• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.19-31
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• 2022

Currently, the role of public accelerators in the domestic accelerator market is gradually expanding. Accordingly, in order to establish relevant policies properly, it is necessary to check the effect and validity of public accelerators' investment. However, there is no quantitative research conducted on domestic accelerators, using their financial data, as domestic accelerators have a short history and quantitative data on them are not disclosed. Therefore, this study conducted an empirical analysis with financial data of the startups that received equity investments from public accelerators to confirm the effect of public accelerators'investment in startups. A regression analysis was conducted with financial data from 112 startups that acquired investments from public accelerators in the period of 2016~2020. And the findings are as follows: First, it was found that the initial investment of public accelerators had an effect on the growth and profitability of startups. Specifically, it was confirmed that the initial investment of public accelerators had a positive (+) effect on sales growth rates and total asset growth rates, which are growth indicators. Second, it was found that the joint investment of public accelerators had a significant positive (+) effect on profit margin, an indicator of profitability, rather than on growth. Therefore, it is deemed that it will be a great force for growth if investment in the early-stage startups that showed significant investment results in this study is continuously expanded in combination with support projects, which are a strength of public accelerators. Since this study has confirmed the investment effect of public accelerators, it is deemed necessary to actively promote policies that direct public accelerators' projects toward improving the performance of startups through joint investment with the private sector and supplementing private accelerators' deficiencies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.211-226
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• 2023

As we transition into the post-COVID era, economic activities that were stagnant are regaining momentum. In particular, there is a growing trend of technology entrepreneurship driven by the opportunities of digital transformation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. However, entrepreneurship education content is struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. This study aims to emphasize the importance of entrepreneurship mentoring as a crucial component of entrepreneurship education content that requires adaptation and advancement due to the increasing demand for technology entrepreneurship. This study redefines startup mentoring, which is differentiated from general mentoring, at the present time when the demand for startups, which increases with the declining employment rate, increases, and the development of quality startup education contents and securing professional startup mentors are required. According to the start-up stage, it is divided into preliminary entrepreneurs and early entrepreneurs, and the effect of entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy among start-up mentoring functions on entrepreneurial will and mentoring satisfaction is improved by empirically researching the effects of start-up mentoring functions in the case of initial entrepreneurs as a moderating effect. To confirm the importance of entrepreneurship mentoring effect for. To this end, among the mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were set as independent variables, and entrepreneurial will and mentoring satisfaction were set as dependent variables. The research model was designed and hypotheses were established. In addition, empirical analysis was conducted by conducting a questionnaire survey on trainees who received entrepreneurship mentoring education at ICCE Startup School and Opus Startup School. To summarize the results of the empirical analysis, first, among the entrepreneurship mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were analyzed to have a significant positive (+) effect on entrepreneurial will. Second, among the entrepreneurship mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were analyzed to have a significant positive (+) effect on mentoring satisfaction. Third, it was analyzed that entrepreneurship had no significant moderating effect on entrepreneurial knowledge and entrepreneurial will. Fourth, it was analyzed that entrepreneurship had no significant moderating effect on mentoring satisfaction. Fifth, it was found that entrepreneurship had a significant moderating effect between self-efficacy and will to start a business. As a result of the research analysis, the first implication is that the mentoring function in start-up education is analyzed to produce meaningful results for both the initial entrepreneurs and the prospective entrepreneurs in the will to start a business and satisfaction. . Second, it was analyzed that there was no significant relationship between whether a business was started and the mentoring function and effect. However, it was analyzed that the will to start a business through improvement of self-efficacy through mentoring was significantly related to whether or not to start a business. turned out to be helpful. Many start-up education programs currently conducted in Korea educate both early-stage entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs at the same time for reasons such as convenience. However, through the results of this study, even in small-scale entrepreneurship mentoring, it is suggested that customized mentoring through detailed classification such as whether the mentee has started a business can be a method for successful entrepreneurship and high satisfaction of the mentee.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.141-147
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• 2017

Along with the recent growth of Fintech industry and low interest rate basis, one of the alternative investment technique for expecting higher investment profit, P2P loan using P2P financial system is greatly increasing. P2P loan can be referred to as a type of Crowdfunding that the law of Crowdfunding (adopted to revised Capital Market Act) enacted on January 25th 2016 only allows investment type Crowdfunding so that it can be used as a tool of raising fund for startup and venture companies. Also, it is true that Korean government could not make any legislative foundation related to P2P loan. At this moment, those online platform companies mediating P2P loan are not included as financial companies, expected to cause various legal arguments. Financial Services Commission has released a guideline in February of this year saying that limit of P2P loan is 10 million Korean Won per arbitrating company and 5 million Korean Won per borrower. However, what is more important is to make a law supporting this institutional system. If legislation on P2P loan is implemented without care, it may disturb growth of the field but it may result in the damage of investors if not clearly defined by law. As this is the case, first, "revision of execution regulations for loan business" should take place as soon as possible to intensify inspection of loan companies by registering them to Financial Services Commission. Second, saving customer fund separately in the their organization. Third, making law on protecting investors such as regulating exaggerative advertisement. Fourth, to have transparent and fair public announcement system, standardized agreement and guideline describing clear understanding on autonomous public information publication of P2P loan online platform business and information on the borrower.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.22-35
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• 1981

