• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.115-128
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to systematize various clothing production methods that domestic fashion brands are utilizing to produce fashion products, and to propose effective clothing production methods according to the characteristics. The research methods are contents analysis method of the literatures, articles, reports, and interviewing method of the practitioners who are in charge of the production of fashion. First, the clothing production methods of the domestic fashion brands are categorized as follows. It is divided into a fashion brand management method and a promotion company entrustment method based on who carries out the clothing production and management. The fashion brand management method is subdivided into the 'rental-production', 'CMT', and 'self-production' methods. All three methods are performed at domestic and global sourcing, but the CMT method is more utilized at the global sourcing. The promotion company entrustment method is subdivided into the 'full consignment production method', the 'CMT method involving promotion company', and 'direct buying method by promotion company'. All methods are performed at domestic and global sourcing. Second, the results of reviewing effective clothing production methods, according to characteristics are as follows. If fashion brands control the production and management, they use all three fashion brand management methods. The fashion brands use the promotion company entrustment method when they wants to offer special products, or the number of items is large, or the production management is difficult, or the manpower and equipment size is reduced. The domestic sourcing is utilized by fashion brands and promotion companies when production management is required for high quality apparel production, in case of trendy and complex designs, spot production, and in small quantity production. The global sourcing is utilized by fashion brands and promotion companies when it comes to lowering the production cost, fashion brands preferred the mass production of apparel with design that can be pre-planned.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.751-762
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• 2002

Korean apparel industry is facing critical moment due to shortage of labor, wage increases and intensive competition among domestic manufactures. In addition, international production has been shifting to China and the other low-wage countries from established locations such as Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Global sourcing has been received considerable attention since firms can enhance their competitive advantage as well as comparative advantage by coordinating their sourcing activities global]y. This studs regarded global sourcing as one of the strategic tools to achieve competitive advantage of Korean apparel firms, and explored the current status by literature reviews and series of in-depth interviews with managers of korean apparel firms. The findings of this study were as follows: 1) Due to geographical advantage, China was the most favored nation for outsourcing for domestic markers. However, exporting firms preferred Latin America (including Mexico) to take advantage of duties, quotas and geographical proximity to the US market. 2) In selecting the global sourcing country, productivity, technical ability, local government regulation, and culture were considered important. 3) Most Korean apparel firms sources production globally, and followed by raw materials and trims. 4) Cost and quality were the most important factors in deciding subcontractors, and experience, productivity, equipment and finances were the next concerns. Academic implications and future directions were suggested based on findings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 1999

Global sourcing strategy is the one that apparel firms adopt in order to improve efficiency. Souring statesgies are not limited to the decision of sourcing country or vertical integration of sewing process Sourcing strategies include all the ecision of marketing process from the acquisition of fabric to distribution of products. The present study aims to analyze the soucing strategies of Korea apparel industry in global perspectives by applying transaction cost approach and aims to provide the implications for the future. The results are as follows ; (1) sourcing strategies in the dimension of domestic versus offshore soucing are determined by the experience in foreign business and the degree of fashionability of the product. (2) Firms tend to increase affshore soucing as they accumulate the experience in foreign business because they can decrease transaction costs as the perceived risks decrease (3) Also firms tend to source their products in foreign countries when the products are more fashionable. Brand loyalty of the product is a additional factor that increases the proportion of domestic sourcing. (4) Degree of vertical integration of sourcing is determined by the fashionability brand loyalty and the experience in foreign business. That is firms decrease the transaction costs by avoiding the investment to short life fashion products. However firms increase the control over the high reputation product by in house production. As the apparel firms tend to more marketing oriented and the national boundaries of business envrionment becomes permeable more efficient global sourcing strategies should be stablished, Besides the production costs nonproduction costs should be equallly considered in order to analyze the total costs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.27 no.9_10
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• pp.1124-1133
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among partnership variables and sourcing performance. Partnership variables were included as: contract conditions, information sharing, communication, conflict, job understanding, monitoring, culture understanding, trust and commitment. Sourcing performance included perceived benefits and sourcing satisfaction. The survey research design was employed with the structured questionnaire. A sample of 104 Korean apparel firms' managers participated in this survey. Apparel firms selected for this study were casual, sports, children's wear firms doing actively international sourcing. For the data analysis, descriptive statistics (i.e., frequency, percent), factor analysis, correlation, and multiple regression analysis were used. Information sharing and job understanding were positively related with trust. That is to say, the better information sharing and the better job understanding apparel firms had higher scores of trust than others. Contract conditions, communication, conflict, and culture understanding were known as predictions of commitment to international outsourcing. The more trust firms had with their vendors, the more commitment the firms had in the international sourcing. This result showed that trust is the essential factor of commitment. Trust and commitment were significantly related with outsourcing performance (i.e., perceived benefits, satisfaction of the international sourcing). Partnership information of international sourcing assembled in the review of literature and the results from this empirical study may assist the domestic apparel firms to make better decision in the adoption process of international sourcing.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.67-85
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• 2023

