Exploration embraces search, variation, risk taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery and innovation, while exploitation embraces choice, production, efficiency, ion, implementation and ution. Exploration takes long-term effects, and the effects of exploration are usually uncertain and sometimes negative. To the contrary, exploitation takes short-term effect, and the effects of exploitation are generally predictable and positive.
Both exploration and exploitation are crucial for firms’ sustainable growth and ultimate survival, although it is believed that there is trade-off between exploration and exploitation.
Acquiring external knowledge is important for the firms' explorative learning as well as exploitative learning in high-tech industries, which are characterized by accelerated rate of technological change, high R&D intensity, and technological complexity. M&A (Merger and Acquisition) is one of the measures through which the firms acquire external knowledge. In addition, a better level of knowledge integration between internal knowledge and external knowledge could be achieved through M&A than through other measures, such as inter-firm technology alliance or contractual research.
Acquisition of external knowledge through M&A can have positive effects on the innovative performance of the acquirer by two mechanisms–economy of scale and knowledge spillover. The acquiring firm can increase R&D productivity by (1) reducing overlapping R&D input on the common technological areas on which both the acquiring firm and the acquired firm invest and (2) achieving more innovative output by internalizing knowledge spillover between its existing knowledge base and the knowledge base of the acquired firm. However, M&A can also have negative effects on innovative performance. A low level of knowledge integration between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm, which is usually caused by a low strategic fit between the two firms, drives out the acquiring firm from innovative activities. The depletion of the acquiring firm’s financial resource caused by M&A makes the acquiring firm myopic; hence it prohibits the acquiring firm to invest in innovative activities which focus on long-term performance.
Although the impact of M&A on the innovative performance of the acquiring firm is still controversial, the technological relatedness between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm is regarded as one of the major determinants of innovative performance. Technological relatedness plays an important role in facilitating integration of two firms’ knowledge base, and enhancing absorptive capacity, which promotes the acquiring firm’s utilization of the acquired firm’s knowledge.
In this paper, we analyze the effects of the two sub-dimensions of technological relatedness–commonality and novelty–between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm on the explorative innovative performance share of the acquiring firm after M&A. For the 62 acquiring firms and their acquired targets in the pharmaceutical industry, the empirical analysis focused on examining the effects of ‘the size of the acquired firm’s common knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ and ‘the size of the acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ on the ‘explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A’.
The results showed that (1) the technological relatedness between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm is the major determinant of explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A, (2) ‘the size of the acquired firm’s common knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ is curvilinearly (U shape) related to ‘explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A’, and (3) ‘the size of the acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ is curvilinearly (inverted U shape) related to ‘explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A’.
On one hand, the increase in ‘the size of the acquired firm’s common knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ makes the acquiring firm reinforce their existing knowledge base firm after M&A, by promoting the definition, interpretation, and assimilation of knowledge between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm, and impeding inter-organizational learning between the two firms. On the other hand, it enables the acquiring firm to take risk and conduct experimentation activities, because such M&A drives out a strong rival from the technology market, which finally results in quasi-rent for the acquiring firm. The U-shaped relationship between ‘the size of the acquired firm’s common knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ and ‘explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A’ shows that the effects of the former outweigh the latter up to a certain point of ‘the size of the acquired firm’s common knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’, however the latter outweigh the former after that point.
In parallel, the increase in ‘the size of the acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ enlarges the acquiring firm’s explorative capability by enlarging its own knowledge base and intensifying routes to the external innovative. However, it makes the acquiring firm to be conservative and defensive on R&D by developing stress and unrest for the researchers. The inverted U-shaped relationship between ‘the size of the acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’ and ‘explorative innovation share of the acquiring firm after M&A’ shows that the effects of the former outweigh the latter up to a certain point of ‘the size of the acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge’, however the latter outweigh the former after that point.
The results show that (1) the size of the acquired firm’s common and/or new knowledge base “relative to the size of the acquiring firm’s knowledge” is major determinant of the size of acquired firm’s new knowledge relative to the size of acquiring firm’s knowledge, and (2) the two sub-dimensions of technological relatedness are “curvilinearly” related , gives an important implication, especially for the small and medium sized innovative firms, which generally have small knowledge base. Because the relative size of acquired firm’s knowledge base compared to their own knowledge base is usually small for large firms, which generally have large knowledge base, the effect of commonality on the share of explorative innovation is negative and that of novelty is generally positive. However, contrary to large firms, the effects can be opposite for small- and medium- sized innovative firms, because the relative size of the acquired firm’s knowledge base is greater for them.
The major contribution of the paper is it conceptualized and operationalized the technological relatedness as a two-dimensional concept, which is consisted with two independent sub-dimensions (commonality and novelty), while previous researches regarded technological relatedness as a one-dimensional concept–high commonality of acquired firm’s knowledge base means low novelty. With the two-dimensional conceptualization of technological relatedness, the paper presents an integrative framework and provides supportive evidences on the effects of technological relatedness of M&A on the post M&A acquirer’s innovation, which can explain the inconsistent effects of technological relatedness identified by the previous researches.

As the green environment becomes a major concern to the business world as well as society in general, this study takes green management issues for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The green management concepts have been applied (or enforced) mostly to large firms by constituencies such as monitoring and evaluation agencies. Even though the SMEs' costs associated with the green management remain critical, the SMEs need to develop an effective evaluation mechanism for the implementation of green management. In this regard, the present study applies the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach to SMEs' green management, investigating the relevance of the BSC approach to the evaluation of SMEs' green management.
This study develops the green management balanced scorecard (G-BSC) model based on the Korean government's evaluation index for green management. To apply the G-BSC model to SMEs, this study classifies the evaluation index into four critical components: G-management system, G-savings/reductions, G-social responsibility, and G-performance. The categorization based on the BSC concept is expected to provide an efficient tool for managers or evaluation agencies to assess firm's green management. The G-management system assesses a firm's strategies and visions' for green management, and the G-savings/reductions assesses the firm's saving activities on resources and energy and reducing activities on greenhouse gasses and pollutions. Also, the G-social responsibility assesses information disclosure and regulation compliance related to the firm's green management, and the G-performance assesses the firm's financial and non-financial performance on the firm's green management.
