• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.101-116
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• 2019

Technology-based start-up is important in that it encourages innovation, facilitates the development of new products and services, and contributes to job creation. Technology-based start-up activates entrepreneurship when appropriate support is provided within the ecosystem. Thus, understanding the technology-based start-up ecosystem is crucial. The purpose of this study is as follows. First, in Herrmann et al.'s(2015) study, we compare and analyze the ecosystem of each country by selecting representative regions such as Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, London and Singapore which have the highest ranking in the start-up ecosystem. Second, we try to deeply understand the start-up ecosystem based on in-depth interviews with various stakeholders such as VC investors, start-ups, support organizations, and professors related to the Korean start-up ecosystem. Finally, based on the results of the study, we suggest development and activation of Korean technology-based start-up ecosystem. As a result, the Seoul start-up ecosystem showed a positive evaluation of government support compared to other advanced countries. In addition, it was confirmed that the ratio of tele-work and start-up company working experience of employees was higher than other countries. On the other hand, in Seoul, It was confirmed that overseas market performance, human resource diversity, attracting investment, hiring technological engineers, and the ratio of female entrepreneurs were lower than those of overseas advanced countries. In addition, according to the results of the interview analysis, Seoul was able to find that start-up ecosystems such as individual angel investors, accelerators, support institution, and media are developing thanks to the government's market-oriented policy support. However, in order for this development to continue, it is necessary to improve the continuous investment system, expansion of diversity, investment return system, and accessibility to the global market. A discussion on this issue is presented.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.1-13
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• 2022

Although the number of venture start-ups has increased significantly, it is difficult to judge the success or failure based on short-term performance alone. The survival of a company cannot be guaranteed if it does not show sustainable growth prospects. As a growth factor for venture companies, the level of technology commercialization capability and competitive strategies are considered important. Recently, the emergence of innovative business models is creating new opportunities and driving the growth of numerous venture start-ups. This study tried to investigate the mediating effect of business model innovation in the relationship between technology commercialization capability, competitive strategy and the growth prospects of venture companies. For this, empirical analysis was conducted using the original data of the Research on the Precision Status of Venture Firms 2021. As a result, production, manufacturing, marketing capability, cost leadership and product differentiation had a positive(+) effect on growth prospects. The mediating effect of business model innovation between all factors except for manufacturing capacity and growth prospects was verified. This study expanded the scope of research by shedding new light on the factors influencing the long-term growth prospects of venture companies and revealing business model innovation as a new mediating variable. In future research, it is necessary to develop an objective measurement tool and to identify differences according to industrial characteristics.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.225-235
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• 2020

The Korean government is attempting to promote technology-based start-ups and venture firms that can lead to new national growth engines being developed. Although government support policies focus on improving survival rates, strategic tools for sustainability management based on a continuing company's assumption are also relevant. Previous studies indicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an important strategic tool for the management of corporate sustainability. This research is an exploratory study that seeks to empirically analyze the applicability of such CSR to venture firms. Existing previous studies have been carried out by large companies and surveys, and there are limitations that do not reflect the characteristics of companies. To complement the shortcomings of previous studies and propose practical consequences, this study conducted an empirical analysis using raw data from government approval statistics to identify the growth stages of venture firms. Using the 2018 Survey of Korea Venture Firms, we identified the growth stages of domestic venture firms and used the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the effect of CSR activities on managerial efficiency. The analysis found that CSR during start-up and early growth cycles did not affect managerial performance. The organization that conducted enthusiastic CSR activities performed better than those that did not perform CSR activities since the rapid growth era. Ultimately, the scale efficiency of venture business was the highest from the rapid growth era when the CSR was not done. This study is a pioneering study that found that after the period of high growth, venture firms' CSR activities can affect managerial performance. Therefore, it is important to advise applicable policies and business decision-makers that CSR practices can be a tactical resource for improving performance of management.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to find out which factors determine the success of start-up in the initial market and what are the most important determinants. For the empirical analysis, the questionnaire related to the analysis of success factors for start-up success was designed according to the quantitative analysis (AHP technique). First, we selected 8 representative success factors for successful start-up in the initial market. In order to determine the degree of priority among these factors, we surveyed 12 entrepreneurs who are interested in entrepreneurship, universities, research institutes, and public officials. As a result of the empirical analysis, 51% of the funds in the tier 1 were ranked as the top priority to determine success factors. Followed by research and development (32.5%), management (8.7%) and marketing (7.8%). In particular, when each of the four items is calculated as 100 according to the result of the tier 1, and the tier 2 is converted, the foreign investment is analyzed as 43.7%. It was followed by 15.14% of R & D facilities, 14.07% of ideas, 8.7% of managerial ability, 7.29% of domestic investment, 5.85% of buyer feedback, 3.3% of development strategy and 1.95% of marketing strategy. Among the eight success factors, overseas investment items showed the closest preference to half, and it was the most important variable that determines the success or failure of market entry. The implication of this study is that many start-ups in Korea expect to receive investment and support from overseas accelerators. This means that overseas investment itself has been recognized as a start-up that makes services and products that can be used in the global market. A high preference for attracting foreign investment is due to the fact that the amount of investment is larger than that of Korea and that it can flexibly cope with the pressure on the performance compared to domestic investors. In this study, it was meaningful that we could confirm this fact through questionnaires of start-up experts. In future research, we need to find a viable alternative through studying how to provide start-up to foreign direct investment at the national level.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.29-52
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• 2016

