• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.51-59
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• 2020

The importance of innovative capability, the driving force behind innovation as a company's intangible resources, is increasing. In general, companies with high innovation capability are more likely to be successful in innovation, which can be expected to have a positive impact on corporate performance. The innovation capacity of SMEs considered in this study is R&D capability and manufacturing capability. The reason for this is that not only the continuous efforts to strengthen the competitiveness of SMEs are focused on stabilizing manufacturing capability, but also considering the situation in which governmental support for SMEs' R&D capability has been actively developed. This study examines whether R&D capability and manufacturing capability have a significant influence on corporate performance and securing competitive advantage, and analyzes whether competitive advantage acts as a mediator between innovation capability and corporate performance through regression analysis. SPSS 23.0 software was used for the empirical analysis of the data obtained through the survey. The research results are as follows. First, both R&D and manufacturing capabilities of SMEs were found to have a significant positive effect on corporate performance. Second, manufacturing capability had a significant effect on securing competitive advantage of SMEs, but R&D capability was not significant. Third, the competitive advantage of SMEs was found to play a mediating role between manufacturing capability and corporate performance.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.33-62
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• 2021

This study compares and analyzes the efficiency of R&D activities of technology-innovative small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) between industries and proposes ways to improve efficiency. The research samples are 6,708 technology-innovative SMEs, which have received a guarantee by the KIBO from 2008 to 2011. Input variables are the level of R&D personnel, R&D investment, and output variables are patent applications, prototype. Efficiency is measured by the DEA model, and indirect comparisons that are individually measured by industry are performed. As a result of the analysis, the CCR for determining the optimal returns to scale is 0.19, the BCC for determining the optimal input distribution is 0.70, and the SE for determining the optimal output is 0.30. By industry type, the medium and low-tech industries have high CCR and BCC, while the high-end and high-tech industries have high SE. R&D activities need to be operated on an optimal scale through managing R&D performance because there is the inefficiency of scale across the industry. The contribution of the study is to analyze the R&D efficiency of each industry of technology-innovative SMEs by the technology evaluation data of the KIBO.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.87-104
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• 2015

Public procurement for innovation is used as one of the major policy tools to stimulate innovation and promote growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Korea. However, it is evaluated that this policy has not been so effective in promoting technological innovation among SMEs largely because it heavily depends on price competitiveness of SMEs products and services. In order to draw some policy implications, this study examines the PPI policies of selected countries as comparative references and conducts an empirical analysis on Korean Public Procurement Services (PPS) data for identifying challenges of the current policy in Korea. We conclude that in order to enhance technological innovations of SMEs, PPI policy in Korea should 1) focus more on the potential competitiveness of SMEs, 2) enlarge public demands especially on R&D services, 3) encourage private sector participation in the public procurement market, 4) improve the assessment criteria for public procurement market registration, and 5) restructure the responsible organizations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.70-79
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• 2019

Domestic SMEs play a key role in production and employment, accounting for 98.9% of total enterprises, 74.4% of employment, 50.8% of production, and 49.0% of value added (as of 2016). However, they are faced with difficulties of survival because of continuous decrease in profitability, shortage of funds and manpower, insufficient accumulation of technology, minimum wage increase, and 52-hour workweek. In order for SMEs to continue to develop in such a difficult environment, we must constantly innovate our organization by making full use of our knowledge, information, experience and ability. To do this, CEO (management) leadership is very important to ensure that the best people are focused on the organizational innovation and management performance without moving the company. In this study, we wanted to establish empirically how the newly emerging compassionate rationalism leadership of SMEs business managers affected the innovation activities and management performance of companies. Research has shown that management's compassionate rationalism leadership has a positive and significant causal relationship with the innovation activities and management performance of the enterprise. Therefore, SMEs managers need to learn the bottom eight strategic factors of compassionate rationalism leadership and use them strategically to make efforts to create positive emotions for the organization so that members can be immersed in innovative activities and management performance creation.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.221-235
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• 2019

SMEs are experiencing difficulties in doing sales promotion due to the low awareness of the image of the company and the products produced by them in the global market. Therefore, the Government should seek ways to raise awareness of SMEs' image and products. SMEs have to carry out global innovation activities needed to develop new products or new technologies, but they are exposed to limitations of these innovative activities due to the limit of their available resources. Therefore, as a national project, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Small and Medium Business Corporation are doing project for fostering and constructing global shopping mall (independent mall) so that SMEs can strengthen their global innovation activities. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to succeeding in the project for fostering and constructing global shopping mall (independent mall) by studying the case of Zungle Incorporation which operates a global shopping mall and greatly increases exports by participating in this project, and identifying success factors of Zungle Incorporation in doing this project.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.77-100
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• 2005

