Seeking Insight
Professors from an elite business school of the U.S. visited the Daejeon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation to study the Korean government's “creative economy model.”
According to the center and SK Group, six professors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. made a 9-day visit to Korea in order to attend an international seminar hosted by Global Initiatives at the school on June 10. Global Initiatives selects a country every year and holds an international seminar to study the economy, industry, and culture of the country.
The professors of the Wharton School selected the Korean government's creative economy model as the main topic of the seminar. This is because it is hard to find a way for the government and large firms to support the growth of start-up companies together in the U.S., and it maintains a method of public and private cooperation that has a positive effect on Korean industrial structure.
Professor Samir Nurmohamed said, “It is very new and interesting to see an economic model in which the government and big companies are committed to nurturing startups.” Professor Bulewi Gultekin said, “It is important to use human resources in the Korean industrial structure, and the creative economy will become the base to nurture talent that fits the industrial structure of the country.”
Regarding the concrete support measures of the government and SK Group, the official from the center said, “Since SK is the company focusing on ICT and energy chemistry, it supports its technology, network, and marketing. The national government and local governments allow the use of the results of R&D to build a system that creates added value of technologies and ideas that are brought up by talent in the Daejeon area.”
The Daejeon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation is an organization that fulfills the creative economy. It discovers startups with advanced technology and ideas and nurtures them. Paying attention to the fact that the SK Group, a leader in the information and communications, semiconductor, energy and chemistry sectors, commercializes advanced technologies and ideas from Daedeok Science Town, the nation’s best research group, the Wharton School chose Daejeon Center as the subject of study.
In particular, professors paid attention to the fact that the creative economy proceeds in the form of public and private cooperation. They said that the method is the nation’s unique industrial system that had a positive effect on making Korea into a strong country in communications.
An official from the school said, “Korea’s information and communications culture has grown at the fastest pace among other countries around the world through the public and private cooperation model. It is a rare case in the U.S. We need to pay attention to how cooperation models in the creative economy sector will materialize.”
Another official from the Wharton School said, “As we have experienced the actual circumstances of creative economy, a new business model of the Korean government, we grasped the meaning in terms of business administration. We have spent a meaningful time as we visited Korea to get insight to create the startup ecosystem in the U.S.”