• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.39-59
• /
• 2007

The international involvement of a firm has been described as a gradual development process "a process in which the enterprise gradually increases its international involvement in many studies. This process evolves in the interplay between the development of knowledge about foreign markets and operations on one hand and increasing commitment of resources to foreign markets on the other." On the basis of Uppsala internationalization model, many studies strengthen strong theoretical and empirical support. According to the predictions of the classic stages theory, the internationalization process of firms have been recognized and characterized gradual evolution to foreign markets, so called stage theory: indirect & direct export, strategic alliance and foreign direct investment. However, termed "international new ventures" (McDougall, Shane, and Oviatt 1994), "born globals" (Knight 1997; Knight and Cavusgil 1996; Madsen and Servais 1997), "instant internationals" (Preece, Miles, and Baetz 1999), or "global startups" (Oviatt and McDougall 1994) have been used and come into spotlight in internationalization study of technology intensity venture companies. Recent researches focused on venture company have suggested the phenomenons of 'born global' firms as a contradiction to the stages theory. Especially the article by Oviatt and McDougall threw the spotlight on international entrepreneurs, on international new ventures, and on their importance in the globalising world economy. Since venture companies have, by definition. lack of economies of scale, lack of resources (financial and knowledge), and aversion to risk taking, they have a difficulty in expanding their market to abroad and pursue internalization gradually and step by step. However many venture companies have pursued 'Born Global Strategy', which is different from process strategy, because corporate's environment has been rapidly changing to globalization. The existing studies investigate that (1) why the ventures enter into overseas market in those early stage, even in infancy, (2) what make the different international strategy among ventures and the born global strategy is better to the infant ventures. However, as for venture's performance(growth and profitability), the existing results do not correspond each other. They also, don't include marketing strategy (differentiation, low price, market breadth and market pioneer) that is important factors in studying of BGV's performance. In this paper I aim to delineate the appearance of international new ventures and the phenomenons of venture companies' internationalization strategy. In order to verify research problems, I develop a resource-based model and marketing strategies for analyzing the effects of the born global venture firms. In this paper, I suggested 3 research problems. First, do the korean venture companies take some advantages in the aspects of corporate's performances (growth, profitability and overall market performances) when they pursue internationalization from inception? Second, do the korean BGV have firm specific assets (foreign experiences, foreign orientation, organizational absorptive capacity)? Third, What are the marketing strategies of korean BGV and is it different from others? Under these problems, I test then (1) whether the BGV that a firm started its internationalization activity almost from inception, has more intangible resources(foreign experience of corporate members, foreign orientation, technological competences and absorptive capacity) than any other venture firms(Non_BGV) and (2) also whether the BGV's marketing strategies-differentiation, low price, market diversification and preemption strategy are different from Non_BGV. Above all, the main purpose of this research is that results achieved by BGV are indeed better than those obtained by Non_BGV firms with respect to firm's growth rate and efficiency. To do this research, I surveyed venture companies located in Seoul and Deajeon in Korea during November to December, 2005. I gather the data from 200 venture companies and then selected 84 samples, which have been founded during 1999${\sim}$2000. To compare BGV's characteristics with those of Non_BGV, I also had to classify BGV by export intensity over 50% among five or six aged venture firms. Many other researches tried to classify BGV and Non_BGV, but there were various criterion as many as researchers studied on this topic. Some of them use time gap, which is time difference of establishment and it's first internationalization experience and others use export intensity, ration of export sales amount divided by total sales amount. Although using a mixed criterion of prior research in my case, I do think this kinds of criterion is subjective and arbitrary rather than objective, so I do mention my research has some critical limitation in the classification of BGV and Non_BGV. The first purpose of research is the test of difference of performance between BGV and Non_BGV. As a result of t-test, the research show that there are statistically efficient difference not only in the growth rate (sales growth rate compared to competitors and 3 years averaged sales growth rate) but also in general market performance of BGV. But in case of profitability performance, the hypothesis that is BGV is more profit (return on investment(ROI) compared to competitors and 3 years averaged ROI) than Non-BGV was not supported. From these results, this paper concludes that BGV grows rapidly and gets a high market performance (in aspect of market share and customer loyalty) but there is no profitability difference between BGV and Non_BGV. The second result is that BGV have more absorptive capacity especially, knowledge competence, and entrepreneur's international experience than Non_BGV. And this paper also found BGV search for product differentiation, exemption strategy and market diversification strategy while Non_BGV search for low price strategy. These results have never been dealt with other existing studies. This research has some limitations. First limitation is concerned about the definition of BGV, as I mentioned above. Conceptually speaking, BGV is defined as company pursue internationalization from inception, but in empirical study, it's very difficult to classify between BGV and Non_BGV. I tried to classify on the basis of time difference and export intensity, this criterions are so subjective and arbitrary that the results are not robust if the criterion were changed. Second limitation is concerned about sample used in this research. I surveyed venture companies just located in Seoul and Daejeon and also use only 84 samples which more or less provoke sample bias problem and generalization of results. I think the more following studies that focus on ventures located in other region, the better to verify the results of this paper.

