• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-18
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• 2019

Venture capitalists (VCs) play an important role in finding and growing innovative venture companies with high growth potential but high risk. Venture capital investment does not depend on the system, unlike the investment for listed companies. Korea's venture capital industry has entered a period of growth, but lack of data has led to a lack of research on venture capital. Based on this background, this study attempts to analyze various factors affecting investment decision criteria of Korea VCs. In this study, I examined the major factors that VCs consider in decision making of investment through literature review, and I have drawn the research question accordingly. I will focus on the characteristics of founders, products / services, markets, financials, and networks that scholars share common investment decision criteria in Korean VCs. For the purpose of this study, the data were collected through the questionnaire surveyed by investment vetters working in current venture capital and analyzed using AHP analysis. Through this study, I tried to understand the Korean venture capital which has been poorly studied and what criteria and priorities Korean VCs make investment decisions in the Korean venture investment environment. The results of this research will contribute to the vitalization of venture investment, which is important for the upbringing of companies, by providing guidelines for establishing investment attraction strategies of venture companies.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.69-95
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• 2009

This paper examines the motives for location decisions of startups and dynamics of cluster growth. Because the location decision is intrinsically strategic choice by entrepreneurs, it is an interplay of three critical forces; cost-benefit of the choice, R&D ability of new entrants, and R&D capability of incumbents in clusters. The effect of knowledge spillovers influences the cluster growth like a double-edge sword; both a positive effect of technology learning and a negative effect of knowledge de-learning. Using data on 710 bio-tech venture firms in Korea, this paper tests the hypotheses about the factors influencing the growth of the cluster. The empirical analyses suggested that early entrepreneurial activity in the clustered regions were important, however other factors such as the organizational legacy, internal dynamics inside a cluster, and the existence of cooperation norm in the cluster, affected long term viability of the cluster.

• Agribusiness and Information Management
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.5-15
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• 2019

The world of smart agribusiness is still far from being fully and effectively applied by the Italian entrepreneurial fabric. In part, this is due to the fact that its potential and important connections with the technological world of reference are not fully known. The imperative is therefore: to learn how to manage all the processes that characterize the agricultural chain in a synergistic way, from production to the sale of the product to the final consumer. It is therefore essential to know every minimum aspect of the supply chain considering the current strengths on which to leverage but especially the weaknesses on which to intervene thanks to the use of technology available on the market. Today, the supply chain is still considered as a set of phases, one consecutive to the other, as if they were detached from each other. However, in order to operate efficiently, each step should be interconnected: from the farmer's decision to produce an agricultural good to the choice of production factors, from the implementation of harvesting and post-harvest operations to processing, from the selection of goods suitable for sale to the logic of distribution on the target territory. This work investigates the potential strategy using digital technologies in order to make dynamic the agribusiness supply chain, especially because in Italy the agri-food is one of the most important economic sectors but it is far from the most innovative trends available on the market.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.9-29
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• 2018

Japan's manufacturing is mostly dependent on the automotive industry in Toyota-Kariya cities. However, the nearby city of Hamamatsu is the home of a start-up ecosystem known as Japan's Silicon Valley. How is it possible to evaluate the innovative potential of each regional industry? What kind of guidelines exist for continuing R&D investment when companies' net incomes are negative in the face of the 'Valley-of-Death' or financial crisis? Is it possible to measure the regional resilience ability in the context of the financial crisis? Entrepreneurial innovation is defined as a real-option portfolio consisting of investment decision to commercialize R&D findings. The subcontractor system implies a vertical and tight industrial group. However, a start-up ecosystem means a platform for horizontal and flexible partnership. In this research, the data include the financial indices of each of 18 public companies in both regions between FY2009 and FY2017. The objective of this paper is to clarify the call option or resilience function of equity for R&D investment in the context of the financial crisis in both regions by using Bayesian MCMC analysis.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.119-137
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• 2018

Recently, the start-up firms have been under the spotlight because they can create many jobs and are regarded as the growth engine of a country in the fourth industrial revolution. Moreover, after the global financial debacle, many countries emphasize on an entrepreneurial spirit and venture firms. they also pay attention to the importance of educations to promote the start-up firms. In this work, based on technology acceptance model, we try to identify the main factors of accepting online start-up education system. We first defined this system as the online start-up education system which refers to a system to support learning for knowledge, experiences and overall process of start-up firms' tasks. This system also simulates tasks related with prep-entrepreneur so that can be regarded as a kind of decision support systems. As this system has some characteristics, we confirmed some factors of extended technology acceptance model. In our experiments, we find that the perceived ease of use and trust are main factors of acceptance for the online start-up education systems. These results mean that the system should be made to be easy and trustful for their users. Therefore, we expect that this work will be helpful to researchers and developers who consider start-up education systems and provide a way to activate founding start-up firms.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.35-48
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• 2018

