• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.19 no.12
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to present the necessary success strategies for the social economy ecosystem and social enterprise stakeholders by empirically examining the structural relationship of factors that affect the sustainable dual performance of social enterprises. Through previous studies, hypotheses and research models were established for the performance factors of social enterprises, and hypothesis testing was performed using PLS-Structural Equation Modeling on 92 sample data collected from the survey. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the social mission, customer orientation, and social network set as performance factors all had a significant positive (+) effect on social performance. In addition, social performance had a significant (+) effect on economic performance by mediating customer orientation and social network excluding social mission, and it was found that the business model strengthened this relationship. In addition to the theoretical significance of demonstrating the structural influence of social enterprise performance factors through this study, practical implications can be found in that it suggests factors that social entrepreneurs should focus on for growth and performance creation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.15-30
• /
• 2019

This study investigates the effects of venture capital investment and corporate venture capital investment on the performance of IPOs listed on KOSDAQ between 2000 and 2014. We classified venture firms with venture capital-backed companies and non-venture capital-backed companies, having the former of which further divided into corporate venture capital-backed companies and independent venture capital-backed companies. The time window of the analysis was set to between 2 years before and 3 years after IPO. Main results of this study reveal that there is little difference between venture capital-backed companies and non-venture capital-backed companies in terms of profitability before and after going public. However, we found out that after IPO venture capital-backed companies display higher ROA than independent venture capital-backed companies or non-venture capital-backed companies, suggesting that corporate venture capital-backed companies might be more advantageous in growing a venture capital ecosystem in Korea.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.265-273
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to take a look the situation of social enterprises under CIVID-19 Pandemic and to suggest future directions. The COVID-19 pandemic which started at the end of 2019, has influenced the various areas of our society, such as health, economic, social and networking. The virus is spread through human respiratory, and it is working as a disability factor in human focused social economy. Under the COVID-19 pandemic situation, Social entrepreneurs are being constrained in financial aspects. In the process of continuing pandemic, the size of the social economy has been expanded and cleaning & health businesses are showing economic performance. This is to tell the fact that social economy is solving COVID-19 issues based on a reciprocity and solidarity. To create a sustainable ecosystem for the social economy, we should select and promote universal and concrete future directions at the economic and social safety net building level rather than to respond to COVID-19.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.85-96
• /
• 2015

Korea is one of low-ranked countries in women's economic participation rate among OECD nations because well-educated females are not participating in economic activities. Regardless of current state of our society, opening a business is being considered as a effective method for job creation. Also, increasing the number of female business founders can lead to female job creation which promotes even growth of foundation and job creation and augments women's economic activity rate. Therefore, this study suggests the direction of foundation and inspires foundation factors and aims at increasing social re-participation through vitalization of business foundation by women in career discontinuity. For this study, I carried out a survey targeting career interrupted women who have attained entrepreneurial education using five- point scale by Likert and analyzed with SPSS Windows 18.0. The analysis set up 3 hypotheses with independent variables of psychological traits, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial environment and the dependent variable of entrepreneurial intention of the career interrupted women. Also, I looked if there is the modify effect when psychological traits and entrepreneurial education affect the entrepreneurial intention with entrepreneurial environment as a moderating variable. To summarize the positive analysis result, Firstly, all psychological traits, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial environment had similar positive affects on career interrupted women's entrepreneurial intention. Secondly, when psychological traits and entrepreneurial education affect the entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial environment had similar effects as a moderating effect. This study implies that psychological traits, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial environment are all important for the career interrupted women's entrepreneurial intention. There are so many women who are going through both professional experience and personal network's severance. Therefore, optimized entrepre neurship education must be provided to help those women return to economic activity considering their psychological traits. Additionally, we should put emphasis on producing the entrepreneurial environment that can positively convert others' perceptions and construct those women's personal network. There seems to be more productive information for the strategies which can induce those women's actual business foundation if the social problems of the women who have highly willing to open a business are treated in the future. Also, considering that psychological traits, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial environment all have effect on entrepreneurial intentions, there should be more related follow-up study on this.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.55-69
• /
• 2021

