• Korean small business review
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.139-160
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• 2017

Today, changes in the environments surrounding companies are so uncertain that corporate entrepreneurship should be activated to enhance the competitiveness of firms and to improve their profitability. In particular, The practice of entrepreneurship by small and medium sized enterprises (hereafter SMEs) is suggested as an important factor for the enhancement of competitiveness of firms. In this context, this study examined the effects of the organizational climates on the entrepreneurship activities of SMEs in Korea and China. The data obtained from 300 SMEs in Korea and China through questionnaire surveys were analyzed. The results demonstrate that the organizational climates have significant positive effects on SMEs in the countries belonging to emerging markets such as Korea and China. However, the practice of corporate entrepreneurship could be manifested in diverse forms, such as innovation or strategic renewal, and the effects of organizational climates were shown to sightly different effects on the corporate entrepreneurship activities. In addition, SMEs in Korea and China, which belong to common cultural areas, did not show any statistically significant difference in organizational climates in general. Furthermore, the effects of these factors did not show significant differences in general. However, SMEs in Korea with more flexible organizational structures and higher job autonomy were shown to be more advantageous in practicing corporate entrepreneurship than those in China. The results of the study provide meaningful implications for SMEs in Korea in terms of the efforts that should be made to enhance their competitiveness, implement innovation, and achieve comparative advantages over China.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.49-63
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of the collective characteristics of SMEs on M&A activity on the disclosure effect of mergers and long-term business performance after mergers. From 2000 to 2012, we examine 717 cases of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using multiple regression analysis and difference analysis. The results of this study are as follows. First, it is confirmed that the effect on the merger announcement effect is the same as the previous study on the Korean capital market listed companies except for the effect of diversification, listing effect, and cross-border effect. In addition, we have found that firms with higher performance in the past have higher excess returns in the disclosure effect of mergers and acquisitions. Second, unlike the previous studies that non-related mergers have a positive effect on long-term operating performance, for the characteristics of SMEs with lower market competitiveness than that of average listed companies, SMEs merging with same industry group companies have a positive effect on long-term operating performance. This study provides a new perspective on the merger and acquisition of SMEs by examining the effects of M&A announcement and long-term performance.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.237-258
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• 2022

As the global market environment changes, the domestic ICT industry has a growing influence on the world economy. This industry is regarded as an important driving force in the national economy from a technological and social point of view. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the ICT industry are regarded as essential actors of domestic economic development in terms of company diversity, technology development and job creation. However, since it is small compared to large-sized enterprises, it is difficult for SMEs to survive with a differentiated strategy in an incomplete and rapidly changing environment. Therefore, SMEs must make a lot of efforts to improve their own capabilities, and the government needs to provide the desirable help suitable for corporate internal resources so that they can continue to be competitive. This study classifies the types of ICT SMEs participating in government support programs, and analyzes the relationship between resources and performance creation of each type. The data from the "ICT Small and Medium Enterprises Survey" conducted annually by the Ministry of Science and ICT was used. In the first stage, ICT SMEs were clustered based on common factors according to their experiences with government support programs. Three clusters were meaningfully classified, and each cluster was named "active participation type," "initial support type," and "soloist type." As a second step, this study compared the characteristics of each cluster through profiling analysis for each cluster. The third step carried out in this study was to find out the mechanism of R&D performance creation for each cluster through regression analysis. Different factors affected performance creation for each cluster, and the magnitude of the influence was also different. Specifically, for "active participation type", "current manpower", "technology competitiveness", and "R&D investment in the previous year" were found to be important factors in creating R&D performance. "Initial support type" was identified as "whether or not a dedicated R&D organization exists", "R&D investment amount in the previous year", "Ratio of sales to large companies", and "Ratio of vendors supplied to large companies" contributed to the performance. Lastly, in the case of "soloist type", "current workforce" and "future recruitment plan", "technological competitiveness", "R&D investment", "large company sales ratio", and "overseas sales ratio" showed a significant relationship with the performance. This study has practical implications of showing what strategy should be established when supporting SMEs in the future according to the government's participation in the startup program and providing a guide on what kind of support should be provided.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.139-159
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• 2023

As the founders of small and medium-sized businesses age, the issue of business succession becomes increasingly important. In this study, we empirically analyzed the impact of various human and institutional factors on corporate succession intentions, including the CEO's competency, the successor's competency, third-party stakeholders, and institutional factors such as legislation, taxation, and trust. We surveyed CEOs who were currently running small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and received a total of 201 valid questionnaires. We then conducted an empirical analysis using the multiple regression analysis method. Our results showed that both the CEO's competency and the successor's competency, which are human factors, had a significant positive impact on corporate succession intention. Institutional factors such as taxation and trust also had a significant positive impact on corporate succession intention. However, third-party stakeholders and legislation did not have a significant effect on corporate succession intention. Among the factors that had a significant impact, the size of the influence was in the order of successor's competency, CEO's competency, taxation, and trust. These research results have both academic and practical implications. By going beyond existing studies that focus solely on human factors, we have revealed that institutional factors such as taxation and trust have a very important impact on corporate succession.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.233-241
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• 2017

