• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.61-90
• /
• 2016

This study aims to identify the sources of productivity change in export manufacturing firms. After estimating the Malmquist productivity index, a panel regression was used to calculate the source of productivity change. Upon conducting a literature review of this field, six variables were selected as explanatory variables. The results of an analysis of 355 export manufacturing firms operating from 2009 through 2015 are as follows: First, both innovation activity and total assets had a positive impact on productivity change. However, employment cost intensity, equity ratio, and current ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in export manufacturing firms. Second, innovation activity and intangible assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity, selling expense intensity, and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in large export manufacturing firms. Third, innovation activity had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in small and medium export manufacturing firms. Fourth, intangible assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity, selling expense intensity, and current ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in export manufacturing firms listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index. Fifth, innovation activity and total assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in manufacturing firms listed on the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. The managerial implications of this study are also discussed.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.411-417
• /
• 2021

This study aims to estimate the production function and total factor productivity (TFP) of Vietnamese seafood processing firms. At the same time, the study analyses the impact of internal factors of firms and the quality of economic institutions on the TFP of the Vietnamese seafood processing industry. The study uses the Function Control (FC) approach in TFP estimation and the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) regression model in the analysis of factors affecting TFP. The study was carried out on the census data of enterprises of the Vietnamese seafood processing industry collected by the Vietnamese General Statistics Office and Provincial Competitiveness Index data of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the period from 2013 to 2018. Estimated results from the models show that: i) Vietnamese seafood processing firms are, currently, mainly labor-intensive, the TFP contribution and output is only about 2.258. ii) Factors such as the firm's age, firm's size, and the firm's ownership affect TFP. In which, firms that have few numbers of years of operation, small and medium firms, and private firms have low TFP. iii) Institutional quality and the provincial business environment have a positive impact on the TFP of Vietnamese seafood processing firms in this period.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.353-362
• /
• 2022

Small and medium businesses (SMEs) play a critical role in the economy, yet they are plagued by a shortage of finance. Determining the influence of cash sources both inside and outside the firm is critical to the company's survival and growth. As a result, the purpose of this research is to determine the impact of capital on the growth of SMEs in Vietnam. The key factors of this research are equity and liabilities, which are two proxies for a firm's capital. The data is based on the results of a survey conducted every two years from 2005 to 2015, which included over 2,600 SMEs in 20 processing and manufacturing industries in ten provinces and cities, including Hanoi, Hai Phong, Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Tay, Phu Tho, Nghe An, Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa, Lam Dong, and Long An. The findings show that characteristics such as equity capital, total workforce growth rate, and male entrepreneurs have a positive impact on enterprise growth, whereas liabilities, firm age, and export have a negative impact on enterprise growth. The study has demonstrated that equity has a positive impact while liabilities have a negative impact on the growth of Vietnamese SMEs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.474-485
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants and elements to enhance Korean international competitiveness, employing Porter's(1998) Diamond Model. Half of the 500 leading apparel exporters that were members of the Korea Apparel Industry Association in 2003 were selected as the target of this research. From May to June of 2003, survey questionnaires were sent to executives of these 250 companies in person or by telephone, e-mail, or fax. Seventy questionnaires were used for the final data anlysis. The items used were Reliability, Categorical Regression, and Frequency, using SPSS 11.5. The results were as follows: First, as a result of analyzing the influence of international competitiveness in Korean apparel industry, the firm's strategy, structure, and rivalry was the most influential factor. Others were related and supporting industries, government, chance, demand conditions, and factor conditions. Also, the elements that affect Korean international competitiveness were listed as the level of price competition in foreign markets, the level of labor cost, export marketing capacity, and exchange fluctuation. The most important element to improve the international competitiveness of the Korean apparel industry was a demand growth rate of the overseas markets(Demand Conditions), followed by the level of the labor costs(Factor Conditions), the capability of internationalization(Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry), the change of currency(Chance), the quality and management of products(Demand Conditions), the capability of planning products(Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry), free trade from 2005(Chance), and global sourcing strategy(Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry). Korea's main rival country in apparel related and supporting industry factors is China. However, Korea has a higher level of technology development, quality, and price level than China.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.47 no.4
• /
• pp.137-159
• /
• 2022

This study aims to analyze international trade papers published in Korea during the past 2002-2022 years. Through this study, it is possible to understand the main subject and direction of research in Korea's international trade field. As the research mythologies, this study uses the big data analysis such as the text mining and Social Network Analysis such as frequency analysis, several centrality analysis, and topic analysis. After analyzing the empirical results, the frequency of key word is very high in trade, export, tariff, market, industry, and the performance of firm. However, there has been a tendency to include logistics, e-business, value and chain, and innovation over the time. The degree and closeness centrality analyses also show that the higher frequency key words also have been higher in the degree and closeness centrality. In contrast, the order of eigenvector centrality seems to be different from those of the degree and closeness centrality. The ego network shows the density of business, sale, exchange, and integration appears to be high in order unlike the frequency analysis. The topic analysis shows that the export, trade, tariff, logstics, innovation, industry, value, and chain seem to have high the probabilities of included in several topics.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• /
• v.43 no.3
• /
• pp.29-40
• /
• 2020

