• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.402-417
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• 2001

This study empahsized the nature of spatial patterns, characteristics and embeddeness of foreign business service firms in Korea utilizing questionnaire survey and interview data. Foreign business services firms are active in forming interfirm networks with clients and supply firms in Korea for widening the market share in Korea. But a low proportion of foreign firms is engaged in academies-industry linkages, government organizations, research institutes, and trade associations. Knowledge transfer and interaction also shows low level of network and the regional development of foreign firms is still in the process of developing, not quite embedded yet. Policy guidances and instituional supports are very essential to strenthen interfirm network and collective learning process of foreing firms in Korea lather than mechanical accumulation of investments. Thus, regional foreign direct investment policy should be targeted towards the incrementation of the potential of foreign firms as a knowledge-intensive industry.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.43-61
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• 2000

This study investigate the spatial characteristics and corporate networks of foreign business service firms in Korea. Specifically intrafirm and extrafirm organization of foreign firms are addressed utilizing the corporate network perspective. For this purpose, this study conducted questionnaire and interview surveys for the foreign firms. Parent-subsidiary relationships are focused on the mechanisms by which Transnational Corporations (TNCs) headquarters control and coordinate their foreign affiliates and subsidiaries in order to achieve investment purpose in Korea (overseas market expansion). But extrafirm networks of foreign business services firms in Korea do not appear to play an important role in regional development to date. A low proportion of foreign firms is engaged in academics-industry linkages, and a low number o( foreign firms is formally linked with government organizations, research institutes, and trade associations. To conclude, Foreign direct investment firms in business services in Korea are characteristics by globalized intrafirm networks and localized interfirm and extrafirm networks. It is understood that regional development can be vitalized when Korean local firms have close relationships with technologically advanced foreign firms in tacit knowledge capacity. Foreign firms are able to play an important role in the development of business services in Korea. This study suggests that regional foreign direct investment policy should be targeted towards the corporate networking with foreign firms and domestic firms and incrementation of the potential of foreign firms as a knowledge-intensive industry.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.289-306
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• 2021

This paper aims to investigate how and to what extent FDI impacts the relative demand for skilled labor within firms in the case of developing countries. The analysis uses a sizeable micro-level dataset for Malaysian manufacturing industries using the System-GMM estimators to control the estimations' endogeneity problems. For this purpose, the study uses foreign equity share at the firm level to investigate foreign ownership effects at the firm level and the Horizontal FDI index by Smarzynska Javorcik (2004) to analyze FDI intra-industry linkages influence on the structure of labor demand for Malaysian domestic firms. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership increases the skilled demand within Malaysian manufacturing through the learning process, exclusively for small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs). Conversely for foreign-owned firms, changes in their skilled-labor share do not associate with changes in firm-level foreign equity share. We conclude that foreign ownership per se is not the major contributing factor for skill upgrading in Malaysian manufacturing firms. Furthermore, the competitive pressures caused by foreign firms' presence within the same industry - namely horizontal FDI - has a significant negative spillover effect on the level of skilled-labor share for domestic firms in the Malaysian manufacturing sector within periods of the understudies.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.5
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• pp.185-209
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• 2000

A review of shows that past research has focused predominately on foreign market entry strategy issues in relatively well-established firms. These studies have either ignored venture firms or have failed to treat these firms separately. Only recently, researchers have broadened their search to include aspects of the foreign market investment of the venture. The purposes of this study are to identify and explain the impact factors such as ownership specific advantage, transaction cost, and location specific advantage on the choice of foreign market entry strategy for venture firms. To find the perceived the foreign market entry strategy and determinant factors, 130 venture CEOs from the computer and communications equipment industries were asked to describe their venture's foreign market entry strategy through 17 questionnaire items on competitive method. Using factor analysis, the six determinant factors were categorized. To test the relationships between the foreign market entry strategy and factors such as ownership specific advantage, transaction cost, and location specific advantage, the data collected by questionnaire from 92 ventures. The main results of this research are as follows. First, the factors of ownership specific advantage have partially significant impact on the foreign market entry strategy of venture firms, Second, the factors of transaction cost have significant impact on their foreign market entry strategy. Third, the factors of location specific advantage have significant impact on their foreign market entry strategy. This study has produced evidence to demonstrate that the foreign market entry strategy profile of venture firms can be distinguished from those of relatively well-established firms. An expanded study would allow for stronger conclusions regarding the relative explanatory power of individual variables in the method. Additional research is also needed to examine other determinant variables connecting foreign market entry strategy.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.43-49
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates what factors contribute to management decisions by corporate governance in the Korean stock market. In the paper, dividends and investments were imployed as management decisions and major stockholders' shares and foreign investors' shares were used as corporate governance. Research design, data, and Methodolog - Samples are constructed by manufacturing firms listed on the stock market of Korea as well as those who settle accounts in December from 2001 to 2018. Financial institutions are excluded from the sample as their accounting procedures, governance and regulations differ. This study adopted the panel regression model to assess the sample construction including yearly and cross-sectional data. Results - This results support the literatures that major shareholders showed insignificance to dividends, positive significance to investment in financially unconstrained firms and negative significance to investment in financially constrained firms. Whereas foreign investors favor firms to increase dividends but they decrease investments only in financially constrained firms. Conclusion - This paper documented evidence that financial constrained firms use dividends for their investment and foreign investors decrease investments under financial constraints. But for dividends decisions, foreign investors give significant positive impacts irrespective of financial constraints.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.109-121
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• 2022

