• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2020

In recent years, universities, with their intellectual properties and human resources, become main drivers for technology transfer. Universities in Korea have various organizations to support the technology transfer and commercialization. Among them, a technology holding company plays the critical role to successfully implement the task. Nonetheless, the performance of the technology holding company is well below the expectation of industry, government and universities themselves. The lack of expertises and experience together with the ill-suited government policies could be attributable to the observed under performance. More recently, however, the technology holding company acts as an accelerator or venture capital to search and fund promising start-ups. The university venture capital thus transforms a traditional university into an entrepreneurial university. Focusing on the role of the technology holding company as an accelerator or venture capital, the paper analyzes the characteristics of the university venture capital and the invested start-ups. The performance of the university venture capital is measured and the determinants of the performance are empirically tested. The results show that the co-investment of outside investors and the support of government program, known as Tech Incubator Program for Startup Korea, yields the highest performance. The result indicates that the coordination of the university venture capital, industry and government is the key to the success of early start-ups. The paper is the first to analyze the performance of the university venture capitals in Korea and thus contributes to the literature.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.10 no.11
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• pp.131-141
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• 2019

This study is an empirical analysis of the characteristics of the organization and the performance of the company. The characteristics that make up the culture of a company's organization determine its success. Overcoming the company's closed cultural characteristics, entrepreneurial orientation, delegation, openness of organizational culture, and R&D capabilities have a positive impact on the company's performance. These characteristics of the company also play a positive role in embracing open innovation to generate innovative results. The characteristics of a company positively consider the acceptance and utilization of external resources. These variables proved that the nature of a company's organization is a factor in generating a company's performance. In this process, open innovation and the acceptance of external resources also proved to be a positive factor in generating corporate performance. The contents of this study provide an academic basis for the variables that build corporate organizational culture and provide a practical attitude to the role of leaders in managing corporate organizational culture. This study is focused on women's SMEs. n future research, the overall characteristics of the company will be considered. In addition, this study attempts to verify by applying various variables for generating performance of domestic SMEs by reflecting overcoming regional limitations.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.359-367
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• 2021

This study tried to examine the factors that affect the entrepreneurial intentions in the field of culture and tourism industry. Through this, it was attempted to present strategic implications for start-up plans to prospective entrepreneurs in the cultural tourism industry. As a result of the study, the following implications were drawn. First, prospective entrepreneurs in the field of culture and tourism industry need to analyze the start-up items they want to start and systematically design a start-up plan based on market research. Also, by analyzing various start-up cases, it is necessary to secure various prior experiences of failure and success. Second, prospective entrepreneurs in the field of culture and tourism industry will need to increase their interest in starting a business by completing various entrepreneurship education conducted by more diverse institutions and schools than now, and they will have to increase the sense of achievement and willpower that can appear in education. In addition, by making efforts to create human relationships through various entrepreneurship education, efforts should be made to show the utilization of human networks and information sharing when starting a business. Lastly, prospective entrepreneurs in the field of culture and tourism industry should visit startup-related institutions and receive education and advice from experts in order to acquire various information. In addition, efforts should be made to provide more diverse start-up support by obtaining information on start-ups implemented by the state.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.141-151
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• 2022

This exploratory study was conducted to derive the components of digital entrepreneurship by targeting the experts related to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Through the review of previous studies and Delphi analysis, the major components of digital entrepreneurship were derived into the 'digital entrepreneurial orientation area' and the 'digital technology competency area'. The components of digital entrepreneurship are innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking, desire for achievement, ability to identify digital business opportunities, digital technology utilization capability, digital operation process establishment capability, digital technology development capability, digital technology acceptance, information exchange, and cooperation network establishment, digital-based customer acquisition and management was presented. The importance and execution of success factors were measured through IPA analysis. The first quadrant(keep up the good work) includes proactiveness, ability to identify digital business opportunities, and ability to establish digital business processes. The second quadrant(concentrate here) includes innovativeness, digital technology development capability, and digital technology acceptance. The third quadrant(low priority) includes risk-taking, desire for achievement, digital technology utilization capacity, and digital-based customer acquisition and management. The fourth quadrant(possible overkill) includes information exchange and cooperation network establishment. This study is meaningful in that it presents the concept and components of digital entrepreneurship for digital entrepreneurs that can be applied in Korea.

