• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1-14
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• 2021

Innovation and Scale-up of Start-up companies are becoming important national tasks. In the past, it was spread the start-up policy paradigm such as 'Start-up America', 'Start-up Chile', 'Start-up Britain' to overcome the recession globally. However as the economic recovery has become more visible recently in advanced economies, it is shifting from a start-up support policy to a scale-up oriented policy paradigm such as 'Scale-up America', Scale-up UK', 'Scale-up Denmark'. It is necessary to enter the scale-up phase beyond the start-up phase to increase the number of high-quality jobs and to continue economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary to grow the start-up into a strong medium-sized company and to lay the foundation for survival. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to consider the antecedent factors that influence the scale-up aspiration for the start-up firm to grow into a scale-up company, and empirically identifies the differences between the stages of economic development and entrepreneurs in the country. In order to accomplish the purpose, this study predicted scale-up by aspiration which is a predictor of scale-up behavior because it is difficult to achieve visible growth in a short period of time due to the characteristics of start-up companies. In order to empirically explore these relationships, the data were collected from nascent entrepreneurs who have less than 3.5 years of the Adult Population Survey(APS) among the subjects surveyed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor(GEM) and the national economic development stage are divided into Innovation-driven, Efficiency-driven, Factor-driven type economies. For the test hypotheses, this study adopted the multi-level model analysis for comparison between national economic development stages and using the R 3.5.0 program. The results of this study are as follows. There is difference between the national economic development and the entrepreneur in the relationship between innovation orientation of entrepreneurs and scale-up aspirations. As the economy of the country develops, the innovation activity of the entrepreneur becomes more active. Since start-ups are heavily influenced by entrepreneurs, there is a difference in the degree of aspiration depending on how innovative an entrepreneur is in the same environment. In terms of the relationship between innovation orientation and scale-up aspiration, the fear of failure was found to differ between national economic development and entrepreneurs. The fear of failure differ from country to country, and this is one of the important factors affecting entrepreneurial activities. It is expected that the factors influencing the growth of the start-up companies which are identified through the results of these studies, will be used to create a suitable scale-up ecosystem according to the national economic development stage.

• 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.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.195-208
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• 2022