The study empirically examines the horizontal spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the productivity of Indian pharmaceutical firms. Robust least squares and the Generalized Method of Moments estimators are applied for the firm-level panel data of Indian pharmaceutical companies whose shares were traded on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The information was collected from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) Prowess database from 2015 to 2019. Based on the regularity in data availability, the sample firms are limited to 112 companies, 100 of which are domestic firms and 12 international firms. Firms with more than 10 percent foreign equity are classified as FDI firms, while those with less than that are classified as domestic firms. Estimation results show that foreign ownership does not contribute to the productivity of domestic firms. Due to increased competition, the Indian pharmaceutical companies with foreign equity participation are not more productive than local ones. Moreover, the findings reveal a negative and insignificant horizontal spillover effect from FDI on the productivity of domestic enterprises. The absence of horizontal spillovers may be attributable to foreign enterprises' ability to prevent technological outflow to competitors in the same industry.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.19-42
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• 2022

Purpose - This study investigates the effects of foreign investor ownership on firm innovation and the different stages of the firm innovation process for business group affiliation (affiliated firms) and nonaffiliated firms. Design/methodology - Research and development (R&D) intensity is used as a proxy for firm innovation. We use a sample of 7,655 firm-year observations of Korean listed firms from 2001 to 2015. To identify the distinct features of business group affiliation and how foreign investor ownership affects firm innovation, we divide the sample into affiliated and non-affiliated firms. Moreover, we classify total R&D expenditures as research and development expenditures. Findings - This study finds a positive relationship between foreign investor ownership and innovation in non-affiliated firms. However, the foreign investor ownership's role in facilitating firm innovation does not influence business group affiliation. Moreover, the results show that foreign investor ownership encourages firms to increase research expenditures, which is the amount spent in the early stages of a firm's R&D process. Originality/value - Existing studies have overlooked the distinct features of business group affiliation and the different characteristics of research and development expenditures. Thus, this study considers the distinct features of business group affiliation and investigates how foreign investor ownership affects different stages of R&D activities.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.150-177
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• 2018

We review two specific risk management strategies of venture capitalists (VCs): deal syndication and domain specialization with respect to their explicit role in adjudging and managing the overall magnitude of information asymmetry risks. These are analyzed for three distinct categories of VC firms as classified by their funding stage focus (early vs. late), ownership type (foreign vs. domestic) and the human capital composition of the core VC team (entrepreneurial vs. investor). The analysis is based on both secondary data and primary data for active 72 VC firms in India. Syndication is moderately important for entrepreneurial VC firms, but not at all important for early-stage focused and foreign VC firms. This finding is distinctly different from what has been conventionally observed in the literature. Among the various arenas of domain specialization, high-technology focus is important for all segments of VC firms. In the context of investment-stage focus, foreign VC firms exhibit growth-stage specialization, while entrepreneurial VC firms concentrate on earlier investment stages.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.205-225
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• 2022

Different types of corporate ownership may affect the environment among firms and could influence the decisions of new entities in the region. This study determines the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in hindering new foreign manufacturing firms in the Yangtze River delta (YRD). The negative binomial regression is used for city-sector level data and the following points summarize the results: Firstly, the unique privileges that SOEs enjoy alongside governmental support create difficulties for foreign firms trying to establish themselves near existing SOEs. Secondly, although core cities are more attractive to foreign firms than peripheral cities, the role of core-periphery reveals that, in spite of all the regional advantages core cities could offer, whenever the share of SOEs is higher, the core-periphery system will have an adverse impact on new foreign firms. In other words, government preference for SOEs can suppress the attraction of foreign start-ups. However, after 2008, the governmental authorities finally succeeded in implementing their promising policy of fair treatment and competition in only the core cities.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.37-59
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• 2021

Purpose - Although models of innovation and exporting dominate recent studies of relations between innovation and access to foreign markets, relations between innovation and foreign direct investment (FDI) are less explored. This is especially true of relations between types of innovation and FDI. We fill that gap in the literature with empirical evidence that clarifies whether firms enter foreign markets through exports or FDI. Design/methodology - In order to assess the role of innovation in firms' international engagement strategies, we develop research hypotheses and present new empirical evidence on firms' choice of entry - exports and FDI - based on firm-level data. Findings - Our empirical results suggest that the impact of product innovation is more significant in transition from being a purely domestic firm to an exporter, while process innovation more significantly affect transition from being an exporter to a multinational enterprise. Our results also support 'self-selection into FDI' rather than 'learning-by-performing FDI' in the relationship between innovation and firms' overseas expansion. Originality/value - Recent literature on the relationship between innovation and firms' participation in foreign markets is dominated by models of innovation and export behavior. However, foreign direct investment by multinational enterprises may also be associated with firms' innovative activities. We first analyze how product and process innovations influence firms' choices to initiate exports or FDI.