창업활동이 성장의도를 매개로 창업결과만족에 미치는 영향 (Effects of Entrepreneurial Activities on Entrepreneurial Outcome Satisfaction Mediated by Growth Intentions)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국중소기업학회
· 수록지 정보 : 중소기업연구 / 34권 / 1호 / 97 ~ 119페이지
· 저자명 : 정대용, 한관섭

초록

국내에서 창업가를 대상으로 한 연구는 Ajzen(1991)의 계획적 행동론에 입각한 의도접근법에 의한 창업연구가 주류를 이루어 왔다. 창업활성화는 창업의도에서 한 발 더 나아가 자발적 의사로 창업활동에 참여를 유도하는 현장적, 실천적 행동이론으로의 접근이 요구된다. 인지적 행동론으로 대표되는 기대이론(Vroom, 1964)을 창업연구에 접목하는 것은 그 대안이 될 수 있으며, 때마침 기대이론에 창업을 적용한 선진연구(Edelman et al., 2010)가 발표되어 이에 대한 대안으로서 관심을 불러일으키고 있다.
본 연구는 Vroom(1964)의 기대이론 관점을 창업연구에 적용한 Gatewood(1993)와 Edelman et al.(2010)의 연구결과를 토대로 탐색적으로 이루어졌다. 특히, 기대이론의 구성요소 중의 하나인 ‘성과-결과’ 과정에 초점을 맞추어 기대이론의 수단성 및 유의성을 심층적으로 실증분석하고, 특정의 내․외생변수를 추가하면 기대이론의 구조가 보다 강화될 수 있다는 Gatewood(1993)의 주장을 반영하여 매개변수로 성장의도가 추가된 확장 기대모델로 본 연구를 진행하였다.
본 연구의 목적은 벤처․중소기업 창업을 더욱 활성화하고 성장으로 유도하는 실천적, 행동론적 접근방법으로 기대이론이 적합한 모델인지여부와, 동기부여 과정상의 요인과 요인사이에서의 상호작용과 결과들이 창업자, 경영자, 정책입안자 등에게 어떤 역할을 부여하는지에 대한 시사점을 제시하는 것이다. 이런 목적을 달성하기 위해, 창업활동이 창업결과만족에 직접적으로 영향을 주는가, 창업활동은 성장의도에 영향을 주는가, 셋째, 성장의도는 창업결과만족에 영향을 주는가와 성장의도는 창업활동과 창업결과만족사이에서 매개역할을 하는지에 대한 가설을 설정하였다.
앞서 제시된 연구가설을 검증하기 위하여 서울 및 수도권 소재 벤처․중소기업체 경영자 237명으로부터 수집한 설문서 및 구조방정식모형 방법을 활용하여 실증분석 하였다. 분석결과 첫째, 창업활동은 창업결과만족에는 직접적으로 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치지 않았으며, 둘째, 창업활동은 성장의도에 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치며, 셋째, 성장의도도 창업결과만족에 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치고, 마지막으로 성장의도가 창업활동과 창업결과만족 사이에서 직접효과 없이 완전 매개하는 것으로 나타났다.
본 연구결과는 기대이론 모델을 이용한 연구가 전통적으로 주목을 받아왔고 독점적인 영역으로 인식되었던 조직관리 연구 분야에서 발전되어 창업활동영역까지 확대될 수 있음을 실증하였다. 특히, 성장동기가 부각됨으로써 강화된 기대모델의 강건성이 확인되었다. 또한, 연구범위, 방법 등의 일부 한계에도 불구하고 창업가와 경영자, 정책입안자 및 각종 지원조직들의 역할과 기능을 기대이론의 동기부여과정에서의 변수간의 상호작용, 결과들을 통하여 확인할 수 있었던 것은 매우 의미 있는 연구결과이다.

