• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.75-97
• /
• 2012

Knowledge residing in the heads of employees has always been regarded as one of the most critical resources within a firm. However, many tries to facilitate knowledge transfer among employees has been unsuccessful because of the motivational and cognitive problems between the knowledge source and the recipient. Social capital, which is defined as "the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998]," is suggested to resolve these motivational and cognitive problems of knowledge transfer. In Social capital theory, there are two research streams. One insists that social capital strengthens group solidarity and brings up cooperative behaviors among group members, such as voluntary help to colleagues. Therefore, social capital can motivate an expert to transfer his/her knowledge to a colleague in need without any direct reward. The other stream insists that social capital provides an access to various resources that the owner of social capital doesn't possess directly. In knowledge transfer context, an employee with social capital can access and learn much knowledge from his/her colleagues. Therefore, social capital provides benefits to both the knowledge source and the recipient in different ways. However, prior research on knowledge transfer and social capital is mostly limited to either of the research stream of social capital and covered only the knowledge source's or the knowledge recipient's perspective. Social network theory which focuses on the structural dimension of social capital provides clear explanation about the in-depth mechanisms of social capital's two different benefits. 'Strong tie' builds up identification, trust, and emotional attachment between the knowledge source and the recipient; therefore, it motivates the knowledge source to transfer his/her knowledge to the recipient. On the other hand, 'weak tie' easily expands to 'diverse' knowledge sources because it does not take much effort to manage. Therefore, the real value of 'weak tie' comes from the 'diverse network structure,' not the 'weak tie' itself. It implies that the two different perspectives on strength of ties can co-exist. For example, an extroverted employee can manage many 'strong' ties with 'various' colleagues. In this regards, the individual-level structure of one's relationships as well as the dyadic-level relationship should be considered together to provide a holistic view of social capital. In addition, interaction effect between individual-level characteristics and dyadic-level characteristics can be examined, too. Based on these arguments, this study has following research questions. (1) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer respectively? (2) How does the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer? (3) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence the effect of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer? Based on Social capital theory and Social network theory, a multi-level research model is developed to consider both the individual-level social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient and the dyadic-level strength of relationship between the knowledge source and the recipient. 'Cross-classified random effect model,' one of the multi-level analysis methods, is adopted to analyze the survey responses from 337 R&D employees. The results of analysis provide several findings. First, among three dimensions of the knowledge source's social capital, network centrality (i.e., structural dimension) shows the significant direct effect on knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the knowledge recipient's network centrality is not influential. Instead, it strengthens the influence of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer. It means that the knowledge source's network centrality does not directly increase knowledge transfer. Instead, by providing access to various knowledge sources, the network centrality provides only the context where the strong tie between the knowledge source and the recipient leads to effective knowledge transfer. In short, network centrality has indirect effect on knowledge transfer from the knowledge recipient's perspective, while it has direct effect from the knowledge source's perspective. This is the most important contribution of this research. In addition, contrary to the research hypothesis, company tenure of the knowledge recipient negatively influences knowledge transfer. It means that experienced employees do not look for new knowledge and stick to their own knowledge. This is also an interesting result. One of the possible reasons is the hierarchical culture of Korea, such as a fear of losing face in front of subordinates. In a research methodology perspective, multi-level analysis adopted in this study seems to be very promising in management research area which has a multi-level data structure, such as employee-team-department-company. In addition, social network analysis is also a promising research approach with an exploding availability of online social network data.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.87-105
• /
• 2017

This study investigates the effect of entrepreneurship on corporate performance highlighting the mediating role of technological innovation and the moderating role of marketing competence. By identifying the role of technological innovation and marketing competence within the relationship between the entrepreneurship and corporate's business performance, this study aims to improve SMBs' competence. Special attention was given to the fact that while there are some technology-based SMBs which have achieved positive outcomes through innovation, there are some other firms which have not been able to deliver expected outcomes despite of their technological competence. The data used in this study came from CEO or chief research executives of SMBs. Results of the data analysis show that the innovative sprit which is an important factor of entrepreneurship has an positive effect on technological performance, financial performance and non-financial performance. However, risk- taking tendency has an positive effect on technological performance but negative effects on financial and non- financial performance of the firms. This study also has examined the mediating effect of technological innovation on the relationship between entrepreneurship and corporate's performance and the result reveals that technological innovation plays a mediating role within the relationship. Specially, innovative spirit plays a full mediating role within the relationship between technological commercialization capacity and financial and non-financial performances of SMEs'. Also, risk taking tendency has a full mediating effect on the positive relationship between strategic planning capability and both financial and non-financial performance. Regarding the moderating role of marketing capability within the relationship between the entrepreneurship and the performance of the firms, results of data analysis shows as follows. Marketing professional capability plays a moderating role between risk taking tendency and performance of the firm and marketing structural capability plays a moderating role between innovative spirit and the performance of the firms. Based on these results, this study confirms that SMEs' business performance is effected by entrepreneurship. Innovative spirit plays a mediating role within the relationship entrepreneurship and business performance. However, Marketing capability has a partial moderating effect on the relationship between the entrepreneurship and the business performance.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.93-120
• /
• 2007

