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영어

In recent years, the small knowledge-based firms have been increasingly established under favor of the creative ideas, practical experiences and professional knowledge of the entrepreneurs. There are not enough researches related to the small knowledge-based firms. This case study investigates what the critical success factors of the small knowledge-based firms are and how the factors impact the performances of the firms. In order to research the questions, the case study methodology of Yin was used. It is regarded relatively more rigorous case study method than others. The conceptual research model was set up to improve the efficiency and reliability of the research work. This research model shows selected independent factors which would be investigated through the research work. The factors are categorized into four groups; the characteristics of entrepreneur, the competences of entrepreneur, the competitiveness of business model, and the factors of organization. There are two factors in the characteristics of entrepreneur; the personal characteristic of entrepreneur and the vision and goal of entrepreneur. There are two factors in the competence of entrepreneur; the experiential capability and the business management capability of entrepreneur. There are three factors in the competitiveness of business model: the marketability, the profitability, and the differential competitiveness of the business model. There are three factors in the factors of organization: the amount of initial capital, the levels of preparation, and the organizational culture. Three outcome factors were selected: the growth of total sales, the rate of profitability, and the increasing of employee number. At first, the structured questionnaire was used to collect preliminary data and then interviews with the entrepreneurs of the three case study firms were executed based on the collected data from the questionnaires. The questionnaire was designed in the form of five Likert-type scale and to gather the descriptive comments in addition. The interviews were done on average two or three hours every visit and two or three times for each case firm. And additional data was collected through several calls. Three case firms were selected by the recommendation of the Korea SOHO and small business association. The number of case study firms was controlled into three in order to execute the in-depth study. Two of them are business service firms and the rest one is education service firm. Rehoboth was established in 1998 and capitalized at 35 million Won. The sales average of the recent three years is about 2 billion Won and the average profit ration is 7%. The number of employee increased from 3 to 21. Creven Academy, Inc. was established in 2003 and capitalized at 27.5 million Won. The sales average of the recent three years is about 250 million Won and the average profit ration is 6%. The number of employee increased from 1 to 7. BrightUnion, Inc. was established in 1999 and capitalized at 30 million Won. The sales average of the recent three years is about 5 billion Won and the average profit ration is 13%. The number of employee increased from 3 to 85. The case study analysis was executed by two approaches; the first approach is single-case analysis and the second one is cross-cases analysis. In the single-case analysis, each case firm was investigated and described by the framework of the conceptual research model. In the cross-cases analysis, all of the three case firms were analyzed by comparing the status of the factors of the conceptual research model and by exploring some implicating patterns from the comparison. The implications of the research are as follows. There are a couple of different findings from the preliminary studies about the characteristics of entrepreneur. The personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, desire for achievement and risk-taking propensity are not high enough and different in the cases, on the other hand their visionary missions are quite clear in all cases. The entrepreneur’s personal characteristic of one case firm was conservative and the characteristic of the case firm’s business model was quite stable. The fitness between the entrepreneur’s personal characteristic and the characteristic of the firm’s business model can be a factor affecting on the outcome of business. All entrepreneurs of the case firms had clear visions and goals. They recognized that they are very important for the successful business. The experiential capability and the business management capabilities are high in all cases. These results are expected when the characteristics of the small firms are considered. They utilized the resource from the network as much as possible to make up for the limited resource of their firms. As for the competitiveness of business model, all of the case firms had the same business strategy to make competitiveness by differentiating the business models and services. The marketabilities and the differential competitiveness of their business items are also high in all cases but their profitabilities are found to be different Of the organizational factors, the amount of initial capital does not imply a critical factor while this factor has been recognized as strong effective one in the former studies especially of venture companies or small businesses. They managed well fund raising issues by various creative ways while they were doing business. And the levels of preparation and the effects of organizational cultures are implied to be high in all cases. The organizational cultures of the three case firms are characterized as some typical keywords as trust, openness, resect to employee, and familiarity. The result of this study is limited to form generalized conclusions on the effect of the independent factors on the outcome with the limited number of research firms even though the reliable case study methodology of Yin’s was applied. Further research with abundant sample data would be required to go to another generalized conclusion in this research topic.

한국어

지식정보화사회로 표현되는 21세기로 들어서면서 다양한 아이디어와 현장에서의 전문적 경험을 활용하여 지식기반형 소기업들의 창업이 지속적으로 증가하고 있다. 그러나 소규모 지식기업에 대한 학문적 연구는 아직 부족한 상태이다. 본 연구는 소규모 지식기업들의 창업 성공요인과 그 배경에 대한 탐색적 연구를 수행하였다. 3개의 성공적인 소규모 지식기업들에 대해 1차적으로 구조화된 설문지를 활용해 기초 자료를 수집하고 2차 인터뷰를 실시하였다. 사례연구 결과 기존의 연구들과 일부 상이한 내용들도 발견되었다. 창업자의 개인적 특성 중 성취 욕구와 위험감수 성향은 높은 수준은 아닌 반면 사업에 대한 비전과 목표는 매우 명확하였다. 창업자의 경험 역량과 사업 운영 역량은 모두 높은 수준이었으며 사업아이템의 시장성과 차별성은 모두 높은 수준이었지만 수익성은 사례에 따라 다양한 결과가 나타났다. 조직적 요인 중 자금확보는 영향 수준이 모두 낮은 것으로 나타났고 사전 준비 정도와 조직문화의 영향 수준은 모두 높은 것으로 나타났다.