Hello Professor Oh, welcome to KDI School!

Thank you!

Thank you for affording us the time to hold this interview with you. Would you tell us briefly about your background?

My name is Junho, Oh (laughs). It’s not a very popular last name in Korea. I think 1% of Koreans have that last name. that is a fun fact about me. I previously worked for the Korean government at the Ministry of Science and ICT from the year 2012. I spent seven years there. I was in charge of innovation, R&D, and entrepreneurship policy support programs in the Korean government. One of the missions I had was mimicking a well-developed entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as that in other countries like the United States and the UK. I realized that although there were models of success, many were not so successful. This led to my interest in understanding what the determinants or factors are that lead to successful, self-sustaining entrepreneurial ecosystems. With this in mind, I traveled to the United States to study at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I studied for almost six years and just completed my dissertation on entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurship support organizations like incubators or leaders in those systems. My research interest is in understanding how to achieve better self-sustaining ecosystems. That’s when I realized there was a work opportunity at KDIS. That’s my path so far, to put it briefly. 

That’s actually very interesting. Could you tell us more about your research interests? 

My interest is in entrepreneur support systems like incubators and accelerators - basically organizations that are designed to support entrepreneurs, especially for those that have the resources but do not know how to support entrepreneurs. I study these kinds of organizations, and I am interested in how they sort of interact in these kinds of ecosystems. The other interest is in how entrepreneurs leverage those supports to achieve their growth. These support organizations are also evolving; they are not stable - they keep changing their support. So I am also interested in what  the reasons are for these organizations’  change. These are the kinds of questions I am pursuing for both my PhD study and for my next journey in this school. I am interested in knowing what are the best practices or other elements to keep in mind for better management of the entrepreneurial ecosystem or nonprofit efforts.

I think you will be a popular choice amongst students interested in entrepreneurship. What courses will you be teaching in the fall semester?

For the next semester, I will be teaching a practical course on the entrepreneurial state, where students will be asked to do case studies. The program design is inspired by the book ‘The Entrepreneurial State’ by Professor Mariana Mazzucato from University College London. The entrepreneurial state calls for a paradigm shift in policy and innovation, looking at what roles government should take to steer innovation. It’s looking at what government can do to improve some of the inefficiencies by using new approaches. The reason I suggested this course is that it shows how government can take action to steer innovation and entrepreneurial activities. This course will give students the knowledge of what specific activities governments can do. And for the spring semester, I hope to take on a few more courses. 

What are your expectations and what are you looking forward to working on?

It would be interesting to interact with students who are interested in entrepreneurship cases for capstone projects. This type of domain is very interesting - specific cases matter. Context really matters. There’s no single rule for any case; there’s no one-size-fits-all. I am interested in engaging with students who want to develop their research in this domain. I was given the opportunity to apply for internal research funding at KDIS. My main motivation for studying this field was my experience. I wanted to understand what the outcomes are of the policies I participated in designing. One key project was the K-Startup Challenge Korea. The project brought together entrepreneurs from all over the world: America, Europe, Southeast Asia. We invited 40 teams per year and gave them acceleration support for their ideas and allowed them to make connections with Korean investors. I want to answer the question, what are the outcomes of those activities? Because the data is pretty rare. I am excited to get funding for this kind of project. The other expectation is to engage with students at KDIS as well. 

I would say one way to engage with students outside of classroom is through the KDIS sports clubs. Could you tell us the sports you enjoy, and what social activity at KDIS are you looking forward to most?

I am into tennis. I started after the pandemic, and it’s been four years although I’m average-skilled (laughs). I play tennis with my family. I’m looking for clubs that I can join in Sejong. I also look forward to attending the school’s Food Festival. I watched a YouTube Vlog by a previous student and it looked fun, so I am very much looking forward to attending the food festival. 

To wrap up this interview, what advice would you give to students? 

This is something I heard when I was undertaking my PhD: “Curiosity and perseverance matter.” These aren’t my words, but they were suggested to me by one of the chief directors at NASA. One of the projects he was involved in was successful, and he attributed it to curiosity and perseverance. During my PhD, there were moments I felt like giving up, but curiosity kept me going. It’s a game-changer. I would suggest to students to think more about the topic they are interested in, to be really curious enough about that topic. Curiosity makes one persevere better. Something I also learned during my PhD was: “Follow your dependent variable.” When you are trying to choose a department or place to study, probably some departments may study your topic as an independent variable or some universities may study it as a dependent variable. I would suggest people go to the department that is the go-to kind of place where scholars are exploring your topic of interest. That would be the place where a lot of people who have similar interest in the phenomenon are in. For my case, I was interested in both entrepreneurship and government efforts, so I could find more support from departments studying entrepreneurship or innovation but at the same time, my value was from the government sector.