창업보육센터의 운영실태와 개선과제

Abstract

10. Policy Agenda on Business Incubators | Joo-Hoon Kim.Suil Lee

This chapter consists mainly of three parts: 1) the performance evaluation of business incubators in Korea using the data from Business Incubator Network System; 2) the behavior analysis of business incubators and tenant firms using survey data; and 3) the suggestion of several reform measures based on the performance evaluation and behavior analysis.

The first part of the chapter explains the distribution of business incubators in Korea by host institution, by business sector, and by region, and then evaluates the general performance of the business incubators on the following criteria: 1) survival rate of graduate firms; 2) number of jobs created; and 3) increased sales of tenant firms. It also analyzes the characteristics of the founders of tenant firms and the managers of the business incubators. In Korea, the survival rate of graduate firms is approximately 71% as compared to 5 or 6% of new firms in general. An average tenant firm has experienced an increase of the number of employees and sales by 0.5 person and 110 million won, respectively, after moving into a business incubator. The comparison of the business incubators by host institution shows that business incubators hosted by public research institutions are much more successful in achieving their goals than ones hosted by universities or local governments.While the founders of tenant firms have similar potential capabilities as the founders of venture firms, the data from Business Incubator Network System indicate that the business incubators have difficulties in hiring eligible incubator managers and strengthening the expertise of managers and staff members.

We performed a survey analysis for 1,009 tenant firms, of which the objective is to investigate the behavioral aspects of business incubators and tenant firms regarding the following three categories: 1) the types of services provided by the incubators and the degree of satisfaction of the tenant firms on those services; 2) the degree of internal and external networking of the tenant firms; and 3) the degree of innovativeness of the tenant firms. The second part of the chapter summarizes the results of the survey analysis. At first, the survey shows that the provision of services by the incubators does not meet the needs of the tenant firms in all types of services. In particular, marketing assistance and financing assistance fall significantly behind the needs of the tenant firms. Regarding the internal and external networking of the tenant firms, we find that approximately 40% of the tenant firms in the sample cooperate with other tenant firms in the same incubator and about 61% of the tenant firms have business relationship with outside firms at close range. 55% of the total sample have also executed or are in the middle of carrying out joint researches with host universities or host research institutions. On average, a tenant firm conducts interviews with professors and researchers for technical support and gives advice on 15 occasions, annually. These findings indicate that the tenant firms have well established all of three types of networking, that is, internal networking between tenant firms, external networking with outside firms, and industry-university-research institution cooperation. Finally, according to the survey, the tenant firms in Korea seem to be relatively innovative. Approximately 20% of the tenant firms in the sample answered that there would be no competitor in related markets for a while. Grouping the tenant firms by their founders and comparing the innovativeness of each group, the tenant firms founded by university professors and researchers seem to be the most innovative.

Based on the performance evaluation and behavior analysis of business incubators and tenant firms in the previous parts, we suggest several remedies for improving the effectiveness of business incubation in the third part of the chapte