• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.131-154
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• 2018

While strong investments on startup and venture ecosystem prosper worldwide, growing interest on nurturing startup ecosystem in Korea is also on its way. However, korean entrepreneurial ecosystem currently results few successful business models with those continuous development of itself compared to the one in China, which is breeding more than 50% of unicorns internationally. Accordingly, this study examined how people in the venture ecosystem, especially in IT industry feel about themselves and startup itself and compared startup ecosystem in Seoul, Korea to the one in Chengdu, China considering each of economic, social and administrational environment. The study tried to provide an implication about the future orientation of Korea's starup and venture ecosystem to policy makers and the ones inside the environment to make a better one. Therefore, the study choose Seoul, Korea and Chengdu, China as geological specimens of startup ecosystem and conduct qualitative study by interviewing selected ones who work in startup incubator, accelerator specified to IT industry and started their own business in IT industry funded by startup reward program. The study categorize the result in social, economic, and administrative parts and screens whether the interviewees from both Korea and China have similar opinions toward each of questions and can be translated to have tendency or not in each part of study. According to the study, the national recognition of startup should be moved from means of maintenance such as restaurants, franchise business to IT startup especially based on software business for the sustainable flourish in Korean venture ecosystem. Investors including accelerator, Angel investors and VCs should be less risk-aversion and therefore prefer stake purchase to solely giving subsidies. The role of governors should be limited to be a middleman of the network, connecting each people in need inside the ecosystem and their reward program should focus on nurturing the growing ones, not just multiplying the numbers of startups to expand the size of entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since this study indicated that entire revision of startup ecosystem should be applied to make a better one, it could be used to design future entrepreneurial infrastructure and the ways of activating startup ecosystem elsewhere in Korea.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2017

This research is focused on how the venture-startup policies of South Korea has changed for the last ten years and then scope on its outcomes, limits and suggestions. Several policies for venture-startup has begun when "Small Business Startup Support Law" was developed in 1986. Government's support policies for venture and startup and development of venture had made a turning point in 1997 "Act on Special Measures for the Promotion of Venture Business" and venture companies has achieved remarkable growth with Information Technologies(IT). However, with the global IT bubble and the enrichment of venture companies, a number of venture companies experienced considerable difficulties due to multiple thresholds. There were a lot of efforts to revitalize venture-startup ecosystem such as fostering innovative SMEs and one-person creative enterprise support policy. From 2002 to 2004, Korean Government focused on preventing moral hazards of Korean Venture Business. From 2005 to 2006, It focused on fostering the role of venture capitals, and From 2007 to 2012, Single start-up business has been fostered by government policies. Generally speaking, it can be said that venture-startup policy was emphasized on building the hardware infrastructure of venture-startup and supporting with the funds.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.85-106
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• 2023

This study reviewed and derived the success factors of overseas agricultural startups and studied their integrated research model. Agricultural startups and general startups have in common that poor resources and infrastructure exist from a resource-based perspective after startup, but a differentiated approach from general startups is required due to the nature of the primary industry of agriculture. In this study, we approach the company internal factors (human resources/vision/distribution network capacity/capital capacity/cultivated crops/physical resources/farming technology, etc.) and external factors (agricultural infrastructure/laws/regulations/relationship with surrounding society, etc.) We tried to build a research model that can be integrated by focusing on various existing research models, success factors, and entrepreneurship. Through this, it is intended to present an integrated model that is practically helpful to business performance to entrepreneurs, business-related persons, and researchers who need an integrated understanding of agricultural startups at home and abroad. made for purpose In this paper, a standard model was established through three types (existing agricultural startup, small and medium-sized business startup, multinational company, and comprehensive approach) according to size and characteristics for modeling agricultural startup success factors. Through this, a total of 9 success factors (agricultural management, external environment, manager/founder characteristics, corporate identity, business management, organizational culture, infrastructure, commercialization capability, and sustainable growth) were derived. The implication of this study is that the success factors of agricultural startups were comprehensively presented based on 'entrepreneurship' for various domestic and foreign agricultural startup cases. By confirming the systematic categorization, a standard model for future agricultural startup success factors was presented, and as a result, a foundation was presented for systematic research and practical effectiveness of related research in the future.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1-8
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• 2014

