• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

This study aim to figure out the limitation of existing ICT SMEs technology support programs conducted by Government Funded Research Institute. To investigate the limitations of SMEs programs, we conducted Focus Group Interview(FGI) with staff in charge of R&D department of beneficiaries(ICT SMEs). The results of FGI show that SMEs have troubles with the lack of R&D manpower, R&D infrastructure and non-R&D activities. Then, we conducted Delphi survey(derived from FGI) with related field experts to ask the problems and limitations of SMEs programs. The Results of Delphi show that SMEs programs has limitations with avoiding of SMEs support staff, lack of public R&D infrastructure sharing center, incompleteness of policies. Based on the results of FGI and Delphi, we suggest the several ways to improving SMEs programs.

• 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 Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.373-390
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• 2003

With limited resources, proper allocation of the national R&D budget is very crucial matter for reinforcing the national competence, and the importance of selecting strategic R&D fields have been increasingly emphasized by technology policy-makers and CTOs. This paper deals with technology relevance/cluster analysis, which measures technological dependency and relevancy among technologies, and how it can be used for selecting the strategic R&D fields especially satisfying SMEs(small and medium enterprises)' specific needs. As a result of this study, technology-product tree composed of 7 major technology fields, 22 clusters, 41 groups, 335 core-need technologies and hundreds of related business items are produced that can be used for designing SMEs' R&D/business portfolio as well as R&D investment decision-making of the Ministry of Small and Medium Business Administration.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.177-205
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• 2022

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have strong incentives to engage in open innovation to enhance innovation efficiency and effectiveness due to their 'liability of smallness.' Previous research examined the performance effects of various open innovation practices, but whether coupled open innovation practices positively affect SMEs' firm performance is somewhat controversial. To resolve the issue, this study examined the effects of coupled open innovation activities on SMEs' firm performance using Heckman's two stage model to control endogeneity of the firms' self-selection bias in open innovation engagement. This study used the Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) 2020 collected by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), and tested the effects of SMEs' coupled open innovation activities, R&D and non-R&D cooperation, on their innovative and financial performance indicators. The results showed that SMEs' R&D cooperation positively affects the new-to-market (NTM) product innovation only. Moreover, SMEs' non-R&D cooperation has positive effects on the product innovation, business process innovation, new-to-the-market product innovation, and new-to-firm (NTF) product innovation. However, the results showed that both R&D and non-R&D innovation cooperation activities have no significant effects on SMEs' financial performance indicators. This study contributes to research on SMEs' open innovation and provides insights for SMEs' managers and policymakers.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.362-377
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• 2019

Commercializing universities' R&D outputs is a major management challenge and there are limited studies to describe this phenomenon from the perspective of companies' management. Experiences of six small and medium size and four large companies' management's respondents are gathered through semi-structured face-toface interviews. Twelve critical success factors revealed by the respondents, namely R&D product and market readiness, good partnership with university, researcher's motivationand commitment, availability of resources, government support and motivation, control and ownership of intellectual property rights, university's management support, entrepreneurial culture in the university, an open communication and trusting relationship, researchers' skills, a risk taking attitude, and existence of performance measures as important to commercialize the universities' R&D outputs in Malaysia. The different views from the management of small and medium size, and large companies are also discussed in this study.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.37-63
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• 2014

