• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2017

Purpose This study examines the roles of individual- and country-level social capital in entrepreneurial activities from the context of crowdfunding. Design/methodology/approach Two primary sources were used for data collection. From Kickstarter, the largest U.S.-based crowdfunding platform, this study obtained 15,716 crowdfunding projects and individual-level social capital. For country-level social capital, the social capital index from the 2016 Legatum Prosperity Index was utilized. By matching individual- and country-level social capital for each crowdfunding project, this research estimates the role of social capital in entrepreneurial activities at the individual and country level using the Poisson regression and the negative binomial regression. Findings Individual-level social capital measured by the number of Facebook friends, the number of other crowdfunding projects that a crowdfunding project founder invested in, and the word count of the description of a crowdfunding project are positively associated with the number of crowdfunding projects created by founders. The country-level social capital measured by aggregated social capital index is also positively associated with the number of crowdfunding projects created by founders. Both individual- and country-level social capital have a positive impact on entrepreneurial activities in terms of the creation of new crowdfunding projects.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.135-146
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• 2017

Entrepreneurship based on valuable opportunities has a positive effect on long-term economic growth. This study examines the entrepreneurship education offered to small business entrepreneurs from the perspective of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in order to suggest improvements and future direction for small business entrepreneurship education. Also, we tried to investigate entrepreneurial behaviors related to opportunity development more effectively by considering entrepreneurial self-efficacy and regulatory focus that play a crucial role in opportunity development process as mediating variables. Conducted was an online survey of small business owners nationwide who have completed entrepreneurship education provided by the government, and 345 online survey data were used for empirical analysis. The results show that entrepreneurship education for small business entrepreneurs positively influences entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is positively related to both opportunity recognition and evaluation as well as the promotion and prevention focus. Entrepreneurship education, which includes theoretically and practically oriented courses, has a positive impact on both the promotion and prevention focus. The promotion focus of small business entrepreneurs was found to have a positive effect on opportunity recognition, but not on opportunity evaluation. Also, the preventive focus of small business entrepreneurs does not have a significant effect on both opportunity recognition and evaluation. The current entrepreneurship education for small business entrepreneurs does not have a significant impact on their opportunity recognition and evaluation. These results suggest that the current entrepreneurship education for small business entrepreneurs needs improvements to promote opportunity-driven entrepreneurship.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.131-154
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• 2018

While strong investments on startup and venture ecosystem prosper worldwide, growing interest on nurturing startup ecosystem in Korea is also on its way. However, korean entrepreneurial ecosystem currently results few successful business models with those continuous development of itself compared to the one in China, which is breeding more than 50% of unicorns internationally. Accordingly, this study examined how people in the venture ecosystem, especially in IT industry feel about themselves and startup itself and compared startup ecosystem in Seoul, Korea to the one in Chengdu, China considering each of economic, social and administrational environment. The study tried to provide an implication about the future orientation of Korea's starup and venture ecosystem to policy makers and the ones inside the environment to make a better one. Therefore, the study choose Seoul, Korea and Chengdu, China as geological specimens of startup ecosystem and conduct qualitative study by interviewing selected ones who work in startup incubator, accelerator specified to IT industry and started their own business in IT industry funded by startup reward program. The study categorize the result in social, economic, and administrative parts and screens whether the interviewees from both Korea and China have similar opinions toward each of questions and can be translated to have tendency or not in each part of study. According to the study, the national recognition of startup should be moved from means of maintenance such as restaurants, franchise business to IT startup especially based on software business for the sustainable flourish in Korean venture ecosystem. Investors including accelerator, Angel investors and VCs should be less risk-aversion and therefore prefer stake purchase to solely giving subsidies. The role of governors should be limited to be a middleman of the network, connecting each people in need inside the ecosystem and their reward program should focus on nurturing the growing ones, not just multiplying the numbers of startups to expand the size of entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since this study indicated that entire revision of startup ecosystem should be applied to make a better one, it could be used to design future entrepreneurial infrastructure and the ways of activating startup ecosystem elsewhere in Korea.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.17-28
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• 2018

This study examined which influence the entrepreneurial environment and charateristics of start-up preparation have upon a start-up intention. For the purpose of offering useful data so that the hope-entrepreneurs of planning start-up can do more successful start-up through this, it carried out questionnaire from June 13, 2018 to July 14, 2018 targeting employee are located in K region. As a result, excluding 6 copies with a difficulty in the application to statistics among totally 205 copies, 199 copies were chosen as the final samples. Data were conducted reliability analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis by using SPSS 23.0. The results are as follows. First, the entrepreneurial environment had a significant impact on a start-up intention. Second, the start-up preparation level had a significant effect on a start-up intention. However, this study limited the sampling region to A area, thereby having a limitation in generalizing the findings all over the country. Moreover, there is a suggestion that a continuous research will need to be performed in terms of an influential factor in pre-entrepreneurs' start-up intention as well as in entrepreneurial environment and start-up preparation level.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.3363-3372
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• 2009

