• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.13-29
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• 2023

Overcoming the death valley, a period in which resources are depleted and profitability declines or stagnates in the entrepreneurial process, is an essential procedure for success. In this study, we examined how the strategic orientation(technology, customer, competitor orientations) and absorptive capacity(potential, realized capacities) of startups affect the possibility of startups to overcome the challenges of death valley, and also empirically analyzed whether support of open innovation and venture capital has a moderating influence to the overcoming of death valley. The result of this study shows that customer orientation and realized absorptive capacity have a positive influence on overcoming the death valley. In addition, we found that the support of open innovation and venture capital has a moderating effect only in the technology orientation among the three types of strategic orientations. The result of this research emphasizes (1) the need for startups to take a more customer-oriented approach to overcome the death valley. The customer-oriented behavior and strategies of startups are vital for their longterm survival and success if we consider the fact that most of the companies investigated in this study were technology-based startups and only customer orientation showed significant results in overcoming the death valley. The research outcome also shows that (2) implementing innovation in a more open way and securing venture capital funding can make it easier for startups to overcome the death valley. This study has academic significance in that it empirically analyzed the relationship of key factors influencing the overcoming of death valley in a situation where the majority of existing research remains at the conceptual level of discussion or methodology of case study. Furthermore, this research also provides practical implications for the establishment and implementation of effective strategies to confront the challenges of death valley for startups, government and related organizations.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 2024

In recent years, Bitcoin and Ethereum have witnessed a surge in trading activity, driven by venture capital investment and funding through initial coin offerings (ICOs) and initial exchange offerings (IEOs). This heightened interest has led to kickstarting a vibrant ecosystem for blockchain development. The total number of cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap.com has reached 2,274 highlights how dynamic and wide blockchain development landscape has grown. In blockchain development, new blockchain projects are being created by forking blockchains inspired by major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. These projects aim to address the perceived shortcomings and improve existing technologies. Altcoins, representing these alternative cryptocurrencies, are an ongoing industry effort to improve performance and security with enhancement proposals such as Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIP), Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP), and EOSIO Enhancement Proposals (EEP). With competitive attempts to improve blockchain performance and security, an ongoing performance race between various blockchains has taken shape, each claiming its own performance advantages. In this paper, we describe the transactions contained in the blocks of each representative blockchain, and find the factors that affect the transactions per second (TPS) through transaction processing and block generation processes, and suggest their relationship with scalability.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 2018

Since the Korean economic development path has been unique compared to other counties, it is necessary to build an incubation ecosystem matching with unique economic environment in Korea. In order to revive the dynamism of the economy, establishment of the incubator ecosystem should be a policy priority so that ventures with innovative ideas and challenging minds can grow into a global stage. The purpose of this study is to derive the policy implications for establishing ecosystem and infrastructure by comparing to other OECD countries such as US, Israel, Finland, and Japan that can offer meaningful policy implications to Korea. For this purpose, the most appropriate model for explaining the incubation ecosystem in Korea was designed. PCII Model (People, Capital, Incubating, Infra) has 4 elements. It provides a framework for incubation of entrepreneurship, funding for start-up, incubation course, establishment of business foundation infrastructure. The comparative analysis was conducted with 12 sub-items under 4 elements and qualitative and quantitative evaluations were performed for each category. As a result of the comparative analysis, Korea's incubation policy seems to be still in the initial stage in terms of establishment of ecosystem compared to other countries. Therefore, a systematic approach based on the ecosystem model is needed other than the short-term incubation policy.

• World Technopolis Review
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2015