For the national economic development, the participation of women in the social and economic activities is crucial. The popularization of start-ups, digital transformation, and WEconomy trends have lowered the barriers to opportunities for women to start a business and provide an environment in which women can grow faster. This paper examines the significance and process of success of women entrepreneurs and the characteristics of innovation strategies and achievements by linking the recently changing business environment of a company, factors influencing the success of women entrepreneurship, and innovation activities. To this end, four companies' cases were analyzed in the fields of distribution/service and consumer products/services, which are areas of large investment among female startups. The result shows that women entrepreneurs recognize the meaning of success as creating and continuing to create a 'corporate value through establishing a trust relationship with customers' within the 'balance between personal life and work.' In terms of the business ecosystem, women entrepreneurs strive for 'business activities based on the win-win growth of consumers, producers and sellers' for success, and rather 'focus on the process with a problem-solving approach' rather than achieving performance-oriented goals. Also through excellent power of observation, flexibility, and execution power, women entrepreneurs conduct business by adapting to changing trends. In terms of innovation activities, the innovation strategy of women-led companies puts priority on 'creating the value customers want' and focuses on innovation in the 'customer-centric business model' rather than technological innovation. As such, women-led companies show several differentiated characteristics, which enable them to create corporate value and achieve sustainable growth. The barriers to challenges and opportunities for women to start a business have been lowered, and an ecosystem has been created for female startups to grow. But why are there still so few women entrepreneurs, and the answer to where we need to close these gaps is ultimately a close analysis and investigation of the field. We must present milestones for growth steps through the accumulation of case studies of women startups that have exited. In addition, women can stand as economic agents only when the policy targets are subdivided and specific approaches to child-rearing and childcare for women entrepreneurs must be taken. This paper expects to serve as basic data for follow-up studies and become the basis of research for women entrepreneurs to grow as economic agents.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.315-338
• /
• 2022

In 1986, Korea established legal systems to support small and medium-sized start-ups, which becomes the main pillars of national development. The legal systems have stimulated start-up ecosystems to have more than 1 million new start-up companies founded every year during the past 30 years. To analyze the trend of Korea's start-up ecosystem, in this study, we collected 1.18 million news articles from 1991 to 2020. Then, we extracted news articles that have the keywords "start-up", "venture", and "start-up". We employed network analysis and topic modeling to analyze collected news articles. Our analysis can contribute to analyzing the government policy direction shown in the history of start-up support policy. Specifically, our analysis identifies the dynamic characteristics of government influenced by external environmental factors (e.g., society, economy, and culture). The results of our analysis suggest that the start-up ecosystems in Korea have changed and developed mainly by the government policies for corporation governance, industrial development planning, deregulation, and economic prosperity plan. Our frequency keyword analysis contributes to understanding entrepreneurial productivity attributed to activities among the networked components in industrial ecosystems. Our analyses and results provide practitioners and researchers with practical and academic implications that can help to establish dedicated support policies through forecast tasks of the economic environment surrounding the start-ups. Korean entrepreneurial productivity has been empowered by growing numbers of large companies in the mobile phone industry. The spectrum of large companies incorporates content startups, platform providers, online shopping malls, and youth-oriented start-ups. In addition, economic situational factors contribute to the growth of Korean entrepreneurial productivity the economic, which are related to the global expansions of the mobile industry, and government efforts to foster start-ups. Our research is methodologically implicative. We employ natural language processes for 30 years of media articles, which enables more rigorous analysis compared to the existing studies which only observe changes in government and policy based on a qualitative manner.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.121-137
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to present the necessary success factors and strategies for high-tech social ventures and stakeholders in the related ecosystem by empirically identifying factors that affect their sustainable performance. Based on prior research, the dimensions of three performance factors were presented: core technology competency, core business competency, and social mission orientation. Then, such sub-dimensions such as technology innovation orientation, R&D capability, business model, customer orientation, social network, and social mission pursuit were derived. For empirical analysis, a survey was conducted on domestic high-tech social ventures, and the significance of the hypothesis was tested through PLS-structural equation analysis of the collected 243 valid data. As a result, it was found that the technology innovation orientation was embedded as an abstract organizational and cultural characteristic in the high-tech social venture, which is a research sample, and thus did not significantly affect the dependent variable. In other words, aiming for the latest cutting-edge technology alone cannot affect performance, and it is a result of proving the need for substantial influencing factors that can strengthen it. On the other hand, the business model had a significant effect only on social performance, which is presumed to be the limitation of measurement tools developed for social enterprises, and the results of additional multi-group analysis to determine the cause also supported the basis for this estimation. Excluding the previous two performance factors, R&D competency, customer orientation, social network, and social mission pursuit were all found to have a significant positive (+) effect on social and economic performance. This study laid a foundation for related research by identifying high-tech social ventures emerging in the ecosystem of a social economy and expanded empirical research models related to the performance of existing social enterprises and social ventures. However, in the research method or process, there were limitations such as factor derivation or verification for balance of dual performance, subjective measurement method, and sample representativeness. It is expected that more in-depth follow-up studies will continue by supplementing future limitations and designing improved research models.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.53-68
• /
• 2016

