• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.21-35
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• 2023

Expectations surrounding generative AI technology and its profound ramifications are sweeping across various industrial domains. Given the anticipated pivotal role of the startup ecosystem in the utilization and advancement of generative AI technology, it is imperative to cultivate a deeper comprehension of the present state and distinctive attributes characterizing venture capital (VC) investments within this domain. The current investigation delves into South Korea's landscape of VC investment deals and prognosticates the projected VC investments by juxtaposing these against the United States, the frontrunner in the generative AI industry and its associated ecosystem. For analytical purposes, a compilation of 286 investment deals originating from 117 U.S. generative AI startups spanning the period from 2008 to 2023, as well as 144 investment deals from 42 South Korean generative AI startups covering the years 2011 to 2023, was amassed to construct new datasets. The outcomes of this endeavor reveal an upward trajectory in the count of VC investment deals within both the U.S. and South Korea during recent years. Predominantly, these deals have been concentrated within the early-stage investment realm. Noteworthy disparities between the two nations have also come to light. Specifically, in the U.S., in contrast to South Korea, the quantum of recent VC deals has escalated, marking an augmentation ranging from 285% to 488% in the corresponding developmental stage. While the interval between disparate investment stages demonstrated a slight elongation in South Korea relative to the U.S., this discrepancy did not achieve statistical significance. Furthermore, the proportion of VC investments channeled into generative AI enterprises, relative to the aggregate number of deals, exhibited a higher quotient in South Korea compared to the U.S. Upon a comprehensive sectoral breakdown of generative AI, it was discerned that within the U.S., 59.2% of total deals were concentrated in the text and model sectors, whereas in South Korea, 61.9% of deals centered around the video, image, and chat sectors. Through forecasting, the anticipated VC investments in South Korea from 2023 to 2029 were derived via four distinct models, culminating in an estimated average requirement of 3.4 trillion Korean won (ranging from at least 2.408 trillion won to a maximum of 5.919 trillion won). This research bears pragmatic significance as it methodically dissects VC investments within the generative AI domain across both the U.S. and South Korea, culminating in the presentation of an estimated VC investment projection for the latter. Furthermore, its academic significance lies in laying the groundwork for prospective scholarly inquiries by dissecting the current landscape of generative AI VC investments, a sphere that has hitherto remained void of rigorous academic investigation supported by empirical data. Additionally, the study introduces two innovative methodologies for the prediction of VC investment sums. Upon broader integration, application, and refinement of these methodologies within diverse academic explorations, they stand poised to enhance the prognosticative capacity pertaining to VC investment costs.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.37-50
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• 2023

Venture capital invests the necessary capital and supports management and technology in promising small and medium-sized venture companies in the early stages of start-up with promising technology and excellent manpower. It plays a role as a key player in the venture ecosystem that realizes profits by collecting the investment through various means after growth. Venture capital's job is to recruit various investors(LPs) to invest in small and medium-sized venture companies with growth potential through the formation of venture investment funds, and to collect investment as companies grow, distribute and reinvest. The main tasks of venture capitalists, which play the most important role in venture investment, are finding promising companies, corporate analysis and evaluation, investment screening, follow-up management, and investment recovery. Venture capital's success indicators are fund formation and return on investment, and venture capitalists are rewarded with annual salary, performance-based incentive, and promotion with work performance such as investment, exit, and fund formation. Compared to the recent rapidly growing venture investment market, investment manpower is insufficient, and venture capital is making great efforts to foster manpower and establish infrastructure and systems for long-term service, but research has been conducted mainly from a quantitative perspective. Accordingly, this study aims to empirically analyzed the impact of investment experience, delegation of authority, job fit, and peer relationships on fund formation and return on investment according to the characteristics of the venture capital industry. The results of these empirical studies suggested that future venture capital needs a job environment and manpower operation strategy so that venture capitalists with high job fit and investment experience can work for a long time.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.131-148
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial competency on entrepreneurial intention by setting degree of self-determination as a moderating variable for pre-entrepreneur of agriculture industry. The entrepreneurial environment was divided into perceived support and perceived barriers, and the sub-variables of entrepreneurial competence were set as creativity, problem solving, communication, marketing, and business plan. 253 questionnaires were used for empirical analysis. The results of the analysis using SPSS v25.0 and Process macro v4.2 are as follows. First, the perceived support and perceived barriers of the entrepreneurial environment have a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention. Creativity, problem solving, marketing and business plan of entrepreneurial competency have a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention, but the effect of communication was non-significant. Second, the degree of self-determination did not moderate the relationship between perceived support, barriers and entrepreneurial intention. This means that the level of self-determination may not have a significant effect on the relationship between entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial intention. Third, the degree of self-determination was found to moderate the relationship between creativity, problem solving, communication, marketing and business plan of entrepreneurial competency and entrepreneurial intention. Specifically, as the degree of self-determination increases, the size of the influence of creativity, problem solving, marketing, and business plan on entrepreneurial intention plays a role of strengthening in a positive direction. On the other hand, as the degree of self-determination increases, the degree of self-determination, which weakens the relationship between communication and entrepreneurial intention. Future research will require exploration of other factors that can explain entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial capacity, and follow-up studies are needed to analyze the moderated mediating effects through conditional process models that include new mediating and moderating variables.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.205-221
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• 2022

