In a competitive business environment where the technological life cycle is shortening, the technological convergence is accelerating, boundaries between industries are disappearing, and global competition is intensifying, capturing growth opportunities through R&D activities is becoming a strategic task even for SMEs with limited resources. Based on an innovation path model, this study argues that the innovative characteristics of core technologies possessed by Korean SMEs play an important mediating role in leading to international competitiveness. Empirical results based on the Korean SME Technology Statistics Survey(2019) support the path model of R&D, innovative technologies, and international competitiveness. The role of the CEO and CTO in R&D, the existence of an independent R&D organization, and the proportion of large firm sales and overseas sales have a positive effect on the novelty and inimitability of technologies developed by SMEs, which ultimately leads to the technological competitiveness of SMEs in international markets. The result suggests that in order for SMEs with limited resources to secure international competitiveness through R&D activities, it is necessary to focus on the novelty and imitation difficulty of technology.

This study aims to develop a prediction model for the premature termination of the ‘Naeil Chaeum Deduction for Young Employees’ program using administrative data and to analyze the factors influencing this termination. To this end, we used a decision tree from machine learning and survival analysis from statistics. As a results, first, the probability of premature termination was high when there were arrears for the ‘Naeil Chaeum Deduction for Young Employees’ program. Second, the overall business conditions of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), such as size, profit, and debt, significantly influenced the premature termination. Third, the shorter the employment period of current employees in smaller SMEs, the higher the tendency for premature termination. Based on these findings, we have proposed policy improvement measures and implications.

In addition to the semiconductor, shipbuilding, and heavy and chemical industries, Korea's automobile industry occupies an important position in the economic ecosystem such as job creation and tax revenue. In particular, since the automobile industry has a high connection with SMEs that manufacture more than 20,000 parts, it is necessary to look at technology trends and trends of change. The purpose of this study is to examine the flow and change from a technical perspective and assess the future of the automobile industry, which is facing a major transformation period such as autonomous driving, electricity, and transition to the service industry with the advent of the 4th industrial revolution. In order to examine technology trends, topic modeling was used as a research method in this study, and importance analysis between key words was performed through network analysis. For this study, 30,088 technology patents registered from the 1990s to the present were classified into inventors, research date, and invention content summary, and then an in-depth analysis was conducted through topic modeling. Precedent research using topic modeling is limited to daily and comprehensive frequency analysis and emotional analysis of SNS, papers, and portal comments, but this study has academic significance and differences in that it can examine the current state of technological development in the automobile industry and provide insights on future technological implications by deriving representative keywords for each field and the development of technology patents every 10 years.