• Title/Summary/Keyword: Price regulation

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Unfair Restrain on Competition in Air Cargo Fuel Surcharge Case (공정거래법상 부당한 경쟁제한의 의미 - 항공화물 유류할증료 담합사건을 중심으로 -)

  • Lee, Chang Jae
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.30 no.1
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    • pp.117-149
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    • 2015
  • On May 16, 2014 the Supreme Court of Korea rendered its decision with respect to litigation filed by All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. ("ANA") for revocation of an order of correction and payment of a penalty imposed by the Korea Fair Trade Commission ("KFTC"). On or around September 2002, ANA and various airlines operating air cargo service from Japan to Korea were allegedly to have agree to introduce of fuel surcharge into their rates on cargo fares in an attempt to recoup falling profits from rising of oil price. As this hard core cartel was per se prohibited under Korean competition law (The Monopoly Regulation And Fair Trade Act), KFTC began an investigation and consequently with fruitful results imposed an amount of penalty and issued an order of prohibition. ANA protested against this imposition by filing suit against KFTC under the reasons that (1) their agreement was simply pursuant to the relevant laws and regulations including Air Transport Agreement between Korea and Japan, (2) there was an administrative guidance from Japanese government to allow this agreement, (3) extraterritorial application of Korean competition law to the agreement in this matter was improper as it was made within Japan and targeted only for the shipment from Japan to Korea: accordingly there is not a direct and serious effect between the agreement and any result of anti-competitive. This article aims to review ANA's allegation and the judgement delivered by Korean court under some issues respectively; (1) whether there is an effectively actual anti-competitive cartel between airlines including plaintiff, (2) whether filed rate doctrine is reasonable and applicable in this case for precluding wrongfulness, (3) what is the reasonable limitation of boundaries in extraterritorial application of Korean competition law. Additionally, this article also suggests to concern particular features of air transport business as an regulated industry in judging the unfair restrain on competition.

Investigation of the Condition of the Operation of the Livestock Liquid Manure Bin and Assessment of Malodorant Emissions (축분뇨 액비 저장조의 운영실태 및 악취 물질 발생량 조사)

  • Kim T. I.;Song J. I.;Joung S.;Jeong J. W.;Chung E. S.;Barroga A. J.;Yoo Y. H.;Yang C. B.;Kim M. K.
    • Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.189-196
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    • 2005
  • This study was carried out to determine the acceptability of liquid manure bin among livestock farmers and agricultural farmers, and quantify its malodorous compounds. The results were as follows; 1. The size of the manure bins owned by $93\%$ of 60 farmers surveyed was 200 M/T and were all in normal operation. Around $57\%$ of the normally operated bins were processed under aerobic condition. 2. Filly percent of the respondents utilized their liquid manure bin twice a year while $64\%$ used commercial microbial products to enhance maturity of their liquid manure and abatement of malodorous emissions. On the other hand, $43\%$ mentioned problems on the labor requirement, mechanical maintenance and lending cost of liquid manure processing and utilization, and the price of the commercial microbial products. 3. Malodorants emitted from livestock liquid manure bins and their boundary bin depended upon the livestock liquid manure processing condition. Within bin under the aerobic processing condition, Iso-valeric and propionic acid were ranged 0.012 to 0.07ppm and 0.17 to 2.85ppm, respectively. Within bin under the anoxic processing condition, n-butyric, n-valeric acid, and acetaldehyde were ranged 1.5 to 2.3ppm, 1.3 to 1.8ppm, and 0.8 to 2.1ppm, respectively. Malodorants emitted from the boundary of livestock liquid manure bins under the anoxic processing condition were detected the range of 0.4 to 0.9 ppm, more than the concentration of law regulation, as an acetaldehyde, but under the aerobic processing condition, they did not any detection.