Annual reports on the ease of doing business, published from the World Bank, measure the regulations of economies that enhance business activity and those that constrain it by the 10 areas of business life-cycle. It then calculates the scores and ranks in each of the areas and in aggregate. The aggregate scores are the summation of the scores in the areas. This means that all the areas have the same weight. As evaluation results can vary greatly by the areas used and their weights, it is possible that the areas emphasized by small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) of Korea are not appropriately reflected in the evaluation results. From the viewpoint of small and medium-sized Korean enterprises, this paper tries to compare the ease of doing business of economies via determining the weights of the 10 areas. Through an AHP-based survey on Korean professors of a business school and SME CEOs, the weights are determined and then applied to the calculation of the aggregate scores and the ranks of the economies. While the changes in the top and bottom ranks are relatively small, some cases of big changes are found in the middle ranks.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.86-98
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• 2011

Venture capital companies and funds play the following roles: to find small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) which face equity gap but possess high-growth potential, to make equity investment in such SMEs, and to intensively support the invested firms' growth in order to gain the maximum profits from the investment via maximization of the firms' values. This work discusses the issue of how such roles of venture capital can be used in a stable manner within individual non-Capital regions of Korea for fostering the start-up and growth of promising SMEs and thereby advancing local/regional economic development. The principal portion of my discussion deals with Regional Venture Capital Fund(RVCF) of UK and its policy implications for the Korean context. Additionally, the work conceptually explores roles of venture capital and local/regional development, and it empirically examines how such venture capital's functions are recently used for the business start-up and growth in the non-Capital regions of Korea.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.241-263
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• 2023

Recently, the aging of SME managers has emerged as a major issue in business succession. The smooth succession of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the industrial base of Korea, is becoming an important issue for enhancing the vitality of the national economy, such as job creation, beyond mere discussion of inheritance. At this point, this study conducted an empirical analysis on the factors affecting corporate succession intention. As independent variables, corporate Capability consisting of employee competency, marketing competency, and digital competency, human factors such as managers, successors, and third-party stakeholders, and institutional factors such as legislation, taxation, and trust were set. In addition, the effect of adjusting the sales scale was verified. To this end, a survey was conducted targeting representatives who are currently running small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The total number of valid questionnaires was 315. Based on this, an empirical analysis was conducted using the hierarchical regression method. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, marketing competency and digital competency, managerial competency and successor competency, taxation and trust had a significant positive (+) effect on corporate succession intention. However, a significant influence relationship between the third stakeholder, employee competency, and corporate succession intention was not tested. Among the factors that have a significant impact, the size of the influence was in the order of taxation, successor competency, executive competency, trust, marketing competency, and digital competency. Second, the size of sales was found to moderate the relationship between the variables that had a significant effect on corporate succession intention, that is, management competency, successor competency, marketing competency, digital competency, taxation and trust, and corporate succession intention. Based on these research results, academic, practical, and institutional implications for smooth business succession are presented.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.169-198
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• 2012

The rapidity at which industrial and business management environment has become globalized, including the FTA, has provided valuable opportunities for domestic small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to obtain global technological business. However, it is unclear whether or not the SMEs' attempt to advance global technological business is producing fruitful results. This study begins with defining global technological business and the efforts of SMEs to develop them and proceeds to discuss survey results that asked the reasoning behind SMEs that entered or wish to enter foreign spheres (China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe) of businesses, and also perform factorial analysis to obtain substantiation. The study classified the relevant SMEs using clustering method. Based on the results, the study makes recommendations to executives in instilling global-minded strategies, on customized support strategies depending on the SME's capability and its intended foreign entry sphere, and on strengthening the SME's competence on the global scale.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.169-183
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• 2017

As global competition is heating up and product life cycle has been rapidly shortened, each company pursues a variety of competitive technology innovations through different means of innovation. In this study, we assume that open innovation can be a shift motive of the technology innovation paradigm of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) being beyond the limitations of R&D within a company. We analyze the process and content of open innovation and performance. In addition, we identify the problems generated in the open innovation process and analyze the ways to strengthen open innovation. This study is based on the investigations into the technological competitiveness of local SMEs. The innovation ecosystem is analyzed from the perspective of product/service innovation, organizational innovation, and marketing innovation. Situational analysis is presented on the relationship between the innovation capabilities of information and communication technology SMEs and innovation performance.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.149-156
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• 2016

In today's rapidly-changing business context with technology convergence among various fields, new technology development and technology commercialization capabilities are very important to the survival and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study develops the research model based on the open innovation perspective and empirically tests it by using 2,000 data from SMEs in South Korea. The empirical analysis result reveals that SMEs' external technology collaboration network and external information network diversities have positive effects on their technology commercialization capability, and these effects are fully mediated by their new technology development capability. Based on these results, the study provides meaningful implications especially in terms of SMEs' managers who pursue entrepreneurship.