This paper analyzes the determinants of firm's innovative activity, using Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) dataset. Especially, we focused on the role of external networks by partners(other firms or research institutions) in performing innovative activities. The product innovation, product improvement, and process innovation are used as proxies for innovative activity. The explanatory variables such as market concentration ratio, lagged profitability, foreign ownership, export ratio, firm's age, formal R&D activity, and industrial R&D intensity are also considered. With data from 1,124 firms for the two years (2000-2001), we estimated the logistic regression model. The finding is that the determinants of firm's innovative activities differ by type of innovations. We also found that the innovative behavior of SMEs differs from that of large firms. The result confirms that external networks have a strong positive effect on innovative activity. However, the network effects by partners vary across both firm size and type of innovations.

• Korean small business review
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2021

The survival period according to technological capability was analyzed for about 22,500 innovative SMEs in the service industry. The survival period was defined as the occurrence of overdue and default, and the technological capability was divided into two clusters. As a result of estimating the survival period according to technological capability through Kaplan-Meier analysis, it was confirmed that the estimated survival period of T1-T4 grade service innovative SMEs was significantly greater in both overdue and default. As a result of the analysis of the Cox proportional hazard model applying the control variable, it was confirmed that the higher technological capability, the lower the risk in the group of start-up companies. However, in the group of non-start-up companies the technological capability did not significantly affect the survival period, and the influence of the variables related to the size of the company was found to increase. Therefore, the technological capability is meaningful as additional information that has a significant effect on the survival period of innovative SMEs in the start-up companies group of service industry. In addition, it was concluded that it is necessary to reflect the technological capability when establishing the SME support and promotion policy of the start-up companies group in the service industry.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.257-267
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• 2022

The employment effect of innovation-certified SMEs (venture certification, inno-biz certification and main-biz certification) and general SMEs was compared and analyzed. Through propensity score matching, general SMEs with similar tendencies to SMEs for each innovation certification were selected. The employment effect was approached from two perspectives: the absolute employment effect, the employment growth rate, and the relative employment effect, the sales-employment coefficient. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that venture certified SMEs and inno-biz certified SMEs, which are technology innovation-type certifications, have an advantage in absolute employment effect. In addition, it was concluded that innovation-certified SMEs have more room for employment than general SMEs by achieving sales growth that exceeds employment growth. Therefore, there is a possibility to enhance the employment effect of innovation-certified SMEs by strengthening employment-related incentives for innovation-certified SMEs.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2015

This paper aims to explore the small and medium sized enterprises'(SMEs') technological innovation through an open innovative strategy. Researchers have identified open innovation as external search 'breadth' and 'depth'. Although an open innovation strategy is well known as an effective way for SMEs' innovation, this stream of research examines differences between pursuing breadth of external knowledge and depth of external knowledge for SEMs' innovation. The sample comprises a total of 1106 SMEs included in the Korean Innovation Survey, and logistic regression analysis and odds ratio comparison were used to evaluate the relationship between external knowledge search and innovation outcomes. The results show that both 'breadth' and 'depth' positively affect the SMEs' innovation. When SMEs are simultaneously pursuing external searching for breadth and depth, however, a negative result on innovation outcome followed because of the lack of their internal resources and capacities. Despite these contributions, we have certain limitations that can be regarded as means of future research. Even though breadth and depth are adopted to measure the way of how a firm sources the external knowledge, companies may place the different weight on each source of knowledge. And also, it is difficult to understand how the knowledge gained through external search contributes to a firm's incremental and radical innovation, respectively.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.325-333
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• 2022

This study examined the influence of three elements of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO), namely innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It is worth noting that SMEs have experienced low productivity, low profit, and low performance during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Although several studies have shown that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a key factor of company performance, few have focused on IEO. This study employed a quantitative research design because all variables were measurable. It used a questionnaire to survey 384 SMEs in the service sector and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) in data analysis. The findings suggested that SMEs' performance was influenced by risk-taking and proactiveness. This could be related to the fact that SMEs have a less formal structure, allowing owner-managers to take risks and make quick decisions. Furthermore, high performance was ensured by being very sensitive to market trends and changes in the business environment. Innovativeness was not a significant factor in influencing the performance of SMEs. Perhaps it was rather difficult for SME owner-managers to be innovative due to the lack of various resources. This study successfully re-confirmed the effect of IEO on business performance and highlighted the importance of risk-taking and proactiveness in improving the performance of SMEs.