To assess SMEs' green management, this study hypothesizes that SMEs' green management affects SMEs' performance. Specifically, SMEs' performance is expected to have positive correlations with the G-management system, G-savings/reductions, and G-social responsibility. In addition to the direct effect of the three critical components on a firm's performance, this study examines whether each critical component plays a role in intermediating variables in the correlations with the firm's performance. To hypothesize and analyze the indirect effect, this study uses the AMOS program, which identifies interrelationships among variables through structural equation modelling.
This study surveys SMEs' managers by constructing a survey instrument based on eight factors of the four critical components. Specifically, the survey questionnaire consists of 46 items. Each item is measured using 5 point Likert scale. A total of 279 usable samples were collected from SMEs' managers over a one month sample period. By analyzing the survey results, this study evaluates the effectiveness of SMEs' green management.
Exploratory factor analysis indicates that the eight factors explains 77.5% of total variate, confirming the appropriateness of construct validity. Also, using confirmatory factor analysis, two question items were eliminated from the components. The two items were investment and usage of newly-recycled energy, requiring a relatively large capital investment by SMEs. The regression analysis indicates that G-performance has a significant correlation with G-management system and G-social responsibility, adopting the hypothesis of direct relationships. The positive correlations are supported by both univariate and multivariate regressions. However, regulation compliance and complaints resolution in G-social responsibility have negative correlations with G-performance, implying the related activities impose significant financial burdens on SMEs. Furthermore, the multivariate analysis indicates that G-savings/reductions have no significant correlations with G-performance, conforming SMEs' relative ineffectiveness compared to large firms' G-savings/reductions in terms of green management costs.
Even though the low explanation power of path analysis limits the generalization of findings, there exist mediating effects among the variables. Specifically, the path analysis indicates that G-social responsibility through G-management and G-savings/reductions explains 35% of the relationship with G-performance. This result suggests that SMEs' social responsibility can have a maximum effect when it is supported by systematic G-management and implementation of G-savings/reductions. Also, the G-management system's path through G-social responsibility explains 34% of the relationship with G-performance, reflecting that the development of efficient management system has cost constraints in most SMEs. Consistent with the findings, the G-BSC value diagram shows that SMEs have relatively higher balanced scores in G-social responsibility and lower balanced scores in G-savings/reductions and G-performance compared to large firms.
Factor analysis and path analysis indicate that G-BSC approach can be fit to SMEs without great difficulty. However, some of the measurement variables in the green management index do not only disregard characteristics of SMEs, but also contribute to the partial imbalance in the balanced scorecard, consequently warranting the elimination of these variables in the G-BSC for SMEs. Although the concepts and implementation of green management are relatively new to most SMEs, the empirical results imply that the evaluation mechanism applied to large firms should be adopted by SMEs with some modifications. Based on this study's framework, future research can either develop the weights practically applicable to individual firms across various types, or construct new measurement variables for SMEs' green management.

Recently, both technology innovation by R&D investment and securing intellectual property by patent management have become core components for a company’s sustainable growth, therefore, R&D investment and patent management are major variables for a company when making primary decisions for their business activities. Using reciprocal-feedback analysis, this paper explains how R&D investment would accumulate knowledge in technology which would in turn affect patent creations, and the number of patents could also raise the company’s profit by enhancing the company’s performance in mid-long term business activities. The results of this process show that surplus profits would be reinvested in R&D.
The objective of this paper is to find the efficiency-oriented operation in R&D and improve the capabilities of company’s patent management by utilizing the accumulated knowledge and controlling the limiting factors in both internal and external resources. This research attempts to use the new conceptual structure based on the theory of dynamic technology innovation throughout the causal loop diagram (CLD) analysis and reviews the feedback process of strategic patent management. This research would help to construct strategic policies to be used in the business field. It also reveals the efficient patent management process by investigating the reciprocal relationship between R&D strategies and innovation strategies.
This paper will approach in a strategic way how to regard to the company's patent management with the variables related to this process by providing a feedback process of technological innovation and patent management. It will also suggest a way to find an optimized way of patent management with the specific tactical strategies to be performed in the field. In order for the company to take a winning position in the market, they should make a plan with a strategy to utilize the efficient patent management to strengthen their core competitiveness. To carry out strategic patent management to improve the company’s core competencies in intellectual property, the success factors can be mainly divided into two parts, one aspect is the company’s willingness to perform patent management and other is the government’s intention to support the company with technology.
First, as this paper mentioned earlier, active R&D investment for developing both key patents and the standardization of patents is the first step for improving patent competencies for the company's benefit. By setting a standard for measuring patents, the company can protect their intellectual property from the patent disputes within the industry. Also, thorough market research is a significant factor to prevent patent disputes. Second, it is crucial to construct a patent portfolio by investing in R&D, which would bring both qualitative and quantitative improvement. One of the ways to improve the level of its quality and stimulate to practice active uses of patents are creating patents which are suitable for industry standards, then, the company should produce products and services from their patent pools. Third, getting international recognition is also key for preventing patent disputes in the domestic market. If the patents are certified internationally, the company would have a definite advantage in lawsuits in the domestic market. Additionally, possessing a majority of the patents related to their field compared with their competitors is also advantageous for a company. The role of government and subsidiary organizations related to patents is also important in the active practice of strategic patent management within a company’s system, Especially, small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face difficulties to set up a patent management system due to insufficient budgets. The government should grant funds to vitalize construction of a patent system for technology improvement. By providing a variety of information related to specialized patents, SMEs could increase their assets by transferring unworthy technologies to valuable intellectual property. This system could also help stimulate SMEs to create new patents .
Accordingly, this paper mainly analyzed how R&D investment affects the patent management system for sustainable growth. This research focused on two different perspectives based on previous studies of R&D investment, technology innovation, and patents which have been improved from this study.