Globalization, increasing technological advancements and dynamic knowledge diffusion are moving our world closer together at a unique scale and pace. At the same time, our rapidly changing society is confronted with major challenges ranging from demographic to economic ones; challenges that necessitate highly innovative solutions, forcing us to reconsider the way that we actually innovate and create shared value. As such the linear, centralized innovation models of the past need to be replaced with new approaches; approaches that are based upon an open and collaborative, global network perspective where all innovation actors strategically network and collaborate, openly distribute their ideas and co-innovate/co-create in a global context utilizing our society's full innovation potential (Innovation 4.0 - Open Innovation 2.0). These emerging innovation paradigms create "an opportunity for a new entrepreneurial renaissance which can drive a Cambrian like explosion of sustainable wealth creation" (Curley 2013). Thus, in order to materialize this entrepreneurial renaissance, it is critical not only to value but also to actively employ this new innovation paradigms so as to derive community-driven shared value that stems from global innovation networks. This paper argues that there is a gap in existing business incubation model that needs to be filled, in that the innovation and entrepreneurship community cannot afford to ignore the emerging innovation paradigms and rely upon closed incubation models but has to adopt an "open incubation" (Ziouvelou 2013). The open incubation model is based on the principles of open innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation of shared value and enables individual users and innovation stakeholders to strategically network, find collaborators and partners, co-create ideas and prototypes, share their ideas/prototypes and utilize the wisdom of the crowd to assess the value of these project ideas/prototypes, while at the same time find connections/partners, business and technical information, knowledge on start-up related topics, online tools, online content, open data and open educational material and most importantly access to capital and crowd-funding. By introducing a new incubation phase, namely the "interest phase", open incubation bridges the gap between entrepreneurial need and action and addresses the wantpreneurial needs during the innovation conception phase. In this context one such ecosystem that aligns fully with the open incubation model and theoretical approach, is the VOICE ecosystem. VOICE is an international, community-driven innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem based on open innovation, crowdsourcing and co-creation principles that has no physical location as opposed to traditional business incubators. VOICE aims to tap into the collective intelligence of the crowd and turn their entrepreneurial interest or need into a collaborative project that will result into a prototype and to a successful "crowd-venture".

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.25-32
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate how to make a proper investment in ICO in the market. Previously, companies used to borrow money from banks or to obtain investments from venture capital (VC) and angel investors, but now ICOs are used as a new type of funding and financing model. The ICO sells the tokens or coins created on the blockchain openly online to raise the necessary funds, and provides the market value by paying the tokens or coins as much as the investment amount. According to this study, the limitations of the ICO market are (1) difficulties in evaluating the company, (2) uncertainties in investments, (3) lack of legal safeguards, and (4) measures to secure corporate stability after recruitment. At present, there is no way to cope with this systematically since the ICO is not protected in the legal framework. Nevertheless, we investigated the ways to make proper investment in the existing ICO market. In investing in ICO, investors should (1) consider investment methods and profitability, and (2) verify and judge investment fraud through various channels (ex. Homepage, composition team profile, etc.) and make investments based on this. This study will contribute to the formation of a healthy ICO market by understanding the newly emerged ICO market and studying the considerations when investing in it, thereby contributing to the right investor training and reducing the mass production of consumer damages caused by fraud. The limitation of this study is that the domestic ICO has not yet been examined in the legal framework, so further research is needed when policy changes occur in the future.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2018

For a long time the German economy was primarily defined by large corporations and thriving small and medium-sized enterprises. Since about 2005 a second strand has started to emerge and it is one which is becoming increasingly important and is creating jobs - start-ups in the digital sector. This start-up activity is taking an important role in Germany's economic development: Start-up companies spawn innovations and create jobs, thus promoting the concept of competition. In general "start-up" refers to digitally-driven companies that are not more than five years old. Germany's start-up policy consists of three main parts. First of all, Germany has the characteristics of technology-based start-ups. The Hartz reform since 2002 has shown its focus on technology-based start-ups. In particular, it is the most appropriate for a start-up company to take the role of a new technology company to respond to changes in the global industrial structure. Second, it is approaching from a long-term perspective. In this regard, the small business policy, including Germany's new business policy, is seen as a tradition that can be consistent and can make policy decisions based on the basics rather than following the times. Third, the government is implementing policies centered on demand. Germany's start-up policy is summarized as a technology-based policy and new job creation. The policy response is that the government seeks the best combination of policies by adapting them to the times from the broad trend of employment market policies. What is important here is that policies are made based on consumers, not suppliers, in the process of policy making and implementation. With the Digital Agenda 2020 the Federal government has likewise committed itself to preparing the digital economy for international competition and making Germany the "No. 1 digital growth country in Europe". Ever since 1998 the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) has awarded the "EXIST" start-up scholarship to students and graduates. The Ministry also invests in the High Tech start-up fund. Together with Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and 18 other investors from the world of business the seed investor promotes young technology companies. Germany offers start-ups a good infrastructure and lots of funding opportunities. Berlin is regarded as Europe's start-up capital and also attracts lots of international young entrepreneurs.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2020

