• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.17-34
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• 2001

This paper is to analyze how firms in a large firm-led industrial city have carried out the restructuring in the face of radical shifts, with focus on the strategy and the restructuring of firms in Ulsan, a typical industrial district in Korea that is specialized in heavy & chemical industry. It has been well known that the local economy has been led by a small number of large firms, including affiliates of chaebol, and its industrial structure has also been characterised as a clear dichotomy between large firms as a customer and small and medium-size firms as a supplier, which can be called not horizontal but vertical relations. It can identify some tendencies, however, that local companies have been rather dynamically changing in response to increasingly turbulent environment since the Asian crisis. Some are radical, but some incremental. These can be summarized in four distinctive but interlinked ways. First, more than half of local companies surveyed have attempted to change their production systems, mainly from the fordist mass production towards the flexible mass production, seeking both economies of scale and scope. Second, local firms have vigorously continued to reorganize the boundary of the production and the organization, by specializing products and focusing on the core competence in order to save costs and cope with radically changing customer demands in a flexible way. Third, there have been various strategies for the organizational innovation such as the introduction of team organization, the boundary blurring between the managerial and production workers and the intra-firm spin-offs, so as to improve managerial efficiency and competence in the use of internal labour market. Finally, they have tried to be more sensitive to the market and customers. These tendencies seem to be increasingly critical to sustain their competitiveness. To do so, they tend to focus increasingly not only on the competing via the product quality rather than through price, but also to seek to diversify the market and customer firms beyond national boundary.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.624-641
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• 2004

Since 1995, when local autonomy policies were enacted in Korea, many local governments have adopted festival-centered place-marketing strategies, in order to develop their regional economies by attracting tourists, as well to provide the general public with information about local comparative advantages. This study assesses the spread effect of the Cheongdo Bull-Fighting Festival upon the regional tourism industry, by analysing questionnaire data obtained from festival visitors and merchants at other major tourist attractions in the area. It is concluded that the Cheongdo Bull-Fighting Festival has been insufficient in attaining the objective of developing the regional economy and the tourism industry, because at present, most of the festival spectators are not tourists as such, but rather residents of the Cheongdo daily community (Daegu metropolitan area), and they do not visit other major tourist attractions in conjunction with attending the festival. It is recommended that planning authorities adopt a strategy explicitly designed to increase the "tourists to local residents" ratio, and to improve tourism services to facilitate intra-regional movement of tourists and visitors alike.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.28
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• pp.209-233
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• 2012

The animation cluster in Korea has begun as a part of the local cultural cluster in the late 1990s with components of companies, local governments, educational institutions, and human resources, which were necessary to run the cluster. And, the animation cluster was initiated for the purpose of encouraging regional economies, but the basic unit was the local on a small scale. Because of this inherent weakness in the local cluster, it was needed to add some additional strategies that could expand the local animation industry into the formal leading industry. That is why the development policy was set up, and the local promotion agency based on this policy was established. It has been several years to manage the local promotion agency, and it is reported that there have been some visible effects. But, it is found out that analyzing the outcome of small unit cluster on the basis of existing criteria on a large scale is not reliable, which means it is not possible to evaluate the outcome of local cluster in a material way. Some examples of problems are as follows. First, the local cluster was made not autonomously but deliberately. Second, the animation cluster of each province has the same market as its target. Therefore, this research - on the basis of the diamond model - focuses on analyzing the existence and role of local promotion agencies rather than evaluating the outcome itself. Through the cases of two provincial cities, Chuncheon and Bucheon, this research examines if it is possible to evaluate the outcome of local clusters managed by promotion agencies.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.662-671
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• 1996

Since the world's economic and political structures have changed, the term 'globlization' has shown up as a dominant power and as a necessity for regional and national development. Each nation is responding to the globalization process economically and politically in various ways. In general, however, the economic response to the globalization is economic restructuring from the Fordist industries to 'flexible specialization'. And the political response to the globalization is 'global localization' as a new type of local politics(i.e., local policy activism or growth-enhancing local development policies). The crisis of Fordism shifted the role of local governments towards more involovement with local economic development. Local governments are mobilizing for loca economic development, they are taken into a process of institutional change that tends to redefine their responsibilities inside the state. Local governments thus tend to act as an entrepreneur in order to restructure theiir local economies and to compete with other national and international regions. State restructuring towards enerepreneurialism and efficient regional policy pursuing a pro-growth coalition trategy is chosen as a new mode of regulation for the post-Fordism at the local level. The flexible specialization as the post-Fordist economy and the local government as an entrepreneur are the global choice for globalization and a post-Fordist society. The paper focuses on the regulation theory which comprises the political economic perspective on resturcturing. Economic restructuring and state restructuring will be discussed in detail. And the paper tries to combine the economic globalization and the global localization as economic and political responses to globalization.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.6630-6638
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• 2014

