• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.89-117
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• 2018

The Korean companies are intensifying competition with not only domestic companies but also foreign companies in globalization. In this environment, it is essential activities not only for large companies but also Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to get and develop the core competency. Particularly, SMEs that are inferior to resources of various aspects, such as financial resources etc., can make innovation through effective R&D investment. And then, SMEs can occupy a competency and can be survive at the environment. Conventionally, the method of "self-development" by using only the internal resources of the company has been dominant. Recently, however, R&D method through cooperation, also called "Open Innovation", is emerging. Especially SMEs are relatively short of available internal resources. Therefore, it is necessary to utilize technology and resources through cooperation with external companies(such as joint development or contract development etc.) rather than self-development R&D. In this context, we confirmed the effect of SMEs' factors on sales in Korea. Specifically, the factors that SMEs hold are classified as 'Technical characteristic', 'Company competency', and 'R&D activity' and analyzed how they influence the sales achieved as a result of R&D. The analysis was based on a two-year statistical survey conducted by the Korean government. In addition, we confirmed the influence of the factors on the sales according to the R&D method(Self-Development vs. Open Innovation), and also observed the influence change in 29 industrial categories. The results of the study are summarized as follows: First, regression analysis shows that twelve factors of SMEs have a significant effect on sales. Specifically, 15 factors included in the analysis, 12 factors excluding 3 factors were found to have significant influence. In the technical characteristic, 'imitation period' and 'product life cycle' of the technology were confirmed. In the company competency, 'R&D led person', 'researcher number', 'intellectual property registration status', 'number of R&D attempts', and 'ratio of success to trial' were confirmed. The R&D activity was found to have a significant impact on all included factors. Second, the influence of factors on the R&D method was confirmed, and the change was confirmed in four factors. In addition, these factors were found that have different effects on sales according to the R&D method. Specifically, 'researcher number', 'number of R&D attempts', 'performance compensation system', and 'R&D investment' were found to have significant moderate effects. In other words, the moderating effect of open innovation was confirmed for four factors. Third, on the industrial classification, it is confirmed that different factors have a significant influence on each industrial classification. At this point, it was confirmed that at least one factor, up to nine factors had a significant effect on the sales according to the industrial classification. Furthermore, different moderate effects have been confirmed in the industrial classification and R&D method. In the moderate effect, up to eight significant moderate effects were confirmed according to the industrial classification. In particular, 'R&D investment' and 'performance compensation system' were confirmed to be the most common moderating effect by each 12 times and 11 times in all industrial classification. This study provides the following suggestions: First, it is necessary for SMEs to determine the R&D method in consideration of the characteristics of the technology to be R&D as well as the enterprise competency and the R&D activity. In addition, there is a need to identify and concentrate on the factors that increase sales in R&D decisions, which are mainly affected by the industry classification to which the company belongs. Second, governments that support SMEs' R&D need to provide guidelines that are fit to their situation. It is necessary to differentiate the support for the company considering various factors such as technology and R&D purpose for their effective budget execution. Finally, based on the results of this study, we urge the need to reconsider the effectiveness of existing SME support policies.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.205-244
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• 2015

In response to the recent rapid technological and market changes, the importance of the design of ambidextrous organization has been increasingly emphasized as one of the dynamic capabilities. Firms that show a high performance in the rapid technological and market changes appear to design and implement ambidextrous organization successfully. They have achieved both exploitative competence for continuous innovation with product development and exploratory competence for discontinuous innovation with new market and new technologies. We have examined why and how to design and operate ambidextrous organizations and the effects of ambidextrous organizational characteristics on the performance from structural, contextual and leadership perspectives. We conducted case studies on 3 Korean firms that showed different characteristics of industrial product, company size, etc. Longitudinal case studies exhibit different processes of design and operating ambidextrous organization according to innovative strategy and industrial characteristics.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.67-85
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• 2015

This study investigates the relationships among SMEs' innovation capacity, standardization education activities, and performances. Employing about 900 SMEs in the ICT and electronics electricity industries, this study used regression analysis and examined the effects of standardization education activities on performance and the moderating effect of innovation capacity. The results indicate that standardization education activities positively affect SMEs' production and quality improvement and R&D activity improvement. The results also show that R&D investment ratio moderates the relationship between standardization education and production and quality improvement. This study provides practical insight into why firm managers should pay attention to standardization education and innvation capacity to improve firm performance.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.130-151
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• 2012

