Firms’ diversification into new business areas is very important to their survival and growth under the high pressure from today’s severe competition in various business areas. If firms’ business areas are getting more and more mature but they want to continue surviving and growing, then, they have no choice but to make diversification into new business areas. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are not exceptional to the need of diversification, and this makes this research make an empirical analysis of such antecedents as SMEs’ external technology cooperation network diversity and technology development driven by chief technology officer (CTO) to their diversification into new business areas from technology development. In other words, in order to illuminate the antecedents to SMEs’ diversification into new business areas from technology development, this study empirically looks into not only the direct influence of SMEs’ external technology cooperation network diversity on their diversification into new business areas from technology development but also the moderating impact of their technology development driven by CTO on this direct influence of SMEs’ external technology cooperation network diversity. By analyzing 2,200 data of South Korean SMEs with the ordinary least squares regression, this research has empirically revealed that SMEs’ external technology cooperation network diversity directly and positively influences their diversification into new business areas as well as that this direct and positive influence of SMEs’ external technology cooperation network diversity is moderated by their technology development driven by their CTO.
I. Introduction
II. Theoretical Background and Research Model
III. Research Methodology
VI. Research Model Testing Results
V. Conclusion
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