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Bundled Discounting of Healthcare Services and Restraint of Competition (의료서비스의 결합판매와 경쟁제한성의 판단 - Cascade Health 사건을 중심으로 -)

  • Jeong, Jae Hun
    • The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.175-209
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    • 2019
  • The bundled discounting which the dominant undertakings engage in is problematic in terms of competition restraint. Bundled discounts generally benefit not only buyers but also sellers. Specifically, bundled discounts usually costs a firm less to sell multiple products. In addition, Bundled discounts always provide some immediate consumer benefit in the form of lower prices. Therefore, competition authorities and courts should not be too quick to condemn bundled discounts and apply the neutral and objective standard in bundled discounting cases. Cascade Health v. Peacehealth decision starts ruling from this prerequisite. This decision pointed out that the dominant undertaking can exclude rivals through bundled discounting without pricing its products below its cost when rivals do not sell as great a number of product lines. So bundled discounting may have the anticompetitive impact by excluding less diversified but more efficient producers. This decision did not adopt Lepage case's standard which does not require the court to consider whether the competitor was at least as efficient of a producer as the bundled discounter. Instead of that, based on cost based approach, this decision said that the exclusionary element can not be satisfied unless the discounts result in prices that are below an appropriate measures of the defendant's costs. By adopting a discount attribution standard, this decision said that the full amount of the discounts should be allocated to the competitive products. As the seller can easily ascertain its own prices and costs of production and calculate whether its discounting practices exclude competitors, not the competitor's costs but the dominant undertaking's costs should be considered in applying discount attribution standard. This case deals with bundled discounting practice of multiple healthcare services by the dominant undertaking in healthcare market. Under the Korean healthcare system and public health insurance system, the price competition primarily exists in non-medical care benefits because public healthcare insurance in Korea is in combination with the compulsory medical care institution system. The cases that Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law deals with, such as cartel and the abuse of monopoly power, also mainly exist in non-medical care benefits. The dominant undertaking's exclusionary bundled discounting in Korean healthcare markets may be practiced in the contracts between the dominant undertaking and private insurance companies with regards to non-medical care benefits.

The Effect of the Improvement of the Sales Regulation of General Medicine and Political Proposals (일반의약품 판매규제 완화효과와 정책제언)

  • Yeom, Min-Sun
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.5
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    • pp.237-255
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    • 2010
  • The Korean Pharmacist Law has limited the sales of medicine to pharmacies. This has caused difficulty in purchasing medicine late at night or on holidays, which has limited the range of customers' selections and accelerated customers' discomfort, accordingly. Also, the rapid progress of aging has quickly boosted medical expenses for seniors, and has served as a factor that aggravates the budget of national medical insurance. Meanwhile, advanced countries, including the USA and Japan, have allowed the sales of general medicine, of which the safety and efficacy have been tested, in general retail stores such as convenience stores or super markets from the perspective of supporting self-medication. In particular, Japan, which has a strong tendency of pursuing safety in the world, diversified sales channels for general medicine in order to control quickly rising medical expenses. As a result, Japan has achieved the effect of easing various regulations as follows in the economic and social fields. First, the increasing distribution channels of general medicine from pharmacies to general retail stores provoked a potential demand, which also expanded related markets. Second, the competition between sales channels resulted in the reduction of the price of medicine. Third, the growing sales channels of medicine have extended the options of consumers and, subsequently, the convenience in the use of consumers has increased. Fourth, the creation of a competitive environment owing to the diversification of sales channels has accelerated an effort to enhance corporate competitiveness. Fifth, the foundation of enhancing the financial soundness of medical expenses has been prepared through the formation of a self-medication environment. In 2000, the Korean population aged 65 or over exceeded 7%, and it is anticipated to be over 14% by 2018; thus, the increase of national medical expenses will be sped up. As a way of being prepared for the era of aging, we, just as other advanced countries, need to create a self-treatment environment by diversifying the sellers of general medicine, and, thus, reduce spending on personal medical expenses, enhance the financial soundness of national medical insurance, and, further, promote the welfare of consumers.