First, technology innovation starts from R&D investment, and then the R&D activities increases intangible assets like intellectual property such as knowledge and patents. These intangible assets would stimulate process innovation by improve productivity so that the company can react faster to customer’s needs while maintaining outstanding quality and lowering product cost. Increasing intangible assets would also stimulate product innovation, which would enable the company to launch innovative products which would increase market share. The result of this process increases the company’s net profits, which enables companies to be sustainable. This process explains that the excess profits from technology innovation would induce beneficial circular process by reinvesting the profits for further R&D research and improvement. This technology innovation creates the following cycle:, R&D investment → accumulate knowledge in technology or patents → product innovation → process innovation → produce the new product/service → increase the company’s profit → reinvesting profits in R&D. Therefore, it proves that increased knowledge in technology through innovation, which can be explained as the ‘patent’, would increase the firm’s value.
Second, patents achieved by R&D activities can be protected by law, so that the company can expect additional profits by controlling market entry by restricting imitations from competitors. Acquiring many of the key and standard patents through R&D investment would also bring about an increase in profits. These profits also increase the company’s bargaining power in regards to patents by allowing the company to take the advantageous position in patent disputes or lawsuits. Since the company has the bargaining power in patents, it could minimize their costs within those activities. Also, they can also form a cartel with enterprises that have similar patents, so they can put a check on new company or product entries, or earn additional profits by selling the company owned patents to others.
The key point of this paper is to provide a reciprocal feedback structure of strategic patent management, which is a significant issue to operate a company. In detail, it shows a beneficial circular process in regards to a patent strategy that starts from R&D investment, to patent management, to market effects of patents, to create profits, to re-investment in R&D resources. Although previous studies analyzed the relationship between R&D and technology innovation in a fragmentary or static way such as explaining R&D investment itself, stating the value of patents, or indicating a firm’s performance, this paper describes R&D investment with feedback analysis with an expanded perspective to overcome the limitations of existing studies.

This study examines the effect of (1) perceived time pressure and (2) team commitment to a task on (1) negotiation outcome and (2) time to reach an agreement in a negotiation setting. In a dyadic negotiation (e.g., one on one), time pressure provides a constraint and leads negotiators to open the negotiation with an unambitious proposal and make concessions quickly resulting in a reduced negotiation time (Kwon and Weingart, 2004). However, this could be different in a team negotiation. Under time pressure, team members may experience difficulty in communicating for decision making and for problem solving with each other. Therefore, we propose that the total negotiation time for teams with high time pressure will be longer than teams with low time pressure (Hypothesis 1).
More specifically, time pressure may affect team commitment to the task when team members discuss the issues before negotiation. De Dreu (2003) argued that when team members perceive time pressure to be high, they tend to decrease the extent to which they search for information and exchange it among themselves. As a result, team members in such a case cannot work effectively as a team (Morgan and Bowers, 1995). As a corollary, we propose that team members cannot be highly committed to the task when they discuss issues before the negotiation process (Hypothesis 2).
When team members are committed to a task, such as a negotiation, they are expected to achieve high outcomes. The way to maximize the outcome for various issues can be different according to the type of issue. They can increase outcomes on distributive issues by team consensus and competing against the other team. For integrative issues, they can use mutual cooperation that results in finding integrative solutions. Therefore, we propose that the teams with a higher commitment to a task will obtain a higher level of outcomes than teams with lower commitment to a task (Hypothesis 3).
Teams with high commitment to a task will share pertinent information for a negotiation and will make rational decisions. Team members may each have different information, and they should share information and integrate the perspectives to make the negotiation process smooth and reach an agreement quickly. Therefore, we propose that teams with a high commitment to the task will experience an efficient negotiation process and will use less time than teams with a low commitment to the task (Hypothesis 4).
Time pressure is different from time constraint (Ordonez and Benson, 1997). Time pressure is the perception of time constraint. That is, people can experience different levels of time pressure even though they have the same time constraint. In this study, we manipulated time pressure by giving different instructions (“the 40 minutes provided for this negotiation is plenty of time for negotiation and agreement” (low time pressure) vs. “the 40 minutes given is an extremely short time for completing negotiations and agreement” (high time pressure)) even though the negotiation time was the same in reality (De Dreu, 2003).
The negotiation exercise “Pelican Landing” was used in this study (Peterson and Thompson, 1997). The Pelican Landing case is about a real estate development project in an area of Springfield City called “Old Town”. In this study, 164 undergraduate and graduate students formed teams that were composed of 2 people and went through 41 team negotiation exercises. Two teams (i.e., Bender Corporation and the City of Springfield) negotiated over multiple issues. Each team had two representatives: a planning director and financial director. That is, two people formed a group to negotiate with another team that was also composed of two people.
Bender Corporation and the City of Springfield negotiated 8 issues on the Old Town development. Four issues (i.e., the integrative issues) had integrative potentials in that they could increase joint outcomes by trading-off those issues. Bender Corporation was more interested in two issues (i.e., financing and the condo/apartment ratio). In contrast, Springfield City was more focused on providing a higher ratio of low- income housing and work opportunities for local subcontractors. Two issues (i.e., compatible issues) allowed for a cooperative outcome where both teams agreed on equal benefits without the need for competition. Two issues were distributive issues that were equally important to both parties. In addition, the two parties had a conflict of interest on those issues.
The exercise took 90 minutes. Each team had approximately 20 minutes to read their role instructions individually. Then the team members had 10 minutes to discuss and exchange information to prepare for the team negotiation. Before and after the negotiation, the participants filled out a survey on task commitment. Perception of time pressure was measured immediately after the negotiations.
Negotiation teams with high time pressure took longer to reach an agreement than teams with low time pressure. This process was mediated by the level of team commitment to the task before and during the negotiation. That is, team members with high time pressure were not able to exchange information freely with other team members before the negotiation. In turn, they were not committed to the task during the negotiation.
Further, the effect of team commitment to the task during negotiation on actual performance and negotiation time was also examined. The low level of commitment to the task led negotiators to low quality negotiated outcomes. Analysis of performance includes examining the particular issues of the negotiation subject. Negotiators with a high commitment to the task achieved higher outcomes on distributive issues compared with negotiators with a low commitment to the task. In addition, the total negotiation time of the teams with a high commitment to the task was less than the teams with a low commitment to the task.