In this study, the authors investigated the effect of salesperson's Selling Influence Tactics (SIT) on customers' psychological obligation, trust in salespersons and repurchase intentions in the offline cosmetics purchase channel. In addition, we examined the moderating effect of service quality perceived by customers. To this end, a survey was conducted on 298 customers who had purchased cosmetics through the offline sales channel, and the authors conducted hypothesis testing through a structural equation model. As a result of the study, first, among salesperson's sales influence tactics, emotional appeal tactics (H1a), customer ingratiation tactics (H1d), and personal appeal tactics (H1e) were found to affect the psychological obligation of customers, and emotional appeal tactics (H2a), rational persuasion tactics (H2b), information provision tactics (H2c), and customer ingratiation tactics (H2d) were found to affect trust in salespeople. Third, it was found that the psychological obligation did not have a positive (+) effect on the customer's repurchase intention, and the customer's trust in the salesperson had a positive (+) effect on the repurchase intention. Third, perceived service quality showed a significant moderating effect between psychological obligation and repurchase intention, trust in salesperson and repurchase intention. In previous studies on salesperson's Selling Influence Tactics (SIT), many studies examined salesperson's Selling Influence Tactics (SIT) by specifying sub-variables in a limited way, and studies confirming marketing factors such as repurchase intention were also insufficient. Therefore, the results of the empirical research confirmed based on this study are expected to help the standard or direction of the salesperson's Selling Influence Tactics (SIT) in future studies. In addition, this study describes implications for providing help in employee education and management for small business owners who manage and operate offline cosmetics stores, and sales strategies that should be strategically established to improve perceived service quality for customers.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.183-200
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• 2022

This study is a study on the effect of a healing experience program on satisfaction in the field of healing agriculture. In the development of a rural experience program, what factors constituting the healing experience program affect satisfaction, and how much time and participation cost affect the satisfaction of the healing experience program from the marketing point of view of the healing experience program. I want to analyze By researching the effect of experience cost and experience time on satisfaction of the healing experience program, I would like to suggest the development direction of the healing experience program. To this end, by empirically analyzing the effect of a healing experience program using experience cost and experience time as parameters on satisfaction, we present a theoretical basis for priority considerations when developing a rural experience program. There are entertainment experience, educational experience, deviant experience, and aesthetic experience as sub-factors of the experience program, experience time and experience cost as parameters, and satisfaction as a dependent variable. In addition, the reliability of the research results was secured by setting the demographic variables of the survey subjects as control variables. The empirical analysis was conducted on 314 valid questionnaires from the unspecified majority who were interested in or aware of the healing experience program. SPSS v22.0 was used, and to test the mediating effect, the three-step verification method of Baron & Kenny(1986) and the SPSS PROCESS Macro Model No. of Andrew F. Hayes(2018). 4 The reliability of the mediating effect was secured by applying the verification method and comparing the analysis resul. As a result of the study, it was found that educational experience (𝛽=.134, t=1.759*) had a positive (+) effect on experience cost, and aesthetic experience (𝛽=.144 t=1.684*) had a positive (+) effect on experience time. +) was found to have an effect. Also, educational experience (𝛽=.239, t=4.112***) was found to have a positive (+) effect on satisfaction, and aesthetic experience (𝛽=.330 t=4.921***) had a positive effect on satisfaction. It has been shown to have a (+) effect. Experience time was found to have a negative (-) inconsistent mediating effect between aesthetic experience and satisfaction. That is, it is the total effect (𝛽=.330 t=4.921***), and the direct effect (𝛽=.349 t=5.241***) increased by 𝛽=.019 compared to the total effect when the experience time was input, while the indirect effect (𝛽=-.019), which was shown to exert a negative (-) mediating effect.

