• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.53-63
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• 1995

Changes in transport are reflected in the accessibility of a place, which is denoted as the inherent advantageous characteristics of a place with respect to overcoming spatial friction, and affect the land use ultimately. A composite accessibility measurement scheme is developed and applied to the subway network in Seoul, which has been constructed in 1972. Changes in the transport network are reflected in the spatial structure of accessibility and affect ultimately the land use pattern. Therefore, it is of relevance to examine the changes in the spatial structure of accessibility, which allows to forecast the direction of changes in the land use pattern.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.410-430
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• 2006

In the process of industrial restructuring at the regional and firm's level induced by significant changes in external economic circumstances, geographic and economic inheritances could be exploited as a constraint and/or asset for firms' strategies. Through a theoretical discussion of this argument, an attempt has been to categorize the effects of inherited regional assets on firms' strategies and regional development and to analyze the firms' strategies located at the city of Ansan. Capitalizing upon this empirical findings, some feasible development paths of Ansan in the future have been proposed and then critically discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.160-197
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• 1996

The purpose of this study is to review research trends and issues of economic geography in Korea for the last fifty years by sub-fields of agricultural geography, industrial geography, commercial and service geography, and transportation geography. Research in Korean economic geography has progressed significantly in terms of the scope and the number of papers published during the last a half a century. Agricultural geography was a leading field of economic geography in Korea before mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, agricultural geography has turned over the leading role in economic geography to industrial geography. Classification and structure of agricultural region has been the most popular research theme in Korea, even though diverse topics has been dealt in the research of agricultulal geography in Korea during the last fifty years. In recent years, emphasis is given to study on the dynamics of agricultural region and regional differentiation of part-time farming. It is suggested that the future issues of research in agricultural geography in Korea are agricultural restructuring and changes in agricultural space under the WTO system, changes in rural area and agricultural region with the progress of informatization, changes in agricultural structures and rural society by the increase of part-time farming, governments agricultulal policy and its impacts, competitive advantages of Korean agricultulal products, and environmental impacts of agricultural restructuring. Research in industrial geography has remarkably progressed since the 1980s. Locational changes, regional industrial structure and formation of industrial region were the major topics of interest in the research of industrial geography in Korea before 1980. Since the early 1980s, in addition to the topics which were interested in before 1980, changes of industrial organization and industrial location, changes of production systems and industrial space development of high technology industries and science parks, industrial restructuring and regional economy, foreign direct investments, industrial linkages and industrial districts, and industrial policy and regional development have been the major research themes of industrial geography in Korea. Considerable number of papers has been published both in Korean journals and in foreign journals during this period. Considering global changes in the organization of industrial space, future research should be more focused on firms strategy for regaining competitive advantages, local and global perspectives of industry, industry and environmental changes, in addition to the topics which have been dealt in recent years. Research in commercial and service geography and transportation geography was negligible in Korea before the late 1970s. These two sub-fields in economic geography have begun to develop since 1980s. Periodic markets, structure of commercial area, and distribution of products were the major topics of interest in the 1980s in the commercial and service geography in Korea. In the 1990s, however reserch in producer services has been active with growth of producer services in Korean economy. It is suggested that regional changes with progress of informatization and technology, changes of international trade and regional changes, development of efficient distribution system, role of producer services in regional development, and network of producer services are the major issues to be studied in the future in the field of commercial and service geography in Korea. Commuting, distribution of products, and transportation networks have been the major topics of research in transportation geography in Korea. Diverse quantitative techniques have been applied in the most of the researches in transportation geography. It is required that future studies in transportation geography should also focus on societal and behavioral issues, policy issues regional impacts of new transportation facilities, an analysis of transportation system at the global or international level. Since the 1980s economic geography in Korea has considerably progressed with publication of papers and books. The progress can be regarded as successful in quantitative aspect, but not in quantitative aspects. For the development of Korean economic geography in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, it is necessary to promote international collaborative researches and interdisciplinary cooperations. Attention should also be given to the research on changes in competitive advantages and economic restructuring, changes of economic space with the development of high technology and the progress of informatization. economic development and culture. and foreign regional studies.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.330-342
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• 2016

The aim of this article is to explore some issues on the uneven regional development in the Republic of Korea. Along with this, case studies on the United Kingdom and Italy are conducted in terms of their wealth, inequality and regional development. In the period of 1995~2003, the UK experienced the intensified uneven regional development and continuous increase of its index due in the main to the delayed revitalization of industrial decline regions, neo-liberalistic local labour market and industrial policies, and institutional instability of regional policies. In the case of Italy, it seemed to experience relatively stable regional convergence. However, this was caused by the continuous decline of major metropolitan areas such as large cities, Milan, Turin, Genoa, to name but a few. The Republic of Korea experienced 'economic growth with spatial and social disparities.' Since 2003 the uneven regional development has intensified. Towards regional convergence, new engines of regional development, the investment in the specialization of small and medium cities, and supportive policies for industrial restructuring regions are required.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.442-459
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• 2002