Korean firms have been vigorously searching and exploring overseas market opportunities through export and overseas investment. As of end of 2019, there were more than 80,000 Korean overseas subsidiaries all over the world. With Korean overseas direct investment increasing recently, it became one of the important issues for overseas investors to be successful in the global market. There are a lot of studies on factors influencing the performance of overseas subsidiaries such as 'firm' and 'country' factors. This study empirically examines subsidiary performance determinants with 'industry architectures' by using a sample of 292 overseas Korean firm subsidiaries. Industry architectures are the stable but evolving sets of rules and roles through which labor is divided within a sector. This article considers how industry architectures shape success in international expansion. Industry architectures differ between countries, are not necessarily technologically determined, shape firms' capabilities and their competitive environment, and constitute a distinct level of analysis. We extract antecedents of related theory and empirically test its impact with a survey of Korean firms expanding in emerging economies. We would say this is the first study which tries to focus on industry architectures with the performance of Korean overseas subsidiaries. We find that separability and similarity of industry architectures across countries and localization of subsidiaries are robust and important predictors of success in international expansion. Our results suggest that industry architectures should be added to firm and country as an intermediate level of analysis that helps explain success in international expansion. While we established a pattern, much more remains to be done. We focus on the success of foreign operations, but we do not consider the broader benefits of going abroad, such as the learning or network effects that accrue at the level of the entire firm. The next obvious question is whether the results would differ in the developed market context. These we leave for future research to consider.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.48-64
• /
• 2021

Purpose - This study examined the effect of tariff cuts on productivity in Korea's manufacturing industries and the effect of initial productivity level before tariff cuts on productivity improvement after tariff cuts. We also attempted to identify whether import-driven or export-driven factors are more important for productivity improvement, especially in low productivity industries. Design/methodology - Since tariff reduction is a policy decision that can affect cross-industry, its impact is spread across all industries beyond the scope of a single firm through the input and output network of industry structure. Accordingly, we proposed a new method to measure the change in productivity to reflect the impact of tariff cuts across industries. Through an Armington CGE analysis, changes in endogenous variables can be directly measured after the exogenous shock of tariff reduction, and the amount of movements in productivity triggered by tariff cuts can also be calculated. We can thus assess the effectiveness of exogenous policy, such as tariff cuts, through the difference between the benchmark and counterfactual values of endogenous variables. Findings - This study confirmed that tariff reduction positively affected productivity improvement in Korea's manufacturing industries. It also confirmed that productivity gains occur in Korea's leading export industries. Finally, greater productivity gains were recorded in the group with additional high-export-share or high-import-share conditions for low productivity industries. These results are, in a limited sense, consistent with the existing studies that emphasize the importance of exports and imports on productivity improvement, especially for low productivity industries. Originality/value - The results of our experiments are different from those of non-CGE studies, which measure the industry-level change in productivity with dummy coefficients, in terms of directly calculating the amount of change in productivity. In addition, we propose that the Armington CGE model is more appropriate than the Melitz CGE model to directly measure the productivity after tariff cuts. This is because the Melitz CGE model assumes the given specific productivity density, which does not change after an overall drop of tariffs. To the best of our knowledge, this approach to directly calculating productivity by reflecting the impact of tariff reduction across industries through CGE analysis, is unprecedented in this literature.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.253-269
• /
• 2019

This study examines the utilization effect of FTA on the sales and profit of the secondary auto-part suppliers in two aspects: 1) firm-level survey on the utilization of FTA and 2) statistical inference on the FTA effects on their sales and profit. We use the GLS statistical technique, panel and survey data of 130 secondary auto-part suppliers in the Daegu and Kyungpook area in 2007-2016. The evidence shows that the secondary auto-part suppliers struggle to prepare documents for the FTA certificates of origin due to their small firm size, although they utilize the FTA at the relatively high rate of 92 percent. Statistical evidence shows that an increase in the export of the first vender significantly affects the sale of the secondary auto-part vendors, but not their profit. The low profit and high managing cost of utilizing the FTA deteriorate the utilization effect of the FTA of the secondary auto-part vendors, which is a key factor in a global supply chain and for the competitiveness of the automobile industry. Government policies are required for the secondary auto-part suppliers to utilize the FTA more effectively and share the benefits of tariff reduction with first auto-part vendors under FTA transaction.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.53-81
• /
• 2000

Between 1980 and 1997 the Korean textile and clothing industry (KTCI) experienced the transformation of export-led accumulation regime rooted in domestically-derived price competitiveness into the combination between foreign mass production involving the geographical extension of productive forces and quality strategy based on upgrading technology and automation involved in the domestic market for high quality and price products. This restructuring of the KTCI is rooted at the crisis in the export-led growth regime implemented unity 1980 due to the rapid increase in wage levels by the ‘great labour movement’occurred in 1987. In particular, increased wage and collective bargaining realized through labour empowerment led to the crisis in the conjoin between mass production and mass export based on long working hours and low wage structure. The aim of this paper is to explore the transformation of development modes between 1980 and 1997 that can help us in understanding the fundamental reasons for the restructuring of the KTCI. To this end, the paper identifiles the changing accumulation regimes between 1980 and 1997 mediated by wage-labour relations, inter-firm relations and state-film relations, which are insitutional forms of the modes of regulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.31 no.6 s.165
• /
• pp.902-910
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to suggest future marketing strategy for Korean textile and apparel industry so that they could find a way to maintain a major sourcing site in the global market place. This study identified international buyers' visiting purposes and the items they were most interested in sourcing from Korea according to their firm types and home country regions. This study analyzed the survey results obtained fiom international buyers who visited the international textile and apparel trade show in Seoul, Korea. The data was analyzed using frequency and ${\chi}^2$-test analysis. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between buyers' country regions and their interests. There was also a significant relationship between buyers' firm types and their visiting purposes. The results indicated that decision making for what Korean industry should focus their marketing efforts on should be different according to the buyers' country regions and firm types. This study was conducted to present an effective marketing strategy for how Korean textile and apparel industries could survive in the competitive global marketplace.