<Abstract>
While the idea of Open innovation has become popular as an idea for enhancing innovation in firms, open innovation in the context of entrepreneurship is not well understood. Our research topic is about the role of entrepreneurship in open innovation process. In research related to innovation, issues of entrepreneurship and open innovation have become important topics. The relationship between entrepreneurship and open innovation has not researched and fully understood. It is expected that the different entrepreneurship practices will use different open innovation channels, which in turn will have different open innovation effects. In addition, nobody opens the ‘open innovation black box’ in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
In the papers by Chesbrough (2003,2006), one could understand open innovation from cases such as IBM, P&G, Intel, Merck and 3M. In each case, the role of CEOs such as Lou Gerstner in IBM, and Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce in Intel was identified as very important for the success of open innovation. But there appears to be no studies about the heads /owners of SMEs –their role and importance in open innovation. Thus it can be said that there is not much known about the relationship between entrepreneurship and open innovation in SMEs practically and theoretically.
For this paper we conduct our study in the IT convergence industry sector in South Korea – the study is done to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and open innovation. The methods adopted for this study is based on a survey. Regression analysis is used to study the relationship between entrepreneurship and open innovation. The questionnaire is developed from the Frascati manual question lists about manufacturing firms innovation survey. In addition, we added question lists about Entrepreneurship which are from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The questionnaire was sent to around 400 South Korean firms in the “IT convergence” sector. From the date collected through this survey, the aim is to find out the role of entrepreneurship in open innovation process of SMEs.Our main research question is simple. What is the relationship between entrepreneurship and open innovation?
For this research, a survey is conducted about entrepreneurship, open innovation, business models, and mean sales from about 400 Korean SMEs in the IT convergence sector. Findings drawn from analysis using regression method will be presented and discussed. In this study at attempt will be made to prove the moderating effect of the entrepreneurship on open innovation. Elements of Open innovation (multiple of depth of open innovation and width of open innovation) will be independent variables. Control variable includes firm year, firm size, and, firm’s internal R&D investment. Entrepreneurship will be the moderating variable. And, firms’ mean sales, or the number or new introducing of business model will be dependent variables.

Keywords: Open innovation, Entrepreneurship, Moderating effect, Business model, Technology evolution channel