• 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.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.141-157
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• 2024

This study analyzes the effect of enterepreneurial competencies on start-up performance through network activities for young entrepreneurs. Enterepreneurial competencies are composed of opportunity recognition competencies, marketing competencies, technical competencies, and creative competencies. A total of 354 questionnaires collected from young entrepreneurs residing in the country were used for empirical analysis. SPSS v28.0 and PROCESS macro v4.3 were analyzed based on the research model of a single-parameter single-mediated model. As a result of the analysis, first, it was found that among the enterepreneurial competencies, opportunity recognition competencies, marketing competencies, technical competencies, and creative competencies have a positive (+) significant effect on network activities. Among them, it was found that marketing competence has the greatest effect on network activities and technical competence has the least effect. Second, network activities were found to have a significant effect on start-up performance in a positive (+) direction. Third, among enterepreneurial competencies, opportunity recognition competence, marketing competence, technical competence, and creative competence were found to have a positive (+) effect on start-up performance. Among them, it was found that creative competence had the greatest effect and technical competence had the smallest effect. Fourth, network activities were found to mediate between enterepreneurial competencies and start-up performance. As for the relative effect size of the indirect effects of independent variables, it was found that marketing competence had the greatest effect on start-up performance and technology competence had the smallest effect. The academic implications of this study include investigating the significance and relationship of various variables, providing verification of theoretical frameworks related to entrepreneurship, identifying the main drivers of start-up success, and suggesting the importance of the network between enterepreneurial competencies and start-up performance. In addition, the practical implications of this study suggest the importance of marketing competencies for networking, and suggest differentiation of competencies. It emphasizes the strategic role of creative competence and provides guidance to policymakers for supporting start-ups on customized policies for fostering valuable start-ups.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.27-45
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• 1990

Two opposing views prevail regarding the economic impact of rural out-migration on the rural areas of origin. The optimistic neoclassical view argues that rapid rural out-migration is not detrimental to the income and welfare of the rural areas of origin, whereas Lipton (1980) argues the opposite. We developed our own alternative model for rural to urban migration, appropriate for rapidly developing economies such as Korea's. This model, which adopts international trade theories of nontraded goods and Dutch Disease to rural to urban migration issues, argues that rural to urban migration is caused mainly by two factors: first, the unprofitability of farming, and second, the decrease in demand for rural nontraded goods and the increase in demand for urban nontraded goods. The unprofitability of farming is caused by the increase in rural wages, which is induced by increasing urban wages in booming urban manufacturing sectors, and by the fact that the cost increases in farming cannot be shifted to consumers, because farm prices are fixed worldwide and because the income demand elasticity for farm products is very low. The demand for nontraded goods decreases in rural and increases in urban areas because population density and income in urban areas increase sharply, while those in rural areas decrease sharply, due to rapid rural to urban migration. Given that the market structure for nontraded goods-namely, service sectors including educational and health facilities-is mostly in monopolistically competitive, and that the demand for nontraded goods comes only from local sources, the urban service sector enjoys economies of scale, and can thus offer services at cheaper prices and in greater variety, whereas the rural service sector cannot enjoy the advantages offered by scale economies. Our view concerning the economic impact of rural to urban migration on rural areas of origin agrees with Lipton's pessimistic view that rural out-migration is detrimental to the income and welfare of rural areas. However, our reasons for the reduction of rural income are different from those in Lipton's model. Lipton argued that rural income and welfare deteriorate mainly because of a shortage of human capital, younger workers and talent resulting from selective rural out-migration. Instead, we believe that rural income declines, first, because a rapid rural-urban migration creates a further shortage of farm labor supplies and increases rural wages, and thus reduces further the profitability of farming and, second, because a rapid rural-urban migration causes a further decline of the rural service sectors. Empirical tests of our major hypotheses using Korean census data from 1966, 1970, 1975, 1980 and 1985 support our own model much more than the neoclassical or Lipton's models. A kun (county) with a large out-migration had a smaller proportion of younger working aged people in the population, and a smaller proportion of highly educated workers. But the productivity of farm workers, measured in terms of fall crops (rice) purchased by the government per farmer or per hectare of irrigated land, did not decline despite the loss of these youths and of human capital. The kun having had a large out-migration had a larger proportion of the population in the farm sector and a smaller proportion in the service sector. The kun having had a large out-migration also had a lower income measured in terms of the proportion of households receiving welfare payments or the amount of provincial taxes paid per household. The lower incomes of these kuns might explain why the kuns that experienced a large out-migration had difficulty in mechanizing farming. Our policy suggestions based on the tests of the currently prevailing hypotheses are as follows: 1) The main cause of farming difficulties is not a lack of human capital, but the in­crease in production costs due to rural wage increases combined with depressed farm output prices. Therefore, a more effective way of helping farm economies is by increasing farm output prices. However, we are not sure whether an increase in farm output prices is desirable in terms of efficiency. 2) It might be worthwhile to attempt to increase the size of farmland holdings per farm household so that the mechanization of farming can be achieved more easily. 3) A kun with large out-migration suffers a deterioration in income and welfare. Therefore, the government should provide a form of subsidization similar to the adjustment assistance provided for international trade. This assistance should not be related to the level of farm output. Otherwise, there is a possibility that we might encourage farm production which would not be profitable in the absence of subsidies. 4) Government intervention in agricultural research and its dissemination, and large-scale social overhead projects in rural areas, carried out by the Korean government, might be desirable from both efficiency and equity points of view. Government interventions in research are justified because of the problems associated with the appropriation of knowledge, and government actions on large-scale projects are justified because they required collective action.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.75-100
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• 2018

