• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.41-53
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• 2024

The Korean government's SME policy has shifted from the traditional focus of protecting SMEs against large business groups to foster innovative SMEs by upgrading their innovation base. From the government's policy perspective, innovative SMEs are defined as SMEs that can secure technological competitiveness or have the potential for future growth through technological innovation activities. Based on the resource-based theory and resource dependence theory, this study aims to explain whether both R&D capabilities of innovative SMEs and the acquisition of venture certification have a significant impact on enhancing global technological competitiveness. According to the resource-based theory, differences in a firm's tangible and intangible resources and R&D capabilities determine its innovation activities and performance. On the other hand, the resource dependence theory argues that government certification programs to support SMEs positively affect SMEs' innovation activities and performance by increasing their access to the external resources needed for innovation. Going a step further, this study examines the moderating effect of the product life cycle. As a moderating variable, the product life cycle is expected to have an opposite effect on the internal and external resource utilization. The results based on the SME Technology Statistics(2020) support the direct effect of both R&D capability and venture certification on global technological competitiveness and the differential moderating effect of product life cycle. The finding that the technological competitiveness effect of internal resource utilization is greater for longer product life cycles, while the technological competitiveness effect of external resource utilization is greater for shorter product life cycles suggests that product life cycle should be considered as an important contextual variable when studying the relationship between R&D, technological innovation, and performance. These results also suggest that in a global competitive environment where product life cycles are dramatically shortening, innovative SMEs that suffer the dual liabilities of newness and smallness should focus not only on strengthening internal R&D capabilities but also on strategically securing external resources.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.139-150
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• 2017

In Korea, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an pivotal role in the national economy, accounting for 99.9% of all enterprises, 87.9% of total employment, and 48.3% of production. In spite of their crucial role in the national development, most of SMEs suffer from a lack of R&D related resources. Public R&D organizations such as government-funded research institutes can provide SMEs with valuable supplementary technological knowledge and help them build technological capacity. In this regard, this study estimated the effect of internal R&D investment and private-public R&D cooperation on technological innovation of ICT SMEs based on 2016 ETRI Survey. Building on previous literatures, the study established and tested a research model using binary logistic regression analysis. First, internal R&D investment and preferences for open innovation demonstrated the strengthening of R&D collaboration. Second, internal R&D investment and R&D cooperation showed a positive effect on both product and process innovation. Therefore, internal R&D capability and taking advantage of R&D collaboration are needed to achieve technological innovation for SMEs in ICT sector. This study also discuss implications for encouraging private-public R&D cooperation.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.2-11
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• 2021

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of polymorphic loci and other factors on milk performance and the technological properties of milk. Methods: The analysis was performed on Simmental and Holstein cows in field conditions (n = 748). Milk yield in kg, fat and protein percentage and yield were evaluated. Technological properties were evaluated by milk fermentation ability, renneting, and an alcohol test. Polymorphisms in the acyl-CoA diacylgycerol transferase 1 (DGAT1), leptin (LEP), fatty acid synthase (FASN), stearoyl CoA desaturase 1 (SCD1), casein beta (CSN2), casein kappa (CSN3), and lactoglobulin beta genes were genotyped, and association analysis was performed. Results: The DGAT1 AA genotype was associated with higher milk, protein and fat yields (p<0.05). The MM genotype in the LEP gene was associated with a lower protein percentage and the W allele with a higher protein percentage (p<0.05). In cows with the FASN GG genotype, the protein percentage was higher, but the A allele was associated with higher milk, protein and fat yields than the G allele. The TT genotype in SCD1 was associated with the lowest milk, protein and fat yields and with the highest milk protein percentage (p<0.01). The T allele had higher values than the C allele (p<0.05) except for fat percentage. The genotype CSN3 AA was associated with a significantly heightened milk yield; BB was associated with a high protein percentage. The effect of the alleles on the technological properties was not significant. The CSN2 BB genotype was associated with the best alcohol test (p<0.01), and the renneting order was inverse. Milk from cows with the CSN2 A1A1 genotype was best in the milk fermentation ability. CSN3 significantly affected the technological properties. Conclusion: The findings revealed the potential of some polymorphic loci for use in dairy cattle breeding and for the management of milk quality. In field research, the pivotal role of farms in milk yield, composition and technological properties was confirmed.

• 산업혁신연구
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.153-186
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• 2018

Technological innovation is a key driver of firm survival and prosperity in a competitive market. Though most economists consider the determinants of technological innovation as firm-level activities, concentrations of innovative performance within particular regions have been observed almost everywhere. We examine if performance of technological innovation for photonics industry in Korea will be affected by different regions as well as firm specific factors. By applying Heckman's selection model, we found that specific regions such as Gwangju and Honam region have significant effects on the probability of obtaining patents, but there is no significant evidence that the location on specific regions increases the number of patents. On the contrary, firms with main plants in the SMA have not only significantly lower chances of obtaining patents but also produce significantly fewer patents than do firms in other regions. The analysis also found that the R&D spending-capital ratio, total employment-capital ratio of firms, and firm location in metropolitan cities are all positively related to the number of patents. As a policy implication, more active cooperation between the R&D cluster and the surrounding firms will be required to enhance the technology diffusion effects from the R&D cluster to innovative activity of the firms. This paper contributes relevant literature by showing empirically that regional location is an important determinant of technological innovation for photonics firms.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.260-268
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• 2020

