• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.55-73
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• 2024

Unicorn companies are attracting attention around the world as they are recognized for their high corporate value in a short period of time as an innovative business models. Their growth process presents good lessons for the startup ecosystem and have a positive impact on national economic development and job creation. However, previous studies related to unicorn companies are focused on 'event studies' and 'case studies' such as characteristics of founders, environmental factors, business models and success/failure cases of companies already recognized as unicorns rather than a multifaceted approach. The occurrence of unicorn companies and Macroscopic analysis of related factors is lacking. Against this background, this study are considering the characteristics of unicorns examined through previous research and the current status unicorns with a high proportion of technology companies, the purpose was to analyze the impact of the country's technological competitiveness, such as 'technology human resource index', 'R&D index', and 'technology infrastructure index', on the increase in unicorn companies. For statistical analysis, data published by various international organizations, the Bank of Korea, and Statistics Korea from 2017 to 2020 and unicorn company data compiled by CB Insights were used as panel data for 44 countries to be tested by multiple regression analysis. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that the number of science majors had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies in the case of technology human resource index, and in the case of R&D index, the total amount of R&D investment had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies, while the number of Triad Patents Families and the number of scientific and technological papers published had a negative (-) effect on the increase of unicorn companies. Finally, in the case of technology infrastructure index, it was confirmed that the number of the world's 500th-ranked universities had a positive (+) effect on the increase of unicorn companies. This study is the first to reveal the causal relationship between national technological competitiveness and unicorn company growth based on country-specific and time-series empirical data, which were insufficiently covered in previous studies. and compared to the UN's ranking of the global industrial competitiveness index and the OECD's total R&D investment by country, Korea is considered to have technological and growth potential, while the number of unicorn companies driving growth as leaders of the innovative economy is relatively small, so the research results can be used when establishing policies to discover and foster unicorn companies in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.555-563
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• 2020

This study aimed to distinguish between predisposing factors influencing the entrepreneurial intentions of university and college students who completed an entrepreneurship education course and to empirically determine the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior. Since company foundation involves uncertainty, potential entrepreneurs are known to fear creating a new company. Entrepreneurship has been confirmed in advanced studies to not only reduce this fear but also positively influence one's entrepreneurial intention. This study presents a research model that connects entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial behavior and verifies it via empirical analysis. It was confirmed as a result that entrepreneurial intention is positively influenced by actively engaging with changes of a certain product or service, problem-solving capability, resolving unexpected setbacks during company foundation, and expertise in the business field where the founded company belongs to. It was also confirmed that entrepreneurial intention has a positive influence on entrepreneurial behavior. In the conclusion of this study, importance and necessity of entrepreneurship education are discussed in order to essentially improve entrepreneurial intention and company foundation via entrepreneurship education.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-57
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• 2020

Among the fintech businesses that are actively developing around the world, payment and settlement are the most prominent. Korea has a well-developed IT industry and a good existing card payment environment, however, its innovative movement is overwhelmingly slower than that of other countries in the fintech. In this study, we try to assess the regulations on fintech and their impacts on the startup ecosystem by comparing the cases of U.S., China, and Korea. We have found that both the United States and China have lowered barriers to entry for the newly launched fintech industry, allowing startups and IT companies to start fintech businesses at the existing financial sector. Particularly the implementation of predictable regulations in U.S., and the failure to apply the financial regulations in China, help start-up companies' growth in the fintech industry. This finding provides us with a lesson that current positive regulations in Korea should gradually change into negative regulations, and predictable regulations that strictly enforce post-management except major items rather than pre-approval. The policy implications are discussed with the perspective of start-ups in fintech industry.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.49-68
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• 2007

