earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of opportunity recognition and realization of Netmarble Games Corporation, a leading company in Korean mobile game industry. The founder of Netmarble Games has discovered new business opportunities and realized them successfully. This study focuses on entrepreneurial intent and explores how it affects the process of opportunity recognition and realization. Entrepreneurial intent is the entrepreneurial motivation that enables the potential value of a new business opportunity to be realized by driving the entrepreneur to build the capability and to fill the gap on the way to the growth. The concept of entrepreneurial intent incorporates ‘directivity’ toward new business opportunities and ‘drive’ to achieve them. Therefore, entrepreneurial intent explicates entrepreneurs’ behaviors to innovate existing businesses or to create new businesses. This study found that alert entrepreneurial intent has positive influences on opportunity recognition, realization, and business transformation. More specifically, the founder of Netmarble Games always paid sharp attention to market changes and unmet desires of customers, so that he could identify new business opportunities and concentrated full capabilities to fulfill them. At first, Netmarble started as a game portal site and succeeded in rapidly increasing the number of users with interschool game matches. Huge success in the early phase did not stop the founder from seeking new business opportunities. He expanded the business to online game publishing for stable creation of profit. Then he decided to merge Netmarble with the CJ group, a conglomerate participating in entertainment industries, to establish systematic operations and to overcome the problem of limited access to resources. Netmarble continued to grow at high double digit rates until, at some point, the sales growth started to slow down. The founder identified a new business opportunity in the new stream of technological development: mobile electronic devices and applications. He took the risk of downsizing the profitable publishing business while fostering the mobile game business. Netmarble launched new mobile games prior to competitors, so it could dominate the market in advance. Having successfully transformed the major business, Netmarble has maintained the market leadership in the mobile game industry. Netmarble did not settle for the status quo. For global expansion, it saparated from the CJ group after receiving investment funds from Tencent, the largest online service platform company in China. The founder of Netmarble constantly sought, recognized, and realized new business opportunities, which brought agility and rapid growth to the company. Such opportunities may not have been identified without entrepreneurial intent of the founder who always contemplates value creation for customers. His entrepreneurial intent set up the directivity of the businesses and activated the drive to carry them forward. This study contributes to expanding our knowledge of Korean mobile game business and the roles and effects of entrepreneurial intent. Entrepreneurial intent is especially important in making timely and innovative decisions for realizing new business opportunities. Also, rapid implementation and internalization of capabilities are essential for success.

한국어

본 연구는 국내 모바일 게임의 선두주자인 넷마블의 기회 포착 및 기회 실현 과정의 결정 요인을 분석하는 데 목적을 두고 있다. 넷마블은 게임 산업의 환경 변화 속에서 지속적으로 새로운 사업 기회를 발견하고 이를 성공적으로 실현해 왔다. 이에 본 연구는 넷마블의 창업 및 성장과정에서 창업자의 기업가적 의지에 주목하여, 기업가적 의지가 어떻게 기회 포착 및 실현을 추동했는지 분석하였다. 기업가적 의지는 성과를 달성하기 위해 필요한 자원을 확보하고 관련 역량을 구축하여 신규 사업 기회가 지닌 잠재적 가치를 실현하려는 기업가의 동기를 의미한다. 본 사례연구를 통해 기회의 포착과 실현, 그리고 그로 인한 사업 변화에서 창업자의 기업가적 의지가 핵심적인 역할을 한다는 것을 확인하였다. 넷마블은 특히 창업자의 기민한 기업가적 의지를 토대로 시장의 변화와 고객의 니즈에 초점을 맞추어 새로운 기회를 포착하였으며, 이를 성과로 만들어내기 위해 기업의 모든 역량을 새로운 기회에 집중하였다. 그 결과 퍼블리싱 사업에의 진출, 대기업과의 합병, 모바일 분야로의 전환을 성공적으로 추진할 수 있었고, 이를 통해 경쟁 기업들보다 더 빠른 성장을 거듭할 수 있었다. 본 사례연구는 국내 게임 기업의 전략에 대한 연구 영역을 모바일 게임으로 확대하고, 기업가적 의지의 역할 및 효과를 보다 깊이 있게 이해하는 데 기여하였다.