• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.133-150
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to develop a female entrepreneurial competency model. For the purpose, two Focus Group Interviews (FGI) were conducted with seven outstanding female entrepreneurs, and three expert reviews were conducted. In addition, in order to verify the validity of the provisional female entrepreneur competency model derived from the FGI and competency modeling expert review, the female entrepreneur competency model was finally confirmed through a survey of 442 female entrepreneurs. The results were as follows. First, a female entrepreneur competency model consisting of 6 competency groups and 25 competencies of entrepreneurship, emotion, business management, relationship management, strategic management, and multitasking, and 75 behavioral indicators describing each competency was developed. Second, sensibility and multitasking are competencies that reflect the characteristics of female entrepreneurs. In particular, 'social sense', which is the ability to be considerate of others in the emotional competency group and the ability to respond well to subtle nuances, and the multitasking competency group's unique strengths are women's ability to perform various tasks at the same time. The 'work-family control ability' of a female entrepreneur who maintains a balance between 'multi-tasking' and work and family is a representative competency of only female entrepreneurs. Third, the developed female entrepreneurship competency model is meaningful in that it not only increases female entrepreneurial competency so that prospective female entrepreneurs can successfully run a business through entrepreneurship education, but it also makes it easy for existing female entrepreneurs to reflect and improve their competencies. If we provide appropriate training programs to female entrepreneurs based on their competency, it will be possible to effectively enhance the entrepreneurial competency, which is the key to strengthening the competitiveness of female entrepreneurs. The female entrepreneur competency model developed through this study can provide a basis for future research on competency diagnosis and education needs analysis.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.245-259
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• 2020

The development of technology and the advent of a non-face-to-face society are expected to have a direct impact on job problems. In line with this phenomenon, the government and education and training institutions are coping with job problems through the start-up support policy while at the same time inducing the creation of innovative companies. In particular, youth start-up support can be expected not only to compensate for market failures, but also to promote high-growth start-ups. Based on this background of research, this study examined the competency of young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses, their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and their impact on success and satisfaction of start-ups. Based on the theoretical research, the research theory and research model were derived by setting entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a mediating variable after reviewing the relation between the main elements of start-up competency of young start-up entrepreneurs and start-up performance. The Youth Entrepreneurship Competency was divided into four categories: Entrepreneurial Competencies, Technical Competencies, Management Competencies, and Creative Competencies, and the hypothesis was that each had a significant impact on the start-up performance through the mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. A survey was conducted on young entrepreneurs in their 20s and 30s in Korea for empirical research, and the analysis results were as follows. First of all, the competency of young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses affects the success of start-ups and the satisfaction of start-ups. There are differences in the competencies, and both technical and management competencies can be seen through the entrepreneurial self-efficacy to enhance the success of start-ups and the satisfaction of start-ups. Entrepreneurial competency was fully mediated to start-up success and partially mediated to start-up satisfaction. In the case of creative competency, there were only direct effects on successful start-ups, and the satisfaction of start-ups showed partial mediating effects. Thus, seven of the eight detailed hypotheses were supported and one was rejected. Based on the above findings, the implications were presented.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.141-157
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• 2024

This study analyzes the effect of enterepreneurial competencies on start-up performance through network activities for young entrepreneurs. Enterepreneurial competencies are composed of opportunity recognition competencies, marketing competencies, technical competencies, and creative competencies. A total of 354 questionnaires collected from young entrepreneurs residing in the country were used for empirical analysis. SPSS v28.0 and PROCESS macro v4.3 were analyzed based on the research model of a single-parameter single-mediated model. As a result of the analysis, first, it was found that among the enterepreneurial competencies, opportunity recognition competencies, marketing competencies, technical competencies, and creative competencies have a positive (+) significant effect on network activities. Among them, it was found that marketing competence has the greatest effect on network activities and technical competence has the least effect. Second, network activities were found to have a significant effect on start-up performance in a positive (+) direction. Third, among enterepreneurial competencies, opportunity recognition competence, marketing competence, technical competence, and creative competence were found to have a positive (+) effect on start-up performance. Among them, it was found that creative competence had the greatest effect and technical competence had the smallest effect. Fourth, network activities were found to mediate between enterepreneurial competencies and start-up performance. As for the relative effect size of the indirect effects of independent variables, it was found that marketing competence had the greatest effect on start-up performance and technology competence had the smallest effect. The academic implications of this study include investigating the significance and relationship of various variables, providing verification of theoretical frameworks related to entrepreneurship, identifying the main drivers of start-up success, and suggesting the importance of the network between enterepreneurial competencies and start-up performance. In addition, the practical implications of this study suggest the importance of marketing competencies for networking, and suggest differentiation of competencies. It emphasizes the strategic role of creative competence and provides guidance to policymakers for supporting start-ups on customized policies for fostering valuable start-ups.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.77-89
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• 2023