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

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.123-156
• /
• 2005

Strengthening the competitive edge of SMEs has become one of the most important economic issues in Korea as the bipolarization between large firms and SMEs has deepened. Accordingly, small innovative firms (referred as 'venture firms' in Korea) attract keen attention both from policy makers and academia. Also, we can sufficiently observe how the growth environment for venture firms has evolved, since it has been almost ten years after the Korean government started its support policy for venture firms. Considering this, now is the appropriate time to carry out an analysis of venture firms. From this point of view, this study looks at growth factors for venture firms to draw out policy implications. The empirical analysis shows interesting results. Firms with the following features all showed higher growth rates: firms with high R&D intensity, younger firms, bigger firms, firms using more policy loans, and firms located within and around the Seoul region. However, the empirical analysis has some limitations. The data used in the study is limited in terms of firm information and so there are some insufficiencies. Thus it is of great importance to compile the required data on firms to enable further in-depth studies.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.665-673
• /
• 2021

Default has become an extreme concern in the current world due to the financial crisis. The previous prediction of companies' bankruptcy exhibits evidence of decision assistance for financial and regulatory bodies. Notwithstanding numerous advanced approaches, this area of study is not outmoded and requires additional research. The purpose of this research is to find the best classifier to detect a company's default risk and bankruptcy. This study used secondary data from the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and it is time-series data to examine the impact on the determinants. This research examined several different classifiers as per their competence to properly categorize default and non-default Pakistani companies listed on the PSX. Additionally, PSX has remained consistent for some years in terms of growth and has provided benefits to its stockholders. This paper utilizes machine learning techniques to predict financial distress in companies listed on the PSX. Our results indicate that most multi-stage mixture of classifiers provided noteworthy developments over the individual classifiers. This means that firms will have to work on the financial variables such as liquidity and profitability to not fall into the category of liquidation. Moreover, Adaptive Boosting (Adaboost) provides a significant boost in the performance of each classifier.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.49-62
• /
• 2016

Technology-based start-ups have great economic ripple effect such as economic growth and job creation. Therefore, a strategic approach is required in order for such start-ups to continuously grow. However, many technology-based start-ups do not survive the Death-Valley and are being eliminated from the market. This is an empirical study on influencing variables that have impact on their performance. This study presents growth intention and influencing variables that have impact on performance (financial performance, technological performance) based on previous research on technology-based start-up. Also, this study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial competence, team commitment and growth intention, and finds the effect of controlling business-network. Structural equation modeling was performed in order to test the research hypothesis. Survey was conducted on the firms that have been certified by Youth Startup Academy of Small and Medium Business Corporation. A total of 306 samples were collected from the survey. An empirical test was conducted on the research hypothesis using SPSS 21.0 and Amos 22.0. The result of hypothesis test shows that growth intention has positive influence on both financial and technological performance, and entrepreneurial competence (technological competence, strategic management competence, creative competence and team commitment) has positive influence on growth intention. Also, the research proved that business-network has regulation effect between human resource trait and growth intention. The result of our study will provide practical insight to future start-ups for continuous growth and successful running of their firm.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.37 no.5
• /
• pp.465-479
• /
• 2002

This paper seeks to Produce a typology of enterprise-support services. Drawing upon this typology, this study will attempt to identify the status quo of the government enterprise-support services system and also examine the demand for and supply of these services according to regional differences and industrial characteristics (old versus new). Based on results of the survey taken in the Seoul software industry cluster especially around the Seocho, Gangnam-Gu, the Daejeon ICT industry cluster and the Gumi electronics industry cluster, it can be said that the demand for and supply of enterprise-support services are differentiated by the nature of an industry, the characteristics of a region and the growth stage of a firm. Finally, some policy suggestions will be addressed.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.1445-1473
• /
• 2018

