• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.55-69
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• 2014

As Korea's global IT sourcing is sluggish and supply of qualified IT personnel does not meet the demand, IT developers currently do not worry about their job security. The sluggish global sourcing is attributed to the lack of system design and analysis skills as well as lack of communication skills of IT personnel. Most of big Korean IT service firms operate in captive market. This is also attributed to the cause of the sluggish global sourcing. Some IT managers, especially in global IT service firms, concerned about the negative long term effect of the sluggish global sourcing on competitiveness and human infra capability of Korea's IT service industry. Managers in IT service firms expect skill requirement changes in the future when global sourcing becomes active. The skills and knowledge that they wish to retain in-house is business knowledge, system analysis and design knowledge, customer relation management skills, project management skills and industry knowledge. The jobs with the above knowledge usually involve customers.

• 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.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.223-238
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• 2020

In the environment of protectionism and bilateral trade agreements, Korea has promoted the conclusion of FTAs for its export-oriented trading policy, and 16 FTAs have entered into force at present. The main goal of this paper is to introduce the ISI system and its benefits and to extend the preferential rule of origin regime by using the Integrated Sourcing Initiative in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. The ISI illustrates with impressive clarity the fact that it considered as a tool of expanding the geographic limit of states and maximizing the global sourcing strategy of multinational corporations, allowing the developing countries to gain access to the market of developed ones that avoid the complexity and costs of many rules of origin regimes. This paper utilizes the literature research and analyzes a case study of FTAs which have adopted the ISI system. In conclusion, it presents several implications of additional measures to satisfy rules of origin in Korea's existing FTAs relating to the global supply chain strategy.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Quality Management Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.287-292
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• 1998

As business looks towards the $21^{\st}$ century, a long-term strategy that focuses on global sourcing will be the vital factor in whether companies win or lose. At the same time, with electronic components, it is important to ensure stable quality and reliability, together with other important parameters. In order to achieve this, creating an effective mechanism of failure analysis and database management for electronic components is essential. The authors introduce the actual mechanism employed by NEC and explain the ideas and insight they have obtained from their experience.

• The Journal of Information Technology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.65-80
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• 2002

A key concern at these days is where to find a suitable location for their business activities, bearing in mind that they must find the right balance between global integration and local responsiveness. This article suggests that globalization may be enabled by Information Technology. It focuses on the sourcing process, an area where globalization is often claimed to be the case. Re-examination of empirical evidence shows that global sourcing is not as generally predominant as is claimed. Consequently inhibitors to global integration exist and these inhibitors are classified into three categories: geographical, relational and environmental inhibitors. The role information technology plays in reducing these inhibitors and formulate propositions that are then illustrated in two case studies. Information technology is proposed to reduce the geographical and relational inhibitors, but it will have no effect on environmental inhibitors. However, the latter category of inhibitors will become more prominent in the future. Information technology thus shifts the balance towards global integration, but simultaneously creates new problems in managing internationalization.

• The International Journal of Costume Culture
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2009

In this study, the business structure and characteristics of buying offices used by buyers for apparel productions through global sourcing were analyzed in specifics. Data were acquired through in-depth interviews of twelve merchandisers at representative apparel buying offices. The results of this study can be summarized as following. The business structure of a buying office varied depending on the functions, the item characteristics of products to be manufactured or the characteristics of the major buyers who were the customers. Overall, teams were formed by brands or organizations were formed by functions. Functional teams were divided within each brand team when business teams were divided by brands and personnel was divided by brands occasionally within each functional team when business teams were divided by functions. Business teams were composed of MR which managed the overall business about orders such as factory sourcing, price decision and production management and teams with various specialized skills. The teams with specialized skills were composed of Technical team, Fabric Development team, Colorist team, Quality Assurance (QA) or Quality Control (QC) team, Logistics team, Factory Audit team, and etc. For the future directions on the improvements, ways to increase international competitiveness of buying offices need to be researched and many expressed the opinion that it would be effective to move the offices to countries close to buyers or manufacturing locations as most buyers demand lower prices and shorter lead time than before and it is increasing trend for buyers and factories to do business directly without buying offices in the middle.

• Fashion, Industry and Education
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.11-23
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• 2016

This study investigated the comparative advantages of the Bangladeshi and Vietnamese apparel industries using Global Value Chain (GVC) framework. In this study, the GVC framework was expanded to include social and environmental sustainability issues. Secondary data, for the 2012 - 2013 period, were collected and analyzed for each component of the apparel GVC. The findings indicated that while both countries have unique comparative advantages, Vietnam clearly emerged as a leader on many GVC components. Bangladesh's comparative advantage lies in lower wages, producing high volume orders, and lean manufacturing. In spite of Vietnam's higher labor costs, it has comparative advantages in higher productivity, skilled and trained workers, manufacturing of intricate styles of high quality, agility and flexible manufacturing, more developed infrastructure and logistic services as well as greater social and environmental compliances. This study contributes towards insight into best sourcing fit for fashion brand business models. Based on the findings, fashion driven companies offering more complex styles at a faster rate will benefit from choosing Vietnam. In contrast, Bangladesh might be a better choice for high volume driven companies that offer basic apparel and better value for their consumers. From theoretical perspective, the research makes an important contribution by expanding the GVC framework.

• 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.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.5-14
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• 2019

Purpose - This study aims to proposes a conceptual framework to segment multi-national products based on a Chinese consumer's perception of multi-national products, to find the role of consumer ethnocentrism (CET) in country of origin (COO) effects for Chinese, and to figure out how different dimension of CET Effects on purchase intention developed market and home country. Research design, data and methodology - This study selected a 2×2×2 factorial design for the hypothesis test based on the product category × combination of manufactured type × Ethnocentrism level. This study distinguishes products between luxury (Burberry) and non-luxury (Nike) products and choose combination of manufactured type (Spain vs India/ Spain vs China) in order to perform comparative studies. A total of 223 Chinese participated in the experiment. After being exposed to each scenario, participants were asked to respond to questions about brand preference and purchase intention Results - Regarding to luxury made in developed country, it is worth that exposing COO information to low level of ethnocentrism consumers. Regarding to non-luxury product made in emerging country, it makes it worse when COO information to high level of ethnocentrism consumers. Lastly, regarding to non-luxury product, patriotic consumers prefer to purchase product made in home country.