• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.103-120
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• 2009

As business incubation centers (BICs) have been operating for more than 10 years in Korea, many early stage startups tend to use the services provided by the incubating centers. BICs in Korea have accumulated the knowledge and experience in the past ten years and their services have been considerably improved. The business incubating service has three facets : (1) business infrastructure service, (2) direct service, and (3) indirect service. The mission of BICs is to provide the early stage entrepreneurs with the incubating service in a limited period time to help them grow strong enough to survive the fierce competition after graduating from the incubation. However, the incubating services sometimes fail to foster the independence of new startup companies, and raise the dependence of many companies on BICs. Thus, the dependence on BICs is a very important factor to understand the survival of the incubated startup companies after graduation from BICs. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the firm's dependence on BICs and to characterize the relationships among the identified factors. The business incubating service is a core construct of this study. It includes various activities and resources, such as offering the physical facilities, legal service, and connecting them with outside organizations. These services are extensive and take various forms. They are provided by BICs directly or indirectly. Past studies have identified various incubating services and classify them in different ways. Based on the past studies, we classify the business incubating service into three categories as mentioned above : (1) business infrastructure support, (2) direct support, and (3) networking support. The business infrastructure support is to provide the essential resources to start the business, such as physical facilities. The direct support is to offer the business resources available in the BICs, such as human, technical, and administrational resources. Finally, the indirect service was to support the resource in the outside of business incubation center. Dependence is generally defined as the degree to which a client firm needs the resources provided by the service provider in order to achieve its goals. Dependence is generated when a firm recognizes the benefits of interacting with its counterpart. Hence, the more positive outcomes a firm derives from its relationship with the partner, the more dependent on the partner the firm must inevitably become. In business incubating, as a resident firm is incubated in longer period, we can predict that her dependence on BICs would be stronger. In order to foster the independence of the incubated firms, BICs have to be able to manipulate the provision of their services to control the firms' dependence on BICs. Based on the above discussion, the research model for relationships between dependence and its affecting factors was developed. We surveyed the companies residing in BICs to test our research model. The instrument of our study was modified, in part, on the basis of previous relevant studies. For the purposes of testing reliability and validity, preliminary testing was conducted with firms that were residing in BICs and incubated by the BICs in the region of Gwangju and Jeonnam. The questionnaire was modified in accordance with the pre-test feedback. We mailed to all of the firms that had been incubated by the BICs with the help of business incubating managers of each BIC. The survey was conducted over a three week period. Gifts (of approximately ₩10,000 value) were offered to all actively participating respondents. The incubating period was reported by the business incubating managers, and it was transformed using natural logarithms. A total of 180 firms participated in the survey. However, we excluded 4 cases due to a lack of consistency using reversed items in the answers of the companies, and 176 cases were used for the analysis. We acknowledge that 176 samples may not be sufficient to conduct regression analyses with 5 research variables in our study. Each variable was measured through multiple items. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis to assess their unidimensionality. In an effort to test the construct validity of the instruments, a principal component factor analysis was conducted with Varimax rotation. The items correspond well to each singular factor, demonstrating a high degree of convergent validity. As the factor loadings for a variable (or factor) are higher than the factor loadings for the other variables, the instrument's discriminant validity is shown to be clear. Each factor was extracted as expected, which explained 70.97, 66.321, and 52.97 percent, respectively, of the total variance each with eigen values greater than 1.000. The internal consistency reliability of the variables was evaluated by computing Cronbach's alphas. The Cronbach's alpha values of the variables, which ranged from 0.717 to 0.950, were all securely over 0.700, which is satisfactory. The reliability and validity of the research variables are all, therefore, considered acceptable. The effects of dependence were assessed using a regression analysis. The Pearson correlations were calculated for the variables, measured by interval or ratio scales. Potential multicollinearity among the antecedents was evaluated prior to the multiple regression analysis, as some of the variables were significantly correlated with others (e.g., direct service and indirect service). Although several variables show the evidence of significant correlations, their tolerance values range between 0.334 and 0.613, thereby demonstrating that multicollinearity is not a likely threat to the parameter estimates. Checking some basic assumptions for the regression analyses, we decided to conduct multiple regression analyses and moderated regression analyses to test the given hypotheses. The results of the regression analyses indicate that the regression model is significant at p < 0.001 (F = 44.260), and that the predictors of the research model explain 42.6 percent of the total variance. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 address the relationships between the dependence of the incubated firms and the business incubating services. Business infrastructure service, direct service, and indirect service are all significantly related with dependence (β = 0.300, p < 0.001; β = 0.230, p < 0.001; β = 0.226, p < 0.001), thus supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. When the incubating period is the moderator and dependence is the dependent variable, the addition of the interaction terms with the antecedents to the regression equation yielded a significant increase in R2 (F change = 2.789, p < 0.05). In particular, direct service and indirect service exert different effects on dependence. Hence, the results support Hypotheses 5 and 6. This study provides several strategies and specific calls to action for BICs, based on our empirical findings. Business infrastructure service has more effect on the firm's dependence than the other two services. The introduction of an additional high charge rate for a graduated but allowed to stay in the BIC is a basic and legitimate condition for the BIC to control the firm's dependence. We detected the differential effects of direct and indirect services on the firm's dependence. The firms with long incubating period are more sensitive to indirect service positively, and more sensitive to direct service negatively, when assessing their levels of dependence. This implies that BICs must develop a strategy on the basis of a firm's incubating period. Last but not least, it would be valuable to discover other important variables that influence the firm's dependence in the future studies. Moreover, future studies to explain the independence of startup companies in BICs would also be valuable.

