A Study on Investors' Investment Decision Factors in Platform Startup (플랫폼 스타트업에 대한 투자결정요인에 관한 연구)
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- Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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- v.19 no.2
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- pp.109-124
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- 2024
The value of platform companies is rapidly increasing, exerting significant influence across industries. Identifying and fostering promising platform companies is crucial for enhancing national competitiveness. Consequently, tailored evaluation standards are necessary for such companies. This study derived investment decision factors specific to platform companies and compared the importance of each factor using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis. Key factors included platform characteristics, finance, entrepreneur (team), market, and product/service attributes. The findings revealed that platform characteristics were deemed the most crucial factor for investors. Specifically, factors such as platform size, ease of value fixation, core participant group, and data value were identified as pertinent for evaluating platform companies. Moreover, analysis distinguished between investors with prior platform investment experience and those without. Significantly, investors with platform investment experience placed greater emphasis on the value of data secured by platform Furthermore, it was observed that investors prioritized future value and growth potential over current value when investing in platform. Notably, founder/team characteristics, typically highly regarded in previous studies, ranked lower in importance in this study, highlighting a shift in focus. The discrepancy between this study's results and prior research on investment decision factors is attributed to the specificity of the questions posed. By focusing on investment decision factors for platform startups rather than generic startup inquiries, investor responses aligned more closely with platform-focused considerations. Given the burgeoning venture investment landscape, there's a growing need for detailed research on startups within specific sectors like IT, travel, and biotech. This approach can replace extensive research covering all startup types to identify investment decision factors suited to the characteristics of each individual industry.
Since 2000, the employment rate of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has dwindled while the creation of new jobs and the emergence of healthy SMEs have been stagnant. The fundamental reason for these symptoms is that the economic structure is disadvantageous to SMEs. In particular, the greater gap between SMEs and large enterprises has resulted in polarization, and the resulting imbalance has become the largest obstacle to improving SMEs' competitiveness. For example, the total productivity has continued to drop, and the average productivity of SMEs is now merely 30% of that of large enterprises, and the average wage of SMEs' employees is only 53% of that of large enterprises. Along with polarization, rapid industrialization has also caused anti-enterprise consensus, the collapse of the middle class, hostility towards establishments, and other aftereffects. The general consensus is that unless these problems are solved, South Korea will not become an advanced country. Especially, South Korea is now facing issues that need urgent measures, such as the decline of its economic growth, the worsening distribution of profits, and the increased external volatility. Recognizing such negative trends, the MB administration proposed a win-win growth policy and recently introduced a new national value called "ecosystemic development." As the terms in such policy agenda are similar, however, the conceptual differences among such terms must first be fully understood. Therefore, in this study, the concepts of win-win growth policy and ecosystemic development, and the need for them, were surveyed, and their differences from and similarities with other policy concepts like win-win cooperation and symbiotic development were examined. Based on the results of the survey and examination, the study introduced a South Korean model of win-win growth, targeting the promotion of a sound balance between large enterprises and SMEs and an innovative ecosystem, and finally, proposing future policy tasks. Win-win growth is not an academic term but a policy term. Thus, it is less advisable to give a theoretical definition of it than to understand its concept based on its objective and method as a policy. The core of the MB administration's win-win growth policy is the creation of a partnership between key economic subjects such as large enterprises and SMEs based on each subject's differentiated capacity, and such economic subjects' joint promotion of growth opportunities. Its objective is to contribute to the establishment of an advanced capitalistic system by securing the sustainability of the South Korean economy. Such win-win growth policy includes three core concepts. The first concept, ecosystem, is that win-win growth should be understood from the viewpoint of an industrial ecosystem and should be pursued by overcoming the issues of specific enterprises. An enterprise is not an independent entity but a social entity, meaning it exists in relationship with the society (Drucker, 2011). The second concept, balance, points to the fact that an effort should be made to establish a systemic and social infrastructure for a healthy balance in the industry. The social system and infrastructure should be established in such a way as to create a balance between short- term needs and long-term sustainability, between freedom and responsibility, and between profitability and social obligations. Finally, the third concept is the behavioral change of economic entities. The win-win growth policy is not merely about simple transactional relationships or determining reasonable prices but more about the need for a behavior change on the part of economic entities, without which the objectives of the policy cannot be achieved. Various advanced countries have developed different win-win growth models based on their respective cultures and economic-development stages. Japan, whose culture is characterized by a relatively high level of group-centered trust, has developed a productivity improvement model based on such culture, whereas the U.S., which has a highly developed system of market capitalism, has developed a system that instigates or promotes market-oriented technological innovation. Unlike Japan or the U.S., Europe, a