This study attempts to explore the processes, through which founders' experiences and abilities and R&D efforts are combined to affect venture performance in the early stage. Venture founders discover business opportunities which are in many cases very much related to what they experienced at their incubating organizations. Depending on the experiences, the nature of business opportunities they discover may vary. Some founders may have had unique experiences so that they can better identify market opportunities, while others may be more experienced in telling technological opportunities. In any case, venture performance will be very much affected by the degree of business similarity between spin-offs and their antecedents.
But similarity will not lead to better performance, if the founder lacks ability to take advantage of the similarity. Given the business opportunity, founders with higher capabilities will perform better. Some founders may be more capable in developing and expanding market, while others are better in developing technology.
In the very early stage, the performances of new ventures are very much affected by business similarities and founders' ability to exploit the similarities. But in order to sustain the performance and survive market competition, venture firms should develop their own markets and technological competences based on the market and technological similarities they inherited from their antecedents. One of the efforts toward this end is investing in research and development. R&D by spin-off ventures is not only a strategy to utilize the similarities but also an effort to develop their own markets and technologies based on the similarities. R&D is a very important contributor to venture performance, but in order for R&D to play the role, it should be complemented by management's technological and marketing abilities.
The above boil down to an argument that new venture performance is largely determined by the interactions of such factors as business similarity, founder's ability, R&D investment and other factors. The objective of this paper is to analyze how those factors interact with each other to affect the performance of new ventures. We analyzed the performance of 110 IT ventures in Korea, using the OLS (Ordinary Least Square) multiple regression method.
This study provides several important findings with respect to the effects of similarities, abilities, and R&D investment on venture performance. First, market similarity and ability turned out to be a more important factor of venture performance than technological similarity and ability, suggesting that spin-offs based on founders' "industry-specific knowledge"are more likely to perform better. But, it has also been found that market similarities alone do not affect venture performance in a significant way, while market similarity does influence venture performance by interacting with market capability. This implies that a venture develops firm-specific technological competence and market by combining the "industry-specific knowledge" inherited from its antecedents with founder's personal capabilities.
Second, both of the estimations show that R&D affects venture performance in a significant way, and it does so by interacting with technological and market capabilities. This clearly supports the argument that R&D efforts contribute to venture performance if the venture has technological capability to conduct R&D successfully and market capability to get the R&D results to market. R&D investment is critical in developing firm-specific competence in the early stage of venture business.
Third, technological capability can affect venture performance by enabling the firm to do better in R&D, and so it may not function as a factor of venture performance in the case of the ventures with low R&D intensity.
The results of this study provide a couple of important implications for government policy to promote and facilitate new technology ventures. This study confirmed that market capability is one of the key factors of successful venture. Market capability enables a venture to take advantage of the market opportunity inherited from its antecedent and to get R&D results to market. But traditional government programs to support ventures are focused on providing financial assistance, land site and so on which are effective in encouraging the establishment of new start-ups. As this study found, these programs, however, are not effective in helping ventures develop efficiency and competitiveness which are crucial to the survival of the ventures in the early stage. But market capability cannot be developed through short-term training or government assistance. So, venture policy should be complemented in a way to promote M&A market where firms with market capabilities can merge and acquire technology ventures that are less able marketwise. M&A is a mutually beneficial deal, because it allows the founders to realize economic returns from their technologies, while it provides the buyers with new business opportunities.
기술집약적 벤처기업의 대부분은 배태조직(incubating organization)으로부터 파생(spin-off)된다. 한국의 경우 전체 신생벤처의 82%가 배태조직으로부터 파생되었는데 64%가 기업으로부터 파생된 기업(corporate spin-offs)이며, 18%가 공공연구기관이나 대학으로부터 파생된 기업(research-based spin-offs)이다(중소기업청 2002). 첨단기술은 기술체계가 복잡하고 조직화된 연구개발활동을 통해 개발되기 때문에 기술 집약적 벤처기업은 창업자가 기존의 배태조직에서 상당기간 관련 경험을 한 후에 창업을 하는 경우가 대부분이다(Smilor et al., 1987; Oakey, 1995; Carayannis, 1985; Lindholm, 1994; OECD, 1999a). 최근에는 기업의 지속적인 구조조정의 영향으로 기업을 배태조직으로 하는 기업 스핀오프(corporate spinn-offs)의 창업이 증가하고 있으며, 한편으로는 기초과학에 뿌리를 둔 IT, BT, NT 등 신기술의 출현으로 대학 및 연구소를 기반으로 하는 연구기반 스핀오프(research-based spin-offs)의 창업도 활성화되고 있다.
벤처기업이란 창업자가 이전 조직에서 획득한 경험을 기반으로 기업가적 기회를 결합함으로써 새로운 기업을 설립하여 경쟁우위를 확보하여 가는 형태라고 할 수 있으며, 배태조직은 기술 및 사업기회를 제공하는 원천이며 배태조직에서의 경험은 벤처기업의 창업과정은 물론 이후의 성장과정에 많은 영향을 준다고 할 수 있다. Lindholm(1994)은 벤처기업은 배태조직에 따라 다른 특징을 갖게 되며 기업성과는 배태조직 유형에 따라 달라진다고 보고 배태조직의 특성을 고려하지 않는 벤처지원 정책은 실패할 가능성이 높다고 주장하였다. Henley & Cardon(2001)은 창업자의 경험으로부터 오는 불균질성에 따른 재무적(financial), 사회적(social), 인적자본(human capital)의 차이가 기업성과에 영향을 미칠 것이라고 주장하였으나 실증적 분석은 이루어지지 않았다. 특히 벤처기업 창업자의 경험중 성과에 가장 영향을 미칠 것이라고 주장되고 있는 배태조직 및 경험유형이 기업성과에 미치는 영향 요인에 관한 실증분석 연구는 별로 수행되어 있지 않다. 향후 벤처기업 정책은 창업을 활성화시키기 위해 자원 위주의 지원에서 배태조직 유형에 따른 창업자의 경험, 기술 및 시장 기회특성도 고려하는 차별화된 지원정책 개념으로의 전환이 요구되나 관련 연구는 매우 미흡한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 우리나라 벤처기업을 대상으로 창업자가 배태조직에서 습득한 다양한 경험 유형을 체계화하고, 배태조직 유형과 경험 유형의 차이로부터 발생하는 창업자 특성, 기회활용 특성 및 자원동원의 특성 차이가 기업성과에 미치는 영향의 전반적인 구조를 살펴보고, 이 중 주요 성과영향 변수인 배태조직과의 사업유사성과 창업자 능력이 기업성과에 영향을 미치는 구체적인 과정을 밝히고자 한다.