The concerns for higher returns among investors in Korea are increasing as local interest rates lag behind the global market. The aim of this study was to provide a basis for estimating the precise return on investment to private investors and stakeholders of office buildings by identifying the optimal scale estimation of office building space, derived from managerial expenses. The literature on the economies theories of scales were reviewed, and the average administrative costs on an appropriate scale were assessed by cross-analysis and regression analysis using the U-shaped quadratic and cubic function. The findings suggest that the average office building managerial costs are approximately 6-11% according to the region, 10-13% according to the grade, and 8-9% according to size. Corporate-owned buildings represent the highest in terms of the average managerial costs, and there is an approximately 11.5% difference when it comes to outsourcing. In addition, the elapsed year showed that approximately 5.3 years to meet the lowest U-shaped curve of the average managerial cost. The 'Total floor area' variable shows a ${\bigcap}$-shape as it continue to increase to 72,000-Pyung then decrease gradually. This study presents the fundamental proposition of efficient and practical management of cost, lease and operation for real estate management firms by utilizing LCC.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.50-63
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• 2014

Eco-tourism has been recognized as a form of sustainable development that simultaneously satisfies the need for environmental preservation and the activation of local economies. Although some research findings relating to its positive environmental and social effects have been published, there is still controversy regarding its pros and cons in terms of its actual economic benefits, and little research about how they can be increased. Thus, the following research analyzes how the tour activities, attitudes and satisfaction of 314 actual visitors was related with their consumption behaviors, by surveying tourists to Suncheon Bay, a highly popular destination with a large number of visitors. The results are as follows. First, if the tourists were involved in a link-up tour, had prior eco-tourism experience, or had researched information on SunCheon bay eco-tourism before their visit, these were all positively correlated with consumption behaviors, and increased the amount of money they spent. In particular, among tour spending activities, accommodation cost is shown to be highly correlated with tour activities. Second, Free Independent Tourist(FIT) tended to show more positive tour attitudes than package tourists, spending more on accommodation and experience programs. The visitors to SunCheon Bay showed strong environmental attitudes, followed by social and cultural attitudes, and economic attitudes, in that order, and tourists with positive attitudes had a high rate of participation in experience programs. In addition, program participants showed a willingness to donate, and high satisfaction. Therefore, the following thesis proposes that Free Independent Tourist(FIT) should be induced to increase their contribution to the local eco-tourism economy, and highlights the need to develop various experience programs, aggressive advertisements and educational activities.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.13-36
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• 2012

This paper is to reconsider comprehensively and systematically major issues on transnational immigrants, increased rapidly since the beginning of the 1990s, and their impacts on socio-spatial changes in S. Korea. Foreign immigrants who have moved on the contexts of unevenness of globalization and advancces in transport & telecommunication technology on the global level and of economic development and shortage of cheap and unskilled workers have been distributed unevenly, concentrating on the Capital region and local areas with industrial complexes. Foreign workers seems to have some negative influences on regional economies in the long-term, though positive in the short-term. Domestic people seem to have an ambivalent attitude which accepts necessity of multi-culture, while simultaneously continues to be self-confident on ethnic homogeneity. The Korean government has launched multicultural policies for foreign immigrants by the mid-2000, but still continues some policies with assimilationism and differential exclusionism, marginalizing them socio-spatially, while lacking local government's policy and programmes. In conclusion, in order to resolve these problems and to transfer multicultural societal space of Korea, a geography of transnational migration which promotes especially discourse and policy with authentic multiculturalism, extending roles of local government, and ensuring glocal citizenships.

• Proceedings of the Korea Port Economic Association Conference
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.1-12
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• 2006

As national economies globalize, demand for intercontinental container shipping services is growing rapidly, providing a potential economic boon for the countries and communities that provide port services. On the promise of profits, many governments are investing heavily in port infrastructure, leading to a possible glut in port capacity, driving down prices for port services and eliminating profits as ports compete for business. Further, existing ports are making strategic investments to protect their market share, increasing the chance new ports will be overcapitalized and unprofitable. Governments and port researchers need a tool for understanding how local competition in their region will affect demand for port services at their location, and thus better assess the profitability of a prospective port. We propose to develop such a tool by extending our existing simulation model of global container traffic to incorporate demand-side shipper preferences and supply-side strategic responses by incumbent ports to changes in the global port network, including building new ports, scaling up existing ports, and unexpected port closures. We will estimate shipper preferences over routes, port attributes and port services based on US and international shipping data, and redesign the simulation model to maximize the shipper's revealed preference functions rather than simply minimize costs. As demand shifts, competing ports will adjust their pricing (short term) and infrastructure (long term) to remain competitive or defend market share, a reaction we will capture with a game theoretic model of local monopoly that will predict changes in port characteristics. The model's hypotheses will be tested in a controlled laboratory experiment tailored to local port competition in Asia, which will also serve to demonstrate the subtle game theoretic concepts of imperfect competition to a policy and industry audience. We will apply the simulation model to analyze changes in global container traffic in three scenarios: addition of a new large port in the US, extended closure of an existing large port in the US, and cooperative and competitive port infrastructure development among Korean partner countries in Asia.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.181-196
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• 2024