The role of venture CEO and their intrinsic capabilities on organizational performance can be determined by the level of resource synchronization initiated by the focal managers. Despite the important role of venture CEOs, a systematic lack of in-depth theoretical and empirical studies on ruminating the relationship between the effects of a CEO's capabilities and organizational performance depending on the level of resource synchronization exist for the rationale of investigation. To supplement the limitations of previous studies, this research empirically analyzes the role of managers specifically synchronizing organizational resources that affect organizational performance in the professional sports industry. Based on the entrepreneurship theory and resource-based view (RBV), this research conceptualizes the roles of venture CEO and basketball head coach in the professional sports industry as very similar in terms of organizational structure and performance mechanism embedding entrepreneurial characteristics necessary for managing organizational resources. In this research, we hypothesized (1) organizational resource synchronization will mediate the positive relationship between the ability of professional basketball head coach and organizational performance and (2) the indirect effect of the professional basketball head coach's capabilities on organizational performance mediated by resource synchronization will be moderated by the capabilities of players. To test these hypotheses, we utilized the PROCESS macro model 58 with the empirical data of 9 seasons (2013~2014-2021~2022) of 30 National Basketball Association (NBA) and 10 Korean Basketball League (KBL) teams. The statistical results showed that (1) resource synchronization mediates the positive relationship between professional basketball head coach capabilities and organizational performance and (2) the capabilities of players moderated the indirect effects of the abilities of head coaches on team performance via resource synchronization. This paper contributes to both academic and practical domains of entrepreneurship by empirically testing the research model through objective professional sports data.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to survey the successful cases of small and medium Business Systematization Cognition by examining their entrepreneurial characteristics and analysing the factors affecting their success. To that end, previous studies on the association types of small businesses were studied. A research model was developed, and research hypotheses for an empirical analysis were established upon it. Suh et al. (2010) insist on the importance of Small Business Systematization in Korea but also show that small business performance is suffering: they are too small to stand alone. That is why association is so crucial for them: they must stand together. Unfortunately, association is difficult, as they have few specific links and little motivation. Even in franchising networks, association tends to be initiated by big franchisers, not small ones. In that sense, association among small businesses is crucial for their long-term survival. With this in mind, this study examines how they think and feel about the issue of 'Industrial Classification', how important Industrial Classification is to their business success, and what kinds of problems it raises in the markets. This study seeks the different cognitions among the association types of small businesses from the perspectives of participation motivation, systematization expectation, policy demand level, and management performance. We assume that different industrial classification types of small businesses will have different cognitions concerning these factors. There are four basic industrial classification types of small businesses: retail sales, restaurant, service, and manufacturing. To date, most of the studies in this area have focused on collecting data on the external environments of small businesses or performing statistical analyses on their status. In this study, we surveyed 4 market areas in Busan, Masan, and Changwon in Korea, where business associations consist of merchants, shop owners, and traders. We surveyed 330 shops and merchants by sending a questionnaire or visiting. Finally, 268 questionnaires were collected and used for the analysis. An ANOVA, T-test, and regression analyses were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results demonstrate that there are differences in cognition depending upon the industrial classification type. Restaurants generally have a higher cognition concerning job offer problems and a lower cognition concerning their competitiveness. Restaurants also depend more on systematization expectation than do the other industrial classification types. On the policy demand level, restaurants have a higher cognition. This study identifies several factors that are contributing to management performance through differences in cognition that depend upon association type: systematization expectation and policy demand level have positive effects on management performance; participation motivation has a negative effect on management performance. We confirm also that the image factors of different cognitions are linked to an awareness of the value of systematization and that these factors show sequential and continual patterns in the course of generating performances. In conclusion, this study carries significant implications in its classifying of small businesses into the four different associational types (retail sales, restaurant, services, and manufacturing). We believe our study to be the first one to conduct an empirical survey in this subject area. More studies in this area will likely use our research frameworks. The data show that regionally based industrial classification associations such as those in rural cities or less developed areas tend to suffer more problems than those in urban areas. Moreover, restaurants suffer more problems than the norm. Most of the problems raised in this study concern the act of 'associating itself'. Most associations have serious difficulties in associating. On the other hand, the area where they have the least policy demand is that of service types. This study contributes to the argument that associating, rather than financial assistance or management consulting, promotes the start-up and managerial performance of small businesses. This study also has some limitations. The main limitation is the number of questionnaires. We could not survey all the industrial classification types across the country because of budget and time limitations. If we had, we could have produced many more useful results and enhanced the precision of our analysis. The history of systemization is very short and the number of industrial classification associations is relatively low in Korea. We should keep in mind, though, that this is very crucial to systemization entrepreneurs starting their businesses, as it can heavily affect their chances of success. Being strongly associated with each other might be critical to the business success of industrial classification members. Thus, the government needs to put more effort and resources into supporting the drive of industrial classification members to become more strongly associated.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.47-60
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• 2017

As the recent cultural contents area start-ups are creating remarkable outcomes such as investment attraction together with the reinforced institutional supports from the government, this study aimed to reverify the significance of researches related to correlation analysis between service of Business Incubating Center of Small & Medium Business Administration operated with no separation of business type, and corporate performance, in the aspect of Business Incubating Center in cultural contents area, and also to suggest the importance of establishing the business incubating system in the systematic and rational cultural contents area through the differentiated business incubating service by verifying the significant effects of the business validity of items on corporate performance, and then discovering services suitable for business incubating in cultural contents area, targeting Gyeonggi-do cultural contents area Business Incubating Center recently showing the biggest growth. Especially, contrary to the existing researches, in order to verify the characteristics of Gyeonggi-do Cultural Contents Business Incubating Center, the personal support service and marketing support service were included. It also aimed to understand the effects of the business validity of start-up items on corporate performance. Summarizing the results of this study, contrary to the results of the existing researches saying that spatial & additional support service, management support service, technical support service, personal support service, and marketing support service had significant effects on corporate performance, among the support service of Gyeonggi-do cultural contents area Business Incubating Center, the spatial & additional support service, personal support service, and marketing support service had significantly positive(+) effects on corporate performance while the management support service and technical support service had no significant effects on it. Comparing with the results of the researches on the support service of Business Incubating Center(BI) of Small & Medium Business Administration, the effects of the management support service and technical support service of Gyeonggi-do cultural contents area Business Incubating Center on corporate financial/non-financial performance were not huge. Also, in the results of analyzing the business validity of star-up items, the spatial & additional support service, management support service, and technical support service did not have significant effects on the business validity of start-up items while the personal support service and marketing support service had significantly positive(+) effects on it. In case when selecting companies, Gyeonggi-do Business Incubating Center emphasized the business validity of start-up items. However, the support service provided after the selection did not have huge effects on the business validity of start-up items. Lastly, in the results of analyzing the effects of the business validity of start-up items in Gyeonggi-do cultural contents area on corporate performance, among the success factors of business start-up, the business validity of start-up items was an important element having effects on corporate performance(financial/non-financial) in the cultural contents area.