• 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.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.135-152
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• 2019

Recently there are many development and support policies for start-up companies because of successful venture companies related to ICT services. However, as these policies have focused on the support for the initial stage of start-up, many start-up companies have difficulties to continuously grow up. The main reason for these difficulties is that they recognize start-up tasks as independent activities. However, many experts or related articles say that start-up tasks are composed of related processes from the initial stage to the stable stage of start-up firms. In this study, we models the start-up processes based on the survey collected by the start-up companies, and analyze the start-up process of ICT service companies with process mining techniques. Through process mining analysis, we can draw a sequential flow of tasks for start-ups and the characteristics of them. The analysis of start-up businessman, idea derivation, creating business model, business diversification processes are resulted as important processes, but marketing activity and managing investment funds are not. This result means that marketing activity and managing investment funds are activities that need ongoing attention. Moreover, we can find temporal and complementary tasks which could not be captured by independent individual-level activity analysis. Our process analysis results are expected to be used in simulation-based web-intelligent system to support start-up business, and more cumulated start-up business cases will be helpful to give more detailed individual-level personalization service. And our proposed process model and analyzing results can be used to solve many difficulties for start-up companies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.67-80
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• 2022

This study was conducted to derive policy measures such as fostering and supporting by examining the actual conditions of domestic startups. The subject of this study was the start-ups located in Seongnam-si, where Pangyo Techno Valley, which is the highest-level innovation cluster in Korea and is evaluated as a start-up mecca. Startups were defined as startups under 7 years old based on new technologies such as IT, BT, and CT, and the subjects of the study were selected. This can be seen as a step forward from previous research in that it embodies the concept of a startup that was previously abstract in a quantitatively measurable way. As a result of the analysis, about 94% of startups are distributed in the so-called "Death Valley" growth stage, and startups above scale-up, which means full-scale growth beyond BEP, account for about 6%. appeared to be occupied. He cited the problem of start-up funds as the biggest difficulty in the early stages of startups, and cited the loan evaluation method that prioritizes sales or collateral in raising funds as the biggest problem. In addition, start-ups rated the access to private investment capital such as VC, AC, and angel investors at a low level compared to policy funds, which are public funds. Most startups showed a lot of interest in overseas expansion, and they chose matching overseas investors such as overseas VCs as the biggest support for overseas expansion. The overall competitiveness in the overseas market was 49.6 points, which is less than 50 points out of 100, indicating that the overall competitiveness was somewhat inferior. It was analyzed that public support and investment in overseas sales channels (sales channels, distribution networks, etc.) should be prioritized along with enhancement of technological competitiveness in order for domestic startups to increase their competitiveness in overseas markets as well as in the domestic market.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.221-233
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to prove the relationship of major variables derived based on prior research on factors affecting the start-up performance of youth mall young merchants in traditional markets, and to empirically analyze the relationship between major factors based on the results. The factors affecting the start-up performance of the youth mall in traditional markets were divided into government support programs and entrepreneurship, and the cooperation between the start-up preparation and merchants was established as variables that mediated the influence between the start-up performance and entrepreneurship performance. The analysis showed that entrepreneurship had a statistically significant positive effect on start-up readiness, while government-supported programs, entrepreneurship and start-up readiness had a significant positive effect on start-up performance. In addition, as a result of verifying the mediated effects of the research model, it was verified that the indirect effects of entrepreneurship on the performance of start-up by mediating the preparation of start-ups were significant. Through this study, the government support program should be supported in consideration of the characteristics of young merchants, not of the current consistent support, and means that youth merchants should be thoroughly verified in the recruitment, selection, and promotion stages, and young merchants with high entrepreneurship and start-up readiness should be selected.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.19-32