With the formation of European Union, the frontier function which was existed among the member nations was vanished. The European Union, each national government, and local or regional self-government search actively for the transfrontier development strategies in order to make the underdeveloped transfrontiers an united internal region of European Union with an augmentation of mutual activities inter-transfrontier and a cooperative development of transfrontier. On the transfrontier among France-Belgium-Luxemburg which was the iron industry center of Europe, the cooperative development strategies(P.E.D.) of the inter-government and inter-local are executing for the restructuring of the stable regional economic on the basis of the INITRREG program of the European Union. In recent years, the locals self-govemments transfrontier are executing not only restructuring of regional economic but formation of urban community with the unification of the urban and regional planning, administration, and society.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.71-87
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• 1993

The purpose of this study is to analyze the restructuring processes of the locations of service industry whose demand has been decrease rapidly. The demand of movie theater has been change dramatically during the last three decades. the spatial distribution patterns of movie theaters have been changed according to the changes in the demand. In order to investigate the locational charateristics of movie theaters, in seoul we surveyed the consumer's behavior. We focused on the study to examine the relationships between the locations of movie theaters and transportation development. Especially, We look at the impacts of the development of subway networks on the locations of movie theaters in Seoul. The dvelopment of subway networks has played a very of movie theaters location. The hierarchicla structures of movie theaters have also chaged. Inspite of declining in the demand for movie theater, the number of first-run movie theaters has been increased continuously. The number of second-run movie theaters has been decreased dramatically. Some of them has been upgraded to first-run theater and some of them has been smallized. But, most of them have been closed. An the other hand the quality of movie theater facilities tends to be higher, while the sizes of movie theaters tends to be smallized.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.597-612
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• 2013

The purpose of this paper is to examine the building process of industrial competitiveness of the Korean cosmetics industry in the global production network. For this study, cosmetics industry in Korea is selected as a research subject. Secondary data and the Korea Health Industry Statistics are analyzed to examine the overall changes of the cosmetics firms under the changes of global economy overtime. In-depth interviews of the case firms are also conducted to understand the old and new corporate strategies which locate with the sustainability and competitive advantages under an uncertain environment. As a result of the restructuring processes, the Korea cosmetics industry has upgraded its position as an innovative power in the world cosmetics industry. In addition, during the restructuring processes, cosmetics industry is overwhelmingly concentrated in the Capital Region, reflecting intensification of agglomeration economies.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.623-638
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• 2007

This paper debates on two different theoretical positions in explaining corporate adaptation. Until the 1980s, a restructuring perspective had dominated in explaining corporate success and adaptation. However, this perspective pays little attention to how firms adapt to environmental change and why some firms adapt successfully, while some others fail to adapt. Thus a restructuring perspective does not give insights into a context-specific explanation of corporate learning and adaptation. More recently, especially since the 1990s, academic focus on corporate adaptation and evolution has shifted towards exploring the nature of learning that leads to the dynamic competitiveness. A learning perspective emphasizes the influence of knowledge, learning and competence on corporate evolution. However, it reveals that this view is also less appropriate for explaining corporate adaptation in radical shifts in environment. In this context, the evolutionary theories of the firm need to seek to maintain a balance between two theoretical positions in order to understand more effectively the dynamic evolution and adaptation of the firm. This paper shows that the dynamics of corporate adaptation and evolution are an outcome of the mixture of perpetual processes of restructuring and learning, both continuous and discontinuous.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.720-735
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• 2009

This paper studies the characteristics of the restructuring of chemical industrial complex in JiLin city since 1978 focusing on enterprise organization, the process of production, labor, and consumer market. The number of chemical industrial enterprises and their partnership with subcontractors have increased since 2001. As for the type of cooperation group, research institutes and local government are accounted for the greatest portion. The chemical industrial enterprise in JiLin which has adopted Fordism production method still has the highest percentage in 2007. And in the shift process of production system after China's entry into WTO(in 2001), chemical industrial enterprise in JiLin city takes allowing more investment in production technologies as core strategy, while taking improvement in equipment and development of new products as core strategy in the shift process of production technology. The degree of labor re-education was highest in 2007, and as for the relationship between labor and management, enterprises which evaluate the ability of performance of duty are increasing. The characteristics of restructuring of chemical industrial complex on consumer market, domestic market accounted for the greatest portion, on the other side the export is feeble. As for strategy of market restructuring, industrial enterprise in JiLin city should use Quality improvement and high-value added as core strategies to cope with alteration of market.

• 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.