Korean Government R&D Researchers’ Entrepreneurship: A Catalyst for Technological Innovation Towards Global Goals

The World Economic Forum has suggested that the United Nations" Sustainable Development Goals can mostly be achieved by leveraging new technologies emerging from the 4th Industrial Revolution. To this end, it is crucial to conduct breakthrough research and development (R&D). However, Korean government-funded R&D institutes are facing new challenges as they must develop innovative technologies while simultaneously addressing national demands to solve social problems. This requires individual researchers to adopt an entrepreneurial attitude, which can contribute to the creation of innovative R&D solutions. This study aimed to investigate how R&D institutes could effectively respond to this challenge, focusing on factors that could stimulate individual researchers" entrepreneurial attitudes. An Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to determine which factors should be employed to promote researchers" entrepreneurial activities. We also compared how the importance of these factors differed by manager experience and career length. Findings of this study contribute to the literature by providing insights into how R&D institutes can effectively address global goals during the process of the 4th Industrial Revolution.