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence factors of the university level centering on the entrepreneurial performance of the university students and full-time faculties in the situation of increasing interest in entrepreneurial university. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, a panel data was established from 2015 to 2018 on the basis of the university notification data. The panel data included universities with data on the number of university students and full-time faculty founders for at least two years. Through this, four year data from 154 universities were used for analysis. As an analysis method, frequency analysis and descriptive statistics were conducted to understand the characteristics of the university. Since then, panel negative binomial regression analysis has been conducted in consideration of the longitudinal features and distribution of the data. Also, based on the Hausman test results, the results were interpreted based on random effect model. The results of this study are as follows. First, as a result of the analysis of the entrepreneurial performance and the change trend of the domestic university from 2015 to 2018, the entrepreneurial performance of the university has been steadily increasing in the last four years, and the increase in the number of university student entrepreneurs was relatively higher than the full-time faculties. Second, economic and educational approaches need to be combined to promote university students' start-ups. The university factors that promote the start-up of university students were found to be scholarships, start-up grants, startup lectures, and startup clubs. Third, the openness and regional characteristics of the univeristy can promote the establishment of university students. Fourth, the establishment of a research environment and support for start-ups for full-time faculty members can enhance their start-up performance. The university factors that promote the start-up of full-time faculty were research funds and staffes who support start-up. The conclusions drawn from these findings are as follows. First, overall efforts are needed to develop into an entrepreneurial university. Second, in order to change into an entrepreneurial university, direct support for entrepreneurship is needed. Third, as an entrepreneurial university, it is necessary to find a way to bridge the gap by university according to region and size. Fourth, it is necessary to reinforce the support for linking the research results of universities to start-ups. Fifth, it is necessary to improve the atmosphere for full-time faculty members to be entrepreneur.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.97-110
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• 2019

This study analyzed various factors of influence affecting the will to start a business and established and empirically analyzed a research model to see which factors significantly affect the will to start a business. To this end, we investigated the general characteristics and experiences of individuals, conducted a study on the will to start a business, and analyzed the entrepreneurship passion for startups, the ability to find business opportunities, and the ability to connect with partner companies. The intent to start a business survey was investigated in a recertive style with a 7 point scale, and the reliability and feasibility review were analyzed through the PLS analysis method, which enables the implementation of a measurement model and a structural model. To collect valid data, the survey was conducted using an entrepreneurial curriculum class hours to collect and analyze 421 data. In summary, the results are as follows: First, college students have many opportunities to develop their capabilities through competitions held by universities and support institutions, and by utilizing them, they have no fear of starting a business. Second, the ability of students to discover product clients themselves has been improved by fostering entrepreneurship in the special lectures on startup in universities. Third, it can be seen that it has received various information on startups from support agencies to enhance its commitment to startups. The implications are as follows. First, they should foster entrepreneurship among college students by offering practical oriented courses that can broaden their understanding of startups. Second, it needs to be improved from entrepreneurial enthusiasm to a program that can grow into a company that can collaborate with partner companies and confirm its commitment to corporate establishment and product development and determine market opportunities. Third, it is necessary to establish an ecosystem of start-ups that can carry out systematic planning and performance management as it is weak to carry out projects with will to startups.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.53-69
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• 2019

