중견기업의 기술혁신과 수출이 경영성과에 미치는 영향: 기업유형에 따른 차별적 효과

This paper investigates the effects of technological innovation and internalization on marketperformance of medium-sized firms. The paper identifies medium-sized enterprises (MSEs) inKorea according to the legal criteria and analyzes panel data of the firms for recent 10 years. The Korean MSEs are divided into three types according to the legal criteria for the MSEidentification (i.e., large and slow-growing firms, small and fast-growing firms, and small firmsaffiliated to business groups or large firms). The three types of MSEs significantly differ interms of internal resource characteristics due to the difference in firm size and ownershipindependence. This paper finds that the effects of innovation and export differ depending onthe corporate type. In general, both growth and profitability of MSEs tend to increase withinnovation over time for the entire sample. The positive effect of innovation is relatively strongeror more significant for the type of small and fast-growing MSEs compared to other types offirms. The similar patterns appear for the effect of export on firm performance. Overall, exporthas positive effect on both growth and profitability of the Korean MSEs. The positive effect ofexport is relatively more significant for small and fast-growing MSEs compared to other typesof firms. These results mean that small firms which strengthen their competitive advantagebased on innovation and internalization are able to sustain better performance and becomemedium-sized firms.