When teams had time pressure, they took longer to reach agreements. This result was different from the effect of time pressure in dyadic negotiations in that time pressure reduced negotiation time in dyadic negotiations. Team members with time pressure might have experienced closing of mind (De Dreu, 2003) and were not committed to the task, resulting in less communication between team members. Closing of mind could be related to a fixed pie perception that led negotiators to perceive that they had a conflict of interest on all issues. As a result, they could not integrate issues to find integrative solutions. Instead, they discussed issues separately. This study revealed the process through which time pressure hinders a quick agreement in a team negotiation.
The current study also confirmed the effect of team commitment to task on team negotiation outcomes (Thompson, Peterson, and Brodt, 1996; Peterson and Thompson, 1997). By analyzing the negotiation outcomes on specific issues, we found some interesting results. The teams with a high team commitment were more focused on the issues that were important to the focal team regardless of integrative or distributive issues.
This research uncovers some practical implications for small- and medium-size companies. Teams in small- and medium- size companies often experience team negotiations under time pressure. Time pressure in team negotiations can lower the negotiated outcomes and elongate the negotiation time. Therefore, managers should make an effort to remove time constraints in team negotiations. At minimum, they should be aware of the negative impact of time pressure on team negotiation outcomes.

As the Korean economy gets better from the financial crisis of 2008~2009, creating new jobs and value added in Korea has gained more attention. It is well known that entrepreneurship has positive influences on economic growth through job creation and increases in GDP per capita (Audretsch and Thurik, 2001). It is noted that existing studies on entrepreneurial activities are likely to focus on factors affecting entrepreneurial intention or they may consider start-ups older than 5 years. Most studies that address entrepreneurial intention take affecting factors into consideration such as the demographic characteristics of nascent entrepreneurs and the environment surrounding entrepreneurial activities (Mazzarol et al., 1999; Storey, 1994; Evans and Leighton, 1990; Dolton and Makepeace, 1990). The majority of existing literature on early stage start-ups explore the determinants of managerial performance or theoretical growth models for the start-ups (Kazanjian, 1988; Gartner, 1985; Bantel, 1998; Glancey, 1998). Unlike previous literature, this paper investigates the factors affecting the early growth of corporate start-ups in terms of sales and number of employees from the business creation to 3 years later.
Following the introduction, the 2nd chapter examines the growth stages of corporate start-ups and sets up a research model based on the existing literature. The 3rd chapter provides primary and secondary variables with operational definition or measurement, and explains the research method including data collection and sampling. The 4th chapter provides the descriptive statistics of variables and analyzes the estimation results. Lastly, the 5th chapter summarizes this study and suggests policy implications for elevating the effect of entrepreneurial activities.
Based on the existing literature, research variables are ed. Dependent variable of growth rate is calculated by using firm size that is based on either number of employees or sales. Independent variables include basic independent variables including size, location, and industry, extended variables based on the entrepreneurial process, and control variables such as year of establishment and entrepreneur's gender. Research models are estimated by using multiple regression. With respect to independent variables, both basic independent variables and control variables are commonly employed in the econometric models (Evans, 1987a; Evans, 1987b; Glancey, 1998), while extended variables are ively employed according to the entrepreneurial process consisting of the inception stage, start-up stage, and early development stage (Kantis et al., 2002).


Since growth rate during the first 3 business years is affected by macro-economic conditions, this research takes year of establishment into consideration as one of the control variables. It is noted that all the variables are measured at the year of establishment. At the inception stage, 5 extended variables are employed under the 3 categories of personal motivation, economic motivation, and social motivation. At the start-up stage, 8 variables are used under the 2 categories of external economic conditions and internal capacities for mobilizing resources. At the early development stage, 3 variables are utilized under the 2 categories of market entry and external financing.
Although 313 corporate start-ups responded to the survey, two sub-samples were employed for the regressions due to the restrictions of data availability. One sample of size 127 (hereinafter, A-type sample) was used for the estimation of growth model based on sales, while the other sample of size 252 (hereinafter, B-type sample) was utilized for the estimation of growth model based on number of employees. It is noted that the two sub-samples are not different from each other according to the results of independence tests, or χ2 tests.
The estimation results of the econometric models by multivariate ordinary least squares are summarized as follows: With respect to estimation result of growth model based on sales, it is found that location, non-economic motivation, access to external financing, and price as a competitive strategy for entering the market significantly affect the sales growth of the firms of the A-type sample (refer to Table 6).
Locating the firms in the metropolitan area affects their sales growth in a positive direction within the significance levels of 5%. This finding is in accordances with that of Glancey (1998). Moreover, the finding may support the incubator hypothesis that the central business district of the region is the logical site for a large number of the region's new firms, owing in part to the external economies to be found there (Hoover and Vernon, 1959). At the inception stage, non-economic motivation affects the sales growth of the firms rather than economic motivation within the significance levels of 10%. At the start-up stage, access to external financing affects the sales growth of the firms in a positive direction at the significance level of 1%. This finding is well agreed in that financing from external sources is one of the most demanded necessities. At the early development stage, price as a competitive strategy for entering the market affects the sales growth of the firms in a positive direction at the significance level of 10%. This finding comes from the fact that firms usually employ a penetration pricing strategy in order to increase their market share rapidly.
When it comes to the estimation result of growth model based on number of employees, it is also found that the gender of entrepreneur, economic motivation, size and growth potential of the targeted market, education, work experience and business life cycle of product or service significantly affect the employee growth of the firms of the B-type sample (refer to Table 7).
Having a male entrepreneur affects the employee growth of the firms in a positive direction within the significance levels of 5%. This finding may come from the trend that female entrepreneurs are more likely to pursue a low-risk, low-return style in managing at early stages and thus show a low growth rate in hiring new employees. At the inception stage, economic motivation affects the employee growth of the firms in a positive direction at the significance level of 5%. It is inferred that entrepreneurs with economic motivation may hire more talents during the early stages.