Purpose - National scientific technology R&D investment is exceeding 60 trillion won per year, and the results of patent applications and technology transfers are visually improving. However, despite the improving research results of national R&D, the practical results of technology startups are mediocre. It is now time to expand the construction of the technology commercialization ecosystem, where the expansion of national R&D leads to the results of technology startups. Therefore, this study discussed the measures to increase the competitiveness of technology startups through the factual survey of the companies that benefitted from R&D support programs. Research design, data, and methodology - This study targeted 996 companies that benefitted from the R&D projects of the Technology Transfer Center for National R&D Programs, and deducted itemized issues through the survey replies. Survey questions were prepared to estimate the national R&D results, and the technology recognition path, the purpose of detailed introduction of the technology, investment of the commercialization fund, economic results, and the factors of success and failure were analyzed. Results - As for the recognition rate of technology during the process of corporate technology commercialization through the technology transfer, recognition through project participation showed a high response rate, and diverse implications of technology commercialization were deducted through the analysis of economic results. As for the resolution alternatives, the proliferation of technology commercialization platform that can create excellent technology for the companies in early stages and the measure of expanding the distribution of technology infrastructure were suggested. In this study, public technology commercialization strategy is established, and the innovative marketing strategy is presented. Conclusions - This study reveal that the result of creating scientific technology jobs should be deducted, in order to produce the revolutionary results of job creation by suggesting the success models of technology commercialization based on domestic scientific technology. In particular, even though the support systems for public research results are being diversely suggested, accurate studies on their actual conditions are currently lacking. Therefore, this study suggest realistic political alternatives to assure results in the process of public technology commercialization, by examining the current state of public research results of R&D support institutions and diagnosing the issues.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.103-112
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• 2009

In a nuclear power plant (NPP), periodic sensor calibrations are required to assure sensors are operating correctly. However, only a few faulty sensors are found to be calibrated. For the safe operation of an NPP and the reduction of unnecessary calibration, on-line calibration monitoring is needed. In this paper, principal component-based Auto-Associative support vector regression (PCSVR) was proposed for the sensor signal validation of the NPP. It utilizes the attractive merits of principal component analysis (PCA) for extracting predominant feature vectors and AASVR because it easily represents complicated processes that are difficult to model with analytical and mechanistic models. With the use of real plant startup data from the Kori Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3, SVR hyperparameters were optimized by the response surface methodology (RSM). Moreover the statistical techniques are integrated with PCSVR for the failure detection. The residuals between the estimated signals and the measured signals are tested by the Shewhart Control Chart, Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA), Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) and generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) to detect whether the sensors are failed or not. This study shows the GLRT can be a candidate for the detection of sensor drift.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.267-277
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• 2020

This study examined the impact of failure tolerance on exploration and exploitation activities and the impact of these activities on management performance in the representatives of re-start-up companies. Recently, policy and social support for re-starting businesses has been increasing. This study seeks to verify whether the psychological factors of the re-founder are related to management performance. Therefore, a research model that combines failure tolerance, which is a psychological and pedagogical variable, and management performance, which is a management variable, was presented and empirical analysis was made. The research targets were conducted on re-founders who received funding from Korea SMEs & Startups Agency. The analysis of the psychological characteristics of the re-start-up, failure tolerance and the effect on the exploration and exploitation activity, all showed positive effects, and the analysis of the effect of the exploration and exploitation activity on the management performance, showed that the exploration activity did not affect, and the exploitation activity had a positive effect. This study is intended to provide theoretical and practical implications.