This study aims to analyze research-based spin-off companies, which are established in Innopolis to promote the commercialization of R&D outputs of public institutions. We analyzed 175 technology-based start-ups, which were founded before 2016, to examine how the companies' capabilities affect the sales growth rate. The results show that technological capability and entrepreneurial capability have positive relations with sales growth, while network capability and finance capability do not have significant associations. In addition, R&D intensity (R&D expenditure per employee) has moderating effects on the association between firm capabilities and sales growth rate since it strengthens the effect of technological capability and entrepreneurial capability but weakens the influence of network capability. This study contributes to widening the understanding of the importance of capabilities of research-based spin-off companies and their performance, and differs from most previous literature since it uses objective and quantitative data. It further suggests policy implications that the enhancement of technological and entrepreneurial capability are important for the stable growth of technology-based startups in the early stage.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.139-169
• /
• 2023

This study analyzes the effects of firms' technology innovation(patent applications) on employment(number of workers and proportion of high-skilled workers) and corporate performance(sales per worker), while considering the two-way causal relationships between these variables. We used the three-stage least squares(3SLS) estimation to examine system of equations in which the dependent variables affect each other with a two-year lag wherever relevant, and applied it to firm-level panel data of Korean manufacturers with 100 or more workers. Our data covered the period of 2005-2017. Exogenous variables, such as firms' managerial and other characteristics, were controlled as explanatory variables. The identification variables for each equation included firms' R&D intensity, labor cost per worker(or operation of firms' own R&D center), and investment on worker training. We find that firms' patent applications increased number of workers, proportion of high-skilled workers, and sales per worker; the causal relationships in the opposite direction were also significant. Evidently, firms' technology innovation is critical to the growth and quality improvement of employment as well as sustainable corporate growth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.131-144
• /
• 2021

The organizational ambidexterity is an organizational strategy designed to pursue exploration activities to seize new opportunities and exploitation activities to efficiently use resources. Most of these ambidextrous structures have been studied for large corporations with slack resources, and there are still not many studies on the necessity of an ambidextrous structure for startups with relatively low-level resources. However, recently, the startup ecosystem is being advanced globally, and the amount of VC investment is rapidly increasing. This is a time when a lot of venture fund is invested in startups and a startup-friendly environment for rapid growth is created. This is the time to discuss the necessity and applicability of an ambidextrous organizational structure for startups. Therefore, this study conducted a hypothesis test whether the importance and necessity of balance that startups solving market problems with new ideas and utilizing accumulated resources have. To conduct this study, we analyzed 140 startups data gathered from the survey and the moderation effect was also analyzed. As a result of the study, it was verified that the balance of startup exploration and exploitation had a significant effect on startup performance, and the moderating effect of environmental dynamics was found to have a significant effect on the relationship with non-financial performance. Therefore, for startups with insufficient resources, it was concluded that the surplus resources generated in the process of a firm's growth should be effectively utilized and the balance between exploration and exploitation should be balanced from the initial stage of searching for a new business. In other words, it was confirmed that it is important for continuous growth and survival to seek the structure of an ambidextrous organization in order to internalize a mechanism that enables startups to pursue both effectiveness and efficiency in the long term. This study suggests a strategic direction for the growth of startups from the perspective of organizational structure. We expect that this meaningful results on the relationship between the ambidextrous capabilities of startups and performance contribute to the growth of startups in the rapidly growing startup venture environment.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.16 no.7
• /
• pp.3051-3056
• /
• 2015

Background: Skin self-examination (SSE) may facilitate early diagnosis of melanoma at a potentially curable stage. Little data are available concerning the SSE frequency and knowledge about the symptoms of melanoma in non-patient populations. The aim of our study was to assess the performance of skin self-examination, recognition of potential melanoma symptoms as well as behavior related to sun exposure among web users in Poland. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among readers of a scientific portal. Invited respondents were asked to complete an online questionnaire. Finally, statistical analysis was conducted on 4,919 surveys towards potential clinical signs of melanoma and SSE performance. Results: Approximately 60% of respondents had ever performed SSE in their life. Only 18.4 % declared performance on a regular, monthly, basis. Factors promoting this activity were established to be bigger place of residence, higher education and sensitive skin phototype, higher level of knowledge concerning melanoma, safe tanning rules and, especially, past surgical excision of naevi. Declared longer use of tanning beds was linked to understanding better the importance of clinical features of melanoma. Awareness of hazardous behavior during sunbathing is associated with the attempts to change them. Conclusions: Regular SSE is not a common practice, whilst the knowledge about the clinical features of melanoma is varied. Therefore, constant pressure should be put on promotion of regular skin self-examination and teaching its proper techniques, including familiarity with the ABCD (asymmetry; border; color; diameter) rule and its extension of "EFG" (elevated, firm, progressive growth) criteria.