The U$_3$O$_{8}$ requirements are estimated for the high, intermediate, and low growth projections of nuclear power in Korea. To each projection, four illustrative reactor-mix strategies and four fuel cycle options are applied for estimating the requirements. The reactor types considered are PWR, PHWR. and FBR. The fuel cycles considered are once-through cycle, U/Pu recycle, and improved once-through cycle. Also the amount of Pu-fissile recovered from U recycle is estimated. The maximum cumulative (to the year 2000) requirements of U$_3$O$_{8}$ occupy about 4 to 5 percent of the WOCA requirements and are about 23 times larger than the U$_3$O$_{8}$ resources in Korea. For the high nuclear power growth projection, the cumulative amount of Pu-fissile recovered from U recycle is sufficient for the startup of 2 units of 1200 MWe fast reactors by the year 2000. 2000.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.51-78
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• 2021

Followed by 'start-up', the theme of 'scale-up' has been considered as an important agenda in both corporate and policy spheres. In particular, although it is a term commonly used in industry and policy fields, even a conceptual definition has not been achieved from the academic perspective. "Corporate Growth" in the academic aspect and "Business Growth" in the practical management field have different understandings (Achtenhagen et al., 2010). Previous research on corporate growth has not departed from Penrose(1959)'s "Firm as a bundle of resources" and "the role of managers". Based on the theory and background of economics, existing research has mainly examined factors that contribute to firms' growth and their growth patterns. Comparatively, we lack knowledge on the firms' growth with a focus on 'annual revenue growth rate'. In the early stage of the firms, they tend to exhibit a high growth rate as it started with a lower level of annual revenue. However, when the firms reach annual revenue of more than 100 billion KRW, a threshold to be classified as a 'middle-standing enterprise' by Korean standards, they are unlikely to reach a high level of revenue growth rate. In our study, we used our sample of 333 companies (6.7% out of 5,000 'fastest-growing' companies) which reached 15% of the compound annual growth rate in the last three years with more than USD 100 million. It shows that sustaining 'high-growth' above a certain firm size is difficult. The study focuses on firms with annual revenue of more than $100 billion (approximately 120 billion KRW) from the 'Inc. 2020 fast-growing companies 5,000' list. The companies have been categorized into 1) Fast-growing companies (revenue CAGR 15%~40% between 2016 and 2019), 2) Hyper-growing companies (40%~99.9%), and 3) Super-growing (100% or more) with in-depth analysis of each group's characteristics. Also, the relationship between the revenue growth rate, individual company's strategy choice (market orientation, generic strategy, growth strategy, pioneer strategy), industry/market environment, and firm age is investigated with a quantitative approach. Through conducting the study, it aims to provide a reference to the 'Hyper-Growing Model' that combines the paths and factors of growth strategies. For policymakers, our study intends to provide a reference to which factors or environmental variables should be considered for 'optimal effective combinations' to promote firms' growth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.37-46
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• 2018

This paper define the research problem as the jeopardized situation of most startups in early chasm. Korean government have put more policy focus on helping these startups to jump over the chasm. One of the effective policy measures helps these startups defining the core competencies validated from target customers, in-housing them effectively, and therefore enhancing the level of differentiation against the competitors by "Product Pivoting Training Boots Camp." It ultimately give the key nudge to startups in struggling with unsold products after initial launch to the market. This paper carried out the empirical test to the target sample of startups participating in this camp. In particular, this research analyze the level of satisfaction of startups, as move along with characteristics of the participant and training program, going through this camp whether it enhance their will of application into real business case. The survey were delivered and collected from 203 startups in attending "Product Pivoting Academy, the following program of Startup Jump-up package policy module. The research result shows that all startups participating in this academy were so much satisfied and motivated strongly to take the training process into applying real business case in order to increase sales. The quality of the training program and the characteristics of the participants had mediating variable effects on the will of application with respect to the level of satisfaction. It imply that the program should put more attention on improving coaches' nudge and learning motivation of participants to enhance the level program satisfaction.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.81-93
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• 2023

Under the digital economy, companies are facing a new business environment. Previous studies with a traditional perspectives on start-ups explained they are at a disadvantaged compared to large companies in mobilizing resources and building new relationships. However, recent researches on the digital economy and platform ecosystems have suggested that digital platforms can be an efficient means of overcoming the liabilities of smallness and newness for start-up companies. Through platforms start-ups can secure routes to mobilize resources, collect and analyze market information. Especially as various platorms are established within categorized industry or market, unique characteristics and market awareness regarding an individual startup company have been formed. Accordingly there is also an advantage that startup companies have umbrella effect by participating in the platform. From this point of view, this study describes the process by which a start-up company effectively utilizes a platform to overcome the liabilities of newness and smallness through the case the study of 'Genie the Bottle'. The results suggest that platforms play a crucial role for start-ups to secure awareness and legitimacy and grow the market in the beauty industry in which high consumer involvement is dominant.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.159-179
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• 2024