At the start-up stage, the size and growth potential of the targeted market affect the employee growth of the firms in a positive direction at the significance level of 10%. In addition, the entrepreneur's education affects the employee growth of the firms in a positive direction at the significance level of 5%. These findings are considered to be obvious. However, work experience in enterprises affects the employee growth of the firms in a negative direction at the significance level of 5%. It is inferred that the firm sizes of incubator organization start-ups may be larger than those of independent ones, and thus may show relatively lower employee growth rates for the part of incubator organization start-ups.
At the early development stage, the business life cycle of the product or service affects the employee growth of the firms in a negative direction at the significance level of 5%. This finding comes from the fact that the corporate start-ups may not expand the size of business as the life cycle evolves to maturity or the declining stages.
As a result, this study suggests policy implications for magnifying the effect of entrepreneurial activities. Most of all, in order to increase sales growth, the Korean government needs to mitigate related regulations so that business creation can be facilitated in the metropolitan area, while fostering the entrepreneurship so that more people become entrepreneurs in order to contribute to society. In addition, external financing for launching needs to be amply provided to, and easily accessed by an entrepreneur. Lastly, corporate start-ups employing strategies of innovative differentiation should be provided with more marketing promotions.
For the faster creation of jobs within firms, the government needs to redirect business startups by female entrepreneurs into an opportunity-motivated business creation, while consolidating a social atmosphere to respect successful entrepreneurs as a role model. Moreover, the government needs to guide entrepreneurs to identify business opportunities which have larger market and growth potential. Also, the Korean government needs to subsidize independent start-ups the cost of hiring employees rather than incubator organization ones, because independent start-ups may not be proactive in recruiting new talents due to relatively higher business risks. Lastly, it is necessary to facilitate the creation of high-tech based start-ups that produce a product or service at earlier stages of business life cycle.
It is noted that most of the significant affecting factors don't affect the other dependent variable. For example, an independent variable that significantly affects the sales growth of surveyed firms, doesn't affect the employee growth directly. Therefore, policy makers need to pay attention when preparing related policy or programs to support corporate start-ups, so that government's efforts can lead to both job creation and an increase in sales of corporate start-ups.

Labor-management partnership is an innovative form of industrial relations and has been placed at the center of new industrial relations models in the USA and European countries, such as the UK and Germany. Its importance has been emphasized as one of ways to improve organizational performance and to become the basis of company competitiveness.
Recently there has been also much attention to the partnership from managers, trade ists and labor policy makers in Korea. In retrospect, Korean companies have paid huge social costs stemming from industrial conflicts, specially the June 29th declaration of democracy in 1987. In order to establish stable, cooperative industrial relations, the Korean government has built a new form of industrial relations, which is called in different terms, such as new industrial relations, innovative industrial relations, and new labor management culture. The new form of industrial relations puts an emphasis on labor-management partnership, which aims to achieve cooperative industrial relations and mutual gains to both employers and employees through successful business practices.
Despite a lot of attention on the labor-management partnership and numerous studies that have been conducted at home and abroad, most empirical studies about labor-management partnership have been conducted in narrative and qualitative analyses of case studies. Therefore we need to analyze closely which partnership practices affect supposed outcomes such as company competitiveness.
In this context, the main purpose of this paper is to examine through a systematic analysis the impact on company competitiveness of the labor-management partnership in small and medium-sized enterprises that have been placed at the center of new industrial relations models in the USA and European countries, such as the UK and Germany.
To accomplish this research objective, all 194 small and medium-sized labor-management cooperation companies in Korea were ed and surveyed using a questionnaire method. The results of the study using the collected 77 questionnaires can be summarized as follows:
First, the labor-management partnership score of labor-management cooperation companies in Korea is slightly high from 3.64 to 4.00 (5 point scale). Especially, information sharing and investment in training were high.
Second, fair financial rewards and investment in training have significant effects on the financial organizational performance in the positive direction, but employment security, information sharing, and management participation have no significant effects on company competitiveness.
Third, fair financial rewards only have significant effects on the nonfinancial organizational performance in the positive direction, but employment security, management participation, investment in training and information sharing have no significant effects on company competitiveness in small and medium-sized enterprises.
This results show that as large-scale downsizing layoffs were legalized and irregular workers dramatically increased, the workers' values were moving from lifetime employment to lifelong jobs.
Based on these results, this paper presents six suggestions.
First, fair rewards should be given. Recently procedural and distributive justice becomes an important issue in human resource management area. For pay, internal and external fairness plays an important role. Thus, it is necessary for the human resource management department to secure pay fairness within a company. Organizations can increase employees' motivation and organizational commitment by building a mechanism to pay rewards based on increases in productivity.
In addition, the government needs to consider making careful policies to reduce structural pay differences to secure external fairness. Our country shows a higher pay difference across gender, occupation, industry, and education levels than other countries. However, the pay difference was substantially reduced in these areas thanks to the continuous efforts from the government and s during the last 20-30 years. Nevertheless, the pay difference across company size became bigger, rather than smaller.
Second, extensive investment should be made for training and education. Nowadays companies can make a plan for a new business, find a process to achieve an organizational goal, and share and expand individual experiences to produce creative ideas by education. This education mechanism can be made by knowledge exploitation by organizations in response to environmental changes, or by newly combining existing resources and experimental processes. Our small organizations paid little attention to training and education due to lack of recognition for the importance of training and education and lack of investment for actual training and education. By linking training and education to business strategy and thus increasing their investment to training and education, small organizations can develop core staff, and knowledge workers, who can contribute to build a knowledge-based society with core competency.
Third, this study can provide a theoretical and practical guidepost for the partnership between employees and employers. Due to the labor dispute after the June 29th declaration in 1987 and the fluctuation of employment law in 1996, Koreans learned a painful lesson that there is no growth for individual companies and the development of national economy without peace between employees and employers. In addition, Samsung Economy Research Institute conducted research on the status of labor relationship using long-lasting companies in Korea and found that there are several common characteristics among those companies: a strong sense of oneness, emphasis on investment for employees and job security, focus on solving individual difficulties, and culture for partnership between employees and employers. Also, global long-lasting companies emphasize job security and independent labor relationships without being influenced by external forces. Thus the partnership between employees and employers can prevent labor disputes and maintain industrial peace and thus eventually provide guidelines to improve productivity and a company’s competitive advantage.
