Research Article
Challenge, Innovation, Enthusiasm, Tenacity and Flexfit: Venture Company Growth and Entreprenurship
1 Yonsei University
Published: January 2018 · Vol. 22, No. 1 · pp. 223-244
DOI: https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.17287/kbr.2018.22.1.223
Full Text
Abstract
The market size of domestic venture company is growing steadily nowadays, but there are concerns about survival and growth of venture firms. Since the survival rate of Korean venture firms has recorded 41.0% in 2013 after third year of their establishment, which is the lowest among OECD nations. Most of the previous studies have pointed out the importance of entrepreneurship of the top managements rather than a firm’s physical and situational influencing factors. Because, in discovering market opportunities, entrepreneurship of the top management enables venture firms to continuously develop capability of creating sustainable competitive advantages. Therefore, in this study, we tried to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and new product development with the case of Flexfit Corporation, which showed a remarkable growth even when the average growth rate of venture firms was low in Korea. As a result of the Fletfix case analysis, the founder Cho, Byung-tae was found to be highly motivated in ‘Passion and commitment to achieve the goal’. Specifically, we categorized four characteristics of his success: 1) Guts to success, 2) Resilience to situational problems, 3) Initiative to achieve the goal, and 4) Tenacity to sustain the goal continuously. Such entrepreneurial spirit of President Cho plays an important role in developing innovative new products that cannot be imitated by others and it is a driving force to create sustainable competitive advantages.