This paper develop self pre-checkup lists for the validity of business model as web business starters can utilize to open business. In particular, self pre-checkup lists invented by Dr. Bruce Merrifield, is reapplied and modified in appropriate to internet shopping mall business. This paper complete many literature reviews to identify appropriate factors of evaluation such as about the characters of internet business, business validity testing theory for internet business model, pros and cons of e-business and startup ventures, factor analysis of technology valuation, and pros and cons for internet shopping mall. This paper define six different factors; scale of sales, the growth rate of market, competitiveness, risk portfolio, industry upside down, and social conditions, as the factors of evaluating the business attractiveness. Meanwhile, it define characters of CEO, content's power, mutual inclusion, commerce, fulfillment, marketing power as the factors of business appropriateness. This paper also conducts several case studies; company I, D, G of applying the former model. This paper sort out internet business model in imaginations by utilizing self pre-checkup lists of business evaluation. Also, the outcomes of evaluation is expected to provide meaningful future business implications.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.1-12
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• 2017

This paper is brought to asses the training effect of KS-QFD boot camp for the companies in the early growth stage. In particular, the focus of research falls on measuring transfer intension of the participants from the early stage companies older than three years old, motivating effect of applying knowledges acquired from KS-QFD training camp into their real business case. KS-QFD program is presented to help company in the early stage companies over three years old of boosting up their sales volume more than 5 times than now for the next 18 months by this training. The training program of KS-QFD is ultimately to design more practical and helpful program to real business and spread out. The research establish model by setting the learner readiness and perceived content validity by doing training design as independent variables, self-efficacy of learner as mediating variable, and transfer intension as dependant variable. Research results shows the following outcomes. First, learner readiness does not have directly effect on transfer intension under keeping statistical significance. But as the parameter of self-efficacy, it has perfect mediating effect. Second, research proves that perceived content validity have directly impact on learning transfer intension of mediating by self-efficacy partially. This research contributes on proving that learning by doing KS-QFD boot camp enable the participants to build up their self-efficacy and lead to enhance transfer intension. In more steps, the research validates that KS-QFD training camp have delivered very practical and helpful on-site knowledge to the participants.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2018

During few decades, Korean economy has been growing with heavy and manufacturing industries. However, the economy meets limitations of growth rate, and employment rate. The Korean government has been trying to overcome these limitations using development of venture businesses and re-organization of industrial ecosystem. These efforts make high survival rate of recent venture companies. There are previous researches about relation between characteristics of entrepreneur and managerial performance, there are several limitations. Firstly, most of papers were based on survey with specific region or industry. Secondly, related researches were carried out with unable to distinguish among firm's survival periods. This paper uses the '2017 Survey of Korea Venture Firms' data that is approved by the Korean government. This data includes whole industries and survival periods. The aim of this research is finding the effect of characteristics of entrepreneur on managerial performance of venture firms by different survival periods using data envelopment analysis (DEA). If entrepreneur has doctoral degree, the firm's managerial performance is lower than bachelor degree. In addition, over 10 years of working career, and joint-venture have positive effect on firm's performance. This paper can provide valuable information to venture related policy makers and investment decision makers.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.95-124
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• 2021

Startups play an important role in economic growth and job creation in niche markets, thus governments regularly expand their research and development(R&D) budgets accordingly. As stratups are more dependent on governments to compensate for insufficient resources and capabilities than large and medium-sized companies, trust in government policies will be important. In this study, we analyzed the impact of startups' trust in government R&D policies on innovation performance. There were three major results. The first result is that government R&D investments in startups increase innovation performance in the manufacturing and high-technology industries but did not affect other industries. The second result is that trust in government R&D policies increased innovation in high-and medium-high technology and manufacturing industries. The third result is that trust in government R&D policies affects innovation before, during, and after evaluation of support process. We analyzed the importance of trust to the effectiveness of government R&D support to determine how to effectively provide it. The results show that governments need to differentiate the types of R&D support they provide according to the target firm's technology level and whether they are a manufacturing company and that appropriate R&D support mechanism should be developed for low-technology and non-manufacturing companies. Finally, governments should allocate resources and make fair and transparent decisions to help companies grow, not to better supervise them.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.173-202
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• 2021

