• 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.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.31-44
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of CEO's self-determination on entrepreneurship, business performance (operational and financial performance). Also, this research provide some strategic insights for improving business performance. In the proposed model, self-determination consists of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and entrepreneurship consists of innovation, initiative and risk sensitivity, and proactiveness. More specifically, this study proposes a framework that entrepreneurship and operational performance will play mediating roles between self-determination and financial performance. Research design, data, methodology: In this study, an online survey was conducted on SME CEOs for analysis, and a total of 122 samples were used. In the analysis process for hypothesis verification and evaluation, frequency analysis was first performed to identify the demographic characteristics of the respondents, and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model. In addition, a structural model analysis was conducted to examine the structural relationships between CEO's self-determination, entrepreneurship, and business performance (operational and financial performance) using SmartPLS 3.0. Results: The findings and summary are as follows. First, the autonomy of self-determination has a positive effect on entrepreneurship. Second, the competence of self-determination affects entrepreneurship and operational performance. Third, it affects the innovation, initiative and risk sensitivity of the CEO's entrepreneurship, and ultimately, its operational performance. The results show that the business performance of Start-up also increases when self-determination can be a factor in increasing entrepreneurship in three sub-dimensionalities. Conclusions: The conclusion of this study is that in order for SMEs to develop into a sustainable company by securing competitiveness after start-up, external motivation such as external help and support from the state (local government) is important, but competence and relationship, which are components of self-determination. The intrinsic motivation of the CEO may be more important. To this end, CEO's should prioritize learning for competency development, and the government should pay attention to providing various educational programs through establishment of education policies and education systems to enhance the competency of start-up CEO's.

• World Technopolis Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.4.1-4.15
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• 2017

In 1995, the Republic of Korea started to establish Techno Park (TP) in order to develop the regional industry while promoting the balanced development of the land. By 2008, 18TPs were established nationwide and have become cradles for developing local industries. And recently evolved forms of TP such as Daedeok Techno Valley and Pangyo Techno Valley emerged. In addition, 19 Centers for Creative Economy and Innovation (CCEI) were established nationwide and Tech-Incubator Program for start-ups (TIPS) was introduced to support and mentor start-ups. TPs in Korea become bureaucratic in course of time, and the new trial of innovation of TP is needed. In Korea, professional TIPS-accelerators mentoring and investing start-ups have a history of only five years. But they support and mentor start-ups efficiently, and have obtained good results. In this paper, we propose that TP attract TIPS-accelerators actively and collaborate with each other to support and mentor start-ups and SMEs effectively.

• IE interfaces
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.418-426
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• 2007

This study is to suggest the government's support direction for the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) by examining the relations among technology level, innovation factors, entrepreneur's characteristics, and start-up reasons. The management bottlenecks and the necessary fields of government's support are also investigated across the company's growth stages. Empirical analysis was conducted based on the 318 Korean SMEs' data receiving the Venture and/or Inno-biz certification. Results show that managing difficulties of the company have typical pattern according to the stage of growth. The characteristics of an entrepreneur such as age, education background and past experience affect the early stage of starting business. We also found that the technology level is closely connected with operational innovation activities and circumstances, entrepreneur's characteristics, start-up motives, and technological innovation activities.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.217-241
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• 2015

This paper, based on two engineering industry SME case studies, traces the origin and process of technological innovations enabling the development and introduction of new products leading to market expansion and enterprise growth. The study throws light on how entrepreneurs played a decisive role in recognizing market opportunities, building up crucial in-house technological capability, supplementing it with appropriate external assistance, to carry out technological innovations. A constant interaction with its customers is in-built into the system. As a result, the SMEs could achieve successful product innovations leading to their gradual growth, over time. Finally, based on the observations and inferences derived out of the two cases, a theoretical construct of the growth of innovation in SMEs is postulated. This is done linking the three stages of their development: (i) start-up and stabilizing, (ii) building up technological capability and implementing innovations; and (iii) opening up of new markets resulting in firm growth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.37-47
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• 2013

This study investigates regional financial markets and proposes some policy measures for boosting up the regional financial system. Financial supports for start-ups, small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) in early stage growth have been constrained due to expanded financial gaps among regions during financial restructuring period. The bank consolidation through M&A is associated with widening financial gaps between Seoul area and others, and between regions where regional banks survives or not. Loans to small firms are associated with relationship lending techniques that may be better supported by smaller regional banks. The loan rate to SMEs in locals where regional banks are activated has tended to be 10%point higher than the locals where regional banks closed, and also drive the greater contribution for preventing local capital outflow and promoting local capital investment by local penetrating strategy. Government should develop regional financial policies to boost up regional financial system, and expand the business area of regional financial institutions for supporting start-ups and SMEs.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.344-353
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• 2007

