Technology commercialization is a series of processes involving the application of existing technologies to improve existing products or services or to create new ones. It plays an important role of enhancing the economic performance of innovation. This study examines various aspects of technology commercialization activities in the Korean private sector and proposes suggestions for related policy issues.As competition among firms becomes cutthroat due to globalization and digitalization among industries, technology innovation is considered more important than ever in order for firms to increase their competitiveness. Therefore, Korean firms and the government have continuously raised investment in technology innovation ; however, they have not exerted much effort on technology commercialization, which would enhance economic performance practically. Consequently, the economic effects leave much to be desired relative to the technological effects.In order to enhance the economic performance of innovation, we must pay attention to firms’ technology commercialization activities because technologies, which are developed by universities and public research institutes as well as private firms, are mainly commercialized by firms. The Korean government has adopted various policies of supporting technology commercialization since 2000 by establishing the ‘Plan for Promotion of Technology Transfer and Commercialization’. The 3rd Plan (2009-2011) was established focusing on supporting firms’ activities, but it did not actively promote technology commercialization in the private sector.There is no common definition of technology commercialization, and it is used differently, according to researchers. It is usually considered as a series of processes of development, production and sales of new products or improvement of existing products using obtained technologies. It ranges from development of technologies applicable to new products (or production processes), culminating in the production of final products for market launch.In this study, we divide technology commercialization into three phases : applied research, making of prototypes, and production for marketing. The shaded area of Figure 1 shows each phase of commercialization.According to the KIET (Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade) survey in 2011, firms’ technology commercialization in Korea mostly focuses on the commercialization of growing technologies, which carry low commercial risk and do not take much time to commercialize. Firms fail to commercialize technology mainly because of failure in the development of the technology (applied research) or high risk of commercialization. Other major reasons include low or no market demand, lack of financial resources, and deficiency in marketing management abilities.Under these circumstances, we suggest several ideas for policy improvement - such as the establishment of the infrastructure and the improvement of the R&BD (research and business development) supporting system of the government - designed to promote technology commercialization in the private sector
