• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.839-849
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• 2023

The development of automation technology to reduce human error by minimizing human intervention is accelerating with artificial intelligence and big data processing technology, even in the nuclear field. Among nuclear power plant operation modes, the startup and shutdown operations are still performed manually and thus have the potential for human error. As part of the development of an autonomous operation system for startup operation, this paper proposes an action coordinating strategy to obtain the optimal actions. The lower level of the system consists of operating blocks that are created by analyzing the operation tasks to achieve local goals through soft actor-critic algorithms. However, when multiple agents try to perform conflicting actions, a method is needed to coordinate them, and for this, an action coordination strategy was developed in this work as the upper level of the system. Three quantification methods were compared and evaluated based on the future plant state predicted by plant parameter prediction models using long short-term memory networks. Results confirmed that the optimal action to satisfy the limiting conditions for operation can be selected by coordinating the action sets. It is expected that this methodology can be generalized through future research.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.93-101
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• 2016

Purpose - This study aims to advance our knowledge about factors influencing technical startup performance through analysing technical startup process empirically. This study was conducted to focus on industry structure(industry growth rate, competitive intensity, and enter barriers), technology characteristics(technical excellence and wide range of technical application), and the performance in the technology-based start-ups. Specifically, analyzing moderating effect of technology-marketing strategy, this studied how moderating variables affect technical startup performance under industry structure. Research design, data, and methodology - The subject of this study was technology-based start-ups company that received technology transfer from public organization. The development of the paper model is based on the literature of the preceding research analysis in technology commercialization, performance of technology-based start-ups, and marketing strategy. This study has a construct that was defined in the previous studies, such that technology marketing strategy was defined into the two ways of being broad or narrow in strategic application. From November 3. 2015 to December 22, 220 questionnaires were distributed with targeting to start-up companies in technology-based. 188 responses were collected for empirical analysis except the missing and wrong value responses. This data were used for structural equation modeling and regression analysis. Results - The results of this study are as follows. First, as industry structure variables influencing on performance(technical, financial) of technology-based start-ups, industry growth rate, competitive intensity and enter barriers of variables were verified; high growth rate has more positive effect on performance than low growth rate, competitive low intensity has more positive effect on performance than competitive high intensity, low enter barriers have more positive effect on performance than high enter barriers. Second, as technology characteristics variables influences on the performance(technical, financial) of technology-based start-ups, technical excellence and wide range of technical application of variables were verified ; technical high-excellence has more positive effect on performance than technology low-excellence, wide range of technical application has more positive effect on performance than narrow range of technical application. We also find that technology marketing strategy(broad/narrow) in moderating factors on performance (technical, financial) is as follows. Analyzing the moderating effect depending on technology marketing strategy(broad/narrow), application of technology, and the types of technology strategy(broad/narrow) were revealed that broad marketing strategy had a more significant effect on performance of technology-based start-ups. With AMOS, the relevancy of the study model revealed higher for broad technology-marketing strategy than narrow technology marketing strategy, and the explanatory power revealed to be 6.4% higher in broad marketing strategy than narrow marketing strategy. Conclusions - This study confirmed that industry structure and technology characteristics are important factors influencing the performance of technology-based start-ups. Technology-marketing strategy affects the performance of technology-based start-ups between industry structure and technology characteristics. According to additional analysis, moderating variables and technology-marketing strategy are important factors influencing the performance of technology-based start-ups under industry structure and technology characteristics. Broad type of technology-marketing strategy has more attractive industry structure and excellent technology characteristics than narrow types of technology-marketing.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.155-164
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• 2024

This study examines whether startup firms start with the resources they already have and expand the resources they can mobilize in the process of business management (Effectuation Model) using public data provided by the government. The results of the study show that the Effectuation Model can partially explain the behavior of early-stage startup firms. Therefore, in terms of policy implications based on these findings, government policies for entrepreneurship should not be based on the selection of companies based on sophisticated business models and hypothetical profit models, but rather on a system that actively supports entrepreneurship in areas that are challenging, even if they seem somewhat reckless at the moment, or that best match the entrepreneur's knowledge. Next, in order to actively spread entrepreneurship, it is necessary to spread business history or entrepreneurial experience. To this end, it is necessary to drastically change the current financial system for startups, where the founder bears all the financial risk, and to more actively consider ways to reduce the risk of startups by allowing society and the financial system to share some of the risk of startups.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.235-248
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• 2019

