출연연 기술협력과 고몰입 HRM 시스템이 중소기업의 기술혁신성과에 미치는 영향 (Technology Collaboration with Government Sponsored R&D Sector and High Commitment HRM System on Technology Innovation in Korean SMEs)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국중소기업학회
· 수록지 정보 : 중소기업연구 / 31권 / 3호 / 93 ~ 111페이지
· 저자명 : 김선영, 이병헌, 차종석

초록

기술혁신성과의 영향 요인에 대한 기존 연구에서 기업 내부요인에 의한 효과 차이를 분석하고 있지 않다. 본 연구에서는 외부 기술협력으로 자체 기술혁신성과를 높이기 위해서 어떤 내부적인 노력을 해야 하는가를 실증적으로 규명했다.
분석 결과, 출연연 기술협력과 고몰입 HRM 시스템이 기술혁신성과에 정(+)의 영향을 끼쳤다. 또한 두 변수 간에 정(+)의 상호작용 효과가 존재하며, 중소기업 HRM 시스템의 고몰입 지향성이 높을수록 출연연 기술협력이 기술혁신성과에 미치는 영향이 더 컸다.
시사점으로는 출연연 기술지원을 할 때 혁신 창출을 위한 노력, 즉 고몰입 HRM 시스템이 갖춰져 있는지를 고려해야 할 필요가 있으며, 외부자원을 충분히 활용함으로써 기술혁신성과를 높이는 것이 중요하다는 것 등이 있다.

영어초록

Even during and after the rapid organizational restructuring in the late 1990s, SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) have significantly increased in number and greatly contributed to job creation and economic development. However, SMEs are less competitive competent than large corporations in terms of salary level, added value per employee, or employee productivity and these gaps are growing. To compensate, the Korean government offers financial, intellectual, and technological assistance to encourage and promote the competitiveness of the SMEs. Despite the domestic SMEs' tremendous efforts for achieving technological competitiveness, they have lacked the technological capability. This is reflected in an intensified polarization between conglomerates and SMEs. Furthermore, the degree of SME's collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector still falls far behind that of other developed countries even with government's various policies and increased investment for improving the technological innovation capability of SMEs. Furthermore, most SMEs have experienced some difficulties in managing human resources, which is a critical factor for achieving corporate technical competence. In theory, according to traditional strategic management theory or studies on technological innovation, corporations can achieve higher technology innovation through external collaboration. That is, technology collaboration positively affects technology innovation because it reduces risk and cost involved in innovation by using the established external technology collaboration network and it complements what a corporate technologically lacks. Other studies also show that technology collaboration has positive effects on the technology innovation. In practice, the government strongly supports SMEs technology collaboration with the academy or the government sponsored R&D sector to increase their technological competitiveness. This study aims to investigate the impact on technological innovation of SME's collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector and its HRM system.
First, the impact of the collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector on technological performance is examined. Those SMEs with technological collaboration show higher technological innovation. Therefore, it is predicted that SMEs’ technological collaboration is positively related to the technological performance. As the SMEs often collaborate with the government sponsored R&D sector, hypothesis is set as follows:
H1: The more SMEs collaborate with the government sponsored R&D sector, the bigger the technological innovation.
Second, this study predicts that high commitment HRM system of SMEs is positively related to technological innovation. According to the resource or knowledge based view, organizational competitiveness depends on the employees’ individual capabilities, knowledge, commitment to work, or creativity. Recent study on the SHRM (strategic human resource management) and technological innovation revealed that high commitment HRM system positively affects the organization’s technological performance. The reason is high commitment HRM system helps employees develop capacities, gives motivation, and encourages active engagement. This system allows SMEs to acquire relatively better technicians and also to maintain and develop them. Organization with high commitment HRM system can increase technological performance by encouraging creative thinking, readiness for challenge, and capacity development. This is translated into the following hypothesis:
H2: The higher the integration of the high commitment HRM system in SMEs, the better technological performance.
Third, this study suggests that the impact of SME's collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector on technology performance is varied depending on the degree of integration of high commitment HRM system. The previous studies indicate that organizational absorptive capacity engenders a positive influence on the effect of technology collaboration with an external institution. The HRM system can be seen as an internal component of organizational absorptive capacity. Accordingly, the impact of SME's collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector on their technology performance is expected increase the high commitment HRM system is more highly integrated. High commitment HRM system helps internalize the knowledge acquired from the collaboration with an external institution, thereby allows SMEs to produce their own technological innovation. In other words, the higher the integration of this system in SMEs, the bigger the positive influence of technological collaboration with the government sponsored R&D sector on the technological performance.
H3: The higher the integration of the high commitment HRM system in SMEs, the bigger the positive influence of technological collaboration with the government sponsored R&D sector on the technological performance.
The participants of this study were SMEs with employees between 5and 300. The population was the SMEs located in the national industrial complex. 1,145 SMEs were randomly selected among the total population of 16,885. Before the main survey, the preliminary test was run to examine the validity of key variables such as technology performance, technology collaboration, and high commitment HRM system. Final questionnaire was delivered to the sampled 1,145 SMEs and 622 questionnaires were collected and used in the analysis. Of total 622 samples, 39.9% (247 samples) is between 44 (3.6 years) to 119 months (9.9 years) old since foundation, 44.9% (279 samples) is between 120 (10 years) and 299 months (24.9 years), and 15.4% (96 samples) is older than 300 months (25 years). In terms of size, 5.5% (34 samples) has 5 to 9 employees, 52.9% (329 samples), 10 to 49 employees, 20.1% (125 samples), 50 to 99 employees, and 17.8% (111 samples), 100 to 300 employees. Compared to the SMEs in the population, sample SMEs are relatively large as they are chosen from the ones in industrial complex.
To measure the technological performance (dependent variable), “total innovation,” “radical innovation,” and “incremental innovation” are calculated by adding number of product and procedural innovation and improvement in last 3 years. SME’s collaboration with the government R&D sector (independent variable) is measured by the sum of 8 types of assistance from the government’s R&D sector in three years. Another independent variable, high commitment HRM system is defined as the “bundle of HRM policy focusing on the increase of employee’s capabilities, engagement opportunities, and commitment to work” and is represented by 10 items (Likert 5 scale). As for the statistical methods, descriptive, correlation and negative binomial regression are used. Causal analysis has eliminated the items with low co-relations, thereby gaining justification. According to the significance test, Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.890. Size of the organization, amount of R&D investment, and type of industry are also controlled as they can affect the SME’s technological performance.
The results revealed that both the SME's collaboration with government sponsored R&D sector and the high commitment HRM system are positively correlated to technological performance. Furthermore, there exists a positive interaction effect between SME's collaboration with a government sponsored R&D sector and a high commitment HRM system. Specifically, the impact of SME's collaboration with a government sponsored R&D sector on technological performance is greater as a high commitment HRM system is higher.
These findings make contributions to Government's innovation policy and SME's technology management. When examining the policy of SME's collaboration with government R&D sectors, government should consider SMEs' internal effort for innovation including the possession of a high commitment HRM system. Because SME's technological capability can not be increased only by R&D investment, both quantitative and qualitative assessment of SMEs should be evaluated in order to support some SMEs to be technologically competitive. For technological management, it is important for SMEs with limited internal resources and capabilities to fully employ external resources to achieve higher technological performance. The development of a high commitment HRM system will be particularly helpful for adoption of technology and knowledge from outside.

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