Motivation and activities for technological learning, entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity are driving forces of economic development in Asian countries. In the early stages of technological development, technological learning and entrepreneurship are efficient ways in which to catch up with advanced countries because firms can accumulate skills and knowledge quickly at relatively low risk. In the later stages of technological development, however, innovation and creativity become more important. This study aims to identify a) the factors (learning capabilities) that influence technological learning performance and b) barriers to enhancing innovation capabilities for the creative economy and organizations. The major part of this study is related to learning capabilities in the post-catch-up era. Based on a literature review and observations from Korean experiences, this study proposes a technological learning model composed of various influencing factors on technological learning. Three hypotheses are derived, and data are collected from Korean machine tool manufacturers. Intense interviews with CEOs and R&D directors are conducted using structured questionnaires. Statistical analysis, such as correlation and ANOVA are then carried out. Furthermore, this study addresses how to enhance innovation capabilities to move forward. Innovation enablers and barriers are identified by case studies and policy analysis. The results of the empirical study identify several levels of firms' learning capabilities and activities such as a) stock of technology, b) potential of technical labor, c) explicit technological efforts, d) readiness to learn, e) top management support, f) a formal technological learning system, g) high learning motivation, h) appropriate technology choice, and i) specific goal setting. These learning capabilities determine firms' learning performance, especially in the early stages of development. Furthermore, it is found that the critical factors for successful technological learning vary along the stages of technology development. Throughout the statistical and policy analyses, this study confirms that technological learning can be understood as an intrinsic principle of the technology development process. Firms perform proactive and creative learning in the late stages, while reactive and imitative learning prevails in the early stages. In addition, this study identifies the driving forces or facilitating factors enhancing innovation performance in the post catch-up era. The results of the preliminary case studies and policy analysis show some facilitating factors such as a) the strategic intent of the CEO and corporate culture, b) leadership and change agents, c) design principles and routines, d) ecosystem and collaboration with partners, and e) intensive R&D investment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to find out which factors determine the success of start-up in the initial market and what are the most important determinants. For the empirical analysis, the questionnaire related to the analysis of success factors for start-up success was designed according to the quantitative analysis (AHP technique). First, we selected 8 representative success factors for successful start-up in the initial market. In order to determine the degree of priority among these factors, we surveyed 12 entrepreneurs who are interested in entrepreneurship, universities, research institutes, and public officials. As a result of the empirical analysis, 51% of the funds in the tier 1 were ranked as the top priority to determine success factors. Followed by research and development (32.5%), management (8.7%) and marketing (7.8%). In particular, when each of the four items is calculated as 100 according to the result of the tier 1, and the tier 2 is converted, the foreign investment is analyzed as 43.7%. It was followed by 15.14% of R & D facilities, 14.07% of ideas, 8.7% of managerial ability, 7.29% of domestic investment, 5.85% of buyer feedback, 3.3% of development strategy and 1.95% of marketing strategy. Among the eight success factors, overseas investment items showed the closest preference to half, and it was the most important variable that determines the success or failure of market entry. The implication of this study is that many start-ups in Korea expect to receive investment and support from overseas accelerators. This means that overseas investment itself has been recognized as a start-up that makes services and products that can be used in the global market. A high preference for attracting foreign investment is due to the fact that the amount of investment is larger than that of Korea and that it can flexibly cope with the pressure on the performance compared to domestic investors. In this study, it was meaningful that we could confirm this fact through questionnaires of start-up experts. In future research, we need to find a viable alternative through studying how to provide start-up to foreign direct investment at the national level.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.147-161
• /
• 2017

Korea is a country having shortage of natural resources, but to overcome this issue and to nurture national competitiveness it is challenging for national-lead economic policy, citizen's dedicated efforts and technological innovation for achieving economic growth. Since the financial crisis, the government has boldly promoted policies to nurture venture companies to make structural adjustments for the sophistication of the industrial structure and job creation. Various policies for establishing the foundation of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in which the process of start-up, growth, recovery and reinvest are virtually circulated are presented by the Business Incubators. Recently the Business Incubators neither present a direction differentiated from the vocation of Business Incubator, and nor the operating methods for leading the changing of Business Incubator environment, which threatening the role of Incubating and growing early startup companies. In order to explore the development change of the business incubator, in this research we analyzed the published papers from 1998 to 2016 of business incubator government polices, research methods, related research topics and other major variables. The analysis of the research trends of business incubator revealed the lack of depth case studies, diversity of research topics, and the study of certain limited variables. For the development of the business incubator, case studies of the institutions which carried out excellent incubator and research on the incubation system of the institutions, that are similar to the incubation center are required. This research suggest further research on the case studies of excellent business incubator and agencies, and the center director and manager, which is the center of human resources, and hopes for the revitalization of business incubator researches.