• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2020

This study analyzed key success factors of Korean car-sharing enterprises, Socar and Greencar, and the responsive strategies of Korean car-manufacturing company, Hyundai Motor Group, in the face of emerging sharing economy under the specific economic and regulatory system in Korea. The outcomes of the analysis are as follows. 'Timely market entry' in early startup phase and 'use of external resources' in early growth phase were key success factors common to both Socar and Greencar. However, the differences in the eventual business directions of the two companies also resulted in different key success factors in the expansion phase of their business. For Socar which focused on maintaining its independence and the external growth of B2C business, customer relation marketing and sufficient capital raising were key success factors. For Greencar which became a part of a business group and focused on improving the efficiency of business operations, timely market entry (B2B market) was key success factor. The use of external resources and cooperation with large corporations emerged as key success factors common to both companies in the rapid growth phase. The responsive strategies of the Hyundai Motor Group were collaboration, investment and direct management of DeliveryCar. The short-term goal of the responsive strategy was the operation of test-bed in collaboration with car-sharing company while the mid/long term goal was planning new mobility services by utilizing collected data. Securing opportunities for early market dominance for autonomous car industry was also found to be an important goal.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.1-15
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• 2023

Impact investment involves investing in companies that pursue both social value and financial returns. It focuses on addressing various social problems through innovative solutions while generating profits. The domestic impact investment ecosystem has experienced significant growth with the support of the government and public institutions. In 2021, it witnessed a 3.5-fold increase over three years, reaching a total of 700 billion won in operating assets. In order to foster qualitative growth alongside this quantitative expansion, it is crucial to conduct research specifically on impact investment, which sets it apart from conventional venture investment. This study aims to empirically analyze the unique factors that influence impact investment decisions. Firstly, the factors affecting investment decisions were identified through a literature analysis. Then, a consultation and Delphi survey involving 11 representatives and evaluators from impact investment companies was conducted to determine the major investment determinants. Subsequently, an AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) survey was carried out with 10 impact investment evaluators to ascertain the relative importance of these factors. The analysis revealed the following order of importance for the top factors: market>entrepreneur(team)>product/service>finance. Furthermore, the importance of specific factors was identified in the following order: market competition and entry barriers>new market creation>market growth and potential expansion>team expertise and capabilities. Unlike previous studies that primarily focus on general startup investment factors, this research demonstrates that impact investment places greater emphasis on market-related factors and considers the sustainability and profitability of the business model to be more important than the social impact of social ventures.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.45-61
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• 2023

The start-up rate is increasing due to the government's start-up support policy, but it is true that the continuous survival rate and growth rate of companies are lower than that of the start-up rate. As part of increasing the survival and growth rate of startups, the importance of start-up mentoring has been highlighted, and companies selected for the Government's startup support project are increasingly having mentoring opportunities for corporate growth. In order to determine the relationship between start-up mentoring and entrepreneurial alertness as a way to generate management performance, this study examined how start-up mentoring affects entrepreneurial alertness and management performance. In addition, the government's support project was divided into companies with less than three years of start-up and companies with more than three years of experience, which are the criteria for early and leap companies, and analyzed whether each group has a moderating effect. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the mentoring problem-solving function had a significant effect on the ability to evaluate entrepreneurial alertness, and the motivation function of mentoring had a significant effect on all factors of entrepreneurial alertness. In addition, although mentoring functions did not have a moderating effect on entrepreneurial alertness depending on the work history between companies less than 3 years and companies for more than 3 years, there was a difference in factors affecting entrepreneurial alertness between groups with low and high work history. The implications of this study can contribute to the advancement of start-up mentoring programs by studying the impact of mentoring factors on entrepreneurial alertness when providing mentoring to start-up companies selected for the government's start-up support project.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.125-135
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• 2016