The government has established a foundation activation measures across a total of 10 times to expanse job creation, promote new growth engines and enhance youth entrepreneurship for trying to spread socially. In order to improve startup activation policies and excavation, it is necessary to supplement the gaps going to construct a stable infrastructure through periodic status research on their occupational sense and entrepreneurship awareness. Since 2012, the government's has been surveyed to address the current understanding of the occupational sense and entrepreneurship awareness of population characteristics. Until 2013 only the youth were surveyed, recently from 2014 expanded its range to the public. This study laid the foundation for a more comprehensive set of analysis through which to learn and understand the differences between the status of each group for entrepreneurship awareness by utilizing survey data from the government. And this study was obtained from a survey of university students and the general public. A total of 3000 people nationwide survey was conducted about the entrepreneurship environment for start-ups and entrepreneurship awareness and success factors for a month. The University students survey result were classified according to the area, school and gender. And The general public survey was classified according to the area, the age and gender. Each response result indicates a significant difference between the students and the general public did not appear. But through this survey, This study would contribute the establishment of the national startup infrastructure.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

Purpose - Entrepreneurship promotion is emerging as an important economic growth agenda. However, in Korea, entrepreneurship has weakened because of the collapse of the venture bubbles of the 2000s and the global economic recession in 2008, which have induced the business community to choose stability over risk. The Korean government has been implementing several support projects to inspire and promote youth entrepreneurship through various means including financial assistance; however, the perpetuation rate of young entrepreneurship is still low as compared to advanced economies such as the US and EU. This case study focuses on the Youth Start-Up Business Support Program of the Small & Medium Business Corporation, and explores practical alternatives. Further, it aims to suggest managerial factors and a conceptual model for change management factors affecting the business performance creation of a startup company, based on the Small and medium Business Corporation's young venture startup fund. Research design, data, and methodology - Many studies examine the current progress and issues of startup firms, for example, a lack of systematic cultivation of entrepreneurship and startup business training, lack of commercialization funding for youth startup businesses, lack of mentoring, and inadequate infrastructure. From prior research, we address four factors, namely, personal managerial capabilities, innovative business model, sufficient cash flow, and social network, affecting startup companies' business performance. This study involved a sample survey of 200 young entrepreneurs to investigate casual relations between the four factors and business performance. A regression analysis was used to verify the hypotheses. Results - First, in relation to differences in the founder's personal characteristics, age, sales amount, and number of employees significantly impact business performance. Second, regarding the causal relation between the four factors for creating business performance, an innovative business model and social networking have supported the hypotheses, revealing that the more that a start-up founder has an innovative business model and social networking, the more the start-up firms are likely to have better performance (e.g., sales volume, employment, ROE, ROI, etc.). Although the founder's competency and sufficient cash flow have no significant relationship with business performance, the mean value was higher performance for high founder's competency and sufficient cash flow. Conclusions - This study provides basic data on policy support strategies of the Small and Medium Business Corporation, to help young entrepreneurs achieve their start-up business goals. It shows that young entrepreneurship startup firms should strive to explore ideas to satisfy customers' needs, and that changes in customer value and the continuous innovation of business model differentiation are required to actively respond to change management. Moreover, at the infant startup stage, they should activate social network programs to share information, thereby offsetting resource scarcity and managing business risk. Further, the establishment of a long-term vision and the implementation of training programs in related specific fields should be supported to strengthen founders' personal capabilities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.101-114
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• 2022

Recently, various studies on the entrepreneurial ecosystem have been conducted. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is composed of various elements such as entrepreneurs, governments, and infrastructure, and these factors interact to contribute to economic development. The purpose of this study was to analyze differences in importance and performance of the entrepreneurial ecosystem for startups using the importance-performance analysis (IPA) method. Based on this, the importance and current level of the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem were identified and policy implications were presented. The results of the study are as follows. The importance ranking was in the order of startup support program(4.43), startup funding (4.39), market accessibility(4.30). The ranking of performance was startup support program(3.81), ease of starting a business(3.76), support for startup support institutions(3.66), and startup funding(3.66). All elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem showed higher importance than performance. This means that the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Korea are recognized as important, but do not play a significant role in terms of performance for startups. In addition, the factors with the highest improvement in the importance-performance matrix were 「safety nets for startup failure」, 「culture of acceptance of failure」, 「ease of market entry」, 「ease of startup survival」, and 「ease of exit」. This study suggested improvement measures such as establishing a social safety net, improving awareness of startup failure culture, matching successful startups, strengthening scale-up support by growth stage, easing regulations in new business fields, and diversifying investment recovery strategies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.47-65
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• 2020

