This study focuses on the role of ecosystems for young innovative companies (YICs) and is based on a unique set of phone survey data from Finland and South Korea. The re- sults are threefold: Finnish YICs participate more actively in ecosystems than Korean YICs; on aver- age, Korean YICs report to have experienced lower ecosystem impact compared to Finnish YICs; in both countries, key organizations of the ecosystems are represented on the board of directors in about one-third of the sample firms. | 43 THE ROLE OF ECOSYSTEMS FOR START-UPS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN KOREA AND FINLAND1 Matthias Deschryvere2 VTT Technical Research Centre Finland LTD, Espoo, Finland Younghwan Kim The Science and Technology Policy Institute, Sejong-si, Korea Abstract: The strategic importance of innovation ecosystems has received increased attention from both the academic and policy perspectives. However, there is only limited empirical evidence on the importance of these ecosys- tems from the perspective of younger firms. This study focuses on the role of ecosystems for young innovative companies (YICs) and is based on a unique set of phone survey data from Finland and South Korea. The re- sults are threefold: (i) Finnish YICs participate more actively in ecosystems than Korean YICs; (ii) on aver- age, Korean YICs report to have experienced lower ecosystem impact compared to Finnish YICs; (iii) in both countries, key organizations of the ecosystems are represented on the board of directors in about one-third of the sample firms. Keywords: Innovation ecosystem; Start-up ecosystem; Finland start-ups; Korean startups; Ecosystem impact. 1. Introduction The insight that innovation activities of firms and their success depend increasingly on other actors has led to the introduction of the concept of innovation ecosystems (Adner, 2012). Despite the recent interest in innovation ecosystems, the original concept dates back over two decades and refers to a loosely interconnected network of companies and other entities that coevolve capabilities around a shared set of technologies, knowledge, and skills, and that work cooperatively and competitively to develop products and services (Moore, 1993). For the purposes of this paper, ecosystems are 1 This analysis is based on the research cooperation between VTT Technical Research Centre Finland Ltd., Ghent University (Belgium) and Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI, South Korea) and is part of the EnterGROW project (Number .