This study is to identify the influence of major variables that affect the participation intention of securities type crowdfunding investors and how participation intention and perceived behavioral control affect investors' herd behavior including indirect effect analysis based on the theory of planned behavior. The ultimate purpose of this study is to understand the investment behavior of securities type crowdfunding investors and to help the relevant parties to develop various policies and business plans to revitalize the system and protect investors. An online survey was conducted on people who are interested or have experience in securities type crowdfunding to receive a total of 276 responses. Excluding outliers, a total of 261 responses were taken into account for the final analysis. For the data analysis, structural equation model analysis using SPSS 22.0 and Amos 22.0 statistical package was conducted. As a result, two of the major variables of the theory of planned behavior-attitude and subjective norm-have been found to have a positive effect on the participation intention of securities type crowdfunding investors. And after analyzing the indirect effect, the participation intention was found to play a mediating role between attitude, subjective norm and herd behavior. However, the perceived behavioral control presented as a major variable of behavioral intention in the theory of planned behavior showed that the effect on participation intention was statistically insignificant. Instead, it was found to have a direct positive effect on herd behavior. This is significant because it empirically confirmed that even if investors perceive securities type crowdfunding as easy to participate, perceived behavioral control does not seem to have a significant impact on participation intention because securities type crowdfunding is an investment in an early-stage business with a high risk of loss. On the other hand, the study has great significance in that it empirically confirmed that domestic securities type crowdfunding investors perceive the funding progress information provided by the platform as a signal and imitate many other investors, showing herd behavior when they actually make an investment. It is expected that this study will provide meaningful insights for the policy making of crowdfunding supervisory offices and platform operators by empirically identifying major variables that influence the participation intentions and herd behavior of domestic securities type crowdfunding investors.

• Korean small business review
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.65-87
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• 2010

