• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

This study aim to figure out the limitation of existing ICT SMEs technology support programs conducted by Government Funded Research Institute. To investigate the limitations of SMEs programs, we conducted Focus Group Interview(FGI) with staff in charge of R&D department of beneficiaries(ICT SMEs). The results of FGI show that SMEs have troubles with the lack of R&D manpower, R&D infrastructure and non-R&D activities. Then, we conducted Delphi survey(derived from FGI) with related field experts to ask the problems and limitations of SMEs programs. The Results of Delphi show that SMEs programs has limitations with avoiding of SMEs support staff, lack of public R&D infrastructure sharing center, incompleteness of policies. Based on the results of FGI and Delphi, we suggest the several ways to improving SMEs programs.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.416-445
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• 2019

This study aims at examining the relationship among entrepreneurial orientation, absorption capability, alliance capability and cooperation performance in technological cooperation between SMEs and government-funded R&D Institutes. For empirical analysis, the study conducted a survey on total 2,895 SMEs participating in the technological cooperation programs operated by government-funded R&D Institutes, and collected 332 survey responses. Data were analysed using a structural equation model. Empirical results show that entrepreneurial orientation, absorption capability, and alliance capability influenced the performance of technological cooperation. In addition, alliance capability has a significant effect on absorptive capacity. In order for the technology cooperation between SMEs and government-funded research institutes being successful, efforts are needed to secure companies' entrepreneurial orientation, absorption capability and alliance capability that has the capabilities that SMEs needs for technological cooperation.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2011

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have high potential for the growth of SMEs. Due to the fast-growing complexity of new products coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs' virtual R&D teams. Online questionnaires were emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. In order to avoid biases which may result from pre-suggested answers, a series of open-ended questions were retrieved from the experts. This study was focused on analyzing an open-ended question, whereby four main themes were extracted from the experts' recommendations regarding the effectiveness of virtual teams for the growth and performance of SMEs. The findings of this study would be useful to product design managers of SMEs in order to realize the key advantages and significance of virtual R&D teams during the new product development (NPD) process. This is turn, leads to increased effectiveness in new product development's procedure.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.201-211
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• 2020

Green/climate technology has been emphasized as a growth engine that can boost the global economy via environmentally friendly products. Recently, SMEs in Korea have been recognized as a critical actor in the globalization of green/climate technologies. However, there has been no survey and few studies on the satisfaction level of the support for the overseas expansion of SMEs in the green/climate technology field. Therefore, this study aims to support a policy for the establishment of SMEs' green/climate technology by investigating and analyzing expert opinions on SMEs. Through a literature survey, support policies were classified into four types, and then according to the types, satisfaction factors and obstacle factors for overseas expansion were derived and analyzed. In the results, the SMEs overall showed low levels of awareness and satisfaction and were found to be struggling due to all obstructive factors. In addition, the most important success factor for overseas expansion was found to be the policy related to funding support. Thus, it is necessary to improve the accessibility, advertisement, and support strategies of support policies, and in particular, appropriate budget allocation should be made available by considering the characteristics of companies.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1212-1242
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• 2017

In this study, the effectiveness of the innovative company certification system, which is one of the important means of the SME innovation promotion policies, was examined in terms of technological innovation activity and performance. To this end, we used the results of 'SME Technology Statistical Survey' conducted by the Small and Medium Business Administration and the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in 2013~2015 to compare the innovative SMEs that have received the certifications such as Venture Certification, Innobiz Certification, and Mainbiz Certification with the general SMEs that did not. As a result, it was found that the innovative SMEs have comparative advantage in many detailed indicators related to the technological innovation activity and performance. However, the ratio of external use of R&D expenditure, the number of technology development attempts and the number of successes were not different according to the survey year, so it is necessary to strengthen the follow-up management of the system. On the other hand, the proportion of self-procurement R&D expenditure of the general SMEs was significantly higher than that of the innovative SMEs in all three-year surveys. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate the government funding for the innovative SMEs to be used as a complementary material, not as a substitute for their own R&D investment. In addition, the technological innovation activity and performance of a company were more influenced by the size of the company and the participating industry rather than by the certification, so it is necessary to consider it when establishing the technology innovation promotion policies.

