A case study of the Korean government's preparation for the fourth industrial revolution: Public program to support business model innovation

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial Revolution caused by innovative technologies is an irresistible megatrend, and many companies, institutions, and major countries are making efforts to participate. The World Economic Forum took the lead in discussing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, adding the issue to its 2016 agenda, and found that many governments, including that of Korea, were concerned about how to support their nation’s participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and were pursuing programs to support such efforts. In this study, we describe one of those programs, the Korean government’s Flagship Project Support Program (FPSP), which supports latecomers in creating open platforms and creating new business ideas in innovative technological industries. The program helps businesses overcome entry barriers to existing business ecosystems established by big technological players in growing fields such as smart cars, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR), etc. The purpose of this study is to determine whether latecomers and small- and medium-sized companies that are experiencing difficulties in their own innovation can succeed in innovation through the Korean government’s FPSP. This study performed a comprehensive and qualitative analysis based on the Logic Model Framework consisting of an investigation of business ecosystems before and after the FPSP, assessment of outcomes, and evaluation of the effectiveness of the FPSP. This study shows that open platforms resulting from the FPSP successfully innovated business models in Korea. Our study, therefore, has implications for other governments seeking to play a role in supporting the Fourth Industrial Revolution.