R&D, Marketing, Strategic Planning, or Human Resources? Which CEO Career Is Most Helpful for the Economic Sustainability of ICT Startups in South Korea?

Hongbum Kim, Yuri Jo and Daeho Lee
Additional contact information
Hongbum Kim: Korea National Industrial Convergence Center, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Ansan 15588, Korea
Yuri Jo: Department of Telecommunications & Internet Policy Research, Korea Information Society Development Institute, Jincheon 27872, Korea
Daeho Lee: Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: The market performance of a company is greatly influenced by the functional experience of the chief executive. In the case of a small startup, the functional experience of the chief executive is even greater. Based on career data of chief executives, this study first classifies startups in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry into four different groups. In addition, this study analyzes the effect of the CEO’s experience on the market performance of ICT startups by deriving the efficiency of each company using the financial data of ICT startups provided in the database. This study estimates the technical efficiency of each group using stochastic frontier analysis and then uses meta-frontier analysis to compare the efficiency of different groups. As a result, the CEO group with a career in strategy and planning showed the highest meta-frontier efficiency, whereas the CEO group with a career in R&D showed the lowest.

Keywords: ICT startup; chief executive officer; career; efficiency; meta-frontier (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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