• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-57
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• 2020

Among the fintech businesses that are actively developing around the world, payment and settlement are the most prominent. Korea has a well-developed IT industry and a good existing card payment environment, however, its innovative movement is overwhelmingly slower than that of other countries in the fintech. In this study, we try to assess the regulations on fintech and their impacts on the startup ecosystem by comparing the cases of U.S., China, and Korea. We have found that both the United States and China have lowered barriers to entry for the newly launched fintech industry, allowing startups and IT companies to start fintech businesses at the existing financial sector. Particularly the implementation of predictable regulations in U.S., and the failure to apply the financial regulations in China, help start-up companies' growth in the fintech industry. This finding provides us with a lesson that current positive regulations in Korea should gradually change into negative regulations, and predictable regulations that strictly enforce post-management except major items rather than pre-approval. The policy implications are discussed with the perspective of start-ups in fintech industry.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.105-115
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• 2017

Innovative cluster theory promotes cluster growth as the tacit knowledge and know-how approach becomes easier through industry-academia cooperation. Industry-academia cooperation is an innovation network policy that supports joint research between industry and academia. In this respect, The Flow of recent government policy is activating I-U support office in university & research institute for enable I-U Cooperation ecosystem. Then SMB Administration was first performed "research village support program", to support SMEs in industry-university cooperative research capabilities by integrating the research, development and commercializatin of the university or research institution with excellent research base in 2013. However, I-U Cooperation R&D must be based the link strategy of Localization in order to be better composition at research village. In the case of research villages where specialized discovery strategies are well reflected, integration of similar companies in specialized fields will naturally create clusters and create synergy of research. This study searching and summarizing through a recent Hanbat National University research village. Finally, we propose the implications of government policy.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2018

During few decades, Korean economy has been growing with heavy and manufacturing industries. However, the economy meets limitations of growth rate, and employment rate. The Korean government has been trying to overcome these limitations using development of venture businesses and re-organization of industrial ecosystem. These efforts make high survival rate of recent venture companies. There are previous researches about relation between characteristics of entrepreneur and managerial performance, there are several limitations. Firstly, most of papers were based on survey with specific region or industry. Secondly, related researches were carried out with unable to distinguish among firm's survival periods. This paper uses the '2017 Survey of Korea Venture Firms' data that is approved by the Korean government. This data includes whole industries and survival periods. The aim of this research is finding the effect of characteristics of entrepreneur on managerial performance of venture firms by different survival periods using data envelopment analysis (DEA). If entrepreneur has doctoral degree, the firm's managerial performance is lower than bachelor degree. In addition, over 10 years of working career, and joint-venture have positive effect on firm's performance. This paper can provide valuable information to venture related policy makers and investment decision makers.

• World Technopolis Review
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.74-81
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• 2019

Cities will soon host two third of the population worldwide, and already today 80% of the world energy is used in the 20 largest cities. Urban areas create 80% of the greenhouse gas emission, so we should take care that urban areas are smart and sustainable as implementations have especially here the greatest impact. Smart Cities (SC) or Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) are the actual concepts that describe methodologies how cities can handle the high density of citizens, efficiency of energy use, better quality of life indicators, high attractiveness for foreign investments, high attractiveness for people from abroad and many other critical improvements in a shifting environment. But if we talk about Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Innovation, we do not see a lot of literature covering this topic within those SC/SSC concepts. It seems that 'Smart' implies that all is embedded, or isn't it properly covered as brick stone of SC/SSC concepts, as they are handled in another 'responsibility silo', meaning that the policy implementation of a Science and Technology Park (STP) is handled in another governing body than SC/SSC developments. If this is true, we will obviously miss a lot of synergy effects and economies of scale effects. Effects that we could have in case we stop the siloed approaches of STPs by following a more holistic concept of a Smart Sustainable City, covering also a continuous flow of innovation into the city, without necessarily always depend on large corporate SSC solutions. We try to argue that every SSC should integrate SP/STP concepts or better their features and services into their methodology. The very limited interconnectivity between these concepts within the governance models limits opportunities and performance in both systems. Redesigning the architecture of the governance models and accepting that we have to design a system-of-systems would support the possible technology flow for smart city technologies, it could support testbed functionalities and the public-private partnership approach with embedded business models. The challenge is of course in complex governance and integration, as we often face siloed approaches. But real SSC are smart as they are connecting all those unconnected siloes of stakeholders and technologies that are not yet interoperable. We should not necessarily follow anymore old greenfield approaches neither in SSCs nor in SP and STP concepts from the '80s that don't fit anymore, being replaced by holistic sustainability concepts that we have to implement in any new or revised SSC concepts. There are new demands for each SP/STP being in or close to an SC/SCC as they have a continuous demand for feeding the technology base and the application layer and should also act as testbeds. In our understanding, a big part of STP inputs and outputs are still needed, but in a revised and extended format. We know that most of the SC/STP studies claim the impact is still far from understood and often debated, therefore we must transform the concepts where SC/STPs are not own 'cities', but where they act as technology source and testbed for industry and new SSC business models, being part of the SC/STP concept and governance from the beginning.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.21-35
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• 2021