• Korean small business review
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.1-22
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• 2019

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of the partner types (supplier, customer, competitor, research institution, more than one partner type) for SMEs on radical and incremental innovation. Another purpose was to examine how the relation varies according to the technological intensity of an industry to which the focal firm belongs. To test the hypotheses, we used the 'KIS(Korean Innovation Survey) 2014' data and the empirical analysis was done with the effective survey from 3,846 Korean SMEs. We employed STATA 14 for validity, confirmatory factor analysis, and binary logistic regression analysis. The results revealed that, when viewed the entire manufacturing SMEs, cooperation with suppliers, customers and research institutes has all been shown to have a positive effect on the radical and gradual innovations of SMEs. However, The relationship between partner type and radical innovation has been significantly different depending on the technical intensity of the industry. When cooperating with suppliers, the impact on radical innovation of SMEs was significant only in low-tech and medium-low tech industries. In contrast, when working with customers, the impact on the radical innovation of SMEs was significant only in the high-tech, medium-high tech, and medium-low tech industries, except for low tech industries. Meanwhile, although cooperation with competitors has a positive effect on radical innovation, this has been only significant in the medium-high tech industries.

• IE interfaces
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2012

Recently, the collaboration among small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) has been recognized as an effective competitive tool. As several systems have been developed to boost the collaboration, it is necessary to analyze the effectiveness of the systems in terms of their contribution to enhance operational performance of SMEs through objective and quantitative validation. In particular, the analysis for SMEs rather than large-scaled enterprises has not received much attention due to lack of relevant information and difficulty of collecting data. This paper presents a framework for analyzing the effectiveness of the collaboration support system, called i-manufacturing hub, which has been implemented by Korean government. Identification of influential factors to the effectiveness of collaboration hub, and constructing necessary hypotheses are proposed. To overcome the difficulty in data collection only by means of surveys through subjective questionnaires, we exploit system log data that are generated while SMEs use the system. As an initial phase to analyze the effectiveness through hypothesis validation, we discuss several interesting observations and challenges in the direction of enhancing collaboration among SMEs for better operational performance improvement and more participation in the collaboration hub.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.18-24
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• 2016

Delivery of microfinance services to operators of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is increasingly being viewed as a strategic means of assisting growth and development. The purpose of this study was to assess the contribution of microfinance to entrepreneurship development in Mogadishu. Survey research design was adopted and Primary data was collected by using questionnaires. This research study used purposive sampling method to select 120 respondents; but 108 were found usable and analyzed. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. This study found the access of microfinance services to the SMEs is poor. This study also found due to the collateral, short term repayment challenges, small and medium businesses are difficult to access loan from microfinance institutions which hinder their entrepreneurship development. In addition to these, this study found that the Microfinance institutions play significance role to the growth and sustainable development of SMEs and also increases the productivity and profitability of small and medium enterprises. This study recommends the guidelines of microfinance institutions to finance SMEs needs to be flexible and microfinance institutions should give technical assistant to the SME to ensure success in the SME sector. The study also suggests access of microfinance services to the SMEs should be facilitated and awareness to microfinance purposes and activities should be created.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.155-177
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• 2004

In today's business environments, corporate globalization and collaboration in an industry are strongly required. In order to cope with such requirements, the industry's informationization must be made. However, compared to large-sized companies, the SMEs(small and medium-sized enterprises) have inferior capacities for their organizational information due to limited management resources. Among many factors for promoting information in SMEs, one of the most factors is CEO's intention. Thus, this paper discusses the promotion policies for infomationization in SMEs from the perspective of CEO's intention. Based upon the survey results, the paper proposes some information promotion policies for SMEs.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.61-74
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• 2011

SMEs(Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) have implemented the various IT-based Production Information Systems(PIS) to cope with the highly competitive environment as well as to improve their competitiveness and productivity. For the efficient development of PIS In SMEs, standardizing the system development process is required. Methodology for the development of PIS is especially important for the systematic and efficient implementation to communicate among the SI companies, SMEs, and a supervision agency. TIPA(Korea Technology and Information Promotion Agency for SMEs) has developed PSDM(Production System Development Methodology), and supplies it to the SI companies. The research goal of this paper is to explore the productivity improvement by adopting the PSDM with the cases of SI companies applied PSDM. The results show that such benefits as risk management, productivity improvement, easy system implementation and maintenance are perceived by PSDM Users. This research could be the first case study reveal the effectiveness of PSDM. For further research, the survey could be carried out with more samples.