Fraunhofer was founded in 1949 and grew into Europe's largest application-oriented research organization. Fraunhofer currently employs over 20,000 members in Germany, is internationally networked, and manages an R&D budget of over 1,8 Billion Euros per year. An important step for Fraunhofer to become an integral component of the German innovation system was the introduction of the Fraunhofer Model of financing based on a performance-related system of financial management. The underlying model of the allocation and distribution of public funding to Fraunhofer that is subsequently allotted to specific research groups is one of the success factors of Fraunhofer. Fraunhofer is proud of its decentralized organizational model. Fraunhofer is comprised of 60 Institutes in Germany working in different fields, under one legal framework, and with a strong brand value. Every Fraunhofer Institute is affiliated with a German University and every institute director simultaneously holds a chair at the affiliated university. It is a challenge for the headquarter organization to balance the intended competition of individual Fraunhofer Institutes with complementarity cooperation in science among Fraunhofer-Institutes, especially when coming from different knowledge domains; however, this goal results in a significant advantage. The unique strengths of Fraunhofer offer system solutions in a world with increasingly complex R&D challenges. While growing to become the largest organization on Europe to focus on applied research it is the challenge to remain an agile organization that is flexible in organizational structure. Fraunhofer has reached a well-recognized position in the European innovation landscape. It is often referred to by science and governments as a role model for innovation policy and a key element of the latest successes in the German economy that has recovered quicker from the latest economic crisis than most other western economies. The paper explains Fraunhofer as an organizational paradigm and its underlying management model to elaborate on the challenges of managing a research organization. We wish to show how it is possible to transfer the management model and philosophy of Fraunhofer to innovation systems with different framework conditions and challenges. A universal conclusion may be drawn based on the description of Fraunhofer; however, changes in existing structures and innovation systems cannot be implemented over night.

• Korean small business review
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.77-94
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• 2019

The study examined the effect of collaboration with external institution on new product sales, the mediating effects of technological innovation, and the moderating effect of marketing capability. The results showed that external collaboration with external institution has a significant impact on new product sales in the R&D field of SMEs, and technological innovation plays a mediating role in the relationship between collaboration with external institution and new product sales. Also, the effect of marketing capability in the relationship between technological innovation and new product sales was also significant. Finally, the mediating effect of technological innovation between collaboration with external institution and new product sales was moderated by marketing capability.

• Advanced Industrial SCIence
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.17-27
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to improve the efficiency of digital conversion by presenting factors that domestic small and medium-sized manufacturers should consider when attempting digital conversion. Using SME data from 2019 to 2021, we analyze the impact of digital transformation on the financialization of enterprises and which digital technologies affect financialization, and further analyze the mediating effect of green technology innovation between digital transformation and business finance. did The results of the study support the negative impact of digital technologies on corporate finance, and cloud computing technologies have been found to significantly inhibit the level of corporate finance. In addition, it was found that green technology innovation plays a mediating role in suppressing corporate financialization by promoting green technology innovation through digital transformation. Digital transformation influences corporate decision-making through green technology innovation, suggesting that the combination of digital technology and green projects should be considered.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.57-66
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• 2013

Domestic PCB industry formed by orders of demand companies is extremely vulnerable in its innovation infrastructure including high value-added technology development and information exchange. The majority of PCB products produced in the country relies on the imports from abroad and it causes its vulnerability to external market changes. Due to the negative perceptions about the industry (e.g., 3D job), low treatment (especially SMEs) and expertise employment avoidance in PCB industry, the job market conditions of PCB industry is not so good. In these circumstances, the PCB industry is completely dependent on the demand market such as cellular phones, and tablet PC, and as a result the responsiveness of PCB industry to the changes in demand market is also vulnerable. In this PCB industry, Korean government is trying to build the research infrastructure for PCB industry that realizes the sharing of information among companiesthrough the operation of the PCB industry innovation forum (information innovation), builds SME suppot platform and supports quality improvement (technology innovation), and supports enterprise collaboration processes (material-process-equipment) utilizing PCM open laboratory. The PCB industry technology infratstructure project is going to be promoted by the government(1.3 billion won, each year) and the private investmen(434 million won each year) from 2013 to 2017(5 years project)(table 1). This study analyzes the feasibility of the project, by using the AHP analysis and the results shows that this project is considered feasible because the AHP overall score is evaluated as 0.841, the overall score is greater than or equal to 0.55.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2016

