중소제조업체의 기술개발방식 선택에 관한 실증연구: 기술환경적 특성과 기업가적 역량의 상호작용을 중심으로

초록

This study investigated what factors influence small and medium Korean manufacturing firms in determining their technology development methods in pursuit of competitive advantages. There are two major limitations in this realm of inquiry. Firstly, the transaction costs perspective used to be a predominant theoretical approach in the field. However, questions have been raised regarding the explanatory power of the transaction cost perspective due to its weak applicability in some decision contexts, such as the technology development method decisions. Some have recommended that several theoretical perspectives be used in a contingent manner to enrich the explanatory power of the transaction cost approach. That is, several complimentary theoretical arguments can be adopted. Secondly, although small South Korean manufacturing firms are exhibiting growth in technology development activities, they have thus far received relatively little attention from academic researchers. Rather, researchers have mostly concerned themselves with the innovation activities of large multinational firms. An integrated theoretical approach to the use of the innovation activities of the Korean manufacturing small firms was pursued in this study to overcome the aforementioned limitation. Transaction cost (TC) and resource based (RB) perspectives were adopted as major theoretical approaches for our study. These two perspectives were selected because they represent the current leading views in the field. In addition, these two perspectives provide contrasting views of modal choice, which motivated us to combine and integrate them. Relying on the TC and RB perspectives in a contingent way, this study identified three major factors as core determinants for technology development methods: (1) specialized asset investment; (2) environmental uncertainty; and (3) technological uncertainty. Meanwhile, this study also suggested entrepreneurial capability as a moderating factor. Using these variables, a total of six hypotheses were proposed for empirical examination. For the empirical test, this study targeted South Korean small and medium enterprises(SMEs) in manufacturing sectors, mostly knowledge-intensive ones with the Korean Standard Industrial Classification (KSIC) 26. Potential subject SMEs were identified using selection guidelines appropriate for the purpose of the research. Of 1,021 Korean KSIC26 SMEs identified, 271 firms responded to the questionnaire survey (26.5% response rate). The data obtained from these 271 Korean SMEs were submitted to logistic regression analysis to test research hypotheses. The analysis revealed that respondent firms preferred an internal technology development approach when they perceived high levels of specialized asset investment and technological uncertainty. However, this preference was weaker for firms who possessed strong entrepreneurial capabilities. Perceived environmental uncertainty was not critically influential to choice of technology development mode, and entrepreneurial capability did not have a moderating effect on the influence environmental uncertainty. There are theoretical and practical implications of these results, Although the TC and the RB perspective may each form a good theoretical basis for understanding the pattern of technology development methods decision, combining them provides more powerful explanation than what could be achieved by either single theoretical view. In particular, this study found that the RB perspective was specially important in the case of small firms with an entrepreneurial strategic orientation. Those small firms were inherently confronted with their newness and smallness. The newness and smallness leads those firms to be more inclined to cooperate with other companies to learn and complement necessary resources and know-how. Hence entrepreneurial strategic orientation moderated how specialized asset investment and technological uncertainty influence the small firm’s choice of technology development method. Additionally, the present findings provide practical guidelines for Korean SMEs who may lack previous experience with choosing the optimal technology development strategy for innovation. For instance, these findings suggest small firms should be cautious about choosing an external technology development method if they are not highly technically confident and/or doing so would require an intensively specialized investment. However, small firms that possess a substantial external network and have an entrepreneurial strategic orientation can purse an external technology development method with confidence. There is a noteworthy limitation of this research that should be mentioned. That is, this work did not consider the impact of institutional factors. Moreover, questions remain regarding the outcomes of using knowledge acquisition meth

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