This study aims to assess the training effect of QFD(Quality Functional Deployment) program for 3 years over startups, adopted from the conventional QFD widely used in the large companies to break up to a sluggish sales and growth, for employees working in startup whether the participants in startup and venture company taking this lessons into their real tasks or not. In particular, the focus of this study falls on figuring out whether individual characteristics of the participants play a role in moderating effect over transfer intension factors and its link path structure. The research results drive out two significant findings. First, in terms of relationship between the influence of transfer intension by self-efficacy and the validity of training content with the learner's readiness, the moderating effect of demographic features of the participants is effective partially by the sex and fully by their working position, but not statistically significant by age, education, and the prior startup career. This research deliver the following significant implication that the active participation of CEO level, decision-maker guarantee the higher performance of the training program like QFD program, more stresses falling on practical implementation in real business rather than just ending up with career training. This study gives significant policy implication to quasi-government organization running all public startup training projects.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.14 no.spc
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• pp.1285-1311
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• 2011

In this research, we investigated both present and potential entrepreneurs who are over 20 years old. The theme was that how businessmen's manners toward business and danger-perception have difference and are affected according to various factors. Besides, we also worked on the influence of manners toward enterprise and risk-perception variable on intention of starting and maintaining a business by using a decision-making model of consumers. The results are the followings. First, attitude toward enterprise was positive when the entrepreneur is man or unprofessional. This phenomenon was also observed if his or her parents had business foundation experience or he or she has self-realization motive rather than economical. Meanwhile, danger-recognition was high when the entrepreneur has no job, is more than 40 years old, has business background, or has affirmative enterprise attitude. Second, people who are man, have parents with business background or have self-realization motive on business foundation were more willing to start a business. Meanwhile, people who have affirmative enterprise manners, company with sales from 11 billion to 100 billion won or no business failure experience had high intention to maintain a business. Third, businessmen who are men, work in unprofessional job or have business experience had more strong desire to establish enterprise. Meantime, people who are old, have no jobs or have enterprise experience showed high danger-recognition level. At last, people who are men or jobless had strong will to start a business. So did the people who have positive attitude toward business or have parents who have business experience. Meantime, people with affirmative business manners or no experience of enterprise failure had strong intention to keep business.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2020

Accelerators that invest in early startups, as well as nursery and overall management, have recently emerged as "key players" in the startup ecosystem. This can be proved by the case where the number of domestic accelerators registered in the Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups has recently reached 208. Accelerators provide the necessary education for early-stage companies, including guidance for a certain period of time, and support startups in ways such as demo days to attract subsequent investment after the seed investment. There is not much research in academia about what factors impact on these accelerators when making investment decisions at the time of seed investment. In this study, we checked the meaning and function of the accelerator and tried to analyze what factors affect on accelerators when making a decision to invest in startups. The research method is based on a literature survey of previous studies on investment decision-making factors of venture capital and angel investors, and a lens model and judgment analysis method through empirical research targeting 43 accelerator investment decision-makers. Empirical analysis shows that accelerators have three of the key factors to consider when choosing the first startup to invest and educate; entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial traits, their product and service expertise and a potential return on success. This will provide an opportunity for early startups to gain strategic access to accelerators when they need money or need a structured educational program. Also, the results obtained through this research will be a kind of guideline for startups to attract accelerators' investment. The significance of this study is that discriminatory evidence was presented on the accelerator determinants of investment, and it would be highly suggestive to startups and related public institutions.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.47-57
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to grasp the correlation between network and firm's performance by analyzing the perception and characteristics of network of business founder and investor from the perspective of the network. We selected a TIPS support program which is evaluated to be a best practice as a research target for empirical analysis. The empirical results using social network and statistical analysis, shows that the stronger the investor's network connectivity, the more likely it is that the investor's start - up succeeds in attracting subsequent investment. In addition, both the entrepreneurial team and the management think that the internal human network between the enterprise and the investor plays an important role in inducing investment or exploring the company, and recognizes that the value of the human network will have a significant influence on the enterprise value evaluation or investment decision.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.151-163
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• 2021

Purpose - The break-even point refers to the point where total profit and total cost coincide, and from this point on, the entrepreneur's decision-making takes a different route. Strategic decisions can be made for more efficient operation and eventually for more likelihood for growth and sustainability if a startup figures out when it recoups the investment and switches to a net profit. Design/methodology/approach - 748 creativity and skill-based sole proprietors in manufacturing industry were examined to demonstrate the effect of the entrepreneur's entrepreneurial experience and education level, the business launch preparation time, or the self-financing on the achievement of break-even point. Findings - While the business launch preparation time lowered the likelihood of reaching a break-even point, self-financing increased the likelihood. As a result of further analysis by subdividing into subgroups according to skill level, only the business launch preparation time was statistically significant in the highly skilled industries. In the low skilled industries, in addition to the business launch preparation time, the CEO's education level and the self-financing were statistically significant. Research implications or Originality - The longer the business launch preparation time, the higher the start-up cost, which increases the burden of initial cost recovery, and the agile response to market changes is thereby delayed, resulting in the business idea losing its appeal. Self-financing not only provides stability and strong motivation for the business operation but also promotes careful spending which contributes to the achievement of break-even point. In particular, it is found that practical experience is more useful than theoretical knowledge in low skilled industries. Due to the limitation of secondary data based on the recollection, the time required to reach a break-even point, percentage of financing sources, etc. may include cognitive errors. In addition, variables are not included that explain the characteristics of creativity and skill-based sole proprietorship, so it is necessary to exercise caution with the actual application.