With the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in sight, innovative business models utilizing new technologies are emerging, and startups are enjoying an abundance of opportunities based on the agility to respond to disruptive innovations and the opening to new technologies. However, what is most important in creating a sustainable start-up ecosystem is not the start-up itself, but the process of research-start-investment-investment-the leap to listing and big business-in order to build a virtuous circle of startups that leads to re-investment. To this end, the environment created in the hub area where start-ups were conducted is important, and these material and non-material environmental factors are described as being inclusive by the word "entrepreneurial ecosystem." This study aims to provide implications for Korea's entrepreneurial ecosystem through the study of the interaction of the elements that make up the start-up ecosystem and the relationship of ecosystem participants in Singapore. Singapore has been consistently mentioned as the top two Asian countries in assessing the start-up environment and business environment. In this process, six elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem presented by Isenberg(2010)-policies, finance, culture, support, human resources, and market-are the best frameworks for analyzing entrepreneurial ecosystems in terms of well encompassing prior studies related to entrepreneurial ecosystem elements, and a model of regional transformation is formed focusing on some elements to suit Singapore, the target area of study. By considering that Singapore's political nature would inevitably have a huge impact on finance, Smart Nation policy was having an impact on university education related to entrepreneurship, and that the entrepreneurial networks and global connectivity formed within Singapore's start-up infrastructure had a significant impact on Singapore's start-up's performance, researches needed to look more at the factors of policy, culture and market. In addition, qualitative research of participants in the entrepreneurial ecosystem was essential to understand the internal interaction of the elements of the start-up ecosystem, so the semi-structured survey was conducted by visiting the site. As such, this study examined the status of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem based on qualitative research focused on policies, culture and market elements of Singapore's start-up ecosystem, and intended to provide implications for regulations related to start-ups, the role of universities and start-up infrastructure through comparison with Korea. This could contribute not only to the future research of the start-up ecosystem, but also to the creation of a start-up infrastructure, boosting the start-up ecosystem, and the establishment of the orientation of the start-up education in universities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.33-43
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• 2023

The paper employs a resource-based approach to analyze the relationship between institutional resources and faculty-led startup formation and performance in South Korean four-year universities from 2017 to 2021. The author proposes nine hypotheses to explain how institutional resources or systems affect the number of faculty startups, their employee numbers and the revenue of faculty-led startups, and compare four different groups of university resources for cross-college variation. The findings suggest that institutional factors impacting faculty-led startup performance differ from those impacting other categories of startups. Universities should provide a more favorable environment, including flexible personnel policies and accompanying startup support infrastructure, to encourage faculty-led startups. In contrast, it is more effective for better performance of faculty startups, in terms of their job creation and revenue, to have more financial resources and good paper publications. The results also suggest that university technology-holding companies are crucial for increasing the number of professor startups and their performance. These findings have implications for both university and government policymakers, who aim to facilitate greater participation of professors in startup formation and commercialization of technology.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.63-79
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• 2024

The startup ecosystem is experiencing a paradigm shift in founding due to the acceleration of digital transformation, online platform companies have grown significantly into unicorns, but the lack of differentiated approaches and strategic support for deep tech startups has led to the inactivity of the startup ecosystem. is lacking. Therefore, in this study, we proposed ways to develop domestic startup development policies, focusing on the US system, which is an advanced example overseas. Focusing on the definition and characteristics of deep tech startups, current investment status, success stories, support policies, etc., we comprehensively analyzed domestic and international literature and derived suggestions. In particular, he proposed specific ways to improve support policies for domestic deep tech startups and presented milestones for their development. Currently, the United States is significantly strengthening the role of the government in supporting deep tech startups. The US government provides direct financial support to deep tech startups, including detergent support and infrastructure support. It has also established policies to foster deep tech startups, established related institutions, and systematized support. It is worth noting that US universities play a core role in nurturing deep tech startups. Leading universities in the United States operate deep tech startup discovery and development programs, providing research and development infrastructure and technology. It also works with companies to provide co-investment and commercialization support for deep tech startups. As a result, the growth of domestic deep tech startups requires the cooperation of diverse entities such as the government, universities, companies, and private investors. The government should strengthen policy support, and universities and businesses should work together to support R&D and commercialization capabilities. Furthermore, private investors must stimulate investment in deep tech startups. Through such efforts, deep tech startups are expected to grow and Korea's innovation ecosystem will be revitalized.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.549-555
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• 2023

The main point related to the entrepreneurial ecosystem is that in an environment where a good entrepreneurial ecosystem has been established, startup companies can generate good results. From this perspective, this study examined the perception of entrepreneurs regarding the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Daegu by conducting an analysis of importance and satisfaction towards the Daegu entrepreneurial ecosystem, using the results of the Innovation Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Establishment and Operation Project of the Daegu Creative Economy Innovation Center, which is a key member of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The analysis results showed that the importance and satisfaction of the entrepreneurial infrastructure were classified as high, while the importance and satisfaction of finance (investment and support) and securing human resources were shown to be low. Based on the results of this study, we confirmed the perception of entrepreneurs regarding the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Daegu and provided implications for improving the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem and policy directions.