The purpose of this study is to investigate the Invention and its related phenomena in Korea. This thesis is composed of three major research parts. First, the characteristics of individual inventor; inventor's social environment and his personality. Second, Invention process. Third, Commercialization of Invention.
On the basis of existing literatures and pilot studies, 21 hypotheses were derived. The data were collected through questionnaires and interviews from 101 individual inventors. Research field of invention phenomena is very unstructured. This makes some hypotheses, especially hypotheses about commercialization, to be tested by cases. So, in this thesis, not only quantitative but also qualitative methods were used to test the hypotheses.
The major findings are as follows;
1. Most of individual inventors were brought up in a family of large size, were first child in the family, received high education and showed low neuroticism and internal locus of control.
2. Recognition of needs appeared to be the primary factor of initiation for invention.
3. Inventor's personal experiences and personal contacts with others were major information sources for idea generation and problem solving.
4. Practical inventors utilized more personal contacts in solving problem than academic inventors did.
5. Academic inventors obtained more patent rights for invention than practical inventors did.
6. The degrees of commercialization tended to be higher when the invention was incremental improvement of existing products or equipments.