To promote the commercialization of high technology based start-up company, it is essential to activate technology trading for the Innovative Small & Medium companies which eager to acquire technology competitiveness through technology trading and facilitate financial system which provide Small & Medium companies with technology commercialization money. This study focus on enhancing credibility of technology valuation solutions through the improvement of the existing technology valuation solutions. The existing technology valuation solutions in practice have deficiency in reasonable valuation because of subjective technology factor's calculation. And the commercialization risk of high technology based start-up companies cannot be fully reflected in the existing valuation solutions. The high risk of technology commercialization acts as a hurdle in the facilitation of providing money for the start-up companies. The improved new model will have more acceptable objectivity and reasonably reflect the commercialization risk of start-up companies. The new model has two distinctive features compared to existing solutions. The new model newly adopts commercialization success factor which reflects the risk of high technology based start-up company. And the new model excludes technology factor which is controversial among interested parties. The exclusion of technology factor will improve the objectivity of technology valuation and the adoption of commercialization success factor will solicit investor and capitalist who concern the high risk of technology based start-up companies. In conclusion, the improved new model is expected to activate technology trading and facilitate the money market through which high technology based start-up companies raise commercialization money.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.25-64
• /
• 2008

Third-Party awards are growing in popularity. They are the hit product of the year chosen by The Korea Economic Daily, the best 10 products of the year chosen by Sports paper, the best hit product chosen by consulting firm and the best venture company of the year chosen by Information and Communication Ministry. Then these questions may be followed. Why industry likes this type of advertisement? Does this type of advertisement influences consumers' purchase intention? And if it does, how? Many researchers have been interested in external cue of product quality by focusing research effort on brand, price, producer, warranty etc. However, important but under-explored area is the role of third-party reference for signaling product quality. This paper comes from the idea that the third-party reference may signal consumers like manufacturer brand, product brand, product price, and shop brand. We develop a related theories to address research questions and drive some research hypotheses based on the previous studies probing source credibility, attribution, and signal theory. We put more emphasis on source credibility. We conducted the research based on 3x2x2x2 between group factorial design to explore causal relationship between the third party award winning advertising(real, fictional, no) and the purchase intention of consumers exposed to other information simultaneously such as product type(experience, search), distribution channel(direct, indirect) and perceived price(high, low). Since subjects are divided into 2 groups based on the means of response without extra experimental stimulus in case of perceived price. 12 different advertisements are used for conducting this study. The results are followings. First, the source credibility of the third party goes up, consumers' purchase intention would go up. It seems that consumers think the credibility of the third-party most when they are exposed to the third party award winning advertisement. Second, the product type does moderate the relationship between the third-party award winning advertisement and purchase intention. And the type of the distribution channel also moderates this relationship. The consumers' purchase intention goes up higher when they buy experience good and there is significant difference of purchase intention when consumers are exposed to direct channel treatment condition. But, perceived price has nothing to do with the third-party winning advertisement context for raising consumer intention to buy advertised product.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.127-139
• /
• 2023

During the process of preparing for and initiating a startup, startup entrepreneurs allocate a significant amount of time to developing a business plan. Within this process, the documented business plan serves not only as a roadmap for the venture but also as a communication tool for capital acquisition and internal team collaboration. However, is the business plan, meticulously crafted by entrepreneurs, actually effective in generating startup performance? To answer this question, this study empirically analyzed the impact of a business plan on startup performance. Additionally, it examined how the relationship between the business plan and performance changes based on the satisfaction levels of entrepreneurs regarding the business plan. Through the analysis, the study validated the influence of the completeness of the business plan and entrepreneurial satisfaction on startup performance, and derived implications. To conduct the empirical analysis, a survey was conducted among 150 entrepreneurs. Regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between the completeness of the business plan and performance, and the sample was further divided into two groups: startups with less than three years of operation and startups with three or more years of operation, for secondary analysis. The analysis results revealed that the completeness of the startup's business plan has a positive impact on both financial and non-financial performance. Furthermore, it is observed that the entrepreneur's satisfaction with the business plan had a moderating effect on the relationship between the business plan and financial performance. Moreover, for startups that are less than three years old, the entrepreneur's satisfaction with the business plan exhibits a moderating effect on the relationship between the completeness of the business plan and non-financial performance. This study holds significance as it reaffirms the importance of business plan development as a means to achieve sustainable growth for early-stage startups and empirically validates its significance. It is expected that this study will provide valuable insights for future startup entrepreneurs to better understand the importance of business planning and contribute to reducing the failure rate of early-stage startups.