This study empirically analyzes how the career orientation factors of startup entrepreneurs affect entrepreneurial satisfaction as well as business sustainability. We propose directions for startup sustainability and development. Based on previous research, we defined the career orientation of entrepreneurs through the five orientation factors of security, autonomy, technical competence, managerial competence, and entrepreneurial creativity. We constructed a research model to determine whether these factors have a causal relationship with entrepreneurial satisfaction or business sustainability through the medium of organizational entrepreneurship. We surveyed startups in Korea using a questionnaire and collected and analyzed a total of 282 points of survey data. The analysis results demonstrated that the entrepreneurial creativity and managerial competence of the members of a startup can play an important role within entrepreneurial satisfaction and business sustainability. Both autonomy and technical competence exhibited no effect on entrepreneurial satisfaction and business sustainability through the medium of entrepreneurship, while security showed a negative effect. In order to improve entrepreneurial satisfaction and achieve business sustainability, we confirmed that it was more important for startups to consider the creativity and business management competences of entrepreneurs rather than pursue business security or have a technology-oriented attitude.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.91-107
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• 2023

Lean startup is a concept that combines the words "lean," meaning an efficient way of running a business, and "startup," meaning a new business. It is often cited as a strategy for minimizing failure in early-stage businesses, especially in software-based startups. By scrutinizing the case of a startup L, this study suggests that lean startup methodology(LSM) can be useful for hardware and manufacturing companies and identifies ways for early startups to successfully implement LSM. To this end, the study explained the core of LSM including the concepts of hypothesis-driven approach, BML feedback loop, minimum viable product(MVP), and pivot. Five criteria to evaluate the successful implementation of LSM were derived from the core concepts and applied to evaluate the case of startup L . The early startup L pivoted its main business model from defecation alert system for patients with limited mobility to one for infants or toddlers, and finally to a smart bottle for infants. In developing the former two products, analyzed from LSM's perspective, company L neither established a specific customer value proposition for its startup idea and nor verified it through MVP experiment, thus failed to create a BML feedback loop. However, through two rounds of pivots, startup L discovered new target customers and customer needs, and was able to establish a successful business model by repeatedly experimenting with MVPs with minimal effort and time. In other words, Company L's case shows that it is essential to go through the customer-market validation stage at the beginning of the business, and that it should be done through an MVP method that does not waste the startup's time and resources. It also shows that it is necessary to abandon and pivot a product or service that customers do not want, even if it is technically superior and functionally complete. Lastly, the study proves that the lean startup methodology is not limited to the software industry, but can also be applied to technology-based hardware industry. The findings of this study can be used as guidelines and methodologies for early-stage companies to minimize failures and to accelerate the process of establishing a business model, scaling up, and going global.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.31-42
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• 2021

The importance of startups and ventures in the Korean economy is growing. This study measured whether the start-up and venture ecosystem is growing, including the growth of startups and ventures. The startup and venture ecosystem consists of startups and ventures, investors, and government, which are the main actors of the 'ecosystem', and their movements were measured with 25 quantitative indicators. Based on the original data of the time series from 2010 to 2020, the startup and venture ecosystem index was calculated by applying weights through the comprehensive stock index method and AHP. In 2020, the startup and venture ecosystem grew 2.9 times compared to 2010, and the increase in the government index had a significant impact on growth. Also, the individual indicators that make up each index in 2020, the corporate index had the greatest impact on the growth of the number of 100-billion ventures, while the investment index had a recovery amount and the government index had a significant impact. Based on the original data, the startup and venture ecosystem index was analyzed by dividing it into ecosystems (startup ecosystem and venture ecosystem), industry by industry (all industries and manufacturing industry), and region (Korea and Busan). As a result, the growth of the startup ecosystem over the past decade has been slightly larger than that of the venture ecosystem. The manufacturing was lower than that of all industries, and Busan was lower than that of the nation. This study was intended to use it for the establishment and implementation of support policies by developing, measuring, and monitoring the startup and venture ecosystem index. This index has the advantage of being able to research the interrelationships between major actors, and anyone can calculate the index using the results of official statistical surveys. In the future, it is necessary to continuously update this content to understand how economic and social events or policy support have affected the startup and venture ecosystem.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.4_2
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• pp.627-636
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• 2022