Purpose - This study seeks to investigate the determinants of global sourcing intention in clothing sewing industry, in particular with its focus on women's knit wear production. Design/methodology/approach - This study collected a unique set of qualitative data through 31 in-depth interviews with fashion brands, promotion agencies, and sewing factories between July 2023 and October 2023. In addition, it analyzed the dataset using the MAXQDA to complement the research findings. Findings - We have two findings. First, the interviewees commonly mentioned the following factors as reasons for considering global sourcing: the human factors(aging of skilled technicians and labor shortages), the financial factors(gap in production unit prices at home and abroad), the relational factors(lack of novelty), and the physical factors(loss of production infrastructure and network), while the human factors(skilled workforce), the production factors(delivery date and product quality), and the relational factors(timely communication and mutual trust) as reasons for continuing domestic sourcing. Additional code analysis of interview also supports this finding. On the other hand, there was also a subtle difference between buyers(brands) and suppliers(promotion agencies and processing plants), and buyers consider the exact delivery date critical so that they could see trend-sensitive women's knit wear on time, and suppliers took production costs, labor costs, and labor shortages, which are financial factors, more seriously. Research implications or Originality - This study provides a richer and more balanced view of existing literature, which has generally tended to introduce global sourcing across the clothing industry despite the existence of various diversity within the industry. In addition, through qualitative research, we introduce that the sewing industry is carried out according to complex factors, and by revealing and categorizing the determinants of global sourcing, we supplement the existing research on the clothing sewing industry centered on survey. On a practical note, this study introduces that there is a difference in view of domestic sourcing and global sourcing between buyers(brands) and suppliers(promotion agencies and sewing factories), suggesting practical implications for revitalizing networks and deriving win-win cooperation network models among members in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.462-473
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• 2008

In recent years, Korea's apparel exports to the USA have faced a great threat, as the trade environment around the world has changed continually. The purpose of this study is to analyze the competitive position of Korean apparel exports to the USA, and to enhance export competitiveness by applying to offshore sourcing. The trade data of the Office of Textiles and Apparel(OTEXA) in the U.S. Department of Commerce were selected for inquiry about export competitiveness of apparel products made in Korea. In addition, we targeted members of the Korea Apparel Industry Association among the 500 exporters of clothing items in "The Import and Export Textile Product 2003." A total 70 sheets were analyzed. The results of this study were as follows: 1) Korean apparel exports to USA have decreased by 20-35 percent per year since 2005 under the Free Trade Area, showing that Korean apparel industries have not adapted to the new trade environment. Although Korean apparel exports to USA have indicated a trade surplus from now on, Korean apparel industries should find new ways to overcome this situation, diminishing exports and increasing imports. 2) Korean apparel companies selected more offshore sourcing than domestic sourcing. Also, as Korean apparel companies manufactured apparel products offshore, foreign subcontracting outranked manufacturing in their own foreign plants. When they chose foreign countries to source, they turned mainly to China and Vietnam. Also, they considered the target country's manufacturing price, labor stability, apparel products, quality, lead time, and so on. In order to increase apparel exports, Korean apparel industries should focus more on developing competitively new apparel products, improving the ability of sourcing management, and establishing on-the-spot agencies.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.37-54
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• 2020

