The Role of Strategic Orientation and Social Capital of Founders in the Performance of Korean Startups

창업자의 전략적 지향성과 사회적 자본의 역할

  • Received : 2019.11.05
  • Accepted : 2020.02.03
  • Published : 2020.02.29

Abstract

This study examines the effect of founders' strategic orientation and social capital on the performance of startups in Korean contexts. Founders' strategic orientation is proposed as the main factor to reduce the risk of failure and to increase the potential of future growth of the startup. Three main components of strategic orientation, entrepreneurial, market, technology, were simultaneously tested with a sample of Korean startups. Furthermore, founders' social capital, networks with supporting entities and the level of chemistry within founding members were also proposed to be important factors. We also tested possible mediating effects of social capital on the main impact of strategic orientation. With a sample of 79 startups founded less than 5 years in Seoul Metropolitan Areas, we found that technology orientation of founders only significantly increases the performance of startups, but both entrepreneurial and market orientation do not. Regarding social capital effect, the external networks of the founding members are effective as proposed, and also the high cohesiveness of founding members increases the startup performance. However, the mediating role of social capital is just partially confirmed. The implications of our findings, in both sense of firm's strategy and startup policy, are discussed. This study is expected to be a bridge connecting firms' strategy with startup policy-making in Korea.

본 연구는 창업자의 전략적 지향성과 사회적 자본이 창업기업의 성과에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 전략적 지향성은 기업가적 지향성, 시장 지향성, 기술 지향성으로 구분하고 사회적 자본은 외부 네트워크의 지원과 창업팀에 대한 신뢰 및 응집력으로 정의하여 그 효과를 실증하였다. 또 사회적 자본이 전략적 지향성의 효과를 조절하는 조절효과가 있는지도 살펴보았다. 설립 5년 미만의 79개 스타트업을 대상으로한 실증분석에서, 기술 지향성만이 창업성과에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 사회적 자본은 모두 창업성과에 유의한 효과를 미치는 것으로 나타났으며 그 조절효과는 부분적으로 검증되었다. 본 연구결과는 증거 중심의 스타트업 지원책을 수립하는데 공헌할 것으로 기대된다.

Keywords

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