조기 글로벌화가 벤처기업의 생존에 미치는 영향에 대한 합치성 관점의 적용

After the seminal work of Oviatt and McDougall(1994), lots of related researches had been lively conducted on prerequisites of venture’s foreign market entry, internationalization process of start-up ventures, and outcomes of venture’s international strategy from inception. As to the accelerated internationalization of start-up ventures, few researches were attempted on what types of following activities a focal venture implemented after the frequent entries into several foreign countries through diverse entry modes, however. In other words, researches on whether subsequent change activities after start-up venture’s global presence have impacts on its survival and growth as well as how start-up venture in pursuit of aggressive internationalization responds to changing environments of global industry and transforms business strategy and organizational structure were rarely conducted up to date. Considering those limited research trends, there would be increasing demands for academics to solve research questions like “what actions should ventures which have attempted frequent entries into several local markets execute in such a case that requires core characteristics of global management?”, “why should ventures implement subsequent strategic change actions after aggressive foreign market entries?”, and “what consequences could result from those strategic change actions implemented by ventures in pursuit of globalization?,” etc. According to the traditional definition of international business, ventures which have attempted repetitive or simultaneous entries into foreign markets could be regarded as ones with global strategy. Those ventures, even if start-ups, might at once reveal structural characteristics of MNE with several subsidiaries in host countries and need global management style with coordination and integration in multi-site functional operations. However, ventures with repetitive or simultaneous entries into foreign markets could not help facing on growing scarcity of resources, aggravating complexity in internal organization, and increasing ambiguity in decision-making because of such innate limitations of start-ups as liability of newness and liability of smallness as well as coordinating and integrating problems of management caused by aggressive globalization. Moreover, if start-ups do business in globalized industries which experienced prompt changes of situation due to hypercompetition, those ventures with insufficient alignment level of general management might be lack of buffer which could be used to absorb external shocks. Most of all, if liability of foreignness was caused by aggressive internationalization and added up to innate limitations of start-up, a focal venture might reveal seriously decreasing level of alignment in general management. Insufficient alignment in general management might brought about inefficient resource allocation and less flexible responses to environmental changes. In brief, aggressive entries into foreign markets could lead to augmenting scarcity of alignment in general management and such a scarcity could deteriorate venture’s business circumstance and financial performance. Questing growth strategy based on repetitive or simultaneous entries into foreign markets might threat a focal venture’s survival and longevity. In this situation, venture should take two types of strategic actions so as to diminish its mortality. At first, venture’s founding manager in pursuit of aggressive globalization ought to dip his or her toes into entrepreneurial learning personally. Considering the fact that decreasing level of alignment caused by aggressive globalization could make venture’s survival and economic performance less realized, venture’s founding manager should get further understandings on independent and interconnected effects of business environment factors, strategic planning factors, and organizational factors for strategy implementation. Secondly, individual knowledge obtained by venture’s founding manager need to be transformed into organizational knowledge. To find a means of settling the troubles caused by decreasing level of alignment in general management, existing substance of strategic planning should be reinvestigated and new organizational instruments, that is, new structure and task processes which could support the new strategy, should be provided. In order to verify aforementioned arguments, in-depth case study on the globalization process of com2us which has accomplished relatively strong position in world mobile game industry was conducted in this paper. In detail, we divided entire process of com2us globalization into three subsequent periods and analyzed what types of change and adaptation activities in mobile game industry, founding manager, business strategy, organizational structure, and task process had been implemented during each period. According to the results of case analysis, in spite of some limitations from single-case-based research, (ⅰ) venture’s try-out for globalization and rapid changes in global industry situation might bring about decrease in alignment level of general management in a focal venture, and (ⅱ) both entrepreneurial learning of founding manager and changes in components of organizational forms like strategy, structure, and process could make positive impact on solving the problems caused by decreasing alignment level. Results of case analysis on com2us provide some implications for early globalization of start-up venture in respect of theory development and entrepreneurial management. Regarding further research, it will be more necessary to study no internationalization but globalization of start-up venture and the impact of changes in components of general management on survival and economic performance of a focal venture with global strategy from inception. Most of all, future researches on early globalization of start-up venture should look around such topics as possibility of field-based case study, applicability of growth stage theory to start-up’s global expansion, rebuilding process of organizational capability and competitive advantage in start-ups with global strategy, aggrandizement of entrepreneurship in global business, industry impact on global competitiveness of start-ups, and modifiability of Integration-Responsiveness framework to globalization process of start-ups. Considering entrepreneurial management, such a simple internationalization initiative as extemporary foreign market entry would not guarantee a stability in survival and growth of start-up ventures. Founding manager and top management of start-up ventures with global strategy from inception must transform continuously its competitive strategy, organizational structure, and administrative processes in order to adapt to rapid changes in hypercompetitive environment of global industry. Also, it should be remembered that start-up’s aggressive entries into foreign markets with various mode might call upon founding manager and top management of start-up ventures to learn how to change and develop their understanding and knowledge for the management of global business. Implications for government which looks forward to promoting domestic ventures to take part in aggressive globalization could be suggested through results of case analysis on com2us. Most of all, it should be recognized that there is fundamental difference between policies for venture internationalization and that for venture globalization. In this context, government should prepare some policies for global competitive advantages of start- up ventures. In addition, other policies for systems which investigate global competitive potential of an individual start-up venture and ameliorate cognitive maps of founding managers should be suggested.