• 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 Distribution Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.71-100
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• 2009

The main purpose of this study is to define relevant factors that influence successful start-ups and management innovations of traditional markets from the point of market structures and relations. To do this, we devide an entrepreneurship of merchant into two factors, risk taking and managerial experience and choose product planning and its implementation to see merchandising of traditional markets. In this study we identify that several factors we chose are contributing to generating management performances through market promotional parameters. Also we confirm that image factors of traditional markets is consist of awareness and value of markets, and that these factors shows some sequential and continual patterns in the course of generating performances. In additions, it is identified that four independent factors have positive effects to star-up success; risk taking 0.29(t 2.61), managerial experience 0.04(t 1.79), merchandising implementation 0.374(t 2.61), market value 0.47(t 5.25), market awareness 0.22(t 2.30). This study can help merchants of traditional markets to make and change their market strategies, restructure their businesses and survive in the field. This also provide some ideas and guidances to relevant government agencies in formulating traditional market policies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.139-149
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the minimization of the social cost due to the insolvency by improving the success rate of the startups by providing useful information to the founders and the start-up support institutions through analysis of non-financial information affecting the failure of the startups. This study is aimed at entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs that are defined by the credit guarantee institutions generally refer to entrepreneurs within 5 years of establishment. The data used in the study are sampled from the companies that were supported by the start-up guarantee from January 2014 to December 2013 as the end of December 2017. The total number of sampled firms is 2,826, 2,267 companies (80.2%), and 559 non-performing companies (19.8%). The non-financial information of the entrepreneur was divided into the entrepreneur characteristics information, the entrepreneur characteristics information, the entrepreneur asset information and the entrepreneur 's credit information, and cross-tabulations and logistic regression analysis were conducted. As a result of cross-tabulations, univariate analysis showed that personal credit rating, presence in the industry, presence of residential housing, presence of employees, and presence of financial statements were selected as significant variables. As a result of the logistic regression analysis, three variables such as personal credit rating, occupation in the industry, and presence of residential house were found to be important factors affecting the failure of founding companies. This result shows the importance of entrepreneur 's personal credibility and experience and entrepreneur' s assets in business management. The start-up support institutions should reflect these results in the entrepreneur 's credit evaluation system, and the entrepreneurs need training on the importance of the personal credit and the management plan in the entrepreneurial education. The results of this analysis will contribute to the minimization of the incapacity of startups by providing useful non-financial information to founders and start-up support organizations.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.159-174
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• 2022

Entrepreneurs should continuously invest resource and capital for a long time to get tangible business results. In order to be successful, despite difficulties, it is essential for entrepreneurs to continue entrepreneurial businesses without giving up too early. Thus, it can be said that organizational commitment of entrepreneurs is essential for success. According to previous studies, the organizational commitment of entrepreneurs has a significant effect on organizing, establishments of new firms and new product developments. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationships among learning orientation, innovativeness and organizational commitment of entrepreneurs. Especially, we focus on the mediating effect of innovativeness in the relationship between learning orientation and organizational commitment and the moderating effect of career relevance among the relationships. Based on empirical analysis, we reported the following results. First, learning orientation, innovativeness and career relevance of entrepreneurs had significant positive effects on organizational commitment. Second, it was found that innovativeness of entrepreneurs has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between learning orientation and organizational commitment. Third, using Baron & Kenny's hierarchical multiple regression analysis, we examined the moderating effect of career relevance among the relationships of learning orientation, innovativeness and organizational commitment. Third, because the interaction term was found to be positively significant, it was concluded there is a moderating effect of career relevance between learning orientation and innovativeness. This means, when career relevance was higher than average, the influence of learning orientation on innovation increases even more. Fourth, it was also found there is a moderating effect of career relevance between learning orientation and organizational commitment. However, the results of the mediated moderating effect analysis showed the moderating effect of career relevance between learning orientation and organization commitment is an indirect effect of moderating effect of career relevance between learning orientation and innovativeness mediated by innovativeness.

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