• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.123-156
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• 2005

Strengthening the competitive edge of SMEs has become one of the most important economic issues in Korea as the bipolarization between large firms and SMEs has deepened. Accordingly, small innovative firms (referred as 'venture firms' in Korea) attract keen attention both from policy makers and academia. Also, we can sufficiently observe how the growth environment for venture firms has evolved, since it has been almost ten years after the Korean government started its support policy for venture firms. Considering this, now is the appropriate time to carry out an analysis of venture firms. From this point of view, this study looks at growth factors for venture firms to draw out policy implications. The empirical analysis shows interesting results. Firms with the following features all showed higher growth rates: firms with high R&D intensity, younger firms, bigger firms, firms using more policy loans, and firms located within and around the Seoul region. However, the empirical analysis has some limitations. The data used in the study is limited in terms of firm information and so there are some insufficiencies. Thus it is of great importance to compile the required data on firms to enable further in-depth studies.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.209-218
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of information system factors and organizational factors on procedural management performance in small and medium-sized venture companies in the Seoul metropolitan area. In the previous study was conducted mainly on large companies and general SMEs. In this study, the research was conducted considering the characteristics of SMEs. The results showed that system suitability, system quality, and IT assets had a positive effect on procedural management performance, and manager perception and human resource capacity had a positive effect on procedural management performance. But the evaluation and compensation did not have a positive effect on procedural management performance. The results of this study showed almost the same results as those of the previous studies. Venture firms have poor financial ability, technology, and organizational management ability than general SMEs. However, the introduction and diffusion factors of new information systems were not significantly different from those of general SMEs.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.86-98
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• 2011

Venture capital companies and funds play the following roles: to find small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) which face equity gap but possess high-growth potential, to make equity investment in such SMEs, and to intensively support the invested firms' growth in order to gain the maximum profits from the investment via maximization of the firms' values. This work discusses the issue of how such roles of venture capital can be used in a stable manner within individual non-Capital regions of Korea for fostering the start-up and growth of promising SMEs and thereby advancing local/regional economic development. The principal portion of my discussion deals with Regional Venture Capital Fund(RVCF) of UK and its policy implications for the Korean context. Additionally, the work conceptually explores roles of venture capital and local/regional development, and it empirically examines how such venture capital's functions are recently used for the business start-up and growth in the non-Capital regions of Korea.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.123-136
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• 2019

This study is to provide a method to increase the credit rating of the company by examining and managing the executive competency of the CEO of SMEs and Venture Firms. We analyzed the importance and priority of AHP by surveying bank loan staff and CEOs. According to the analysis results, ethics management, strategic thinking, and expertise level were the highest in the relative importance of bank loan staff. The relative importance of CEOs was higher in order of marketing, bank transaction reliability, and financing. Result of this study is similar to the relative importance of the previous research. This study suggests to disclosing credit rating system and reflect the opinions of the CEO in order to protect financial consumers. The significance of this study is to present the factors and the importance that can help to develop advanced models.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.195-210
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• 2020

This study describes the structure of the capital markets for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startup companies in Korea, which is an emerging market that has experienced drastic changes. The overall capital market can be divided into private and public capital markets. In the private capital market, most of the demand for capital comes from non-listed private firms, including startups and SMEs. In the case of SMEs and startups, the KOSDAQ, the Korea New Exchange (KONEX), and primary collateralized bond obligations (P-CBOs) are part of the public capital market. SMEs and startups are generally incapable of raising sufficient capital owing to their low credit ratings, and they largely have limited access to primary markets to issue shares and borrow money. The Korean government has developed a systematic financial aid program to provide funds to these companies. The fund for SMEs has significantly contributed to the development of the venture capital market. Many Korean banks provide substantial lending to SMEs, but this lending is available only because of the Korean government's loan recovery guarantee. Furthermore, SMEs can issue corporate debt in the form of primary collateralized bond obligations through government guarantees, but such debt issuances have placed increasing pressure on public guarantee institutions.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.115-131
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• 2014

This study analyzed the impact of the investment of venture capital firms(VCFs) on the technological advancement of SMEs, which could be represented as the numerical increasement of patents. The results of this study are as follows: the higher proportion of VCFs' shares or the higher intensity of R&D, the more positive impact has been shown in the technological advancement of SMEs. Also, the joint investment of VCFs or the leading investors' stock acquirement had a positive impact on the technological improvement of them. Meanwhile, the meaningful relationships of company-size and the technical manpower with technological development were not identified although they were marginally positive. Those could be interpreted that the VCFs' supervision and control, including their managerial and technical advice, over invested companies display effectiveness for SMEs. It could also be interpreted that investors concentrate their investment on the relatively stable companies or the companies which other investors already finished screening.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.111-121
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• 2009

This paper explores the financial aids for promoting businesses' growth and investment which the UK national government has implemented as a policy instrument for regional development. Especially, this work focuses on Small Firms Loan Guarantee, Community Investment Tax Relief for individuals and corporate bodies, and government-backed venture capital funds, all of which belong to the policy measures which pursue the growth of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in UK. Concerning the promotion of SMEs' growth, I also discuss the policy implications of such measures for the Korean context.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.67-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPS_t) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEA_t), the current leverage ratio(LEV_t), the current operating return on assets(ROA_t), the current business risk(RISK_t), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURN_t), and the current dividend premium(DPREM_t). In these control variables, CEA_t, LEV_t, and ROA_t are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROA_t and RISK_t are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURN_t is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREM_t is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.165-176
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• 2014

This paper was tried to show the improvement model for software industry structure in Korea regarding to have the global level of competence in Korean software firms. To suggest the improvement model for software industry structure, the detailed status about software industry which as in the supply and demand perspectives and comparativeness dimension were analysed. Also to this model the special survey results from the 35 professionalists in the software industry were included. This improvement model suggests the big software firms have to consider the economy of the scale, and to enter global IT market, the other SMEs have to pursuit themselves as a specified technology firms. So it is good for the oversea project collaboration with the solution provider firms and IT service firms. And it is desirable to make a the economy of scale regarding as the solution venture startup, M&A, networking the software firms as supply chain. Also the development of new business model for new market and firms with the high-tech business competency will be required.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.21-39
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• 2023

The study investigates the impact of family ownership heterogeneity on the internationalization decisions of family-owned enterprises from ICT sectors in South Korea. The study uses prospect theory to explore the relationship between ownership structure and internationalization. The study finds that as performance improves, the ultimate owner (CEO) is negatively related to internationalization, while other family members are positively related, demonstrating the heterogeneous behavior of family members. The study suggests that the ultimate owner (CEO) tends to avoid risks associated with internationalization, while other family members are willing to take risks. To better understand the various risk behaviors of family firms regarding internationalization, the inherent heterogeneity of family firms, particularly in light of different risk behaviors between the ultimate owner (CEO) and other family members, may explain the inconsistent results in studies on the effect of family ownership on internationalization.