IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i18p7773-d416427.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Profit versus Unsustainable Growth: Are Venture Capital Investments and Governmental Support Medicines or Poisons?

Author

Listed:
  • Moon Young Kang

    (Department of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, College of Business Administration, Soongsil University, Seoul 06978, Korea)

Abstract

Considering that startups greatly contribute to the economic development and survival of a country through economic growth and job creation, it is necessary to investigate the profitability of startups. However, research on this issue has not been developed enough as most previous studies regarding firm profitability were based on large-scale public companies with relatively easy data accessibility, not on startups. In addition, it is meaningful to empirically prove whether venture capital investments and governmental support positively impact on the sustainability of startups as huge discrepancies exist between traditional academic research and recent practices. Findings from this study, based on data analytics, are expected to fill the gap in knowledge as it is not clearly known about firm profitability of startups for their sustainable growth and survival. Focusing on startup profitability, the main objective of this research is to provide significant theoretical contributions and practical guidelines for startup entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to avoid unsubstantial growth and find solutions for sustainable growth and survival. To properly and completely analyze the determinants of firm profitability of startups, this research used the 2018 and 2019 Survey of Korean Startups by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups of Korea and Korea Venture Business Association with over 3000 samples.

Suggested Citation

  • Moon Young Kang, 2020. "Sustainable Profit versus Unsustainable Growth: Are Venture Capital Investments and Governmental Support Medicines or Poisons?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-11, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7773-:d:416427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7773/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7773/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Girma, Sourafel & Gorg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2007. "The effects of government grants on plant survival: A micro-econometric analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 701-720, August.
    2. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    3. Bronwyn Hall & Alessandro Maffioli, 2008. "Evaluating the impact of technology development funds in emerging economies: evidence from Latin America," The European Journal of Development Research, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 172-198.
    4. Michael Fritsch & Yvonne Schindele, 2011. "The Contribution of New Businesses to Regional Employment—An Empirical Analysis," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 87(2), pages 153-180, April.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Dan Lovallo, 1993. "Timid Choices and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 17-31, January.
    6. Michael Peneder, 2009. "The impact of venture capital on innovation behaviour and firm growth," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 83-107, November.
    7. Engel, Dirk & Keilbach, Max, 2007. "Firm-level implications of early stage venture capital investment -- An empirical investigation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 150-167, March.
    8. de Meza, David & Southey, Clive, 1996. "The Borrower's Curse: Optimism, Finance and Entrepreneurship," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 375-386, March.
    9. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Lerner, Josh, 2010. "The Financing of R&D and Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-639, Elsevier.
    10. Bronwyn Hall & Alessandro Maffioli, 2008. "Evaluating the impact of technology development funds in emerging economies: evidence from Latin America," The European Journal of Development Research, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 172-198.
    11. Heli Koski & Mika Pajarinen, 2013. "The role of business subsidies in job creation of start-ups, gazelles and incumbents," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 195-214, June.
    12. Kleer, Robin, 2010. "Government R&D subsidies as a signal for private investors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1361-1374, December.
    13. Paul Westhead & David Storey, 1997. "Financial constraints on the growth of high technology small firms in the United Kingdom," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 197-201.
    14. James Ted Mcdonald, 1999. "The Determinants of Firm Profitability in Australian Manufacturing," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(2), pages 115-126, June.
    15. Feldman, Maryann P. & Kelley, Maryellen R., 2006. "The ex ante assessment of knowledge spillovers: Government R&D policy, economic incentives and private firm behavior," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1509-1521, December.
    16. repec:bla:ecorec:v:75:y:1999:i:229:p:115-26 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Phillips, Fred, 2018. "The sad state of entrepreneurship in America: What educators can do about it," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 12-15.
    18. Barry, Christopher B. & Muscarella, Chris J. & Peavy, John III & Vetsuypens, Michael R., 1990. "The role of venture capital in the creation of public companies*1: Evidence from the going-public process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 447-471, October.
    19. Mona Makhija, 2003. "Comparing the resource‐based and market‐based views of the firm: empirical evidence from Czech privatization," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 433-451, May.
    20. Lerner, Josh, 1999. "The Government as Venture Capitalist: The Long-Run Impact of the SBIR Program," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(3), pages 285-318, July.
    21. Birger Wernerfelt, 1984. "A resource‐based view of the firm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 171-180, April.
    22. John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2013. "Who Creates Jobs? Small versus Large versus Young," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 347-361, May.
    23. von Burg, Urs & Kenney, Martin, 2000. "Venture capital and the birth of the local area networking industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1135-1155, December.
    24. Masayuki Hirukawa & Masako Ueda, 2011. "Venture Capital And Innovation: Which Is First?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 421-465, October.
    25. J. David Brown & John S. Earle, 2017. "Finance and Growth at the Firm Level: Evidence from SBA Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1039-1080, June.
    26. Stefano Caselli & Stefano Gatti & Francesco Perrini, 2009. "Are Venture Capitalists a Catalyst for Innovation?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(1), pages 92-111, January.
    27. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    28. Thomas Hellmann & Manju Puri, 2002. "Venture Capital and the Professionalization of Start‐Up Firms: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 169-197, February.
