy increased. Finally, theoretical and practical implications for the intention of Korean and Chinese college students to start a business were presented, and the limitations of the study and future research directions were presented based on this study.

• Maritime Security
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.141-185
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• 2021

The growing U.S.-China rivalry has placed the countries of Southeast Asia in exceedingly precarious positions. The Republic of Korea (ROK) likewise has been tasked with the challenge of "navigating the waters" between deepening geopolitical divides. It is in this context that the "New Southern Policy" (hereafter NSP) has become a key word in Korea's foreign policy circles. Through NSP, ROK aims to diversify its economic and security interests by strengthening ties with its southern partners, focusing on three key areas (termed as the "3 Ps"): People, Prosperity, and Peace. At the same time, the NSP seeks cooperation with other key diplomatic agendas such as the U.S.'s "Free and Open Indo-Pacific," rendering it crucial for the overall stability of the region. Considering such strategic significance, deeper analysis of the policy is more timely than ever. A brief assessment of the policy's outcome so far, however, reveals that relatively, the "Peace" pillar has been insufficient in achieving satisfactory outcomes. Here, this paper asks the question of: 1) How can the "Peace" pillar of South Korea's New Southern Policy be strengthened? Based on an analysis on the causes of the "Peace" pillar's weakness, this paper identifies counter-piracy cooperation as a solution. This paper then proceeds to answer the next question of: 2) How can ROK and ASEAN cooperate on counter-piracy, and how can these efforts be integrated into ROK's NSP? To answer the above question, this paper conducts in-depth case studies on ASEAN's and ROK's approaches to counter-piracy and identifies specific mechanisms of cooperation. In Chapter I, the paper begins with an overview of the NSP's strategic significance and an evaluation of its "Peace" pillar. Chapter II conducts a literature review on the causes of, and prescriptions for, the weakness of the "Peace" pillar. The paper then justifies why counter-piracy may be a solution. Chapter III examines ASEAN's and ROK's approaches to counter-piracy. By analyzing the general framework and each region's cases, the paper displays the strengths and weaknesses of each region's piracy responses. Based on this analysis, Chapter IV suggests ways to incorporate counter-piracy cooperation into the "Peace" pillar of the NSP. This research bears significance in that it identifies a specific area of cooperation (counter-piracy) to strengthen the "Peace" pillar of ROK's NSP. Such identification is based on a comprehensive study into the two parties' past and current experience in counter-piracy, making it contextual in nature. Furthermore, the study suggests practical mechanisms of cooperation, and considers ways of incorporation into the existing framework of NSP. This approach differs from existing literature that failed to generate case-specific, policy-oriented solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated piracy issues and deepened geopolitical divides. Turbulent seas such as these call for careful navigation. When it comes to promoting "peace," the key lies in combating the pirates that sail those very waters.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

To achieve the age of 30,000 dollars GNP, The business with speed will hold a more crucial point than the business with scale, and the mass consumption market will be transformed and changed into the niche market. Moreover, it will not be easy for the company without the peculiar and creative technology to survive in the severe competition. Under these circumstances, The innovative company which knows how to use this new paradigm will select the better position in the changing market. Innovation type SMEs are contributing in maintaining the international competitiveness of domestic economy by serving high-tech and the promotion of employment. Also, Innovation type SMEs have the most important economic leverage in our domestic economy. It's a source of the growth in domestic economy. Therefore, A lot of countries have been trying to support innovation type SMEs (with a small capital and high-tech). And many countries also try to protect and promote the innovation type SMEs. Especially the Korean government is also promoting innovation type SMEs in many ways, because the future of innovation type SMEs are not bright. This study explored the three innovative SEMs and studied 1) entrepreneur characteristics, 2) the industry environment, 3) competitive strategies, and 4) resources and capabilities of organization, which have been considered as the success factors for entrepreneurial firms. This study also holds that the characteristics of entrepreneurs is one of the most important factor to impact the success of innovative SMEs. Most of entrepreneurs have started their business with high education career and field experiences and have high intentions in developing new/high techonologies, challenging spirits, and clear vision and goals. The innovative SMEs with small kinds of products and services, narrow market, and small resources are more sensitively impacted by the environment especially. But the SMEs which entered into market early could have the comparative excellencies in their market to survive and grow in the future. They also have competitive advantages in the market using differentiation strategies by technology innovation. Technology innovation and differention strategies are one of the success factors in SMEs, They entered into the niche market using this weapons. The capabilities of changing organization to their changing environment, the open orgarnization culture, the continuous employment education, and the building the organic organization are also success factors of innovative SMEs. The SMEs with the simple organization structure can make fast decisions and operate with the autonomous and flexible ways. These only three cases will not shown successful factors of over 12,000 Innovation type SMEs in Korea and this study of Innovation type SMEs is insufficient from all aspects. But this study have many implications for the future research and the entrepreneurs ready for their business.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.97-115
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• 2008