Business incubators (BIs) could be regarded as an effective mechanism for linking research and industry to inspire technology and knowledge based entrepreneurship and innovation of start-up SMEs. The performance of BIs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) innovation should be differentiated in accordance with the technology capacity of SMEs, the national entrepreneurial culture and characters in each economy. Therefore, the research intended to categorize BIs in the selected 10 APEC member economies into four types by investigating the issue of member economies' strategies, functions and characteristics in various focused programs.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.117-128
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• 2018

Various government support policies are being promoted in order to stimulate growth of SMEs. The government is striving to provide effective support through direct methods of tax, finance and indirect methods through support programs. However, the view on the government's startup policy is still tense. We are sympathetic with the need for support, but discussions continue to be made on the effectiveness of support projects and support projects. Therefore, this study evaluates the importance and satisfaction of the government start-up support project. For this purpose, we conducted questionnaires on ICT start-ups who have experienced government start-up support projects. Of these, 128 were analyzed for GAP analysis and ISA. As a result of the GAP analysis of the government start - up support project, the degree of satisfaction (4.408) was lower than the degree of importance (5.221), confirming that the beneficiary's evaluation on the start-up support project was negative. As a result of the importance-satisfaction analysis, 'R&D' and 'commercialization' are located in the maintenance area, and 'government funding', 'marketing, overseas advancement' projects are included in the concentrated area. In the low-ranking areas, there are 'entrepreneur events and networks' items. Finally, there are 'facilities and spaces', 'mentoring and consulting', and 'entrepreneurship education' in the surplus areas. As a result of multiple regression analysis, it was found that 'R&D', 'entrepreneurial education', and 'government funding' influenced satisfaction. Based on the results of this study, it is expected that it will contribute to improving the quality level of the government start-up support project by establishing the support policy for the ICT start-up enterprises and improving the system.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.185-220
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to get a whole picture of financial conditions of the new and renewable energy sector which have been growing rapidly and predict bankruptcy risk quantitatively. There have been many researches on the methodologies for company failure prediction, such as financial ratios as predictors of failure, analysis of corporate governance, risk factors and survival analysis, and others. The research method for this study is Altman Z-score which has been widely used in the world. Data Set was composed of 121 companies with financial statements from KIS-Value. Covering period for the analysis of the data set is from the year 2006 to 2011. As a result of this study, we found that 38 percent of the data set belongs to "Distress" Zone (on alert) while 38% (on watch), summed into 76%, whose level could be interpreted to doubt about the sustainability. The average of the SMEs in wind energy sector was worse than that of SMEs in solar energy sector. And the average of the SMEs in the "Distress" Zone (on alert) was worse than that of the companies of large group in the "Distress" Zone (on alert). In conclusion, Altman Z-score was well proved to be effective for New & Renewable Energy Industry in Korea as a result of this study. The importance of this study lies on the result to demonstrate empirically that the majority of solar and wind enterprises are facing the risk of bankruptcy. And it is also meaningful to have studied the relationship between SMEs and large companies in addition to advancing research on new start-up companies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.77-98
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• 2020

Recently, the government provided about 35 trillion won to start-ups through a large amount of start-up support funds from the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund and the Korea Development Bank, and more than 100 trillion won to start-ups over the past three years.(2015-2018) The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that a total of 1.4517 trillion won will be supported by 16 ministries (90 projects) after surveying start-up support projects by ministries in 2020 to create a start-up country. Indeed, among the budgets supported by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, startups accounted for 85%, while scale-ups (growth and maturity) were only 15%. However, the survival rate of Korean start-ups was far lower than that of developed countries. The survival rate for the three years after the start-up was 39.1 percent, with only about 4 out of 10 surviving, with 27.5 percent surviving for five years, and only 3 out of 10 surviving. On the other hand, overseas start-ups have a survival rate of twice as high as that of Korea for five years. Accordingly, this study aims to empirically analyze and examine the need for research on nascent entrepreneurs, which have recently been actively supported by the government, as well as the impact of start-up motivation and start-up preparation on the intention to continue business. The survey was conducted from April 1 to May 15, 2020 for nascent entrepreneurs nationwide, and 222 of the total 245 copies were analyzed, and the questionnaire was measured using the Likert 5-point scale. As a result of the analysis, first, all factors constituting start-up motivation were adopted by significantly affecting start-up satisfaction. In addition, among the sub-factors of nascent entrepreneurs' preparation, item preparation was adopted as a significant influence on start-up satisfaction. Second, the nascent entrepreneurs' satisfaction level was adopted by having a significant impact on the business continuity. Third, some of the motivations for self-realization of the motivation for start-ups were adopted by having a significant impact on the business continuity. In addition, the preparation of items for the start-up preparation of nascent entrepreneurs was partially adopted as they had a significant impact on the business continuity. Fourth, it was adopted by the mediation effect of start-up satisfaction between the motivation of the nascent entrepreneurs' preparation and the business continuity. In addition, it was adopted by the medium effect of start-up satisfaction between the nascent entrepreneurs' preparation and the business continuity. Based on the results of these studies, it is intended to draw practical implications, and to provide useful policy implications to increase nascent entrepreneurs' satisfaction and continue to carry out their start-ups.