This study is intended to demonstrate how different factors induce the Korean government's direct investment in research and development according to the type of business enterprise in Korea. We analyzed that what factors made the government directly invest in research and development by using a total of 18,272 company panel data, which are not limited to specific industries or government-led research and development (R&D) programs. The results showed that the direct investment for R&D by the government led to the increase in the number of researchers in SMEs. For major companies, the direct investment resulted in the increase of sales and company's own R&D expenses. Moreover, this study found that government's direct support for R&D even led to the decrease of SMEs' own R&D expenses; however, this result was not statistically significant. In addition, the most significant factor to increase both SMEs' and major company's own R&D expenses was the sales amount of the company, rather than government's direct investment for R&D. The factor that increases sales was the company's own R&D expenses, rather than government's direct investment for R&D. Through the analysis using Mixed Effects Model, this study suggested the policy should be changed to make SMEs invest in its own R&D expenses, rather than to secure researchers of SMEs by government's direct investment for R&D.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.117-125
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate the actual effect of government R&D support and regulation as a policy on technology innovation of SMEs. Because the previous studies did not consider the endogeneity of R&D support and made inconsistent conclusions in the case of regulation, the empirical research was conducted by logistic, negative binomial regression and 2SLS analysis for 1,223 SMEs. The analysis results show that government support has the effect for technology innovation even considering the endogeneity of government R&D support, and government regulation has a positive effect on technology innovation which supports Porter's theory. These results imply that government R&D support is important in inducing technology innovation because of the vulnerability of SMEs technology development environment and government should foster SMEs technology innovation through appropriate regulation policies rather than unconditional deregulation.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.81-89
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• 2010

The photovoltaic industry is one of the main research areas for regenerable energy usage and green growth policy of the Korean government. R&D programs of MEST(Ministry of Education, Science and Technology) and MKE(Ministry of Knowledge Economy) are concentrating on the development of fundamental and applicable technology which can be carried out by a so-called "Big company" consortium. So it is essential to discover and support R&D projects for small and medium enterprises(SMEs) in the photovoltaic industry. R&D projects should be funded effectively to enhance the competitiveness of the SMEs. It is a complicated process as to decide what R&D projects or key element technologies should be selected and how to support them. In this paper, the supply chain analysis is adopted as a critical tool for selecting the research areas and topics for the SMEs, which can be done by analyzing the number of the SMEs, the level of imports and the localization possibility for each supply chain element. We define the strategic products for the SMEs to deduct core technologies for each strategic product. R&D projects definition sheets are proposed for each core technology. All the decision making processes are authorized by a committee which consists of experts for academia, industries and the research field. The efficacy of the proposed framework is described throughout the photovoltaic industry.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.97-124
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• 1992

The recent sharp increase in wages has driven many Korean manufacturing firms to move into technology-intensive fields. The task of industrial restructuring is, however, rather difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises (hereafter, "SMEs") which suffer from limited R&D resources. If the R&D activities of SMEs are left unattended, industrial restructuring process may be retarded. Hence, the government-sponsored programs can be justified when used to promote the technological level of SMEs. Because of the limited internal R&D resources of SMEs, in particular human resources, the government-sponsored programs that depend on financial subsidies to stimulate the R&D activities of SMEs may not be recommended. Rather, a more desirable policy is programs to subsidize outside sourcing of SMEs. Basic principles of the program are; (i) that the government should establish R&D laboratories which are specialized in joint researches with SMEs in each industry; (ii) research projects of the laboratories should be funded by SMEs; the government's support covers only fixed costs such as construction costs in order to avoid moral hazard problem. (iii) technology adviser programs sponsored by the government should be improved; geographical distribution is to be expanded and the activities are to be monitored by local governments. Also foreign networks need be strengthened.

• Journal of Information Technology and Architecture
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.463-470
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• 2014

Recently, government supporting policies on the revival of manufacturing industries are building up in the advanced economies like US and so on. Root manufacturing industry as the base of all manufacturing industries is accounting for SMEs by an absolute majority and Korean policies for SMEs are apt to increase in numbers. Nevertheless, there is no much concern in the area of root manufacturing industry SMEs. Especially, the effectiveness of R&D in root manufacturing industry is on the verge of controversy. As the results of root manufacturing industry SME's analysis, there are lots of various characteristics by fields in root manufacturing industry and the R&D results are not well carried over to business commercialization. In this paper, five policy proposals for root manufacturing industry SMEs are suggested based on the current situations of domestic and overseas countries.