영어초록

Entrepreneurial activities have a critically important influence on economic development and entrepreneurs contribute greatly to the revitalization of a community’s economy, as well as economic development, through job creation (Macaulay, 2003). Moreover, as job creation comes into the spotlight as one of the core national challenges in the real world, many researchers suggest that studies on entrepreneurs are urgently required for a reinvigoration of entrepreneurial activities.
Unfortunately, however, entrepreneurship researches using intention approaches based on the Theory of Planned Behavior developed by Ajzen (1991) have been predominant among studies on entrepreneurs in South Korea. These researches, which are only focused on exploring any determinants of entrepreneurial intentions just on the assumption of entrepreneurial activities before entrepreneurial behaviors, have some limitations in explaining the revitalization of entrepreneurial firms. Some research shows a significant difference between entrepreneurial intentions and actual behaviors, and also the attitude towards entrepreneurial occupations. This is supported by the report of Brenner et al. (1991) where 55% of respondents who were the students of graduating class at the college of business administration preferred managing their own business among the given options, but only 5% of the entire students actually selected and ticked off managing their own business as the most probable employment position.
Accordingly, approaches to field-oriented, empirical behavior theories intended to induce participating voluntarily in entrepreneurial behaviors, in addition to entrepreneurial intentions, are necessary for the revitalization of entrepreneurial firms. Combining conventional entrepreneurship researches with the Expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), representative of the theories of cognitive behavior, may be an alternative for that. In this context, an advanced study (Edelman et al., 2010) combining Expectancy theory with entrepreneurial startups (Edelman et al., 2010) was recently published, and the combined approach as an alternative attracted public attention.
Aimed at examining closely the processes of entrepreneurial motivation, this study is exploratory research based upon the results of the studies performed by Gatewood (1993) and Edelman et al. (2010) who attempted to apply the viewpoint of Vroom's (1964) Expectancy model of ‘effort → performance → outcome’ on entrepreneurship research. Especially, focused on the process of ‘performance → outcome' as one of the Expectancy theory constructs, in-depth empirical analyses of the instrumentality and valence of Expectancy theory were made in this study using the expanded Expectancy model in which growth intention is added to the parameters in the light of reflecting the argument of Gatewood (1993) that the addition of specific endogenous/exogenous variables leads to a reinforced construction of the Expectancy theory.
This study aims to determine whether Expectancy theory is an appropriate model for field-oriented behavioral approaches to guiding emerging venture and small/medium businesses to revitalization and sustainable growth, and to make suggestions for what roles are given to entrepreneur, managers, policy makers and the like by motivation factors themselves and their interactions and the resulting products. For this purpose, the following hypotheses were set up :Entrepreneurial activities have a direct effect on entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction. (Hypothesis 1); Entrepreneurial activities have an effect on growth intentions. (Hypothesis 2); Growth intentions have an effect on entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction. (Hypothesis 3); and, Growth intentions act as a mediator between entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction (Hypothesis 4).
To test the hypotheses listed above, the questionnaires were collected from 237 managers at venture and small/medium businesses in South Korea from Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area, were used in this study.
In this study, all the variables involved in research analyses were operationally defined on the basis of preceding studies. First, entrepreneurial activity is defined as a sort of instrumental means required to achieve a personal goal in life which is the desired outcome of an entrepreneurial activity completed by an entrepreneur through specific behaviors, and refers to the entrepreneur's trust in subjective probability (Gatewood, 2004). Second, based upon the study by Park and Gu (2007), the definition of growth intention was subdivided into subjective measurements : resource accumulation intention, technical improvement intention and market expansion intention, instead of quantitative and objective indexes. Third, it was assumed that for entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction, the outcome desired by an entrepreneur would motivate him/her to initiate his/her own venture or small/medium business. In this connection, the respective six elements identified as either reasons or motivations for business initiation by Carter et al. (2003) that is, self-realization, financial success, independence, role, innovation, and recognition were employed as subfactors of entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction.
To determine the reliability (Cronbach’s α) and validity of the assessment instruments employed in this study, SPSS 17 and AMOS 7.0 were used for statistical analyses. Chronbach’s α values of all the variables exceeded 0.8, suggesting that they are reliable. In addition to that, in order to validate the measurement instruments for entire latent variables, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine their convergent validity and discriminant validity. These analyses show that the research model fits are equivalent to χ² =160.510, df = 108, P = 0.001, RMR = 0.026, GFI = 0.931, AGFI = 0.892, NFI = 0.948, TLI = 0.975, CFI = 0.982, RMSEA = 0.045, and CMIN/df = 1.486. Besides, all of the factor loadings (0.50), C.R. (lC.R.l > 1.96) and P values (P < 0.01), average variance extracted (AVE, ≥ 0.5), and latent variable reliability (≥ 0.7) of respective variables exceeded their criteria, indicating that they all have convergent validity (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Next, the results of comparing the squares of inter-variable correlations to AVE values indicate that the said squares are lower than AVE values, suggesting that they have discriminant validity (Lee and Lim, 2011). Thus, it was demonstrated that the measurement instruments all have adequate reliability and validity, which means that it is feasible to make a structural equation modeling analysis for hypothesis testing.