late starter, has not fully developed a trust-based culture or market capitalism and thus often uses a policy-led model based on which the government leads the improvement of productivity and promotes technological innovation. By modeling successful cases from these advanced countries, South Korea can establish its unique win-win growth system. For this, it needs to determine the method and tasks that suit its circumstances by examining the prerequisites for its success as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each advanced country. This paper proposes a South Korean model of win-win growth, whose objective is to upgrade the country's low-trust-level-based industrial structure, in which large enterprises and SMEs depend only on independent survival strategies, to a high-trust-level-based social ecosystem, in which large enterprises and SMEs develop a cooperative relationship as partners. Based on this objective, the model proposes the establishment of a sound balance of systems and infrastructure between large enterprises and SMEs, and to form a crenovative social ecosystem. The South Korean model of win-win growth consists of three axes: utilization of the South Koreans' potential, which creates community-oriented energy; fusion-style improvement of various control and self-regulated systems for establishing a high-trust-level-oriented social infrastructure; and behavioral change on the part of enterprises in terms of putting an end to their unfair business activities and promoting future-oriented cooperative relationships. This system will establish a dynamic industrial ecosystem that will generate creative energy and will thus contribute to the realization of a sustainable economy in the 21st century. The South Korean model of win-win growth should pursue community-based self-regulation, which promotes the power of efficiency and competition that is fundamentally being pursued by capitalism while at the same time seeking the value of society and community. Already existing in Korea's traditional roots, such objectives have become the bases of the Shinbaram culture, characterized by the South Koreans' spontaneity, creativity, and optimism. In the process of a community's gradual improvement of its rules and procedures, the trust among the community members increases, and the "social capital" that guarantees the successful control of shared resources can be established (Ostrom, 2010). This basic ideal can help reduce the gap between large enterprises and SMEs, alleviating the South Koreans' victim mentality in the face of competition and the open-door policy, and creating crenovative corporate competitiveness. The win-win growth policy emerged for the purpose of addressing the polarization and imbalance structure resulting from the evolution of 21st-century capitalism. It simultaneously pursues efficiency and fairness on one hand and economic and community values on the other, and aims to foster efficient interaction between the market and the government. This policy, however, is also evolving. The win-win growth policy can be considered an extension of the win-win cooperation that the past 'Participatory Government' promoted at the enterprise management level to the level of systems and culture. Also, the ecosystemic development agendum that has recently emerged is a further extension that has been presented as a national ideal of "a new development model that promotes the co-advancement of environmental conservation, growth, economic development, social integration, and national and individual development."
Since financial crisis of IMF resulted in intensive competitiveness and adverse management environment, many hotel industries have responded it with restructuring. Since this restructuring is accompanied by reduction of employees, hence comes the recognition of justice in the procedure of restructuring. When the surviving employees in the restructuring process recognize unfairness in the procedure and practical operations, organization effectiveness can not be maintained due to losing trust of their employers. In this paper I will examine the relationship between validity of restructuring and compensatory programs for layoffs and surviving employees' trust of the employers. Also I will find out the relationship between remaining employees' trust of the employers and their job satisfaction and organization commitment. Through this relationship, we can prepare an alternative to reduce negative effect of restructuring. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows: H1: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H2: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H3: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H4: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H5: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H6: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H7: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H8: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. For the purposes of this study, employees working in luxury hotels located in Seoul were targeted. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to those who consented with the investigation after explaining the purpose of the survey. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 450 questionnaire were returned to the researcher for analysis. 430 of the returned questionnaires were used for analysis. As for the education for this survey, 250 junior college graduates or under (58.1%), 143 college graduates (33.3%) and 37 graduate school graduates (8.6%). As for the marital status, 315 persons (73.3%) are single and 115 are married (26.7%). As for the monthly income, 49 people (11.48%) are less than 2 million won, 148 (34.4%) are between 2 million and less than 2.5 million won, 153 (35.6%) are between 2.5 million to less than 3 million won, 80 (18.6%) are more than 3 million won. As for the workplace, 293 people (68.1%) work for the F&B department, 73 (17.0%) for rooms department, 41 (9.5%) for operation/ marketing department, 23 (5.3%) for account/ general affair department. As for the period of employment, 85 people (19.8%) are less than 5 years, 150 (34.9%) are between 6 to 9 years, 143 (33.3%) are between 10 to 14 years. and 52 (3.%) are more than 15 years. An exploratory factor analysis was used to survey validity and reliability of calculating tool on perceived values. This study used correlation between individual items and whole items and Cronbach's alpha value of multiple-item scale which is usually used to assess scale and reliability. Reliability of conceptual sub-dimension was assessed by basing on repeated procedure of correlation between individual items and whole items and factor loading. 1. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and trust This research showed that procedural and distributive justice of restructuring affects trust positively. The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and trust is 0.719(t=10.135, p=0.000), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher trust. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and trust is 0.160(t=3.291, p=0.001), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher trust. Hence H1 and H2 are accepted. 2. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and job satisfaction The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.179(t=2.202, p=0.028), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher job satisfaction. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.074(t=1.620, p=0.105), and thereby distributive justice of restructuring has no relationship with job satisfaction. Hence H3 is accepted, but H4 is removed. 3. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.188(t=2.466, p=0.014), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher organization commitment. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.118(t=2.720, p=0.007), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher organization commitment. Hence H5 and H6 are accepted. 4. Verification of correlation between trust and job satisfaction The path coefficient between trust and job satisfaction is 0.610(t=6.736, p=0.000), and thereby the correlation has a meaningful result. Since the higher trust of the employer results in higher job satisfaction, H7 is accepted. 5. Verification of correlation between trust and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.446(t=5.547 p=0.000), and thereby the higher trust of the employer results in higher organization commitment. Hence H8 is accepted. This research aimed to help the employers of hotel industries by analyzing the effects of validity of restructuring on employees' trust, job satisfaction and organization commitment. The research found that employer's validity of restructuring has significant affects on the degree of employee's trust with a manager, thereby reducing the negative effects of restructuring and enhancing organization commitment and job satisfaction. The principal purpose of this research is to confirm the correlation between employees' perceived validity of restructuring and their trust with a manager. Also whether this correlation results in competitive edge of the company is also investigated. It is also pointed out that employees had to participated the procedure of restructuring, sharing the philosophy and reason of restructuring. This participation and furthermore compensatory methods can reduce employees' anxiety of organization operations. Variable of trust appeared to have impact on intermediation effect between perceived variable of validity and job satisfaction, organization commitment, so that increase of trust with a manager plays an crucial role in increasing organization effectiveness. Since this research did not cover whole hotel industries which underwent restructuring, it showed a limit. Unlike previous studies which dealt with validity and trust of superior bosses, this research focussed on employers. Also the organization citizenship which is not considered in this study will be dealt with in the future study.
Regarding works that express objects realistically in painting, Gustave Courbet advocated realism in the mid-19th century, France, resisting the then academist style of painting, and works in realist style were produced in earnest by painters such as H. Daumier or Jean F. Millet, who went along with him. Later, realism has expanded into the realm of general literature, including fine art, which has had profound impacts on works of art and literary works. In comics, too, in the same historical context as a form of painting, realistic comics began to be produced by painters or cartoonists at the time. These realism comics are those dealing with stories based on facts, and in terms of contents, objective description and representation of the social realities of the times is one of the most important objectives, but it could not be concluded that in their visual aspect, that is, that of expressing the objects, they were realistic. In the meantime, a graphic novel was born, which was the intermediate form between comics and novels around the United States and Europe since the 1980s. Graphic novels appeared in forms and styles with strong literary and artistic values in the comics market in the U.S. which was full of the superhero genre (comics around heroes), and their major characteristics are very realistic expressions in terms of contents and visual aspect. They are complex and delicate and even have artistic, literary values as if readers read a fiction or literary work of which its narrative structures or pictures are produced with graphics. The characteristics of realistic expressions shown in graphic novels are very different from the previous works of comics. It is noteworthy that they began to be acknowledged as works of art like painting or illustration, thanks to their features of strongly individual auteurist painting style, a fairly high degree of completion of the works, and creative and experimental expression techniques or methods, instead of following the fashion of the times. In recent years, in South Korea, Hollywood blockbuster films have been released one after another and become box office hits, there are increasing interest and demand for the original graphic novels. Accordingly, many original graphic novels have been translated and started to be sold, and keeping pace with this global flow of fashion, some writers in Korea began to produce works of graphic novels. However, to look into the domestic works produced claiming to be graphic novels, there are various opinions on their format and authenticity. In this sense, this study focused on Ga-ya Kwon's Namhansanseong, one the representative works of Korean style graphic novels, and in particular, it attempted to analyze their characteristics and commonalities focusing on the visual aspect of realistic expressions of objects. It is expected that there would be an opportunity to seek for ways so that Korean style graphic novel can be further developed as a genre of comics, with competitiveness by looking back on the identity and present state of domestic graphic novels and developing and applying Korea's original subject matters differentiated from those of graphic novels in the U.S., Europe or Japan through this study. In addition, it is desired that they will be a new energizer for the stagnant domestic comics market.
