Portsmouth Business School

Thesis summary

This PhD research project investigates the characteristics of Korean technology intensive small companies. In particular it investigates the relationships among technology orientation, market orientation, entrepreneurial orientation and business performance in the South Korean context.

The empirical findings of this research suggest that the appropriate interrelationship actively provide an organisation with the ability to achieve and maintain competitive advantage. Market and technology orientations do not directly affect business performances. However, it turns out that market and technology orientations can positively affect business performances but only through entrepreneurial orientation. The implication here is that for Korean technology intensive small firms, market and technology orientations can improve business performance only when it is combined with entrepreneurial orientation.

The research contributes to our understanding of how SMEs can improve their business performance (Hakala, 2010). It shows that to achieve and maintain a positive business performance, it is vital that a firm is able to possess an organizational structure that integrates and incorporates all three of these areas into a coordinated framework that allows innovative activities to take advantage of the benefits that all three of these orientations allow.

It is hoped that this research and the findings stemming from it can aid future research into the area of improving managerial practices, and to open the door to further research that looks further into these three constructs and the respective interrelationships that exist between them.