As Industry-University Cooperation (IUC) has been emphasized for securing national competitiveness in a knowledge-based economy, the South Korean government has promoted related policies, including a financial support program for facilitating IUC activities. This study examines the effects of Leaders in INdustry-university Cooperation (LINC) program, which is one of the government financial support programs for IUC, on the performance of IUC by propensity score matching. The results show that LINC program positively influences the number of technology transfers and the number of faculty that participated in start-ups. The results of this study are expected to provide implications for improving IUC policies and the financial support program.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2014

This study examines the performance of the successful small and medium size firms in their early stage. No sign of widespread chasm or the death valley among the sample firm is identified. More than half the sample firms had made reasonable forecast on the uncertainty of their future business before they were incorporated. Overall results of empirical studies carried out in this article allow us to assert that the difficulties experienced in the early stage are mostly manageable within the organization. This implies that the Government support for start-ups in early stage should be discouraged. Empirical investigation across different periods reveals, however, that the Government may have significant roles to play when it comes down to controlling the macroeconomic shocks.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

Analysis of future business or investment opportunities, such as business feasibility analysis and company or technology valuation, necessitate objective estimation on the relevant market and expected sales. While there are various ways to classify the estimation methods of these new sales or market size, they can be broadly divided into top-down and bottom-up approaches by benchmark references. Both methods, however, require a lot of resources and time. Therefore, we propose a data-based intelligent demand forecasting system to support evaluation of new business. This study focuses on analogical forecasting, one of the traditional quantitative forecasting methods, to develop sales forecasting intelligence systems for new businesses. Instead of simply estimating sales for a few years, we hereby propose a method of estimating the sales of new businesses by using the initial sales and the sales growth rate of similar companies. To demonstrate the appropriateness of this method, it is examined whether the sales performance of recently established companies in the same industry category in Korea can be utilized as a reference variable for the analogical forecasting. In this study, we examined whether the phenomenon of "mean reversion" was observed in the sales of start-up companies in order to identify errors in estimating sales of new businesses based on industry sales growth rate and whether the differences in business environment resulting from the different timing of business launch affects growth rate. We also conducted analyses of variance (ANOVA) and latent growth model (LGM) to identify differences in sales growth rates by industry category. Based on the results, we proposed industry-specific range and linear forecasting models. This study analyzed the sales of only 150,000 start-up companies in Korea in the last 10 years, and identified that the average growth rate of start-ups in Korea is higher than the industry average in the first few years, but it shortly shows the phenomenon of mean-reversion. In addition, although the start-up founding juncture affects the sales growth rate, it is not high significantly and the sales growth rate can be different according to the industry classification. Utilizing both this phenomenon and the performance of start-up companies in relevant industries, we have proposed two models of new business sales based on the sales growth rate. The method proposed in this study makes it possible to objectively and quickly estimate the sales of new business by industry, and it is expected to provide reference information to judge whether sales estimated by other methods (top-down/bottom-up approach) pass the bounds from ordinary cases in relevant industry. In particular, the results of this study can be practically used as useful reference information for business feasibility analysis or technical valuation for entering new business. When using the existing top-down method, it can be used to set the range of market size or market share. As well, when using the bottom-up method, the estimation period may be set in accordance of the mean reverting period information for the growth rate. The two models proposed in this study will enable rapid and objective sales estimation of new businesses, and are expected to improve the efficiency of business feasibility analysis and technology valuation process by developing intelligent information system. In academic perspectives, it is a very important discovery that the phenomenon of 'mean reversion' is found among start-up companies out of general small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as stable companies such as listed companies. In particular, there exists the significance of this study in that over the large-scale data the mean reverting phenomenon of the start-up firms' sales growth rate is different from that of the listed companies, and that there is a difference in each industry. If a linear model, which is useful for estimating the sales of a specific company, is highly likely to be utilized in practical aspects, it can be explained that the range model, which can be used for the estimation method of the sales of the unspecified firms, is highly likely to be used in political aspects. It implies that when analyzing the business activities and performance of a specific industry group or enterprise group there is political usability in that the range model enables to provide references and compare them by data based start-up sales forecasting system.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.31-46
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• 2019