Based on social capital theory, this study investigated the influence of the start-up founder's social competence on the start-up's access to funding sources and performance through the mediating role of the type of social network. This study aimed to examine two types of social networks empirically (i.e., personal networks and business networks) as social capital in analyzing the effect of the founder's social competence and social capital on the method of accessing funding sources. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 252 South Korean start-up founders whose businesses are based in South Korea. Path analysis and mediation effect analysis were performed by structural equation modeling(SEM) using STATA 16.1. This study examined the full mediating effect of the founder's social competence on his/her personal and business networks, respectively, and how the effect leads to different methods to approach funding sources. This is the first study in South Korea to analyze empirically how social competence has contrasting effects on personal and business networks as well as how each type of network varies in its influence on the method founders use to attract investment. This study is also significant in that it proposed a new methodology by utilizing the position generator as the measure of personal and business networks to analyze social networks in detail. The analyses of 252 survey data collected over a period of six months will be a valuable resource that may provide researchers, founders, investors, and other stakeholders in the start-up ecosystem with meaningful implications.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1-16
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to examine how the Korean government has intervened in the venture capital market so far and empirically investigate whether the government's policies on venture capital have stimulated venture capital's early-stage investment. To this end, this study classified the government's market intervention in the venture capital market by stage by studying the related literature and applying and analyzing the case in Korea. And, this study empirically analyzed the effectiveness of the Korean government's policy to revitalize the early-stage investment of venture capital, which is the most important purpose of government intervention. For empirical analysis, yearly data from 2004 to 2018 provided by the Korea Venture Capital Association and Korea Fund of Funds were analyzed using time series statistical analysis and macrodynamics. As a result of the case study, the Korean government has intervened in the venture capital market through direct investment for 25 years, and has been intervening through indirect investment for the next 18 years. As a result of time-series statistical analysis, the government's fiscal investment to increase the formation of venture capital funds and the increase in the ratio of special-purpose funds that mandate a certain percentage of early-stage investment increased the early-stage investment of venture capital. However, macrodynamics showed a trend in the opposite direction from this time series statistical analysis from 2016. In conclusion, this study interprets the trend in the opposite direction to the time series statistical analysis results as the government's erroneous regulation on the venture capital investment method and the recent lack of effectiveness of direct intervention through the government's indirect investment method. In addition, based on the results of case studies and empirical studies, this study made six policy proposals necessary for indirect government intervention.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2023

Big tech companies are further strengthening its status against the background of data accumulation, price competitiveness by the platform, and competitive advantage due to the network effect. The competition subcommittee of the European Union(EU) imposed a huge fine on Google for antitrust violations, which was interpreted as an attempt to collect Google's unpaid taxes. In fact, taxation efforts in the form of 'Google tax' are underway, targeting expedient tax avoidance by global platforms. It has power and has a considerable influence on the startup ecosystem. The domestic sales and tax scale of global platforms, which have a great impact on domestic content startups and small and medium-sized venture companies, are not accurately measured. In the case of Google, according to research literature, sales in Korea were estimated at about 2 trillion to 3 trillion won in 2017, but Google Korea reported sales of 290 billion won in 2021 and paid 13 billion won in taxes. This study aims to verify the economic effect of the global platform that has a great influence on Korea, and specifically to quantitatively estimate the annual domestic sales and taxes of Google, a representative global platform. As a result of estimating Google's annual domestic sales and taxes based on the figures presented in the document related to Google's economic effect published by Google, the result was 4 to 9 trillion won in annual sales and 390.6 to 913.1 billion won in taxes. This study is meaningful in that it provides basic data on the direction of national and tax policies in the future digital economy era by estimating the problem of tax authority by country of global platform companies with a specific example of Google.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.39-50
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• 2022