Purpose This study explored overall phenomena in context such as YouTube channel operation, strategy, and profit generation through interviews with two research participants who started their own businesses and are recognized as influencer on YouTube and analysis of viewer responses to uploaded contents. With the explosive growth of YouTube content provision and use, previous studies on YouTube are only being conducted individually on YouTube's content, influence, and content providers, so it is need to explore YouTube channel operations and the effect of revenue generation in context from an integrated perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to present an integrated model that provides a specific process by contextually linking the factors and results influencing YouTube channel operation and revenue generation phenomena to individuals and companies who are trying to operate YouTube channels for the first time. Design/methodology/approach This study systematized and structured the overall phenomena in context such as YouTube channel operation, communication strategy, effect on revenue generation, and YouTube channel operation results by selecting interview subjects and collecting data through interviews, and analyzing viewer reactions (likes, comments, etc.). Due to the lack of previous studies exploring integrated phenomena, research analysis used Strauss & Corbin (1998)'s grounded theory approach, which presented inductive research methods to discover new theories by structuring concepts and categories based on detailed observations and information provided by interviewees. Findings The academic implication of this study is that while previous studies are conducted as individual studies on YouTube's content, influence, and content providers in the current situation where YouTube content provision and use are exploding, it integrally explores and presents an integrated model throughout the process. In addition, taking into account the lack of previous studies, it can be found in the aspect of using the grounded theory approach, an inductive theory approach that establishes a new theory. The practical implications can be found in that it presented practical directions to beginners who want to start operating YouTube channels by identifying operational preparations, communication strategies with viewers, and response management strategies.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.10-31
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• 2021

The digital tax, recently referred to as the Google tax was finally agreed at the 31st General Assembly of the OECD (October 8, 2021) with full support by 136 countries and will take effect from 2023. The purpose of this study is to analyze the digital tax prepared by the OECD for global MNEs, and to suggest the impacts on the Korean industry and to present the Korean governmental countermeasures. As the first study, we analyzed the international agreement on digital tax. In results, we found that even if global MNEs do not set up a business operation in overseas countries, if sales and profits are generated, 25% of the excess profit is borne as tax (pillar 1), and when MNEs do business in all the countries, they are liable to at least a 15% tax (pillar 2). We think that countries around the world have prepared a minimum countermeasure to protect their companies in anticipation that global MNEs will easily encroach on their markets in the future. As the second study, in order to discover the reason why the MNEs are so strong, we investigated the trends of Google and B2B SaaS companies in details. In results, we discovered that the global MNEs establishes a digital platform partnership ecosystem that enables them to enter foreign markets easily and expand rapidly. In conclusion, as a countermeasure for the Republic of Korea, governmental policies were proposed at the corporate (startup nurturing), industry, and national level respectively.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

This paper studies the impact of regulatory approaches on innovation and entrepreneurship. As technological progress and environmental changes avail new business opportunities to innovative startups, many governments find it difficult to regulate new and unprecedented businesses promoted by the innovative firms. In order to provide academic and practitional implications on the regulatory design with which to support innovation and entrepreneurship, this paper aims to review classical theories on the demand and supply of regulation as well as empirical research on the impact of regulation on market entry and incentives for innovation. Based on the findings, this paper discusses the recent controversies around the regulatory approaches on new businesses pursued by startups, which are as known as the "positive regulatory approach" vs. "negative regulatory approaches" among practitioners and policy makers in Korea. This paper claims that the Korean context provides an useful opportunity to investigate how the ongoing transition of the once "fast follower" economy into a pacesetter one changes the nature of businesses pursued by firms, investors, and related market players and, accordingly, calls for the changes in the way the government intervenes in markets to regulate businesses of firms. By doing so, this paper sheds light on the role of the government in establishing an entrepreneurial ecosystem where innovative ideas of startups can be tested and nurtured.