Based on the case of collaboration between large companies and startups, this study suggests the importance of establishing mutual cooperation and trust relationships for the success of open innovation strategy from the perspective of cooperative game theory. It also provides implications for how this can be implemented. Due to information asymmetry and differences in organizational culture and decision-making structures between large companies and startups, collaboration is likely to proceed in the form of non-cooperative games among players in general open innovation, leading to the paradox of open innovation, which lowers the degree of innovation. Accordingly, this study conducted a case study on collaboration between large company 'G' and startup 'S' based on the research question "How did we successfully promote open innovation through cooperative game-type collaboration?" The study found that successful open innovation requires (1) setting clear collaboration goals to solve the organizational problem between large companies and startups, (2) supporting human resources for qualitative growth of startups to solve reliability problems, (3) leading to strategic investment and joint promotion of new projects to solve the profit distribution problem. This study is significant in that it contributes to expanding the discussion of the success factors of open innovation to the importance of interaction and strategic judgment considering the organizational culture and decision-making structure among players, and empirically confirming the success conditions of open innovation from the perspective of cooperative game theory.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.59-76
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• 2019

Most technology-based entrepreneurship(TBE) go through an process of decline or disappear without overcoming the valley of death(VoD). The purpose of this study is to identify the growth dimension of TBE and to test the influence of firms activities on firms growth over time. This study identified the two-dimensional growth dimension divided by size and profit through exploratory factor analysis(EFA) of a number of growth indicators. Then, we defined the discrete state of growth firm in four states, divided by size and profit, and five states, including the closure of business. Multi-nomial logit model is used to predict the effect of TBE activities on a discrete state of growth firm(size×profit, closure of business) based on multiple independent variables. The independent variables are based on five representative firms activities: employment, marketing, R&D, financial activities, and general management activities. The growth stage of TBE over time has been categorized into three stages: early stage, middle stage, and late stage of business, taking into account the main periods during which the survival rate of startups sharply decreases. The analytical data of this study was based on the secondary data of the start-up supporting companies of government and public institutions. The subjects of analysis were TBE within 10 years. As a result of the empirical analysis, the employment and marketing activities of TBE show that early and mid-term activities had an effect on the state of firms growth. However, if there is a difference, employment activities have both positive and negative effects, while marketing activities have only a positive effect on size and profit growth. And besides, R&D activities, financial activities, and general management activities throughout the entire process of firms growth were found to be firms activities that have both positive and negative effects on firms growth. In addition, the age of the founder, the firms' industry, and the geographic location of the firms, which are general characteristics of the company, were found to have a distinctive effect on the growth status of the firms according to the growth stage.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.119-133
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• 2024

As a result of significant investments by the government in promoting public technology commercialization and fostering a venture startup ecosystem, there have been quantitative achievements, such as the registration of over 1,600 Innopolis Start-ups since 2006, generating a total revenue of 1.1 trillion won as of 2021. However, these achievements have been overshadowed by critical qualitative challenges, including a continuous decline in average revenue per Innopolis Start-up. This led to a focus on whether managers' technological and market orientations affect business performance. This study aims to provide insights into improving the qualitative growth of Innopolis Start-ups by analyzing the effects of technological and market orientations on business performance, as well as the moderating effects of adjusting marketing and research and development (R&D) costs on this relationship. Through prior research and empirical analysis, this study derives three main findings. First, technological excellence and innovation significantly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, while technological intensity does not. Second, customer orientation and competitive orientation significantly impact business performance, whereas entry barriers as a single factor do not. Third, adjusting marketing and R&D costs, as controlled variables obtained through general situations, has no direct impact on other variables. However, it interacts with entry barriers, influencing financial business performance, with R&D costs exhibiting a negative buffering effect and marketing costs showing a positive enhancing effect. This study confirms that both technological and market orientations directly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, thus being crucial factors affecting their growth. Moreover, it establishes that investments in marketing and R&D play significant roles in alleviating initial entry barriers and enhancing financial performance. Consequently, it underscores the importance of reinforcing technological and market orientations tailored to the characteristics of Innopolis Start-ups. Additionally, it proposes five theoretical contributions: strengthening institutional support systems for technology commercialization and innovation, improving qualitative evaluation criteria during the selection process of Innopolis Start-ups, conducting comprehensive analyses of technological and market aspects during startup selection, enhancing support for marketing education and consulting for smooth market entry, and supporting expenditure strategies and milestone setting tailored to the industrial characteristics of individual Innopolis Start-ups.