Purpose - This study is to investigate the determinants of suppliers' dependence on buyers in the home country by developing a theoretical model of innovative activities. The high dependence of auto parts suppliers on a single local buyer in South Korea due to firm ownership issues and incremental innovation is examined using data from a set of organizations that supply intermediate goods to this automotive manufacturer. Furthermore, we tested the moderating effect of FDI and global knowledge sourcing on the relationship between firm ownership and suppliers' dependence on the local buyer. Design/methodology - To test the hypotheses, we examined a sample of 101 suppliers over 10 years in the Korean automobile parts industry. In this empirical analysis, we utilized a fixed-effects generalized least squares model using panel data. Findings - In this study, domestic firms (automobile parts suppliers) were more dependent on a single local buyer (automobile assembler) than foreign-owned suppliers operating in Korea. In addition, incremental innovation was the mediating mechanism between domestic firms and dependence on the local buyer. To reduce this dependence on the buyer, we suggest two different international strategies: geographical diversification through FDI and global knowledge sourcing. Originality/value - Previous studies showed that asymmetric dependence between firms has many adverse effects. This study proved that domestic and foreign-owned suppliers have different levels of dependence on local buyers due to their heterogeneous characteristics and business strategies. We distinguish two different types of innovation - radical innovation and incremental innovation - that previous studies have often treated as equal when it comes to firm autonomy. Finally, we propose that both FDI and international knowledge sourcing as global strategies to weaken suppliers' asymmetric dependence on a single buyer.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.153-174
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to analyse factors affecting performance of Global Outsourcing of the Korean Export-Importing Companies. This study aims to confirm the cause and effect relationship between independent variables; Organization Competency, Flexibility, Information Sharing and Partnership and dependent variable; the performance of Global Outsourcing. Also, another objective of this study is to discover affecting levels for the performance and activation factors of global outsourcing and to contribute to diffusion of global sourcing. This paper examined the concept and features of global sourcing and the present situation of global outsourcing at the level of domestic and overseas. From precedent studies that based on empirical studies about the transaction theory and the resource-based theory, we have derived a model with hypothesis and scale items then we conducted a survey of the Korean Export-Importing companies and empirically analysed the data. Before hypothesis testing, we conducted a basic information analysis in order to discover implication level of Global Soucring and also did reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis using SPSS 18.0. Finally, the four hypothesis for the performance of Global Sourcing were tested with a regression model.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2000

Domestic automotive industry is also facing the moment it should be with a competitively priced and highly qualified automotive ta compete with worldwide automotive makers of world market through global marketing and global sourcing. At this point, weve been studying xNX model of USA, Japan and Europe with OEMs, suppliers and KAMA(Korea Automotive Manufacturers Association) to give a network infrastructure of guaranteed service quality network performance, reliability, security and trouble handling. We hope all efforts above mentioned will make the whole industry more competitive and powerful.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 1999

Korean dairy industry is placed on the very critical situation with the progress of free trade marketing system internationally. To keep and improve the dairy food market, better measures are imperative for dairy industry. Especially, the milk distribution system is premodern to some extent, in comparison with both the production and the processing part of dairy industry. Reform measures for the promotion of domestic milk consumption by lowering the distribution cost are as follows. First, out-sourcing of the logistics department can decrease the circulation cost of milk. Secondly, milk should be packed into large-size package(more than 1 liter) to save both package and distribution cost. Thirdly, milk should be distributed from plant to consumers through the hygienic distribution system including perfect cold chain system, Above reform measures can not come true through the efforts taken by one company but through co-worker, concerted research, and joint in-vestment among dairy companies that can reduce the distribution cost and provide consumers with the best service, eventually resulting in the increment of milk consumption.