R&D into future technologies should be conducted in conjunction with technological innovation strategies that are linked to corporate survival within a framework of information and knowledge-based competitiveness. As such, future technology strategies should be ensured through open R&D organizations. The development of future technologies should not be conducted simply on the basis of future forecasts, but should take into account customer needs in advance and reflect them in the development of the future technologies or services. This research aims to select as segmentation variables the customers' attitude towards accepting future telecommunication technologies and their value orientation in their everyday life, as these factors wilt have the greatest effect on the demand for future telecommunication services and thus segment the future telecom service market. Likewise, such research seeks to segment the market from the stage of technology R&D activities and employ the results to formulate technology development strategies. Based on the customer attitude towards accepting new technologies, two groups were induced, and a hierarchical customer segmentation model was provided to conduct secondary segmentation of the two groups on the basis of their respective customer value orientation. A survey was conducted in June 2006 on 800 consumers aged 15 to 69, residing in Seoul and five other major South Korean cities, through one-on-one interviews. The samples were divided into two sub-groups according to their level of acceptance of new technology; a sub-group demonstrating a high level of technology acceptance (39.4%) and another sub-group with a comparatively lower level of technology acceptance (60.6%). These two sub-groups were further divided each into 5 smaller sub-groups (10 total smaller sub-groups) through two rounds of segmentation. The ten sub-groups were then analyzed in their detailed characteristics, including general demographic characteristics, usage patterns in existing telecom services such as mobile service, broadband internet and wireless internet and the status of ownership of a computing or information device and the desire or intention to purchase one. Through these steps, we were able to statistically prove that each of these 10 sub-groups responded to telecom services as independent markets. We found that each segmented group responds as an independent individual market. Through correspondence analysis, the target segmentation groups were positioned in such a way as to facilitate the entry of future telecommunication services into the market, as well as their diffusion and transferability.
The interplay between hedonic and utilitarian attributes has assumed special significance in recent years; it has been proposed that consumption offerings should be viewed as experiences that stimulate both cognitions and feelings rather than as mere products or services. This research builds on previous work on hedonic versus utilitarian benefits, regulatory focus theory, customer satisfaction to address two question: (1) Is the shopping goal at the point of purchase different from the shopping value? and (2) Is the customer loyalty after the use different from the shopping value and shopping goal? We surveyed 345 peoples those who have bought the electronic-goods within 6 months. This research dealt with the shopping value which is consisted of 2 types, hedonic and utilitarian. Those who pursue the hedonic shopping value may prefer the pleasure of purchasing experience to the product itself. They tend to prefer atmosphere, arousal of the shopping experience. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "hedonic" to refer to their aesthetic, experiential and enjoyment-related value. On the contrary, Those who pursue the utilitarian shopping value may prefer the reasonable buying. It may be more functional. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "utilitarian" to refer to the functional, instrumental, and practical value of consumption offerings. Holbrook(1999) notes that consumer value is an experience that results from the consumption of such benefits. In the context of cell phones for example, the phone's battery life and sound volume are utilitarian benefits, whereas aesthetic appeal from its shape and color are hedonic benefits. Likewise, in the case of a car, fuel economics and safety are utilitarian benefits whereas the sunroof and the luxurious interior are hedonic benefits. The shopping goals are consisted of the promotion focus goal and the prevention focus goal, based on the self-regulatory focus theory. The promotion focus is characterized into focusing ideal self because they are oriented to wishes and vision. The promotion focused individuals are tend to be more risk taking. They are more sensitive to hope and achievement. On the contrary, the prevention focused individuals are characterized into focusing the responsibilities because they are oriented to safety. The prevention focused individuals are tend to be more risk avoiding. We wanted to test the relation among the shopping value, shopping goal and customer loyalty. Customers show the positive or negative feelings comparing with the expectation level which customers have at the point of the purchase. If the result were bigger than the expectation, customers may feel positive feeling such as delight or satisfaction and they would want to share their feelings with other people. And they want to buy those products again in the future time. There is converging evidence that the types of goals consumers expect to be fulfilled by the utilitarian dimension of a product are different from those they seek from the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004). Specifically, whereas consumers expect the fulfillment of product prevention goals on the utilitarian dimension, they expect the fulfillment of promotion goals on the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan, and Majahan 2007; Higgins 1997, 2001) According to the regulatory focus theory, prevention