Introduction The e-government is concerned with using Internet and Web technologies to exchange information and services with citizens, businesses and other related organizations, and it centers on three functions, namely informational, interactive, and transactional [UN, 2001]. Many developed countries like the U.S. have been actively involved in e-government projects, since they enable both more effective public services for citizens and more efficient internal operations. Korea is among these leading countries that are planning to leverage computer and communication technologies to provide for integration of work processes and information as well as convenient access to information and services. For this reason, evaluating e-government projects is becoming a crucial issue for both researchers and policy-makers. However, most research to date has primarily focused on a model of success of an e-government system designed for citizens, overlooking internal systems specifically created for employees working in a public organization. This paper is intended to propose a model to measure the success of a Web-based information system designed for use by internal users at Chungwadae, the executive branch of Korea's central government. The paper is also aimed at applying the model to the assessment of the present system being used at Chungwadae in comparison with the preceding system. Evaluating an e-Government System The most widely cited model of information systems success today is that of DeLone and McLean[1992, 2003, 2004]. The original model states that the success of an information system can be measured using six dimensions, including system quality, information quality, use, user satisfaction, individual impact, and organizational impact. Although the ultimate success of an information system may be reflected in the impact that the system has upon individuals as well as an organization, aspects of using the system such as system use and user satisfaction can play an important role in determining the system success, because the system would be a sheer failure if users don't like and use the system. As a response to criticisms given by numerous researchers, the authors adapted their model to fit the emerging Web-based environment. The revised model[DeLone and McLean, 2003] they offered included an additional quality dimension, namely service quality, and combined individual and organizational impacts into net benefits which can also influence user satisfaction. The e-government system success model can be built around this updated model. Our model incorporates information quality, system quality, and service quality as in the DeLone and McLean model. However, the 'system use' dimension has been replaced by perceived usefulness, as suggested by Seddon[1998]. In addition, because the e-government systems that this paper focuses on are internal public systems used in government agencies, the 'net benefits' dimension has been replaced by perceived work efficiency. Based on the proposed model, a total of nine hypotheses have been formulated which we tested using an empirical analysis. Methods A questionnaire form has been created with items that are designed to examine the relationships among the variables in the model. The questionnaire has been handed over, in person, to 65 members of Chungwadae staff who are now actively using the E-Support System, the present information system created to support internal work at Chungwadae. We made arrangements to meet with each individual who agreed to participate in our survey, and helped to fill out the survey form with explanations. Of the 65 copies that were delivered, only 33 were returned, and 30 responses of these have been adopted for our analysis, since three were not valid. The extremely small sample size was due to the limited number of staff members who had adequate experience required of this study. Results We gathered data from the questionnaire survey and analyzed them using a regression analysis to test the hypotheses. As shown in the table below, the results indicated that all three dimensions of an information system’s quality are positively related to user satisfaction. However, information quality and system quality were found to be positively related to perceived usefulness, while service quality was not. In addition, perceived usefulness is not positively related to user satisfaction, implying that a user may find a system useful, but may not be satisfied with it. Finally, user satisfaction and perceived usefulness both are positively related to perceived work efficiency. This suggests that workers' positive experience with the system is important to guarantee favorable work efficiency. Conclusions We conclude that the proposed model proved useful in measuring the success of an internal information system used by a government agency. To demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the model in the paper, we applied the model to the assessment of the present internal system used at Chungwadae in comparison with the preceding system. The results showed that the present system outperforms the preceding one in a statistically significant way. Future research will have to focus on applying the model to Korea's governmental agencies other than Chungwadae and examine whether it proves applicable in different types of governmental organizations.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.177-200
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• 2009

