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

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.1-46
• /
• 2020

Since its inception in 1979, 174 research papers on international business have been published in "Asia Pacific Journal of Small Business." In this paper, those literatures on international business of small/medium-sized enterprises and venture companies were reviewed and critically assessed. In this respect, research papers on international business were analyzed in the order of author, publication year, detailed research area, research method and main arguments and implications. Based on the data, this paper summarizes how frequently international business papers have been published, what detailed topics of international business have been covered, what research methods have been adopted, and which of the papers in each detailed research area of international business have special meanings. In addition, based on the results of analysis, this paper also drew suggestions on what efforts and changes should be made in future researches on international business activities of small/medium-sized enterprises and venture companies.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.13-24
• /
• 2011

IT is the core industry in Korea which has the most international competitiveness and counts for 35% of the total exports of Korea. Nevertheless, it tends to be concentrated in small range of items, a few countries and mostly large companies. Therefore, it is needed for small and medium-sized enterprises which can have prompt decision making processes and various changes to export wide range of items and to diverse countries. This study will introduce 'the fleet-type expansion strategy of overseas export' that is about large and small enterprises perform the appropriate role based on their own character, thus they produce the mutual benefit. This strategy will contribute to improve the export structure of Korea and perform the major role for Korea's IT industry to become the dynamic force for growth in the future.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.33-55
• /
• 2019

Recently, the perception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has changed. Until now, corporate social responsibility has been recognized as a temporary means to improve the image of a company, but there is a growing recognition that it is a prerequisite for sustainable growth of the entity. Social responsibility of enterprises has altered according to the times and economic environment, and as the global value chain has become important, it has become a growth strategy for small and medium-sized exporters. Under these circumstances, CSR is increasingly an integral part of the activities of companies, and this is no exception for small and medium-sized enterprises. Nevertheless, Korean small businesses' CSR is still lacking, and so the case of Japan, where CSR has spread to small and medium-sized businesses despite the short period of time, is believed to give us policy implications. In the Japanese case, corporate social responsibility has been traditionally passed down by Omi merchants in the 17th century. The social responsibility of a company they thought was summed up by the so-called "sanspo-yoshi spirit" that is beneficial to sellers, benefits to buyers and helps society. Based on the case of Japan's CSR, which has been applied smoothly even to its small and medium-sized companies, this paper intends to suggest the following policy implications. First, the establishment and dissemination of a national long-term plan is necessary. Second, it is urgent for smaller businesses to introduce their strategic CSRs. Third, CSR, which does mutual cooperation between large and small businesses, should be pursued.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.109-115
• /
• 2022

As the 4th industrial revolution progresses, foreign countries are promoting smart manufacturing innovation through digital transformation as a priority task early on to secure a competitive edge in the manufacturing industry. In response, the Korean government is also promoting a policy to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies by promoting digital transformation in the corporate sector to meet the global trend of the 4th industrial revolution era. Manufacturing powerhouses such as Germany and Japan see manufacturing as a key sector in digital transformation and are leading related policies, while emerging countries such as China are also promoting manufacturing innovation strategies such as building digital infrastructure and creating a digital innovation ecosystem. Korea is promoting the 'Korean-style smart factory dissemination and expansion strategy' by transforming Germany's manufacturing innovation strategy for smart factory supply to suit the domestic situation. However, the policy to supply smart factories so far has been conducted with support from individual companies under the leadership of the government, and most of the smart factories are at the basic level, and it is evaluated that there are limitations such as the lack of manpower to operate smart factories. In addition, while the current policy focuses on expanding the supply of smart factories in SMEs, it is necessary to establish a smart manufacturing system through linkages between large and small businesses in order to achieve the original goal of establishing a smart manufacturing system. Therefore, it can be said that from the standpoint of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), who are consumers of smart factories, it can be said that the digital transformation policy can achieve the expected results only when appropriate incentives are provided for the introduction of smart factories in a situation where management resources such as funds, technology, and human resources are lacking. In addition, it is judged that the uncertainty of the performance of digital investment always exists, and as long as large and small companies are maintained as an ecosystem of delivery and subcontracting, there is very little incentive for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies to voluntarily invest in or advance digital transformation. Therefore, the digital transformation policy of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in the future has practical significance in that it suggests that there is a need to seek ways to attract SMEs' digital-related voluntary investment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.221-233
• /
• 2019