This study examined 142 electronic components, video, audio, and communications equipment manufacturers (KSIC 32) out of all the SMEs that responded to the Survey on Technology of the Small and Medium Enterprises in both 2005 and 2007 and empirically analyzed how the external resources utilization and the absorptive capability affected the management and the innovation performance in two years as well as how the absorptive capability moderated these relationships. According to the results of analysis, the external resources utilization, as measured by the technology collaboration and the governments R&D subsidies, did not have a significant impact on performance whereas R&D investment showed a positive (+) influence on the sales and R&D personnel ratio, negative (-). On the other hand, the moderating effect of absorptive capability varied by measurement method and independent variables. That is, when a technology collaboration takes place, the performance improved with the increase of R&D investment but R&D personnel ration had an opposite effect. The companies whose performance improved as the government R&D subsidies increase are those with low R&D investment or high R&D personnel ratio. These results demonstrate that the SME's external resources utilization cannot replace the internal and that the absorptive capability needs to be accumulated to maximize the effectiveness of external resources utilization. Also, the technology collaboration requires SME's aggressive investment in R&D and the government R&D subsidies turn out to be more helpful for the companies that already have the R&D personnel but have been unable to develop their own technology due to insufficient funds. This study has limitations in that it was conducted within the limited industry categories and samples, but has overcome those of the existing researches by identifying causal relationships through the use of longitudinal data.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.91-100
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• 2018

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) endeavor to overcome the adverse resource conditions and secure competitive advantage through technological innovation capability. Prior studies have focused on the overall or specific dimensions of technological innovation capability, and examined their performance impact. However, there has been less scholarly attention on the dynamic characteristics such as the relative importance of technological innovation capability or its performance impact at the different growth stages of a firm. In this vein, this study investigates the relationship between SME innovation capability and innovation performance at each growth stages of a firm. Based on the empirical analysis of manufacturing SMEs in Korea, we found that all dimensions of technological innovation capability had positive effects on innovation performance. However, each dimension of technological innovation capability had different effect on innovation performance by the growth stages. The planning capability can improve innovation performance at the growth and maturity stages. Manufacturing capability can have positive effect on innovation performance at the maturity stage. Both of new product development capability and commercialization capability contribute to innovation performance at all of the growth stages. This study suggests the guidelines for enhancing technological innovation capability at the different growth stages of SMEs. It also provides policy implications for the design and operation of growth-stage specific programs. Finally, the limitations of the research and future research directions are presented.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

As the need for improvement of transparency and fairness in the selection of national R&D projects has been continuously raised, we analyzed the impact on the evaluation selection results by evaluation indexes for The land transportation technology commercialization support project and searched for ways to improve indexes using the analysis results. As for the research data, it were applied as selection results of new R&D projects and evaluation indexes in two fields(SME innovation and start-up) in 2021. Logistic regression analysis is used for the influence of each evaluation indexes on the evaluation result, and for the regression model, evaluation indexes with low influence are removed in advance through artificial neural network multiple perceptron analysis to improve the reliability of the analysis results. As a result of the analysis, in the field of SME innovation, the influence of the evaluation index on the workforce planning was the lowest and the influence of the appropriateness of commercialization promotion plan was the highest. In the start-up field, the influence of the evaluation indexes for technology development suitability, marketability, and suitability for carrying out the project were estimated to be similar to each other, and the influence of the technology evaluation index was found to be the lowest. The analysis results of this thesis suggest the need for continuous improvement of selection and evaluation indexes, and by using the analysis results to select a fair R&D institution according to the selection of appropriate indexes, it will be possible to contribute to deriving excellent research results and fostering excellent companies in the field of land transportation.