Mobile devices have become an important channel for news content usage in our daily life. However, online news content readers' resistance to online news monetization is more serious than other digital content businesses, such as webtoons, music sources, videos, and games. Since major portal sites distribute online news content free of charge to increase their traffics, customers have been accustomed to free news content; hence this makes online news providers more difficult to switch their policies on business models (i.e., monetization policy). As a result, most online news providers are highly dependent on the advertising business model, which can lead to increasing number of false, exaggerated, or sensational advertisements inside the news website to maximize their advertising revenue. To reduce this advertising dependencies, many online news providers had attempted to switch their 'free' readers to 'paid' users, but most of them failed. However, recently, some online news media have been successfully applying the Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) payment model, which allows readers to voluntarily pay fees for their favorite news content. These successful cases shed some lights to the managers of online news content provider regarding that the PWYW model can serve as an alternative business model. In this study, therefore, we collected 379 online news articles from Ohmynews.com that has been successfully employing the PWYW model, and analyzed the comparative importance of systematic attributes of online news content on readers' voluntary payment. More specifically, we derived the six systematic attributes (i.e., Type of Article Title, Image Stimulation, Article Readability, Article Type, Dominant Emotion, and Article-Image Similarity) and three or four levels within each attribute based on previous studies. Then, we conducted content analysis to measure five attributes except Article Readability attribute, measured by Flesch readability score. Before conducting main content analysis, the face reliabilities of chosen attributes were measured by three doctoral level researchers with 37 sample articles, and inter-coder reliabilities of the three coders were verified. Then, the main content analysis was conducted for two months from March 2017 with 379 online news articles. All 379 articles were reviewed by the same three coders, and 65 articles that showed inconsistency among coders were excluded before employing conjoint analysis. Finally, we examined the comparative importance of those six systematic attributes (Study 1), and levels within each of the six attributes (Study 2) through conjoint analysis with 314 online news articles. From the results of conjoint analysis, we found that Article Readability, Article-Image Similarity, and Type of Article Title are the most significant factors affecting online news readers' voluntary payment. First, it can be interpreted that if the level of readability of an online news article is in line with the readers' level of readership, the readers will voluntarily pay more. Second, the similarity between the content of the article and the image within it enables the readers to increase the information acceptance and to transmit the message of the article more effectively. Third, readers expect that the article title would reveal the content of the article, and the expectation influences the understanding and satisfaction of the article. Therefore, it is necessary to write an article with an appropriate readability level, and use images and title well matched with the content to make readers voluntarily pay more. We also examined the comparative importance of levels within each attribute in more details. Based on findings of two studies, two major and nine minor propositions are suggested for future empirical research. This study has academic implications in that it is one of the first studies applying both content analysis and conjoint analysis together to examine readers' voluntary payment behavior, rather than their intention to pay. In addition, online news content creators, providers, and managers could find some practical insights from this research in terms of how they should produce news content to make readers voluntarily pay more for their online news content.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.31-54
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• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.