In Korea, small and medium sized domestic enterprises(SMEs) play an pivotal role in the national economy, accounting for 99.9% of all enterprises, 87.9% of total employment, and 48.3% of production. and SMEs was driving a real force of the development of national economy in many respects such as innovation, job creation, industrial diversity, balanced regional development. Despite their crucial role in the national development, most of SMEs suffer from a lack of R&D capabilities and equipments as well as funding capacity. Public R&D institutes can provide SMEs with valuable supplementary technological knowledge and help them build technological capacity. so, In order to effectively support SMEs, government and public R&D institutes must be a priority to know about the factors influencing the performance related to technology transfer and technological collaborations. In particular, SMEs are not only taking up a large portion of the national economy, but also their influence in politics and economy so strong that raising the competitiveness of small and medium-sized companies is a national policy goal that must be achieved in order to achieve sustained economic growth. For this reason, it is necessary to look specifically at the relationship between concepts such as the environment, strategy, and organizational culture surrounding the enterprise to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs. The paper analyzes 665 companies to find out which organizational culture affects their performance by classification and type of business of SMEs. This study demonstrated that when SMEs seek consistency in their external environment, strategies, and organizational structure to maintain their continued competitiveness. According to three-way analysis of variance (3-way ANOVA) indicates that classification of industries in SMEs has statistically significant main effects, but the type of business and organizational culture do not have significant effects. However, the company's organizational performance (operating profit) of SMES were found to differ significantly in comparison between groups according to classification standards of industries, and therefore adopted some parts. In addition, an analysis of the effect of interaction between the three independent variables of small and medium-sized enterprises has shown that there are statistically significant interaction effects among classification, types of business, and organizational cultures. The results shows that there is an organizational culture suitable for each industry classification and type of business of an entity, and is expected to be used as a basis for establishing promotion policies related to the incubation and commerciality of small and medium-sized venture companies in the future.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.86-98
• /
• 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 Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.636-662
• /
• 2018

Recently, the Moon administration established the Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Startups, as part of its national strategy for start-up and innovation growth led by small and medium-sized venture companies. In a slowing economy, as venture companies with excellent internal competencies are seen to be favorable to growth, the government funding for technology development is becoming increasingly important. Previous studies examine the internal competence factors that can strengthen competitiveness through self-efforts and the influence structure of growth stage, which is an important factor in industrial environment, on business performance. As the government support for venture firms has been strengthened, the effect of government funding on the management performance and technological innovation performance of venture firms have been recently discussed in various ways. However, there is a lack of precedent research on the moderating effect of the utilization of government funding on the existing influence structure in which firm's internal competence and growth stages affects business performance. Therefore, this study examined whether the internal competencies of the venture firms and the stage of growth have direct effects on business performance and analyzed the moderating effect in connection with government funding utilization under these influence structures. The results of the study are as follows. First, the utilization of government funding in the venture firms whose R&D personnel ratio is relatively low, not to have own brands and showed an increase of employees has a significantly positive influence on business performance. Second, the moderating effects of the government funding utilization at the high growth stage of the venture firms are shown significantly. These results suggest that the venture policy linked to the job creation of the present government requires not only the support considering R&D personnel but also the necessity of supporting human resources policy to a greater extent and further study on the effectiveness of venture firms in the high growth stage.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.111-127
• /
• 2022

With the progress of the 4th industrial revolution, interest in smart factories is increasing. The government is implementing a smart factory support project for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. Therefore, in this study, factors influencing small and medium-sized enterprises(SME's) intention of smart factory acceptance were analyzed. In particular, it focused on how the perception of government support affects intention of smart factory acceptance. For the empirical analysis, a research model was established by reflecting the characteristics of SMEs and the technical factors of the smart factory centering on the technology acceptance theory. Based on the model set in this way, a questionnaire survey was conducted for employees of SMEs. In this study, a total of 231 samples of valid data were used for analysis. The empirical analysis results are as follows. It was analyzed that performance expectancy, social influence, technology utilization capability, CEO will, and employee resistance to innovation, all introduced as research variables, had a significant effect on the use intention of smart factory acceptance. In particular, it was found that employees' resistance to innovation had a negative (-) effect on their use intention. Meanwhile, to analyze the moderating effect of government support, it was divided into a group with high expectations for government support and a group with low expectations. As a result, it was found that there was a difference in the effect of CEO's will, employees' resistance to innovation, and social influence on the use intention. On the other hand, no significant difference was found in the relationship between performance expectancy, technology utilization capability on the use intention. Based on the empirical analysis results, the academic and practical implications of this study were presented.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.103-117
• /
• 2019

Under the uncertainties and the consequent turmoils of the IMF financial crisis in Korea, Hyunsung Techno was founded in 1997 on the basis of automobile press molding which is critical for the quality of automobile. Ever since, Hyunsung Techno has grown rapidly based on the domestic market; however, gradually, it had faced a stalemate in terms of the saturation, on the supply side and the growth limit, on the demand side, of the domestic molding market. Accordingly, Hyunsung pushed for a strategy to localize overseas markets and a new acquisition strategy instead of resting on the domestic mold industry's growth, and the success of these strategies enabled it to leap forward into a global company with five companies including affiliates and 70 billion won in sales. The main reason why Hyunsung Techno evolved from a small and medium-sized manufacturing company into a global businesses is due to the success of Boa Constrictor M&A strategy. Its acquisition strategy is not just a successful case of any acquisition, but a rare, maybe the first domestic case of a successful acquisition of a primary supplier by a secondary supplier. Through the success of this strategy, Hyunsung Techno has achieved a continuous growth of businesses, an increase in sales volume, and expansion into new businesses. And on top of that, this achievements is leading it to be a global conglomerate In this study, Hyunsung Techno's success strategy, which is transformed from a small domestic manufacturing company into a global enterprise, was analyzed in detail with its development stages divided into start-up, overseas expansion, acquisitions, and business diversification. Eventually, this case study is meant to offer strategic implications for other small and medium-sized businesses under the current, gloomy economy of low or zero growth of today.