Purpose: At the end of the pandemic, many digital startups had negative performances. For that, this study aims to analyze the mediating role of entrepreneurial competence and digital entrepreneur career maturity. Seven hypotheses were proposed, namely the effect of entrepreneurship orientation, digital entrepreneurship experience, and digital entrepreneur career maturity on digital entrepreneurial competence, the effect of digital entrepreneurial experience on digital entrepreneurial career maturity, the influence of entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial competence, and digital entrepreneur career maturity on business performance. Research design, data and methodology: The population is digital entrepreneurs in Central Java, Indonesia with a business duration of more than 4 years. The number of samples as many as 184 people were carried out by questionnaire distribution through face-to-face, email, and Google forms. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the path coefficient statistics. Results: The results showed that all the hypotheses proposed were accepted. Digital entrepreneurial competencies and digital entrepreneurial career maturity are also proven to have a mediating role. Conclusions: The findings of this study can contribute to the development of digital entrepreneurship research. Practically, the government's role is needed to facilitate the three main elements of digital business: e-commerce, payment methods, and distribution channels.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1386-1410
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• 2018

Entrepreneurial resilience is one of the core competencies that young entrepreneurs should own. However, compared to its importance, related studies about this topic are rare, especially in Korea. Therefore, this study, for empirical analysis, included resilience to the research model expanding existing research. The purpose of this study is to identify the direct effects of perceived norms of young entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial resilience on entrepreneurial intentions, and to identify the mediated effects between perceived norm, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention. The data used in this research were collected through questionnaires from 443 potential young entrepreneurs. Our experimental result show that social norm and entrepreneurial self-efficacy were positively related to entrepreneurial resilience. Moreover, personal norm, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial resilience were statistically significant on intention of entrepreneurial. As a result of the indirect effect, entrepreneurial resilience mediates the relationship between social norms, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention. Finally, this research has significant meaning because it shows the importance of entrepreneurial resilience to entrepreneurial intention of young entrepreneurs. However, the limitation of this study relates to the restriction of sample in certain regions and universities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.113-123
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• 2020

There are common features among successful entrepreneurs without regarding to the stages of startup like challenge, growth, leap and maturity stages. We know that the successful entrepreneurs have strong entrepreneurship and interpersonal competency through many experiences in the real field of startup ecosystem. Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on intention to start a business, and the importance of entrepreneurship in business startups has been found through many studies. In addition, in most curriculum of startup, entrepreneurship education is operated like an introduction to the startup education. However, in research on entrepreneurship and education on entrepreneurship, it is not easy to find other factors related to interpersonal competence except for leadership. In this study, we redefined relation-building competences in consideration of relation-building parts such as self-openness, affinity, communication, empathy and consideration among various competencies of interpersonal relations, and analyzed the difference of startup intention according to the degree of relation-building competences. As a result, there was a significant difference in the degree of relation-building competences between the group of start-up entrepreneurs and the group with no intention of starting a business. It was proved that the relation-building competences is important for entrepreneurs. Therefore, in addition to studying entrepreneurship, which is represented by conductivity, innovation, autonomy, and risk sensitivity, the studying of relationship-building competences should be continued. It is expected that various research results analyzing the relationship between startups and relationship-building competences will be reflected in entrepreneurship education.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.117-137
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• 2019

In young entrepreneurs, the individual situation of opportunity discovery is very important. It is very important that the opportunities that are created for a particular individual entrepreneur are also recognized and assessed through the process. The need for the development of entrepreneurial opportunity competencies, which have a low proportion of opportunistic entrepreneurship, is low in the entrepreneurship education. In particular, young entrepreneurs are in desperate need of opportunistic entrepreneurship. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of entrepreneurship motivation on entrepreneurial opportunity competence, using entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurship orientation as mediation variables for preliminary young entrepreneurs (19-39 old). In the case of young entrepreneurs, there is a tendency to study entrepreneurship policies and education through the system of youth entrepreneurship schools, mainly on college students and youths, and on the effects of institutional support on entrepreneurship. There is little research on the effect of a entrepreneurial motivation on the entrepreneurial opportunity competence needed to promote an entrepreneurial venture in a model with multiple mediators. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of start - up motivation on the entrepreneurial opportunity competence. To do this we analyzed 374 questionnaires collected from preliminary young entrepreneurs in Seoul and Gyeonggi provinces. The results of the analysis using SPSS v22.0 and Process macro v3.0 showed that the motivation of start - up had a significant effect on both opportunity recognition and opportunity evaluation of entrepreneurial opportunity competence. Second, motivation of entrepreneurs has a significant effect on entrepreneurial efficacy. Third, entrepreneurial efficacy has a significant effect on entrepreneurial orientation. Fourth, entrepreneurial orientation has a significant effect on entrepreneurial opportunity competence. Fifth, there is a significant indirect effect between entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition when passing through entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial efficacy and entrepreneurial orientation at the same time, But indirect effects was insignificant when only entrepreneurship efficacy is passed. There is a significant indirect effect on all mediators between entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial opportunity valuation. It is suggested that strengthening education on entrepreneurship is necessary to cultivate awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities and strengthening education on both entrepreneurial efficacy and entrepreneurship is necessary to cultivate evaluation of entrepreneurship opportunities by type of entrepreneurial motivation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.155-172
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• 2024