Mixed-matrix carbon molecular sieve membranes containing conventional and hierarchically structured 5A were synthesized for application in oxygen (O₂)/nitrogen (N₂) separation. In general, incorporating 5A fillers into porous carbon matrices dramatically increased the permeability of the membrane with a marginal decrease in selectivity, resulting in very attractive O₂/N₂ separation performances. Hierarchical zeolite 5A, which contains both microporous and mesoporous domains, improved the separation performance further, indicating that the mesopores in the zeolite can serve as an additional path for rapid gas diffusion without sacrificing O₂/N₂ selectivity substantially. This facile strategy successfully and cost-effectively pushed the performance close to the Robeson upper bound. It produced high performance membranes based on Matrimid^® 5218 polyimide and zeolite 5A, which are inexpensive commercial products.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.681-692
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• 2020

Conventional Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters (CPEH) have been extensively studied for maximizing their electrical output through material selection, geometric and structural optimization, and adoption of efficient interface circuits. In this paper, the performance of Stepped Piezoelectric Energy Harvester (SPEH) under harmonic base excitation is studied analytically, numerically and experimentally. The motivation is to compare the energy harvesting performance of CPEH and SPEHs with the same characteristics (resonant frequency). The results of this study challenge the notion of achieving higher voltage and power output through incorporation of geometric discontinuities such as step sections in the harvester beams. A CPEH consists of substrate material with a patch of piezoelectric material bonded over it and a tip mass at the free end to tune the resonant frequency. A SPEH is designed by introducing a step section near the root of substrate beam to induce higher dynamic strain for maximizing the electrical output. The incorporation of step section reduces the stiffness and consequently, a lower tip mass is used with SPEH to match the resonant frequency to that of CPEH. Moreover, the electromechanical coupling coefficient, forcing function and damping are significantly influenced because of the inclusion of step section, which consequently affects harvester's output. Three different configurations of SPEHs characterized by the same resonant frequency as that of CPEH are designed and analyzed using linear electromechanical model and their performances are compared. The variation of strain on the harvester beams is obtained using finite element analysis. The prototypes of CPEH and SPEHs are fabricated and experimentally tested. It is shown that the power output from SPEHs is lower than the CPEH. When the prototypes with resonant frequencies in the range of 56-56.5 Hz are tested at 1 m/s2, three SPEHs generate power output of 482 μW, 424 μW and 228 μW when compared with 674 μW from CPEH. It is concluded that the advantage of increasing dynamic strain using step section is negated by increase in damping and decrease in forcing function. However, SPEHs show slightly better performance in terms of specific power and thus making them suitable for practical scenarios where the ratio of power to system mass is critical.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.49-63
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• 2019

The export regulation of semiconductor core materials, which began with the recent revision of the export management regulations of Japan, raises the need for a new cooperation network. A hierarchical management network that was effective in the fast-follower system requires organic cooperation between the public sector and industry through a multilateral network that emphasizes horizontal co-operation among innovation actors. This study focused on the relational capital that exists among members of a business association such as an association that has been relatively marginalized from previous studies. In addition, this study aimed to analyze the effect of network activity characteristics such as industry-university linkage and informal exchange on technological innovation. Through this, I would like to draw implications for enhancing the effectiveness of the government's R & D support and innovation performance of R & D companies. Based on the results of the SMEs R & D survey, this study found that relational capital, informal exchange had a positive effect on technological innovation performance. However, if the relational capital exceeds a certain level, it is analyzed that there is a negative effect due to group think and lock-in effect. This means that informal exchange channels should be expanded for innovation and enhancement, and relational capital should be managed in consideration of the negative effects that may occur when certain levels are exceeded.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.317-323
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to analyze how innovative facility investment and innovative research manpower capabilities of venture companies related to the 4th industrial smart farm affect the technological performance of patents and design registrations, and the financial performance of sales and operating profit. As a research method, a total of 47 venture companies were selected as a sample and regression analysis was performed. Research Results This study analyzes the technological commercialization factors of venture companies related to the 4th industrial smart farm and proposes to expand the budget for R&D government tasks for financial and technological success. In the future research direction, I believe that more discussion is needed on the contribution of companies to quantitative and qualitative growth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.195-213
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that determine the performance of technological start-ups from resource-based view of firm. This study analyzed the correlation among the entrepreneur's competence, technology commercialization capabilities and business performance. This study is designed to examine (1)the effect of entrepreneur's competence, technology commercialization capabilities on business performance; and (2) the causal relationships and the mediator effects among the latent variables and business performance. Data for the study was compiled through surveys on entrepreneurs representing 125 technological start-ups. Empirical results of the hypothesis testing are summarized as follows : The results indicate that both two variable groups have positively influenced the outcome of business performance. Especially strategic competence was highly related to commercialization capabilities and business performance. The technology commercialization capabilities as a parameter had a significant influence on business performance.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.146-173
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• 2014

Extant studies have explained that firm's innovations including technological product and process innovations contribute to its competitive advantage and growth, thereby supporting competitiveness and growth of industry. These studies, however, have focused mainly on the role and effect of technological change that is primarily measured by the patent numbers and R&D intensity. Aside from these traditional streams, there has been growing interest on the impact by various dimensions of innovation including non-technological innovations. Apart from the discussions on the dimensions and scope of innovation, stages or processes of innovation also have been studied. Extant studies on innovation process model, however, has limited its interests in the structure of the transformation of knowledge. This study have established a comprehensive model embracing operational and financial performance to investigate the causal paths between innovation and firm performance. Using multi-level generalized linear model with path analysis, this study have found results as follows: First, the processes from innovative activities to innovation output and outcomes including operational and financial performance at firm level were verified. Secondly, the influence of innovation decreases gradually as the distance away from the direct outputs of the innovation increase in the direction of financial outcomes. Third, the effect of innovation on the sales growth rate is higher for small businesses than for medium-sized businesses. The effect of innovation on the profit rate, however, is significant only for medium-sized businesses. For large businesses, innovation has no positive significant impact on any financial performance at all. Fourth, Fourth, the appropriability of innovation has positive impacts on innovative performance, patent applications, and operational performance.