It is well known that the encouraging startups play a major role for innovation in an economy. Thus, venture capital are indispensable for the growth of startups. The literature on investment performance of venture capital reveals that the investment strategies depend largely on the characteristics and capabilities of venture capital. Therefore, investment capability of venture capital is important. There are various investing roles that can be identified by venture capital when determining what kind of startup to invest in, whom to invest with, how to invest, how to post-investment management after investment, and so on. This research was conducted to understand the effect of investment capabilities of venture capital on investment performance. To do so, we surveyed 70 venture businesses in the Seoul and Gyeonggido region for an empirical analysis. The empirical results of this paper are summarized as follows. First, the financial performance of venture firms is influenced by the financial capacity of venture capitalists, and investment evaluation of venture capital. Second, the business performance of venture firms is influenced by the marketing support consulting of venture capital, and investment evaluation of venture capital.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.132-142
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• 2020

Many countries around the world are pursuing various support policies to foster start-ups national widely in order to secure new economic growth engines in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The South Korean government announced the diffusion strategy for the 2'nd round Start-up Boom in March 2019 and is promoting the support policies for start-up incubating by various programs. Many incubators and startup accelerators operate various kinds of programs to foster start-ups using government financial supports. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of entrepreneurship and technical capability of entrepreneurs as the internal factors of the technology-based start-ups and the effects of programs supported by the government as an external factor on the corporate performance of a start-up company, and the mediating effects of core competence of start-ups were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS. The results show that the entrepreneurship, technical capability and the programs supported by incubators or accelerators had no direct effects on the corporate performance of a start-up, but the core competence of the company had complete mediating effects. In addition, the type of program supported by the comprehensive accelerator programs or the marketing supports had effects on the core competence rather than simple financial supports. Lastly, the policy proposals for incubating program support and future research directions along with the limitation are suggested.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.160-177
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• 2014

The cases of entrepreneurial universities who conduct enterprisers like activities are increasing continuously in these days. Entrepreneurial activities by universities include university enterprises establishment and management, direct and indirect investment, incubating startup businesses, and diverse university-industry cooperation. In this study, the roles and contributions of universities in the development of science parks are explored with a case of Zhongguancun in Beijing. In particular, the roles of four universities such as Peking, Tsinghua, Renmin, and Chinese Academy of Science were intensively focused and investigated. Interpretive case research methodology was adopted for this study and in-depth interview and secondary data analysis methods were used for the investigation. The result of this study suggests that universities can do essential roles in the development of science parks and can contribute to the development and growth of science parks through proactive and direct economic activities as well as traditional and defensive university-industry cooperation.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2020

Purpose- The purpose of this study is to increase the effect of public technology transfer through government R&D support to secure the competitiveness of public technology startups. The government's R&D budget in 2019 is over 20 trillion won, and there is a legitimate need to increase the performance of technology startups through such R&D results. Research design, data, and methodology- In this paper, we comprehensively analyzed the current status of public research institutes and R&D support projects suitable for founders and analyzed and presented cases of follow-up research conducted by the Institute of Science and Technology Jobs to analyze actual performance cases of R&D support institutes. Results- In this conclusion, a developmental model of public technology entrepreneurship was proposed to increase the performance of public technology commercialization with the scalability of research institutions. In order to create a public technology information system between consumers and suppliers, a Steinweiss-type technology commercialization model for public technology commercialization, and a job-creating enterprise-type linkage R&D support business model were presented to create the results of R&D support organizations. Conclusions- Through the results of this study, it is meaningful to analyze the performance cases of technology commercialization of R&D support institutions, which have not been studied so far, to build competitiveness of research institutions and to present a growth model for the spread of technology startups. This study has implications in terms of suggesting a way to build competitiveness in technology commercialization between market demanders and suppliers by linking existing public technology startups, which deviated from the simple commercialization support system, with job creation by expanding the R&D support system.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.151-163
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• 2021