Fourth, the commitment and philosophy of CEOs for the partnership between employees and employers is more important than anything else. Small organizations are a very important portion in the national economy in terms of the number of organizations, net values, the amount of production, and the number of employees. Nevertheless, they are not systematic or organized compared to large companies due to lack of human resources, finance, technology, and information. In particular, unlike operation, accounting, and finance, human resource management can be frequently changed based on the preferences of top managers. As a result, top managers' individual personality and attitudes strongly influence organizational structure and strategy throughout the company business as well as employees, especially middle managers. In that sense, top managers need to have a strong commitment to improve company competitive by building cooperative labor relationships.
Fifth, labor-management partnership can enhance Korean small organizations’ competitiveness. Small organizations in the manufacturing industry have continuously increased since 1976. However, it is time for these small organizations to enhance their competitiveness. Their long-growth ratio has decreased, as shown in the decrease in their portion for added values in manufacturing industry, shipping amounts, and employee numbers as it becomes problematic for small organizations to have sustainable success due to the growth for subcontracting, high competition among small organizations, and the small size of the organizations.
Human resources are the main factor for company competitiveness in these knowledge-based societies. Thus, to review a partnership between employees and employers that emphasizes training and education based on the emphasis of human beings can provide an appropriate direction for business strategy, as well as enhance small organizations’ management abilities and levels in the long-term perspective. In the short-term perspective, it can also contribute to the effectiveness of human resource management of small organizations and eventually enhance the competitive advantage of all organizations in Korea.
Finally, there should be a strong, trustful relationship between employees and employers. Now it is so important to have a cooperative and tactical partnership between employees and employers as the partnership between employees and employers becomes a ‘requirement rather than choice’. In this process, the trust between employees and employers become a basic requirement and also play its role as a moderating variable that can influence the relationship between the components of high-performing organizations and organization performance.

About 88% of business entities in Korea are tiny business like shops, stores and restaurants. In terms of the number of business entities in Korea, they are majority of businesses in the Korean economy. The business performance of them, however, is suffering all the time. They are too small to stand alone. That is why “association” is a crucial means for them to stand together. However there are many limitations to make associations with each other because they don't have specific links or self motivation to do that. Even in the case of franchising networks, associations tend to be initiated by a big franchisor. In that sense, “association” in small businesses is a crucial issue to survive for a longer period of time.
With this in mind, this study tries to understand how small businesses think and feel about the issue of “association” and how much important “association” issue is to their business success, and finally, what kinds of problems they raise in the markets. The government ministry that is in charge of these matters knows what these problems are but unfortunately they don't have clear visions on how to deal with these issues. On the top of that, there isn’t much data or materials about who they are and what they really want. This is the background in which we planned this study.
The specific research questions we raised are as follows: First, what kinds of characteristics do successful business associations have? Second, what kinds of efforts are they making for management innovation or promoting associations, and what are problems are they facing in the process of innovation or association? Third, how do their attitudes or awareness on associations affect their business performances? Fourth, have their awareness and attitudes on associations reached to the level where their performance can be proved. Fifth, how does the government promote small businesses through their association processes? The results of this study can help the government formulate effective policies on small business associations
This study aims to find different cognition depending upon association types of small businesses on problems, competitiveness, support level and support items. We assume that different association types of small businesses have different cognition on these factors. In general, there are two different association types of small businesses: regional based voluntary associations and externally sponsored associations. We try to categorize these associations into several groups: Registered Retailer, Industry Association, Cooperative Association, Chain (Corporate Chain, Franchise Chain, Voluntary Chain, Cooperative Chain), Unregistered Retailer, Joint Brand, and so on.
To date most of the studies in this area have focused on collecting data on the external environments of small businesses or just statistical analyses on their status. In this study, we surveyed 4 market areas in Busan, Masan, and Changwon in Korea where business associations consisting of merchants, shop owners and traders exist. We surveyed 350 shops and merchants by sending a questionnaire or visiting in person. Finally, 240 questionnaires were successfully collected and used for statistical analysis. ANOVA, T-test, and regression analysis were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results demonstrate that there are differences in their cognition depending upon the association types. Generally, voluntary associations compared to externally sponsored associations have higher cognition on problems and lower cognition on their competitiveness. Voluntary associations depend more on outside support than externally sponsored associations. On the other hand, voluntary associations show lower performances in return on investment, market share, and net profit ratio.
In conclusion, this study has special implications in terms of classifying small businesses into two different associational types; regional based voluntary associations and externally sponsored associations. We think that our study is the first one to conduct empirical survey in this subject area. In the future, more studies are expected in this area by using the research frameworks that we've done. The results show that with regard to regional-based associations, such as associations in rural cities, less developed areas tend to suffer more problems compared to ones in urban areas. On the contrary, it is proved that franchising type of associations suffer less problems. Problems raised in the study are mostly about “associating itself”. Most associations have serious difficulties in associating themselves. On the other hand, the area where they have fewer problems is an area of “joint brand”, which means many of them are keen on developing joint brands.
This study contributes particularly to the point that associating, rather than financial assistance or management consulting is stressed to promote start-ups and managerial performance of small businesses. Association is a critical means to promote small business development. This approach is meaningful in terms of the following three points: First, one single small business is not just an individual entity of business any more but a unit of business for association. In that sense, it is recognized that small businesses could be the main target area of government policies to promote the domestic economy. Second, this is the first study that highlights association issues for small business development. Until now the generally association issue hasn't been taken into account seriously and has been regarded as a dependent factor for retail industry development, not an independent factor for itself. In this study we categorize two different associations; voluntary associations and externally sponsored associations. This analysis could help the government enhance the ability of self-reliant or self-aid of small businesses. Third, through this study a strong background of theories and formal process of analysis in the area of demographic characteristics, managerial performances, entrepreneurship, organizational structures have been established. In fact, even though there are many applicants for further studies in this area, weak theoretical background and poor environment for information or data could discourage them to do. In that sense this study can encourage further studies in this area. In the mean time, this study has some limitations. The main limitations have to do with the number of respondents. If we could increase the sample size of this study, we could produce much more useful results. We could enhance the preciseness of analysis if we study further the organizational levels of different associations of industry.