This study examines the impact of university graduate Startup rates on economic growth in the regions where universities are located, using panel data from 35 universities in 17 regions in Korea and 21 universities in 13 cities in China over a six-year period from 2016 to 2021. In Korea, a total of 35 universities were selected as part of the Ministry of Education's "University-initiated Startup" policy, including Startup-oriented universities, leading universities in Startup education innovation, Startup education bases, and excellent universities in Startup education, while in China, 21 universities were selected as part of the pilot bases established as part of the "Mass Entrepreneurship, Mass Innovation" policy. To analyze the economic impact of the universities on the regions where they are located, we aimed to conduct an empirical analysis of the economic impact using economic indicators of the economic growth rate of the regions where they are located. The results of the empirical analysis show that the Startup rate of university graduates in Korea and China both have a positive impact on the regional economic growth rate, but the Startup rate of local university graduates in Korea has a greater impact on the regional economy than in China. Based on the findings that the number of entrepreneurs produced by universities has a positive impact on the economic growth of their regions, this study draws implications for the role of universities and regions in revitalizing local economies and the establishment of systems to resolve the imbalance between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.27-45
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• 1990

Two opposing views prevail regarding the economic impact of rural out-migration on the rural areas of origin. The optimistic neoclassical view argues that rapid rural out-migration is not detrimental to the income and welfare of the rural areas of origin, whereas Lipton (1980) argues the opposite. We developed our own alternative model for rural to urban migration, appropriate for rapidly developing economies such as Korea's. This model, which adopts international trade theories of nontraded goods and Dutch Disease to rural to urban migration issues, argues that rural to urban migration is caused mainly by two factors: first, the unprofitability of farming, and second, the decrease in demand for rural nontraded goods and the increase in demand for urban nontraded goods. The unprofitability of farming is caused by the increase in rural wages, which is induced by increasing urban wages in booming urban manufacturing sectors, and by the fact that the cost increases in farming cannot be shifted to consumers, because farm prices are fixed worldwide and because the income demand elasticity for farm products is very low. The demand for nontraded goods decreases in rural and increases in urban areas because population density and income in urban areas increase sharply, while those in rural areas decrease sharply, due to rapid rural to urban migration. Given that the market structure for nontraded goods-namely, service sectors including educational and health facilities-is mostly in monopolistically competitive, and that the demand for nontraded goods comes only from local sources, the urban service sector enjoys economies of scale, and can thus offer services at cheaper prices and in greater variety, whereas the rural service sector cannot enjoy the advantages offered by scale economies. Our view concerning the economic impact of rural to urban migration on rural areas of origin agrees with Lipton's pessimistic view that rural out-migration is detrimental to the income and welfare of rural areas. However, our reasons for the reduction of rural income are different from those in Lipton's model. Lipton argued that rural income and welfare deteriorate mainly because of a shortage of human capital, younger workers and talent resulting from selective rural out-migration. Instead, we believe that rural income declines, first, because a rapid rural-urban migration creates a further shortage of farm labor supplies and increases rural wages, and thus reduces further the profitability of farming and, second, because a rapid rural-urban migration causes a further decline of the rural service sectors. Empirical tests of our major hypotheses using Korean census data from 1966, 1970, 1975, 1980 and 1985 support our own model much more than the neoclassical or Lipton's models. A kun (county) with a large out-migration had a smaller proportion of younger working aged people in the population, and a smaller proportion of highly educated workers. But the productivity of farm workers, measured in terms of fall crops (rice) purchased by the government per farmer or per hectare of irrigated land, did not decline despite the loss of these youths and of human capital. The kun having had a large out-migration had a larger proportion of the population in the farm sector and a smaller proportion in the service sector. The kun having had a large out-migration also had a lower income measured in terms of the proportion of households receiving welfare payments or the amount of provincial taxes paid per household. The lower incomes of these kuns might explain why the kuns that experienced a large out-migration had difficulty in mechanizing farming. Our policy suggestions based on the tests of the currently prevailing hypotheses are as follows: 1) The main cause of farming difficulties is not a lack of human capital, but the in­crease in production costs due to rural wage increases combined with depressed farm output prices. Therefore, a more effective way of helping farm economies is by increasing farm output prices. However, we are not sure whether an increase in farm output prices is desirable in terms of efficiency. 2) It might be worthwhile to attempt to increase the size of farmland holdings per farm household so that the mechanization of farming can be achieved more easily. 3) A kun with large out-migration suffers a deterioration in income and welfare. Therefore, the government should provide a form of subsidization similar to the adjustment assistance provided for international trade. This assistance should not be related to the level of farm output. Otherwise, there is a possibility that we might encourage farm production which would not be profitable in the absence of subsidies. 4) Government intervention in agricultural research and its dissemination, and large-scale social overhead projects in rural areas, carried out by the Korean government, might be desirable from both efficiency and equity points of view. Government interventions in research are justified because of the problems associated with the appropriation of knowledge, and government actions on large-scale projects are justified because they required collective action.