Structural equation modeling analyses for hypothesis testing show that the fit indexes are χ²= 313.360, df = 129, P = 0.000, RMR = 0.058, GFI = 0.872, AGFI = 0.830, NFI = 0.899, TLI = 0.926, CFI = 0.938, RMSEA = 0.078, and CMIN/DF = 2.429. The results of hypothesis testing are summarized as follows : first, entrepreneurial activities did not have a significant positive (+) direct effect on entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction (H1); second, entrepreneurial activities had a significant positive (+) effect on growth intentions (H2); third, growth intentions also had a significant positive (+) effect on entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction (H3); and finally, growth intentions acted as a complete mediator between entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction without any direct effects (H4).
Lastly, the results of this study suggest the followings in the academic and practical aspects. Regarding academic suggestions, first, while there is almost no attempt to apply Expectancy theory to entrepreneurship research in the country, this study empirically demonstrates that the theory is an appropriate frame for researches on entrepreneurial behaviors. Second, growth intentions have the significance of an important variable which strengthens the frame of Expectancy theory by playing a role as a mediator between entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction, which implies that post-initiation growth can contribute greatly to achieving several important desired outcomes in life among Korean entrepreneurs. Fourth, the entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction characterized by giving priority to high-level desires primarily featuring advanced economic structures was observed. Specifically, in terms of the standardized coefficients that growth intentions affect entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction, self-realization (0.890) ranked first, followed by innovation (0.889), financial success (0.778), role (0.720), recognition (0.601), and independence (0.582), which supports the above-mentioned finding.
Meanwhile, practical suggestions are summarized as follows. First, personal factors (e.g., abilities, effort, experience, etc.) and contextual factors (e.g., market, finance, culture, etc.) have significant influence upon expectancy judgment, valence, and instrumentality (Nadler and Lawler, 1983; Klein, 1989). Therefore, with reference to the interactions (instrumentality) and their products (valence) in the relationship among entrepreneurial activities, growth intentions and entrepreneurial outcome satisfaction as shown in this study, entrepreneurs and managers can strive to acquire their own skills, techniques, ability and experiences, while policy makers can indirectly support entrepreneurs and have a positive impact on entrepreneurial activities in the manner of making efforts to improve entrepreneurs' competency and problem-solving strategies. Furthermore, it also suggests that creating a positive social atmosphere about entrepreneurial activities and business administration activities plus giving institutional (supportive organizations') support for business initiation will lead to the higher possibility to achieve both successful business initiation and growth. The above-mentioned results are consistent with, and supported by, the previous suggestions that venture supporting agencies improve the personal competency and problem-solving strategies of individual entrepreneurs who initiate their own venture businesses (Mario and Schatz, 1980), and the resulting venture businesses initiated seem far more successful (Krentzman and Samaras, 1960).
Second, adding growth intentions resulted in laying more emphasis on the statistical significance of growth motivation instead of statistical valence of entrepreneurial motivation, and thus, growth motivation was stronger than entrepreneurial motivation in the terms of motivational force. This means that more proactive governmental and institutional (supportive organizations') politic considerations are required to induce business growth, beyond the current supporting policies for business initiation.
At the same time, this study has some limitations and requires further studies as listed below. First, the subject population surveyed in this study was limited to venture and small/medium business entrepreneurs in the South Korean metropolitan areas of Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi-do, and it is somewhat unreasonable to generalize the results because the recall rating scale based sample consisting of existing entrepreneurs was used. Second, due to some difference in conception between Expectancy theory attaching importance to the process of motivation and the Theory of Planned Behavior putting stress on behavioral intentions, the sequence of the hypotheses related to entrepreneurial activities and growth intentions as presented in this study may cause different interpretations. Finally, the reliability and/or validity of single-parameter measurements for entrepreneurial activities may be lower than that of multiple-parameter measurements.
In the spite of the limitations mentioned above, however, this study is considered greatly meaningful as the first paper published in Korea which attempted to approach to entrepreneurial behaviors through the reinforced Expectancy theory model with added growth intentions.

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