Developed countries are expanding investment in science and technology and actively promote technological innovation in order to secure national competitiveness as the fourth industrial revolution arrives. Korea is also pursuing economic growth through technological innovation with R&D investment of the world''s top level.
Although there are debates about the government’s funding for industrial R&D expenses, the consensus that corporate innovation plays a central role as a driving force for national economic growth is prevalent. Accordingly, many countries rush to implement direct and indirect supports for the SMEs’ R&D activities.
This study analyzes the government support policy for ICT SMEs in terms of R&D funding and human competency enhancement. And, based on the analyses, it proposes a selective implementation of the R&D funds for ICT SMEs and an improvement on the ICT personnel support policy.
The purposes of this study are: First, to find out selective support measures to improve the effectiveness of the government’s R&D funding for ICT SMEs by analyzing the company''s self-funding ratio and short/long-term performance by project phases after determining whether the government''s R&D funding for companies promotes technological innovation and what factors influence R&D performance through precedent studies.
Second, by analyzing its appropriateness to evaluate ICT practical competency and comparing domestic and international test results, this study is to propose measures to improve and proliferate the TOPCIT(Test Of Practical Competency in ICT) that the government is conducting in consideration of the importance of supplying ICT human resources with practical competency for ICT SMEs to secure corporate competitiveness.
The results are as follows.
First, the commercialization and cumulative commercialization sales of the project completion year appear to increase as the self-funding ratio increases in response to the government''s R&D funding for ICT SMEs. By project phases, the commercialization sales increased in the later stages, while the cumulative commercialization sales increased in the earlier stages. The impact on the employment effect was positive only the proportion of the self-funds ratio.
Second, among the evaluation criteria of the TOPCIT, score adjustments for technical communication and IT business as well as software areas appear to be necessary. Additionally, localization of the evaluation model is found to be important as discrepancies attributed in everyday language are revealed upon comparisons of average scores of domestic and international test results.
In conclusion, selective support of the government by identifying company''s own innovation capabilities such as self-funding is required. And improving the evaluation model in a way that fits the field better will contribute to enhance innovation capability of ICT SMEs and further, sustainable development of the national economy by supplying ICT human resources with practical competency.