Purpose - The break-even point refers to the point where total profit and total cost coincide, and from this point on, the entrepreneur's decision-making takes a different route. Strategic decisions can be made for more efficient operation and eventually for more likelihood for growth and sustainability if a startup figures out when it recoups the investment and switches to a net profit. Design/methodology/approach - 748 creativity and skill-based sole proprietors in manufacturing industry were examined to demonstrate the effect of the entrepreneur's entrepreneurial experience and education level, the business launch preparation time, or the self-financing on the achievement of break-even point. Findings - While the business launch preparation time lowered the likelihood of reaching a break-even point, self-financing increased the likelihood. As a result of further analysis by subdividing into subgroups according to skill level, only the business launch preparation time was statistically significant in the highly skilled industries. In the low skilled industries, in addition to the business launch preparation time, the CEO's education level and the self-financing were statistically significant. Research implications or Originality - The longer the business launch preparation time, the higher the start-up cost, which increases the burden of initial cost recovery, and the agile response to market changes is thereby delayed, resulting in the business idea losing its appeal. Self-financing not only provides stability and strong motivation for the business operation but also promotes careful spending which contributes to the achievement of break-even point. In particular, it is found that practical experience is more useful than theoretical knowledge in low skilled industries. Due to the limitation of secondary data based on the recollection, the time required to reach a break-even point, percentage of financing sources, etc. may include cognitive errors. In addition, variables are not included that explain the characteristics of creativity and skill-based sole proprietorship, so it is necessary to exercise caution with the actual application.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.25-37
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to survey startup founders within 7 years of founding the importance and satisfaction of the components of the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem at the national level in Korea and analyze the direction of scale-up policy by component using IPA (importance-performance analysis). Since the perception of founders, who are the subjects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, affects the quantity and quality of start-ups, research is needed to analyze and diagnose the perception of scale-up components. For the development of the national economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem, companies that emerge from startups to scale-up and unicorns must be produced, and for this, elements for the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem are needed. The results of this study are as follows. First, the importance ranking of the components of the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem recognized by founders was in the order of "Financial support by growth stage," "Support for customized scale-up for enterprises," "Improvement of regulations," "Funds dedicated to scale-up," "large-scale investment," and "nurturing technical talents." Second, the factors that should be intensively improved in the importance-satisfaction matrix in the future were 'Pan-Government Integration Promotion Plan', 'Scale-Up Specialized Organization Operation', 'Company Customized Scale-Up Support', 'Regulatory Improvement', and 'Building a Korean Scale-Up Model'. As a result, various and large financial capital for the scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem, diversification of scale-up programs by business sector, linkage of start-ups and scale-up support, deregulation of new technologies and new industries, strengthening corporate-tailored scale-up growth capabilities, and providing overseas networking opportunities can be derived. In addition, it is expected to contribute to policy practice and academic work with research that derives the components of the domestic scale-up entrepreneurial ecosystem and diagnoses its perception.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.147-161
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• 2017

Korea is a country having shortage of natural resources, but to overcome this issue and to nurture national competitiveness it is challenging for national-lead economic policy, citizen's dedicated efforts and technological innovation for achieving economic growth. Since the financial crisis, the government has boldly promoted policies to nurture venture companies to make structural adjustments for the sophistication of the industrial structure and job creation. Various policies for establishing the foundation of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in which the process of start-up, growth, recovery and reinvest are virtually circulated are presented by the Business Incubators. Recently the Business Incubators neither present a direction differentiated from the vocation of Business Incubator, and nor the operating methods for leading the changing of Business Incubator environment, which threatening the role of Incubating and growing early startup companies. In order to explore the development change of the business incubator, in this research we analyzed the published papers from 1998 to 2016 of business incubator government polices, research methods, related research topics and other major variables. The analysis of the research trends of business incubator revealed the lack of depth case studies, diversity of research topics, and the study of certain limited variables. For the development of the business incubator, case studies of the institutions which carried out excellent incubator and research on the incubation system of the institutions, that are similar to the incubation center are required. This research suggest further research on the case studies of excellent business incubator and agencies, and the center director and manager, which is the center of human resources, and hopes for the revitalization of business incubator researches.