Market convergence plays an increasingly important role in sustaining competitiveness and providing impetus for the new product development. However, existing research focused mostly on the analysis of convergence at technology level. This study examines the phenomenon of market convergence based on the start-up data. Similar to the analysis of technology convergence, this study adopts the concept of co-classification analysis for constructing the co-occurrence matrix and the corresponding network. In this context, network centrality measures were calculated to assess the influence of individual market segments. Based on three metrics "growth", "persistence" and "novelty", the market convergence dynamics were explored and promising interactions between two distinct market segments were highlighted. The findings suggest that both segments "AI" and "blockchain" are acting as a driver that fosters market convergence in the startup landscape. The analysis results can provide valuable information for the R&D managers and policy makers in the design of targeted policies and programs, which can promote market convergence and interdisciplinary knowledge transfer.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.33-43
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• 2023

The paper employs a resource-based approach to analyze the relationship between institutional resources and faculty-led startup formation and performance in South Korean four-year universities from 2017 to 2021. The author proposes nine hypotheses to explain how institutional resources or systems affect the number of faculty startups, their employee numbers and the revenue of faculty-led startups, and compare four different groups of university resources for cross-college variation. The findings suggest that institutional factors impacting faculty-led startup performance differ from those impacting other categories of startups. Universities should provide a more favorable environment, including flexible personnel policies and accompanying startup support infrastructure, to encourage faculty-led startups. In contrast, it is more effective for better performance of faculty startups, in terms of their job creation and revenue, to have more financial resources and good paper publications. The results also suggest that university technology-holding companies are crucial for increasing the number of professor startups and their performance. These findings have implications for both university and government policymakers, who aim to facilitate greater participation of professors in startup formation and commercialization of technology.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.635-647
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• 2023

In the pursuit of sustained innovation within industries, the consistent emergence of high-growth potential startups is imperative. Despite the government's implementation of diverse investment-based policies aimed at fostering startup initiation, the inherent probability of post-establishment failure for startups remains substantial. This study examines the impact of internal factors on organizational commitment and corporate performance in startups. It emphasizes the significance of learning and networking orientation for commitment across various organizational aspects. Innovativeness affects emotional and normative commitment but not continuance commitment. Financial attributes and global orientation influence continuance commitment, while affective and continuance commitment significantly impact startup performance. Normative cohesion, however, does not significantly affect performance. These findings offer insights for optimizing human resource utilization in startups, benefiting both companies and governments in the evolving startup landscape.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.85-106
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• 2023

This study reviewed and derived the success factors of overseas agricultural startups and studied their integrated research model. Agricultural startups and general startups have in common that poor resources and infrastructure exist from a resource-based perspective after startup, but a differentiated approach from general startups is required due to the nature of the primary industry of agriculture. In this study, we approach the company internal factors (human resources/vision/distribution network capacity/capital capacity/cultivated crops/physical resources/farming technology, etc.) and external factors (agricultural infrastructure/laws/regulations/relationship with surrounding society, etc.) We tried to build a research model that can be integrated by focusing on various existing research models, success factors, and entrepreneurship. Through this, it is intended to present an integrated model that is practically helpful to business performance to entrepreneurs, business-related persons, and researchers who need an integrated understanding of agricultural startups at home and abroad. made for purpose In this paper, a standard model was established through three types (existing agricultural startup, small and medium-sized business startup, multinational company, and comprehensive approach) according to size and characteristics for modeling agricultural startup success factors. Through this, a total of 9 success factors (agricultural management, external environment, manager/founder characteristics, corporate identity, business management, organizational culture, infrastructure, commercialization capability, and sustainable growth) were derived. The implication of this study is that the success factors of agricultural startups were comprehensively presented based on 'entrepreneurship' for various domestic and foreign agricultural startup cases. By confirming the systematic categorization, a standard model for future agricultural startup success factors was presented, and as a result, a foundation was presented for systematic research and practical effectiveness of related research in the future.