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International Case Studies on the Eco-friendly Energy Towns with Hybrid Thermal Energy Supply System and Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) (친환경에너지타운에서 보어홀지중열 저장(BTES) 활용 융복합 열에너지 공급 시스템 사례 연구)

  • Shim, Byoung Ohan
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.51 no.1
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    • pp.67-76
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    • 2018
  • This study reviews three eco-friendly energy towns with hybrid thermal energy supply systems and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) in Canada and Denmark. The district heating and cooling systems were designed by using multi-source energy for the higher efficiency and reliability as well as environment. ADEU (Alexandra District Energy Utility) located at the developing area in the city of Richmond, Canada was designed to supply district energy with the installation of 726 borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) and a backup boiler using natural gas. DLSC (Drake Landing Solar Community) located in the town of Okotoks, Canada is a district system to store solar thermal energy underground during the summer season by seasonal BTES with 144 BHEs. Brædstrup Solpark district heating system located in Denmark has been conducted energy supply from multiple energy sources of solar thermal, heat pump, boiler plants and seasonal BTES with 48 BHEs. These systems are designed based on social and economic benefits as well as nature-friendly living space according to the city based energy perspective. Each system has the energy center which distribute the stored thermal energy to each house for heating during the winter season. The BHE depth and ground thermal storage volume are designed by the heating and cooling load as well as the condition of ground water flow and thermophysical properties of the ground. These systems have been proved the reliance and economic benefits by providing consistent energy supply with competitive energy price for many years. In addition, the several expansions of the service area in ADEU and Brædstrup Solpark have been processed based on energy supply master plan. In order to implement this kind of project in our country, the regulation and policy support of government or related federal organization are required. As well as the government have to make a energy management agency associated with long-term supply energy plan.

Analysis of Overseas LNG Bunkering Business Model (해외 LNG벙커링 비즈니스 모델 분석)

  • Kim, Ki-Dong;Park, So-Jin;Choi, Kyoung-Sik;Cho, Byung-Hak;Oh, Yong-Sam;Cho, Sang-Hoon;Cha, Keunng-Jong;Cho, Won-Jun;Seong, Hong-Gun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.37-44
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    • 2018
  • As the international Maritime Organization is tightening up the emission regulation vessel, many countries and companies are pushing ahead the LNG fuel as one of long term solution for emission problems of ship. as a study on the way to conduct business for LNG bunkering around the world, this study was analyzed in view-point of business models focused on major countries such as Japan, China, Singapore, Europe and United States. The results of this study are as follows. China first established a nation-centered LNG bunkering policy. And then, the state and the energy company have been cooperating and carrying on LNG bunkering business for LNG fueled ships. Some countries in Europe and United States are in the process of LNG bunkering business mainly with private company. To obtain cheaper LNG fuel than bunker-C, the private company has a business model of LNG bunkering on their own LNG fueled ships, while securing LNG with high price competitiveness through partnership with middle class operators such us LNG terminal and natural gas liquefaction plant. Also, the LNG bunkering business around the world is focused on private companies rather than public corporations, but it was going to be focused on large energy companies because the initial cost required to build LNG bunkering infrastructure. Three models (TOTE model, Shell model, ENGIE model) of LNG bun kering business are currently being developed. It has been found that the way in which LNG bunkering business is implemented by different countries is applied differently according to the enterprise and national policy.

