Abstract
This study analyzes the status of foreign direct investment in Korean textiles and fashion firms and investigates the factors determining their performance. A total of 1,251 cases (including 1,116 manufacturers and 135 of distributors from the 2009/2010 Korean Overseas Business Directory published by KOTRA) were used. The results of this study are as follow: 1) In the case of manufacturers, China was the most heavily invested in country, and the Asian region that included China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh consisted of 80% total investment. In cases of distributors, China was also the first ranking country and other countries, that included Vietnam, United States, and Japan are major ones. 2) In terms of the foreign entry mode, wholly-owned subsidiaries represented 90% of total cases. As the index of the degree of localization, the ratio of local employees was very high. 3) Different countries were utilized by year, type of business, and area of process. In manufacturers, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam were the most heavily utilized countries in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, respectively. For distributors, China was the major market ill the 1980s and 1990s but Vietnam has emerged as the biggest market in the 2000s. In terms of area of process, China was for manufacturing fibers and fabrics, Vietnam was for most items, Indonesia was for assembly, knit, accessories, and Bangladesh was for embroidery and accessories. 4) The determining factors of the age of foreign business as the proxy index and performance of foreign business entry, were different by the type of business. For manufacturers, four factors including the dollar amount of investment, number of local employees, the mode of foreign direct investment, and entry to China were significant. On the other hand, only two factors including the dollar amount of investment and entry (other than China) were significant distributors.