goals are those that ought to be met. Fulfillment of prevention goals in the context of product consumption eliminates or significantly reduces the probability of a painful experience, thus making consumers experience emotions that result from fulfillment of prevention goals such as confidence and securities. On the contrary, fulfillment of promotion goals are those that a person aspires to meet, such as "looking cool" or "being sophisticated." Fulfillment of promotion goals in the context of product consumption significantly increases the probability of a pleasurable experience, thus enabling consumers to experience emotions that result from the fulfillment of promotion goals. The proposed conceptual framework captures that the relationships among hedonic versus utilitarian shopping values and promotion versus prevention shopping goals respectively. An analysis of the consequence of the fulfillment and frustration of utilitarian and hedonic value is theoretically worthwhile. It is also substantively relevant because it helps predict post-consumption behavior such as the promotion versus prevention shopping goals orientation. Because our primary goal is to understand how the post consumption feelings influence the variable customer loyalty: word of mouth (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978). This research result is that the utilitarian shopping value gives the positive influence to both of the promotion and prevention goal. However the influence to the prevention goal is stronger. On the contrary, hedonic shopping value gives influence to the promotion focus goal only. Additionally, both of the promotion and prevention goal show the positive relation with customer loyalty. However, the positive relation with promotion goal and customer loyalty is much stronger. The promotion focus goal gives the influence to the customer loyalty. On the contrary, the prevention focus goal relates at the low level of relation with customer loyalty than that of the promotion goal. It could be explained that it is apt to get framed the compliment of people into 'gain-non gain' situation. As the result, for those who have the promotion focus are motivated to deliver their own feeling to other people eagerly. Conversely the prevention focused individual are more sensitive to the 'loss-non loss' situation. The research result is consistent with pre-existent researches. There is a conceptual parallel between necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits and luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha 2007; Higginns 1997; Kivetz and Simonson 2002b). In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the precedence principle contends luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits higher than necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits. Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha (2007) show that consumers are focused more on the utilitarian benefits than on the hedonic benefits of a product until their minimum expectation of fulfilling prevention goals are met. Furthermore, a utilitarian benefit is a promise of a certain level of functionality by the manufacturer or the retailer. When the promise is not fulfilled, customers blame the retailer and/or the manufacturer. When negative feelings are attributable to an entity, customers feel angry. However in the case of hedonic benefit, the customer, not the manufacturer, determines at the time of purchase whether the product is stylish and attractive. Under such circumstances, customers are more likely to blame themselves than the manufacturer if their friends do not find the product stylish and attractive. Therefore, not meeting minimum utilitarian expectations of functionality generates a much more intense negative feelings, such as anger than a less intense feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfactions. The additional multi group analysis of this research shows the same result. Those who are unsatisfactory customers who have the prevention focused goal shows higher relation with WOM, comparing with satisfactory customers. The research findings in this article could have significant implication for the personal selling fields to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the sales such that they can develop the sales presentation strategy for the customers. For those who are the hedonic customers may be apt to show more interest to the promotion goal. Therefore it may work to strengthen the design, style or new technology of the products to the hedonic customers. On the contrary for the utilitarian customers, it may work to strengthen the price competitiveness. On the basis of the result from our studies, we demonstrated a correspondence among hedonic versus utilitarian and promotion versus prevention goal, WOM. Similarly, we also found evidence of the moderator effects of satisfaction after use, between the prevention goal and WOM. Even though the prevention goal has the low level of relation to WOM, those who are not satisfied show higher relation to WOM. The relation between the prevention goal and WOM is significantly different according to the satisfaction versus unsatisfaction. In addition, improving the promotion emotions of cheerfulness and excitement and the prevention emotion of confidence and security will further improve customer loyalty. A related potential further research could be to examine whether hedonic versus utilitarian, promotion versus prevention goals improve customer loyalty for services as well. Under the budget and time constraints, designers and managers are often compelling to choose among various attributes. If there is no budget or time constraints, perhaps the best solution is to maximize both hedonic and utilitarian dimension of benefits. However, they have to make trad-off process between various attributes. For the designers and managers have to keep in mind that without hedonic benefit satisfaction of the product it may hard to lead the customers to the customer loyalty.