As the importance of venture firms has increased as a new growth engine, the South Korea government makes various efforts to establish healthy ecosystems for ventures and start-ups. Especially in order to foster the competitiveness of venture firms, various support policies such as financial and R&D expenses are being expanded and promoted. In this study, the author analyzed the impact of government funding on venture firms' internal competencies and management performance by using the resource-based theory. Moreover, this study tested the moderation effect of firm's growth stages. Unlike previous studies, this study focused on qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of internal competencies and the financial and non-financial performance are used to measure the management performance of the ventures to examine the effects of government funding for venture firms in more details. For the purpose of verifying the hypothesis of this research, "The Research On The Precision Status Of Venture Firms" in 2017 from the Ministry of Small and Medium Business was utilized, which has been compiled since 1999. According to the results of this study, the government funding experience did not significantly affect the company's internal competencies and financial performance, but had a significant impact on the non-financial performance, which in turn seemed to have a significant effect on the financial performance. In addition, it was found that the technology, price, design, and quality competencies affected non-financial performance, while the organizational management and marketing competencies did not. However, the price, design, organizational management, and marketing competencies affected financial performance, while the technology competency was not. Finally, there were no differences in the effectiveness of government funding, depending on the growth stages.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.89-102
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• 2023

This study examined the effects of adversity quotient and R&D capabilities on corporate performance and the mediating role of organizational creativity influencing factors in the relationship between these variables. This study established seven hypotheses, divided the adversity quotient into control, reach, and endurance, divided organizational creativity influencing factors into organizational resources and creative management practices, and divided corporate performance into management performance and technical performance. This study distributed 1,000 One hundred and sixteenquestionnaires to CEOs working at small and medium-sized technology start-ups in Gyeonggi-do and collected 122 copies under anonymous names. 116 questionnaires were used for hypothesis testing, excluding 6 cases in which responses were unfaithful or omitted. The results of this study are as follows. First, it was found that reach among the adversity quotient was positively related to organizational resources. Second, among the adversity quotient, control was found to have a positive(+) effect on management performance and technical performance, respectively. Third, organizational management practices were found to have a positive(+) effect on management performance. Fifth, organizational resources were found to partially mediate the relationship between control and technical performance, and to fully mediate the relationship between reach and technical performance. Finally, this study discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the research results.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.47-64
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• 2019

This study analyzed the effects of small business CEO's competencies type on business performance. For this purpose, 4 independent variables(strategic, marketing, management and network competencies) and 2 dependent variables(financial and non-financial performance) were used. 220 data were collected from the field survey questionnaires administered to a convenience sample of small business CEO. For hypothesis testing, the IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0 was used. Frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted. Empirical studies showed as follows. First, this study showed that the four competencies were significant to financial performance and the three competencies(except management competencies) were significant to non-financial performance. The higher small business CEO's competencies, the more likely it affects both the financial and non-financial performance of the company. Second, effects of small business CEO's competencies on financial performance were analyzed in order of network competencies > management competencies > strategic competencies > marketing competencies. Third, effects of small business CEO's competencies on non-financial performance were analyzed in order of network competencies > marketing competencies > strategic competencies. These findings had some implications. In academia, the impact forces of 4 small business CEO's competencies were analyzed for the first time. In practices, successful start-ups or sustainable management requires an interest in the active enhancement of small business CEO's competencies.