Promoting Globally Successful (and Innovative) SMEs: Strategies by Korean Firms to become Independent Global Specialists First draft: October 2010 This revision: May 2011 Keun Lee 1 , Jooyoung Kwak 2 , and Jaeyong Song 3 1 Department of Economics, Seoul National University 2 Yonsei School of Business, Yonsei University 3 School of Business, Seoul National University Earlier versions of the present paper were presented at the 2010 ASIALICS Conference held in Taipei, Taiwan, in April, and at the 2009 DIME workshop entitled, "Industrial Dynamics and Sectoral Systems in Developing Economies,‖ which was held in Milan. The authors would like to thank two referees, as well as Richard Nelson, Franco Malerba, Jorge Katz, Roberta Rabellotti, Youngbae Kim, Sung-Soo Seol, Kong-Rae Lee, Chang-Wook Kim, Jin Ho Yoon, Young-Mok Bae, Keonbeom Lee, and Young-Ryeol Park for their useful comments and discussion.  Correspondence to: Keun Lee. Department of Economics, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanangno, Seoul, Korea. Email: Kenneth@snu.ac.kr ; Phone: +822-880-6367.