Continued jobless growth in economy, coupled with the current economic recession, is aggravating the situation of job market. In order to create more jobs and reduce the economic gap in a society, an independent creative firm of a sole entrepreneurs is suggested as an alternative mean. Understanding entrepreneurial motivations of a sole entrepreneur will be helpful in developing educational programs on starting an independent creative firm and in establishing a relevant government policy. This study, therefore, proposes a new model on entrepreneurial motivations in the independent creative firm and performs case study. The results of the study show that the personal environment and the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs have much effects on motivation of starting the independent creative firms. Among the personal environments, entrepreneurs' educational backgrounds, work experiences, and personal networks have great influences on entrepreneurial motivations. The processes of sustained entrepreneurship involve: (a) the determination of business ideas and goals, (b) the inception of a new business and managerial activities, (c) the entrepreneur's assessment of both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of business performances, and (d) the adjustment of business ideas and goals in accordance with the results of the assessment. The results of the study could be applied in developing educational programs and consulting guidelines on independent creative firms and in establishing government's supportive policies on the firm.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.91-117
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to study the effect of internatioanl entrepreneurial orientation of small and medium-sized Chinese manufacturing companies on export performance. A total of 183 corporate data were used for empirical analysis for Chinese manufacturing export companies. In summary, first, international entrepreneurial orientation was shown to have a significant positive effect on export performance, second, international etrprenurial orientation was shown to have a significant positive effect on absorption capacity, and third, the stronger environmental dynamics and network capacity, the stronger international business orientation and export ability. The implications of this study are summarized as follows. It suggests that the more innovative, enterprising and risk-taking Chinese SMEs are, the better their export performance and the better their ability to absorb foreign knowledge. It also suggests that small business managers must continue to strengthen their network capabilities to improve export performance through international entrepreneurial orientation, and this relationship is further strengthened in a dynamic environment. It also suggests that the impact of firm's absorption capacity on export performance will weaken over time.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.27-48
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• 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of firm resilience, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study aimed to investigate the concept of SME resilience, the role of entrepreneurial orientation in enhancing firm resilience, and the impact of top management networking capability on this relationship. The study defined firm resilience as consisting of adaptation capacity and recovery capacity and conducted a survey of 187 domestic SMEs for empirical verification. The findings indicate that entrepreneurial orientation is a critical factor in enhancing firm resilience. Furthermore, the networking capability of top management may also contribute to firm resilience, but it weakens the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm resilience as a moderating variable. In crisis situations, SMEs tend to rely more strongly on existing networks, rather than engaging in new network to acquire new resources, information, and knowledge, which can hinder their ability to adapt and recover. This study contributes to the further development and understanding of SME resilience, which is essential for enterprises to overcome crises and return to pre-shock levels.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.59-80
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• 2020

Excellent FinTech firms create value by finding customer needs or addressing customer problems to provide customers with differentiated solutions through information technologies and organizational innovation capability. Accordingly, the survival and growth of FinTech firms rely on the innovation performance for solving customer problems. This study assumes that IT relatedness and entrepreneurial culture play a mediating role in the relationship between service orientation and innovation performance. To examine it, designed and demonstrated is a structural model from the perspective of dynamic organizational capability. The results show that IT relatedness and entrepreneurial culture play a mediating role between service orientation and innovation performance. Although IT relatedness and entrepreneurial culture were partial mediators in each divided model, the integration model showed there was no direct effect of service orientation on innovation performance. The practical implication is that FinTech companies need to understand customer problems accurately, set up appropriate service goals and align all strategies to achieve them. With these strategic alignments, higher innovation performance can be achieved by enabling IT resources and capabilities to be actively utilized in all functions of the organization and institutionalizing the entrepreneurial culture.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.201-223
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• 2024

This study undertook an empirical analysis to examine the impact of various factors on entrepreneurial intention among young people, with a particular focus on the role of startup mentoring. Employing a survey distributed nationwide, data from 250 valid respondents were subjected to structural equation modeling to investigate these dynamics. The analysis uncovered that workplace stress, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control positively influence the entrepreneurial intentions of youth. Meanwhile, technological constraints negatively affected these intentions. The study did not explore the potential effects of future uncertainty and the burden of failure. Significantly, it was found that startup mentoring plays a crucial role in mitigating the negative impacts that may deter young individuals from pursuing entrepreneurship. Mentoring was instrumental in reducing negative influences, thereby fostering a more conducive environment for entrepreneurial ambition. By integrating the Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) models, this research not only validates these frameworks within the context of youth entrepreneurship but also underscores the essential function of startup mentoring in enhancing entrepreneurial intentions. The insights from this study highlight the importance of mentoring programs in nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit among the youth, suggesting that targeted mentoring support can play a pivotal role in overcoming barriers to entrepreneurship.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.141-157
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• 2024

This study investigated the factors influencing the fear of failure in starting a business among the MZ generation(Millennials and Generation Z). The research focused on financial, psychological, and behavioral factors affecting this fear of failure and employed empirical analysis using structural equation model on data collected from 200 members of the MZ generation. Key findings included: Financial factor(lack of accessible finance) significantly increased the fear of startup failure. Psychological factors(aversion to risk and aversion to stress) also significantly contributed to the fear of failure. The influence of behavioral factor(aversion to hard work) on fear of failure was not statistically significant. Among these, aversion to stress had the strongest impact, followed by aversion to risk and lack of accessible finance. Fear of startup failure was found to have a significant negative effect on the intention to start a business among the MZ generation. Furthermore, fear of startup failure mediated the relationship between psychological factors(aversion to risk and aversion to stress) and behavioral factor(aversion to hard work) and entrepreneurial intention. However, the mediating effect between financial factor(lack of accessible finance) and entrepreneurial intention was not tested. These findings contributed academically by offering a more detailed analysis of factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions compared to previous studies. Practically, the results suggested ways to mitigate the fear of failure to enhance the entrepreneurial intentions of the MZ generation.