With the advent of knowledge-based society, the revitalization of technological innovation type SMEs, termed "inno-biz" hereafter, has been globally recognized as a government policymakers' primary concern in strengthening national competitiveness, and much effort is being put into establishing polices of boosting the start-ups and innovation capability of SMEs. Especially, in that the inno-biz enables national economy to get vitalized by widening world markets with its superior technology, and thus, taking the initiative of extremely competitive world markets, its growth and development has greater significance. In the case of Korea, the government has been maintaining the policies since the late 1990s of stimulating the growth of SMEs as well as building various infrastructures to foster the start-ups of the SMEs such as venture businesses with high technology. In addition, since the enactment of "Innovation Promotion Law for SMEs" in 2001, the government has been accelerating the policies of prioritizing the growth and development of inno-biz. So, for the sound growth and development of Korean inno-biz, this paper intends to offer effective management strategies for SMEs and suggest proper policies for the government, by researching into the effect of technological innovation capability and technology commercialization capability as the primary business resources on business performance in Korean SMEs in the light of market information orientation. The research is carried out on Korean companies characterized as inno-biz. On the basis of OSLO manual and prior studies, the research categorizes their status. R&D capability, technology accumulation capability and technological innovation system are categorized into technological innovation capability; product development capability, manufacturing capability and marketing capability into technology commercialization capability; and increase in product competitiveness and merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. Then the effect of each component on business performance is substantially analyzed. In addition, the mediation effect of technological innovation and technology commercialization capability on business performance is observed by the use of the market information orientation as a parameter. The following hypotheses are proposed. H1 : Technology innovation capability will positively influence business performance. H1-1 : R&D capability will positively influence product competitiveness. H1-2 : R&D capability will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H1-3 : Technology accumulation capability will positively influence product competitiveness. H1-4 : Technology accumulation capability will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H1-5 : Technological innovation system will positively influence product competitiveness. H1-6 : Technological innovation system will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H2 : Technology commercializing capability will positively influence business performance. H2-1 : Product development capability will positively influence product competitiveness. H2-2 : Product development capability will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H2-3 : Manufacturing capability will positively influence product competitiveness. H2-4 : Manufacturing capability will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H2-5 : Marketing capability will positively influence product competitiveness. H2-6 : Marketing capability will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H3 : Technology innovation capability will positively influence market information orientation. H3-1 : R&D capability will positively influence information generation. H3-2 : R&D capability will positively influence information diffusion. H3-3 : R&D capability will positively influence information response. H3-4 : Technology accumulation capability will positively influence information generation. H3-5 : Technology accumulation capability will positively influence information diffusion. H3-6 : Technology accumulation capability will positively influence information response. H3-7 : Technological innovation system will positively influence information generation. H3-8 : Technological innovation system will positively influence information diffusion. H3-9 : Technological innovation system will positively influence information response. H4 : Technology commercialization capability will positively influence market information orientation. H4-1 : Product development capability will positively influence information generation. H4-2 : Product development capability will positively influence information diffusion. H4-3 : Product development capability will positively influence information response. H4-4 : Manufacturing capability will positively influence information generation. H4-5 : Manufacturing capability will positively influence information diffusion. H4-6 : Manufacturing capability will positively influence information response. H4-7 : Marketing capability will positively influence information generation. H4-8 : Marketing capability will positively influence information diffusion. H4-9 : Marketing capability will positively influence information response. H5 : Market information orientation will positively influence business performance. H5-1 : Information generation will positively influence product competitiveness. H5-2 : Information generation will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H5-3 : Information diffusion will positively influence product competitiveness. H5-4 : Information diffusion will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H5-5 : Information response will positively influence product competitiveness. H5-6 : Information response will positively influence merits for new technology and/or product development into business performance. H6 : Market information orientation will mediate the relationship between technology innovation capability and business performance. H7 : Market information orientation will mediate the relationship between technology commercializing capability and business performance. The followings are the research results : First, as for the effect of technological innovation on business performance, the technology accumulation capability and technological innovating system have a positive effect on increase in product competitiveness and merits for new technology and/or product development, while R&D capability has little effect on business performance. Second, as for the effect of technology commercialization capability on business performance, the effect of manufacturing capability is relatively greater than that of merits for new technology and/or product development. Third, the mediation effect of market information orientation is identified to exist partially in information generation, information diffusion and information response. Judging from these results, the following analysis can be made : On Increase in product competitiveness, directly related to successful technology commercialization of technology, management capability including technological innovation system, manufacturing capability and marketing capability has a relatively strong effect. On merits for new technology and/or product development, on the other hand, capability in technological aspect including R&D capability, technology accumulation capability and product development capability has relatively strong effect. Besides, in the cast of market information orientation, the level of information diffusion within an organization plays and important role in new technology and/or product development. Also, for commercial success like increase in product competitiveness, the level of information response is primarily required. Accordingly, the following policies are suggested : First, as the effect of technological innovation capability and technology commercialization capability on business performance differs among SMEs; in order for SMEs to secure competitiveness, the government has to establish microscopic policies for SMEs which meet their needs and characteristics. Especially, the SMEs lacking in capital and labor are required to map out management strategies of focusing their resources primarily on their strengths. And the government needs to set up policies for SMEs, not from its macro-scaled standpoint, but from the selective and concentrative one that meets the needs and characteristics of respective SMEs. Second, systematic infrastructures are urgently required which lead technological success to commercial success. Namely, as technological merits at respective SME levels do not always guarantee commercial success, the government should make and effort to build systematic infrastructures including encouragement of M&A or technology trade, systematic support for protecting intellectual property, furtherance of business incubating and industrial clusters for strengthening academic-industrial network, and revitalization of technology financing, in order to make successful commercialization from technological success. Finally, the effort to innovate technology, R&D, for example, is essential to future national competitiveness, but its result is often prolonged. So the government needs continuous concern and funding for basic science, in order to maximize technological innovation capability. Indeed the government needs to examine continuously whether technological innovation capability or technological success leads satisfactorily to commercial success in market economic system. It is because, when the transition fails, it should be left to the government.