    29. Claver, Enrique & Molina, José & Tarí, Juan, 2002. "Firm and Industry Effects on Firm Profitability:: a Spanish Empirical Analysis," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 321-328, June.
    30. Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of the Economics of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    31. Buffart, Mickaël & Croidieu, Grégoire & Kim, Phillip H. & Bowman, Ray, 2020. "Even winners need to learn: How government entrepreneurship programs can support innovative ventures," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(10).
    32. Erkko Autio, 2005. "Creative tension: the significance of Ben Oviatt's and Patricia McDougall's article ‘toward a theory of international new ventures’," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 36(1), pages 9-19, January.
    33. Samuel Kortum & Josh Lerner, 2000. "Assessing the Contribution of Venture Capital to Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 674-692, Winter.
    34. Hottenrott, Hanna & Richstein, Robert, 2020. "Start-up subsidies: Does the policy instrument matter?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    35. Gideon D. Markman & William B. Gartner, 2002. "Is Extraordinary Growth Profitable? A Study of Inc. 500 High–Growth Companies," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 27(1), pages 65-75, January.
    36. Girma, Sourafel & Gorg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2007. "The effect of government grants on plant level productivity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 439-444, March.
    37. Mickaël Buffart & Gregoire Croidieu & Phillip H. Kim & Ray Bowman, 2020. "Even winners need to learn : How government entrepreneurship programs can support innovative ventures," Post-Print hal-02927561, HAL.
    38. Leona Achtenhagen & Lucia Naldi & Leif Melin, 2010. "“Business Growth†—Do Practitioners and Scholars Really Talk about the Same Thing?," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(2), pages 289-316, March.
    39. Ryan Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2014. "The Role of Entrepreneurship in US Job Creation and Economic Dynamism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 3-24, Summer.
    40. Gompers, Paul & Lerner, Josh, 1999. "An analysis of compensation in the U.S. venture capital partnership," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 3-44, January.
    41. Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2000. "The Interaction between Product Market and Financing Strategy: The Role of Venture Capital," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 959-984.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moon Young Kang, 2022. "What Makes Companies to Survive over a Century? The Case of Dongwha Pharmaceutical in the Republic of Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-11, January.
    2. Kim, Jaehwan & Kang, Moon Young, 2022. "Sustainable success in the music industry: Empirical analysis of music preferences," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 1068-1076.
    3. Husam Wahdan & Zeng Rui Tian, 2022. "Assessing the Efficiency of Venture Capital Functioning in the Transforming Economy in UAE and China by a Mathematical Model," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440211, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Lerner, Josh, 2010. "The Financing of R&D and Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-639, Elsevier.
    2. Wen, Jun & Yang, Di & Feng, Gen-Fu & Dong, Minyi & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2018. "Venture capital and innovation in China: The non-linear evidence," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 148-162.
    3. Berger, Marius & Gottschalk, Sandra, 2021. "Financing and advising early stage startups: The effect of angel investor subsidies," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-069, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Rudra P. Pradhan & Rana P. Maradana & Danish B. Zaki & Saurav Dash & Manju Jayakumar & Kunal Gaurav, 2017. "Venture Capital and Innovation: Evidence from European Economic Area Countries," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(06), pages 1-30, December.
    5. Francesco Manaresi & Carlo Menon & Pietro Santoleri, 2021. "Supporting innovative entrepreneurship: an evaluation of the Italian “Start-up Act” [The effects of entry on incumbent innovation and productivity]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(6), pages 1591-1614.
    6. Söderblom, Anna & Samuelsson, Mikael & Wiklund, Johan & Sandberg, Rickard, 2015. "Inside the black box of outcome additionality: Effects of early-stage government subsidies on resource accumulation and new venture performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1501-1512.
    7. Chu, Chien-Chi & Li, Yong-Li & Li, Shi-Jie & Ji, Yun, 2021. "Uncertainty, venture capital and entrepreneurial enterprise innovation—Evidence from companies listed on China's GEM," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    8. Bertoni, Fabio & Tykvová, Tereza, 2015. "Does governmental venture capital spur invention and innovation? Evidence from young European biotech companies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 925-935.
    9. Kou, Mingting & Yang, Yuanqi & Chen, Kaihua, 2020. "The impact of external R&D financing on innovation process from a supply-demand perspective," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 375-387.
    10. Bertoni, Fabio & Tykvová, Tereza, 2012. "Which form of venture capital is most supportive of innovation?," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    12. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    13. Rosenbusch, Nina & Brinckmann, Jan & Müller, Verena, 2013. "Does acquiring venture capital pay off for the funded firms? A meta-analysis on the relationship between venture capital investment and funded firm financial performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 335-353.
    14. Aldatmaz, Serdar & Celikyurt, Ugur, 2023. "The effect of venture capital backing on innovation in newly public firms," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    16. Spyros Arvanitis & Tobias Stucki, 2014. "The impact of venture capital on the persistence of innovation activities of start-ups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 849-870, April.
    17. Ramana Nanda & William R. Kerr, 2015. "Financing Innovation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 445-462, December.
    18. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_028 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Silva Filipe & Carreira Carlos, 2017. "Financial Constraints: Do They Matter to Allocate R&D Subsidies?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 1-26, October.
    20. Wentao Gu & Xuzheng Qian & Junpeng Lu, 2018. "Venture capital and entrepreneurship: a conceptual model and research suggestions," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 35-50, March.
    21. Lahr, Henry & Mina, Andrea, 2016. "Venture capital investments and the technological performance of portfolio firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 303-318.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7773-:d:416427. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.