The COVID-19 pandemic not only posed an enormous human crisis, but also had a profound impact on firms' survival. Social distancing and global lockdown measures designed to protect human lives have paradoxically impaired the business environment. As a result, firms that sought to gain competitive advantage by leveraging external resources were cut off from the external world and faced unexpected challenges. Under these circumstances, researches were conducted in the early stage of the pandemic to explore how certain firms survived while others fell, but they were limited to re-examining business performance using traditional financial factors. However, this study aims to investigate the role of entrepreneurs' competency in crisis situations from the Resource-Based View (RBV), as such competency plays an important role in improving business performance and subsequently the probability of startups' survival. Specifically, we evaluated the performance as of end of 2019 of 1,127 startups evaluated by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC), which provides policy financing based on technology assessment, in 2016. We then conducted an empirical study to determine the mediating role of business performance in the relationship between entrepreneurial competencies and firm survival by verifying how many of the sample firms were still in operation at the end of June 2023, when the Korean government declared COVID-19 as an endemic. For this purpose, we defined technological, financial, and marketing competencies as the sub-factors of entrepreneurial competency, and sales growth rate and employment growth rate as the sub-factors of business performance. The results of the empirical analysis showed that technological and financial competencies of the entrepreneur had a positive impact on both business performance and firm survival, and that sales growth rate and employment growth rate mediated the relationship between technological competence and firm survival. However, the positive influence of entrepreneurs' financial competence of the survival of startups was only evident through the growth of employment. This study is the first study in South Korea to define the survival factors of startups in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is expected to contribute to the theoretical and practical discussions on the importance of entrepreneurs' competency as a firms' survival factor based on RVB.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.19-34
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• 2021

The government budget for promoting startup have been skyrocketed as catching up with increasing demands for high-tech startup by disruptive innovation resulted from rapid technology change. However, major trend of startup have still fallen on self-employed type of startup due to the lack of expertise and fund in spite of desperate government policy efforts. In reality, the access to high-tech startup has been very limited and too high huddle to would-be entrepreneur. This paper implement empirical analysis on the effects of entrepreneur competency and satisfaction level to government support, considering these as the KSF for the growth and success of high-tech startup, to the performance of the company. In particular, it focus on defining unique characteristics of high-tech startup through differential proving by the backgrounds of entrepreneur such as major, R&D experience, patent possession, CTO possession. This research carry out survey to 217 entrepreneurs in high-tech company in Daejon and Daegue at R&D Special Innopolis Zone. Research results are as follow. First, entrepreneurial achievement competencies, conceptualization competencies, network competencies and market recognition competencies positively affect the financial and non-financial performance and organizational and technical competencies, while organizational and technological competencies only positively impact on non-financial performance. Second, the satisfaction level of government support showed a positive moderating effect on entrepreneurial achievement competencies and financial performance, while no significant effect in other competencies. Third, positive differential effect by the technological background of entrepreneur such as Major, R&D experience, patent possession, CTO possession) have been confirmed. This paper deliver several significant implications and contributions, First, it propose classified and systematized entrepreneur competency through the domestic and foreign literature reviews. Second, it proves the need for the wider spread of team based startup culture rather then sole startup. Third, it also proves the important role of technological background of entrepreneur among the characteristics of high-tech startup.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics of entrepreneurs and organizations related to the initial investment stage of IT-based entrepreneurs. Specifically, we examine the effects of founder-related characteristics such as background and experience of founders on the initial investment stage and explore how the organizational characteristics such as finance, human, and technology resources affect initial investment of start-up enterprise. To accomplish this study purpose, a questionnaire survey was conducted on entrepreneurs who were actually invested by government, angel, and VC. A total of 295 data were used for hypothesis testing, and the hypothesis was tested by hierarchical regression analysis. As a result of the study, it was found that founders who had experience of investment before or experienced in technology development had a significant influence on initial investment stage. In addition, it was confirmed that factors such as financial, human, and technology resources had significant positive effects on the initial investment stage. The results of this study make it possible to identify the competencies and characteristics required to attract investment to potential founders preparing for start-up in the future. It also provides information on how to formulate an effective human resource composition plan. Also, these results can be used as a basis for investment decision-making by providing investors with guidelines on investment selection criteria.