We conclude that the history of small business is very short and the level of associations is still relatively low in Korea. But we should keep in mind that associations are crucial to entrepreneurs who start their businesses because they can heavily affect whether they succeed or not. Being well associated with each other might be critical in business success. The government needs to make more effort and put more resources on supporting small businesses to be more associated together and develop supporting programs more.

The level of competition in the credit card industry has been intensified and globalized. In very turbulent markets, most credit companies have been trying to keep their existing customers. To maximize efforts, most of them are seeking a strategic relationship with their strategic partners; small business firms. After experiencing a large success in credit card lifestyle campaign with a STP strategy focused on customer life style analysis, Hyundai Card Company has become the second leading company in the credit industry. However, because their competitors also realized and launched similar campaigns using lifestyle analysis, Hyundai Credit Card has faced intensified competitions from their old and aggressive competitors such as Samsung and Shinhan credit companies. Those competitors have been preparing very similar campaigns highlighting the similar benefits that Hyundai provided to their customers. This paper is a case study of Hyundai Card Company's recent marketing efforts to build and manage the relationships with their strategic small business firms (i.e. small retailers). Small business firms are small, but very important in the credit card industry, because they have customers who use credit cards.
Based on the success of brand-building marketing through their alphabet card campaign (i.e. H-card, M-card), Hyundai Card Company began to improve its customer relationship management (CRM) marketing efforts. After becoming the second leading company, Hyundai is now considering the next step to keep their market position and defend against their competitor's aggressive marketing activities. This case study describes in detail a specific marketing project Hyundai recently performed with a system consulting company to achieve its objective of enhancing its CRM marketing capability. Specifically, Hyundai found that its customer data (e.g., transactions) is collected from small business merchants, while the data and information from small business firms is invalid and useless. For example, a clinic was registered as a cosmetic seller mainly because the commission fee of cosmetic seller was less than that of clinic. Also some of the customer information in the system is not correct. This example suggests the Hyundai credit has the urgent need to correct small-business partners’ related data so that Hyundai can utilize the rich and useful credit card users' information to make its marketing activities and campaigns more effective.
The marketing department team of Hyundai credit realized the importance of cleaning the end customer (credit card user and holder) data, and initiated the project with a consulting company. Also they realized the need for a computer system to handle and analyze a huge amount of customer data. So, the head of the marketing team started a project with a local system consulting company. The consulting company had technology based on geographic information system and data mining skills in which the company is able to handle and analyze the large data set.
Presenting the detailed process of how Hyundai credit approached building an effective marketing data infrastructure by building and using a GIS system, this case study focused on Hyundai’s intention toward win-win marketing strategy ution with its strategic partners; small business firms. Hyundai credit considered that almost all card players must have a similar plan of focusing their marketing efforts on small business clients, but they cannot ignore their big strategic partners either. In addition, after thinking deeply about how to differentiate its marketing efforts, Hyundai has begun to put a lot of interest and emphasis on small- and medium-size strategic partners. Its conjecture was that major competitors may be swamped by so-called CRM myopia that large and big customers are important, while the story of 'long tail' suggested a very important implication on its marketing strategy making.
This case presents specific examples on how Hyundai card may approach small- and medium-level business firms for a win-win marketing campaign on the basis of newly developed data analytic environment (GIS system).
Through this case students can learn several things and also teachers can provide some insights to the students about the advantages of relationship marketing. First, students should conduct market situation analysis and competition analysis. Through these analyses, students should understand the structure and competition of the credit card industry. Also students can improve their analytical capability through macro and micro analysis activities. Second, students should be able to set up a marketing strategy plan for the Hyundai credit company, which is a second largest Korean credit company, and also defend against an aggressive marketing attack from its rival; Samsung Credit Company. Or students can develop an offensive strategy with respect to Samsung. Either way, students can improve their strategy developing capabilities. Third, this case shows the importance of a large company's marketing relationship with its small strategic firms. Because those firms have the final customers and are a starting point of gathering the data from credit card users, the marketing department should develop and manage a good relationship with them. Also teachers can provide several insights about the importance of a marketing relationship with those small business firms. Fourth, this case highlights the importance of correct customer data and data handling and analysis. Even though, many companies have customer data sets, they don't know how to handle or get insights from the data. Finally, this case introduces the GIS system with which a company may be able to achieve the above activities. These days, there is a large and rich amount of data from outside the company. The companies need to be able to handle and manage the data set. The GIS system can provide some ability to do so. The GIS system provides some geographic data with marketing information for the customers. The marketers can use this GIS system to develop various marketing programs for different regional customers. Also the GIS system has a good fit with the old CRM system.
This case concludes by describing how marketing project team members prepare to present to top-team members the results of this 6-month project, and explains project team members' agonies on how to diffuse this type of capability to all marketing center members. This case is also useful to understand the win-win marketing strategy between large and small business companies.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of influencing factors on corporate entrepreneurship and to examine how their activities affect small and medium-sized enterprise’s (hereafter SMEs) performance. It also examines the mediating effect of corporate entrepreneurship on firms’ performance. In this study, we examine further that stronger corporate entrepreneurship activities will be especially valuable for firms’ performance with a high level of emotional bonds between a CEO and their employees. Basically, firm-level entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, includes internal venturing and organizational renewal activities within large or established firms, going beyond the behavioral or psychological dimensions such as innovation, risk-taking, and pro-activeness of entrepreneurs.