Based on the signaling theory, this study examined whether startups are more likely to attract venture investment when receiving government R&D subsidies. First, we reviewed previous studies of the investment decision-making process of venture capitalists and understood the conditions that influence investment decisions. Based on previous studies on the signal effect of government subsidies, particularly government R&D grants, on inducing private fund investment, this study revealed a mechanism to induce venture investment by startups. In addition, in order to verify whether government R&D subsidies have the effect of inducing venture investment, an empirical analysis was conducted based on data from startups under seven years and certified as a venture companies in 2021. This paper used PSM(Propensity Score Matching) method and DID(Difference In Difference) analysis for an empirical study to analyze the average treatment effect on the treated group(beneficiary startups of government R&D grants). As a result of empirical analysis, companies that receive more government R&D subsidies after starting a business are more likely to attract venture investment. From two to three years after conducting the first government R&D project, startups that received government R&D grants attracted more venture investment than those that did not. The results of this paper demonstrate that government R&D projects can also affect the venture investment ecosystem, giving policy implications to government R&D projects targeting startups. It is also expected to suggest strategic implications to startups that need new funding.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1-14
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• 2021

Innovation and Scale-up of Start-up companies are becoming important national tasks. In the past, it was spread the start-up policy paradigm such as 'Start-up America', 'Start-up Chile', 'Start-up Britain' to overcome the recession globally. However as the economic recovery has become more visible recently in advanced economies, it is shifting from a start-up support policy to a scale-up oriented policy paradigm such as 'Scale-up America', Scale-up UK', 'Scale-up Denmark'. It is necessary to enter the scale-up phase beyond the start-up phase to increase the number of high-quality jobs and to continue economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary to grow the start-up into a strong medium-sized company and to lay the foundation for survival. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to consider the antecedent factors that influence the scale-up aspiration for the start-up firm to grow into a scale-up company, and empirically identifies the differences between the stages of economic development and entrepreneurs in the country. In order to accomplish the purpose, this study predicted scale-up by aspiration which is a predictor of scale-up behavior because it is difficult to achieve visible growth in a short period of time due to the characteristics of start-up companies. In order to empirically explore these relationships, the data were collected from nascent entrepreneurs who have less than 3.5 years of the Adult Population Survey(APS) among the subjects surveyed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor(GEM) and the national economic development stage are divided into Innovation-driven, Efficiency-driven, Factor-driven type economies. For the test hypotheses, this study adopted the multi-level model analysis for comparison between national economic development stages and using the R 3.5.0 program. The results of this study are as follows. There is difference between the national economic development and the entrepreneur in the relationship between innovation orientation of entrepreneurs and scale-up aspirations. As the economy of the country develops, the innovation activity of the entrepreneur becomes more active. Since start-ups are heavily influenced by entrepreneurs, there is a difference in the degree of aspiration depending on how innovative an entrepreneur is in the same environment. In terms of the relationship between innovation orientation and scale-up aspiration, the fear of failure was found to differ between national economic development and entrepreneurs. The fear of failure differ from country to country, and this is one of the important factors affecting entrepreneurial activities. It is expected that the factors influencing the growth of the start-up companies which are identified through the results of these studies, will be used to create a suitable scale-up ecosystem according to the national economic development stage.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.17-32
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• 2023

In recent years, the need for social ventures that aim to grow while solving social problems through the efficiency and effectiveness of commercial organizations in the market has increased, while there is a limit to how much the government and the public can do to solve social problems. Against this background, the number of social venture startups is increasing in the domestic startup ecosystem, and interest in impact investors, which are investors in social ventures, is also increasing. Therefore, this research utilized judgment analysis technology to objectively analyze the validity and weight of judgment information based on the cognitive process and decision-making environment in the investment decision-making of impact investors. We proceeded with the research by constructing three classifications; first, investment priorities at the initial investment stage for financial benefit and return on investment as an investor, second, the political skills of the entrepreneurs (teams) for the social impact and ripple power, and social venture coexistence and solidarity, third, the social mission of a social venture that meets the purpose of an impact investment fund. As a result of this research, first of all, the investment decision-making priorities of impact investors are the expertise of the entrepreneur (team), the potential rate of return when the entrepreneur (team) succeeds, and the social mission of the entrepreneur (team). Second, impact investors do not have a uniform understanding of the investment decision-making factors, and the factors that determine investment decisions are different, and there are differences in the degree of the weighting. Third, among the various investment decision-making factors of impact investment, "entrepreneur's (team's) networking ability", "entrepreneur's (team's) social insight", "entrepreneur's (team's) interpersonal influence" was relatively lower than the other four factors. The practical contribution through this research is to help social ventures understand the investment determinant factors of impact investors in the process of financing, and impact investors can be expected to improve the quality of investment decision-making by referring to the judgment cases and analysis of impact investors. The academic contribution is that it empirically investigated the investment priorities and weighting differences of impact investors.