Impact Resistance Testing of NK55 Ophthalmic Lenses in Domestic Market (국내 유통 NK55 재질 안경렌즈의 내충격 시험 평가)

  • Park, Mijung;Jeon, Inchul;Hwang, Kwang Hoon;Byun, Woongjin;Kim, So Ra
    • Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.229-235
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    • 2011
  • Purpose: The present study was performed to evaluate the safety of ophthalmic lenses in domestic market since eyeglasses wearers could be exposed to the negligent accident by damaged ophthalmic lenses. Method: Totally, 160 ophthalmic lenses (NK55, ${n_{d}}$ = 1.56) with the refractive powers of -3D, -6D, +3D, +6D manufactured by 4 companies in domestic market were evaluated using drop ball test. In accordance with FDA standard, steel ball (~16 g) was freely dropped on these ophthalmic lenses from 127 cm high and the surfaces of lenses were observed. Results: From the study, center thicknesses of NK55 ophthalmic lenses manufactured by 4 different companies showed somewhat different numbers even though the lenses had the same refractive index and powers. All convex lenses of +3D, +6D were evaluated as the safe lenses since there was no damage such as crack and broken found on the lens surfaces after drop ball testing. However, some noticeable broken was shown on the surfaces of concave lenses with relatively thinner center thickness. Especially, 59(73.8%) of total 80 concave lenses with the refractive power of -3D and -6D classified as unacceptable lenses to FDA standard. Conclusions: From the results, the negligent accident by damaged ophthalmic lenses should be considered as well as the correction of visual acuity, design and price when customers purchase eyeglasses. Thus, the enforcement regulation like drop ball testing of uncut ophthalmic lens could be suggested to guarantee the safety of ophthalmic lenses in domestic market.

Cultivation Support System of Ginseng as a Red Ginseng Raw MaterialduringtheKoreanEmpire andJapaneseColonialPeriod (대한제국과 일제강점기의 홍삼 원료삼 경작지원 시스템)

  • Dae-Hui Cho
    • Journal of Ginseng Culture
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    • v.5
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    • pp.32-51
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    • 2023
  • Because red ginseng was exported in large quantities to the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century, a large-scale ginseng cultivation complex was established in Kaesong. Sibyunje (時邊制), a privately led loan system unique to merchants in Kaesong, made it possible for them to raise the enormous capital required for ginseng cultivation. The imperial family of the Korean Empire promulgated the Posamgyuchik (包蔘規則) in 1895, and this signaled the start of the red ginseng monopoly system. In 1899, when the invasion of ginseng farms by the Japanese became severe, the imperial soldiers were sent to guard the ginseng farms to prevent the theft of ginseng by the Japanese. Furthermore, the stateled compensation mission, Baesanggeum Seongyojedo (賠償金 先交制度), provided 50%-90% of the payment for raw ginseng, which was paid in advance of harvest. In 1895, rising seed prices prompted some merchants to import and sell poor quality seeds from China and Japan. The red ginseng trade order was therefore promulgated in 1920 to prohibit the import of foreign seeds without the government's permission. In 1906-1910, namely, the early period of Japanese colonial rule, ginseng cultivation was halted, and the volume of fresh ginseng stocked as a raw material for red ginseng in 1910 was only 2,771 geun (斤). However, it increased significantly to 10,000 geun between 1915 and 1919 and to 150,000 geun between 1920 and 1934. These increases in the production of fresh ginseng as a raw material for red ginseng were the result of various policies implemented in 1908 with the aim of fostering the ginseng industry, such as prior disclosure of the compensation price for fresh ginseng, loans for cultivation expenditure in new areas, and the payment of incentives to excellent cultivators. Nevertheless, the ultimate goal of Japanese imperialism at the time was not to foster the growth of Korean ginseng farming, but to finance the maintenance of its colonial management using profits from the red ginseng business.

Factors Affecting International Transfer Pricing of Multinational Enterprises in Korea (외국인투자기업의 국제이전가격 결정에 영향을 미치는 환경 및 기업요인)

  • Jun, Tae-Young;Byun, Yong-Hwan
    • Korean small business review
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.85-102
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    • 2009
  • With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.

Research Framework for International Franchising (국제프랜차이징 연구요소 및 연구방향)

  • Kim, Ju-Young;Lim, Young-Kyun;Shim, Jae-Duck
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-118
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    • 2008
  • The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

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