Thus, many previous researchers have had much interest in fostering corporate entrepreneurship in a large, diversified firm. However, corporate entrepreneurship is also important in small and medium-sized organizations, where aggressive entrepreneurship activities are very much required to keep an organization in tune with its competitive setting. However, many studies of corporate entrepreneurship in Korea are not considered to have measured all aspects of firm-level entrepreneurship. In this study, we will assess firm-level entrepreneurship’s relationship with a firm’s performance, focusing on the concept defined by Zahra (1991) covering corporate entrepreneurship, that is, intrapreneuring, and strategic renewal activities conducted at the firm level.
Corporate entrepreneurship activities of SMEs in Korea have been increasing interest in recent years, although they are somewhat limited, compared to large companies. Therefore, we raise the following three questions in this study: First, what precedents have an effect on corporate entrepreneurship of SMEs? Second, can corporate entrepreneurship of SMEs have a positive effect on firm performance? Third, how does corporate entrepreneurship have a positive effect on firm performance? More specifically, this study aims to find answers to the above three questions.
First of all, we turn to the external environment condition and organizational slack as factors likely to affect corporate entrepreneurship of SMEs. The perceived environmental uncertainty of SMEs may cause them to realize the need of innovation and change. Thus, the more serious such uncertainty is, the more likely the company may become committed to entrepreneurship activities.
Given the nature of SMEs, however, lack of organizational resources may pose a serious threat when it is necessary to drive corporate entrepreneurship activities extensively. Entrepreneurial pursuits generally require considerable resources and considerable time, effort, and money must be invested. The higher the assessed level of organizational slack resources, in turn, the greater the economic incentive for the firm to invest in innovation, venturing, and strategic renewal activities. In this respect, environmental uncertainty and organizational slack are expected to have a positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship of SMEs. As a result, we set two hypotheses as below:

Hypothesis 1 : Perceived uncertainty of environment has a positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship.
Hypothesis 2 : Organizational slack has a positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship.

Many studies on corporate entrepreneurship have reported that corporate entrepreneurship had a positive effect on firm performance in various ways. For example, corporate entrepreneurship was found to have a significant effect on corporate innovation performance, financial performances, and competitive performance. However, most of these studies were limited to large or established firms, so we are not sure if we will have the same results from a study on SMEs. Accordingly, we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 3 : Corporate entrepreneurship will has a positive effect on firm performance of SMEs.

Previous studies have shown that the uncertainty of the environment and organization slack also had a significant effect on firm performance, which implies that environmental characteristics themselves may have a significant effect on firm performance and that organizational slack will directly lead to better firm performance. We assume that corporate entrepreneurship can help the effect of environmental uncertainty and organizational slack on firm performance. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 4 :Corporate entrepreneurship will mediate the positive impact of perceived environmental uncertainty on firm's performance.
Hypothesis 5 :Corporate entrepreneurship will mediate the positive impact of organizational slack on firm's performance.

How corporate entrepreneurship has a significant effect on firm performance is not known well . Sometimes varied corporate entrepreneurship activities may cause worry about their status or resistance against changes among employees in SMEs. Thus, excessive corporate entrepreneurship activities sometimes may affect firm performance adversely. In this study, we suggest that paternalism-manager's affective cares to employee-plays a pivotal role in the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance. In particular, manager's affective cares to employees like paternalism can be an important thing within Korean SMEs to reduce resistance among employees and boost their participation. As a result, we set the final hypothesis as follows:

Hypothesis 6 : The relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance are is moderated by social capital-affective cares to employees. Specifically, higher levels of paternalism will enhance the positive relationships of the corporate entrepreneurship.

To test these hypotheses, we ed 150 SMEs and sent questionnaires to the CEOs. A total of 145 CEOs answered the questionnaires and returned them to us. Out of the 145 questionnaires, 5 were rejected because they were not filled out completely, and the remaining 140 were used for the final analysis. In addition, to secure reliability, we chose 30 of these firms sent questionnaires to ask other utives in those firms. The age of the companies ranged from less than 10 years old to 30 years or older. When it came to the size, a majority of them had 50 to 100 employees. Finally, as far as the industry they belong to was concerned, general manufacturers ranked first (45.7%) followed by bio-medical, IT, and semiconductor industry in that order.
A regression analysis to test the hypotheses revealed that perceived environmental uncertainty and organization slack had a significant positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship, confirming both Hypotheses 1 and 2. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the environment and organization slack had a significant positive effect on firm performance. Corporate entrepreneurship itself was found to have a significant effect on firm performance, and the uncertainty of the environment and organization slack served as a significant mediating variable to the effect on firm performance, also confirming Hypotheses 3, 4, and 5. Finally, in relation to the effect of corporate entrepreneurship on firm performance, social capital appeared to have a significant mediating effect. We found that while having a significant effect on firm performance as it is, social capital had a significant positive effect on firm performance by interacting with corporate entrepreneurship. The result supports Hypothesis 6.
The study showed that among SMEs in Korea, corporate entrepreneurship activities were influenced by the uncertainty of the environment and organizational slack. In addition, the uncertainty of the environment and organizational slack appeared likely to have a significant direct effect on firm performance, while being more likely to have an indirect effect on firm performance via corporate entrepreneurship activities. While corporate entrepreneurship or social capital itself was found to have a significant positive effect on firm performance, we found that corporate entrepreneurship had a greater effect through its interaction with social capital, in relation to its effect on firm performance.
These findings from this study imply that the effect of corporate entrepreneurship of SMEs on firm performance is important. We also suggest that considering that while uncertainty of the environment and organization slack had an effect on firm performance, corporate entrepreneurship may play an important role. Furthermore, both corporate entrepreneurship and social capital had an important effect on firm performance and worked better sometimes by interacting with each other. These results indicate that corporate entrepreneurship activities can make a greater contribution to firm performance by means of participation and coordination of employees.
Nevertheless, these findings have a limit to generalize, because the study focused on SMEs in Korea, where a traditional patriarchal culture has been strong, and where affective cares of employers for employees can help reduce conflict and resistance in relation to corporate entrepreneurship activities. Therefore, we are not certain that the same result will be obtained from a study focusing on SMEs in other countries. Therefore, further studies of this kind are considered necessary focusing on SMEs in various countries.