AIn the advanced - economy, the services industry hasbecome a dominant sector. Evidently, the services sector has grown at a much faster rate than any other. For instance, in such developed countries as the U.S., the proportion of the services sector in its GDP is greater than 75%. Even in the developing countries including India and China, the magnitude of the services sector in their GDPs is rapidly growing. The increasing dependence on service gives rise to new initiatives including service science and service-dominant logic. These new initiatives propose a new theoretical prism to promote the better understanding of the changing economic structure. From the new perspectives, service is no longer regarded as a transaction or exchange, but rather co-creation of value through the interaction among service users, providers, and other stakeholders including partners, external environments, and customer communities. The purpose of this study is the following. First, we review previous literature on service, service innovation, and service systems and integrate the studies based on service dominant logic. Second, we categorize the ten propositions of service dominant logic into conceptual propositions and the ones that are directly related to service provision. Conceptual propositions are left out to form the research model. With the selected propositions, we define the research constructs for this study. Third, we develop measurement items for the new service concepts including service provider network, customer network, value co-creation, and convergence of service with product. We then propose a research model to explain the relationship among the factors that affect the value creation mechanism. Finally, we empirically investigate the effects of the factors on firm performance. Through the process of this research study, we want to show the value creation mechanism of service systems in which various participants in service provision interact with related parties in a joint effort to create values. To test the proposed hypotheses, we developed measurement items and distributed survey questionnaires to domestic companies. 500 survey questionnaires were distributed and 180 were returned among which 171 were usable. The results of the empirical test can be summarized as the following. First, service providers' network which is to help offer required services to customers is found to affect customer network, while it does not have a significant effect on value co-creation and product-service convergence. Second, customer network, on the other hand, appears to influence both value co-creation and product-service convergence. Third, value co-creation accomplished through the collaboration of service providers and customers is found to have a significant effect on both product-service convergence and firm performance. Finally, product-service convergence appears to affect firm performance. To interpret the results from the value creation mechanism perspective, service provider network well established to support customer network is found to have significant effect on customer network which in turn facilitates value co-creation in service provision and product-service convergence to lead to greater firm performance. The results have some enlightening implications for practitioners. If companies want to transform themselves into service-centered business enterprises, they have to consider the four factors suggested in this study: service provider network, customer network, value co-creation, and product-service convergence. That is, companies becoming a service-oriented organization need to understand what the four factors are and how the factors interact with one another in their business context. They then may want to devise a better tool to analyze the value creation mechanism and apply the four factors to their own environment. This research study contributes to the literature in following ways. First, this study is one of the very first empirical studies on the service dominant logic as it has categorized the fundamental propositions into conceptual and empirically testable ones and tested the proposed hypotheses against the data collected through the survey method. Most of the propositions are found to work as Vargo and Lusch have suggested. Second, by providing a testable set of relationships among the research variables, this study may provide policy makers and decision makers with some theoretical grounds for their decision making on what to do with service innovation and management. Finally, this study incorporates the concepts of value co-creation through the interaction between customers and service providers into the proposed research model and empirically tests the validity of the concepts. The results of this study will help establish a value creation mechanism in the service-based economy, which can be used to develop and implement new service provision.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

It is essential factor for business operation to raise funds effectively. However, in Korea, many start-ups and small businesses have difficulties in fund-raising. In recent years, crowdfunding, a new method for funding a project of individuals or organizations by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, has been growing up simultaneously with diffusion of social media. Crowdfunding is on early stage in Korea, and the majority of projects are focused on cultural or art categories. There is high proportion of projects that have social value in start-up sector. Crowdfunding in Korea has great potential because success rate of it is much higher than its of advanced countries, although market size is much smaller than them. The purpose of this paper is to propose success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up through case study. 5 crowdfunding platforms of Korea and Kickstarter, the platform of United States were investigated. Then we checked the figures related to the operation of the whole Korean projects on start-up. Finally, we made comparison between the cases of success and failure by analyzing 8 project characteristics. The study shows that it were the differences in trustworthiness and activeness of project creator, value of reward and efforts for interactivity that have great effects on success of the project. Whereas there was no significant influence of societal contribution and sponsor engagement. The thesis provides success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up as follows. Firstly, creator of the project should make support base by enthusiastic activites before launching funding project. Secondly, there should be contents that can easily show the process of business development in the project information. Thirdly, there must be appropriate design of rewards for each amounts of support money. Finally, efforts for interactivity, such as frequent updates, response for comments and SNS posting, should be followed after the launch of the project.