• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.33-50
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• 2014

Though South Korea has world-class volume of Venture Capital Investment, as a share of GDP, early stage venture investments are still short, and investments are concentrated in high technology area and Capital area. Because of the high barriers to entry of the new IPO and M&A market, the venture capital companies undergo difficulties in profit. High-tech ventures face difficulties in raising money from outside investors due to information asymmetry between venture investors and venture companies. To resolve these problems, developed countries's government make a co-funding investment scheme with private sectors and design incentive mechanism such as receiving knowledge of the reputable investors' joint venture. Korean central and local government can benchmark those of things. For example, the expansion of the investment volume with private sector, region-specific matching fund and venture capital's exit path diversification such as M&A through the establishment of a business venture eco-system. At the same time, venture companies are to make an efforts to enhance the ability of screening for venture companies and the value for investment activities through a joint venture investments.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.119-138
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• 2016

Since the Industrial Revolution, which made the mass production and mass distribution of standardized goods possible, machine-made (manufactured) products have accounted for the majority of the market. However, in recent years, the phenomenon of purchasing even more expensive handmade products has become a noticeable trend as consumers have started to acknowledge the value of handmade products, such as the craftsman's commitment, belief in their quality and scarcity, and the sense of self-esteem from having them,. Consumer interest in these handmade products has shown explosive growth and has been coupled with the recent development of three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies. Etsy.com is the world's largest online handmade platform. It is no different from any other online platform; it provides an online market where buyers and sellers virtually meet to share information and transact business. However, Etsy.com is different in that shops within this platform only deal with handmade products in a variety of categories, ranging from jewelry to toys. Since its establishment in 2005, despite being limited to handmade products, Etsy.com has enjoyed rapid growth in membership, transaction volume, and revenue. Most recently in April 2015, it raised funds through an initial public offering (IPO) of more than 1.8 billion USD, which demonstrates the huge potential of online handmade platforms. After the success of Etsy.com, various types of online handmade platforms such as Handmade at Amazon, ArtFire, DaWanda, and Craft is ART have emerged and are now competing with each other, at the same time, which has increased the size of the market. According to Deloitte's 2015 holiday survey on which types of gifts the respondents plan to buy during the holiday season, about 16% of U.S. consumers chose "homemade or craft items (e.g., Etsy purchase)," which was the same rate as those for the computer game and shoes categories. This indicates that consumer interests in online handmade platforms will continue to rise in the future. However, this high interest in the market for handmade products and their platforms has not yet led to academic research. Most extant studies have only focused on machine-made products and intelligent services for them. This indicates a lack of studies on handmade products and their intelligent services on virtual platforms. Therefore, this study used signaling theory and prior research on the effects of sellers' characteristics on their performance (e.g., total sales and price premiums) in the buyer-seller relationship to identify the key influencing e-Image factors (e.g., reputation, size, information sharing, and length of relationship). Then, their impacts on the performance of shops within the online handmade platform were empirically examined; the dataset was collected from Etsy.com through the application of web harvesting technology. The results from the structural equation modeling revealed that the reputation, size, and information sharing have significant effects on the total sales, while the reputation and length of relationship influence price premiums. This study extended the online platform research into online handmade platform research by identifying key influencing e-Image factors on within-platform shop's total sales and price premiums based on signaling theory and then performed a statistical investigation. These findings are expected to be a stepping stone for future studies on intelligent online handmade services as well as handmade products themselves. Furthermore, the findings of the study provide online handmade platform operators with practical guidelines on how to implement intelligent online handmade services. They should also help shop managers build their marketing strategies in a more specific and effective manner by suggesting key influencing e-Image factors. The results of this study should contribute to the vitalization of intelligent online handmade services by providing clues on how to maximize within-platform shops' total sales and price premiums.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.45-70
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• 2009

This article investigates which types of the strategies announced by the listed firms contribute to enhancing the long-term performance of the companies. Since 2002, Korean Exchange adopted the "faire disclosure policy" which mandates that all publicly traded companies must disclose material information to all investors at the same time. Thanks to the policy, Korean investors can, now, easily access the board's decision on management strategies on the same day the decision is made. If the companies trustfully carry out their announced strategies, we can decide which types of strategies actually enhance or deteriorate the long-term performance, simply by comparing the announced strategies and the firm's performance. The sample companies are confined to 60 firms that became listed in the KOSDAQ market through back-door listing from 2003 to 2005. Using only the newly listed companies, we can avoid the interference on the long-term performance of the strategies pursued before the event date. This often holds true, for many companies radically modify their strategies after the listing. Furthermore, the back-door listing companies serve our purpose better than IPO companies do, because the former tend to have a variety of announcement within a given period of time beginning the listing date. Using these sample companies, this article analyzes the effect on one year buy-and-hold returns and abnormal buy-and-hold returns after the listing of the various types of strategies announced during the same period of time. The results show that those evidences of restructuring such as 'reduction of capital' and 'resignation of incumbent board members', actually contribute to the increase in adjusted long-term stock returns. Those strategies which can be view as evidence of new investment such as 'increase in tangible assets', 'acquisition of other companies', do also helps the stockholders better off. On the contrary, 'increase in bank loans', 'changes of CEO' and 'merger' deteriorate the equity value. The last findings let us to presume that the back-door listing companies appear to use the bank loans for value-reducing activities; the change in CEO is not a sign of restructuring, but rather a sign of failure of the restructuring; another merger carried out after back-door listing itself is also value-reducing activity. This article's findings on reduction of capital, merger and bank loans oppose the results of the former empirical studies which analyze only the short-term effect on stock price. Therefore, more long-term performance studies on public disclosures are in order.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.133-145
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• 2023

This paper examines whether investors have adapted to the venture capital(VC) investment style. VC firms invest in privately held companies and generate returns by selling them after the lock-up period expires. We analyze the impact on stock prices before and after the lock-up period expiration, and compare the Cumulative Abnormal Return(CAR) between the past period(2015-2017) and the recent period(2020-2022) to investigate the effect of the second venture boom. The main findings are as follows. First, unlike in the past, stock price returns around the lock-up period expiration have been lower than the KOSDAQ index in recent years. Second, the impact on stock prices is significant for both 1-month and 12-month lock-up periods. Specifically, it is confirmed that stocks held by venture capital and professional investors with a 1-month lock-up period respond in advance to their information after the second venture boom. Finally, we find that there is a difference in CAR depending on whether or not the company received VC investment after the second venture boom. Based on our findings, we suggest that VC firms need to revise their exit strategies to improve performance. This includes finding ways to reduce information asymmetry and fees, as well as developing strategies to mitigate market volatility. Additionally, the current lock-up period for VCs should be reconsidered as it may increase the risk of stock price decline. We recommend that the government revise the scope and duration of lock-up periods to protect investors after IPO.