• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.349-368
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• 2020

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the characteristics of Korean petroleum and petrochemical industries and the change of participation in global value chains. Since 1960s, Korean petroleum and petrochemical industries have been developed under government's industrial policies. In 1980s Korean petroleum and petrochemical industries served as a key export-oriented industry) of Korea's national economic development. Based on the expansion of large-scale production facilities led by the private sectors from the end of 1980s, Korea became as a major country in the global petroleum and petrochemical industries. Under Korean domestic scale, it shows considerable spatial concentration, in Ulsan Metropolitan City, Yeosu City and Seosan City. However, the degree of spatial concentration is differentiated along the each sectors within the petroleum and petrochemical industry. To improve regional industry competitiveness, each region has adopted different strategies and shifted to structural upgrading and producting high value-added products. Changes in the structure within petroleum and the petrochemical industries at the national level caused a change in the structure of Korea's participation in GVC, but the domestic value-added is lower than that of its major competitors.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40 no.6 s.111
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• pp.748-761
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• 2005

This study attempts to describe and periodinate the sixty years history of Korean Geographical Society. For the purpose, several numerical records concerned with the society were employed. The Korean Geographical Society was established in 1945 as a first academic society in geography. The international participation of Korean geographers started when it applied for the IGU membership in 1959. Next year, Korean's application was approved at the 19th IGC in Stockholm. The 40 years later, Korea came to host the 29th IGC in Seoul. This means that the activity of Korean geographers has been vigorous during the 40 years in accordance with high growth of Korean economy. The number of the society member reached 116 in the latter part of 1960s. It grew steadily from 1970s to 1990s and now amounts to around one thousand. It is believed that such trend is associated with the increase of geographical department and the development of graduate programs during past 40 years in Korea. The number of the advanced degree holders was only 2 in 1960, and now reachs 338 among which 166($43\%$) obtained from the foreign country. The Int issue of the society journal 'Geagraphy' -the title was changed to 'Journal of the KGS' in 1993-was published in 1963. It has gradually developed into the annual for $1966{\~}1973$, the semi-annual for $1974{\~}1990$, the quaterly for $1991{\~}1997$, and the hi-monthly until 2005. One issue per year has been published in English since 1993. The annual number of papers accepted by the editorial board has increased from 7 in 1960s-1970s to 52 in the new millennium. In terms of the specialty distribution of total 725 papers after 1963, many Korean geographers have been preferable to the field of socio-economic and urban geography as their major, and next histro-cultural and physical geography. Recently, a growing number of younger geographers are more interested in such diversified fields as ecological geography, socio-historical geography, applied geography concerned with GIS technic, geography education and so on. Such trend is a reflection of the new era which is characterized by diversity, software, high technology, globalization and others. The sixty years history of the society nay be summarized into the five phases of periodization: (1) establishment and chaos($1945{\~}1959$), (2) reconstruction(1960${\~}$1969), (3)reorganization(1970${\~}$1989), (4) jump and rush($1990{\~}1999$), (5)globalization($2000{\~}\;$).

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.310-325
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• 2012

Human being has used place names to differentiate one place from another. Place names are the products of collective human cognition in that a place name is chosen when it successfully represents the identity of a place. In addition, place names have been changed by the competition and struggle between social agencies and the political imperatives of hegemonic groups to impose their identity on the places. Recent geographic studies on place names have focused on the social and political processes behind the change of place names. In this vein, the purpose of this study is investigating the debates on the decision of city names in the process of the administrative reorganization in mid 1990s by the lens of political geography. Residents in cities and counties tried to justify their arguments by emphasizing historical backgrounds and popularity of their names. Additionally, economic power and potential were mobilized for the political resources to win over the battle over city names. The result, however, shows that the decision of newly consolidated cities' name was mainly made by the amount of political resources, such as population and number of seats in local assemblies. Several regions tried to use city names to negotiate with counterparts. In sum, the decision of place names is the product of political competitions, and the place name becomes the symbol of territorial identity. Place names have been in the center of disputes in local politics even after the name was decided, which suggest further studies on reasonable solution to mitigate the disputes to be expected when additional reorganization of administrative districts.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.228-239
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• 2012

Guanxi could be regarded as communities based on blood, regionalism, school ties centering on individual person. It has been used as a means of personal interests security and acquisition. What is more, it has formed a mode of socio-economic order, which is an inter-obligation relations based on mutual benefits. In practice, it is necessary to understand and accept guanxi in China, as it is a key factor to understand consumer patterns, inter-firm relations and extra-firm relations between firm and government. In this context, the main aim of the reserach is to identify the impact of guanxi on the business activities of Korean foreign direct investment firms in China by investigating their networks based on guanxi.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.499-514
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• 2016

Social enterprise is defined as a sort of companies that pursue both publicity and profitability. It is usual that their business activities and viability are dependent upon localized resources in terms of a labor market, raw material procurement and sales market. Also, the characteristics and viability of social enterprises based on local resources within the framework of social economy policy. The social economic policy in Korea is generally treated as means of local developments. This paper aims to examine the localness and socio-economic foundation of social enterprises which are located in the west of Gyeongnam province in Korea and to provide policy recommendations for promoting local resource-based social enterprises. The selection of the case study firms was chosen by considering various factors such as the viability of the firm, location of a company and the types of organization. The research result shows that most of local social enterprises had a viability and profitability to effectively utilize local resources. But it is claimed that the government policy for promoting local social enterprises reveals some limitations to promoting effectively local social enterprises. First, it is necessary to limit the qualification of applying to the government support program. Second, financial support should be changed from hardware-centered programs to software-centered programs such as training and education for human resource development and the business consulting. Finally, it is necessary for the government policy to focus on follow-up programs for firms which are no more capable of receiving the government financial support. For these firms, the government policy needs to focus on facilitating activities of cooperation between local universities and local social enterprise.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.91-105
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• 2014

The objective of this study is to analyze the project performance and development process of the phase 1 project of GFEZ from 2004 to 2010. The phase 1 project from 2004 to 2010 is consist of eleven project zones. Among these zones, eight zones are currently underway and three zones have been completed. The performance of the phase 1 projects is no so much because it were stated later than planning with the difficulty of business developers selection. The major performances are development and supply of industrial & residential land, construction of road and railway, investment promotion of 102 companies, and creation of 20,971 new jobs. Most of the direct invested companies were located at Gwangyang and Yulchon Districts, and were mainly logistics and related service, iron and steel, machinery, shipbuilding, and fine chemicals. The main problems, however, are the limit of promotion of high-tech industries and large firms, low FDI reported rate, difficulty of superior business developers, delayed business progress of Hadong district. Therefore, efforts to solve these problems are required for the success of GFEZ.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2014

This paper aims at exploring the multi-scalar processes through which the Gumi Industrial Complex was developed in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Existing studies, influenced by the "Developmental State Thesis", tend to see the industrialization processes of South Korea either by focusing on the socio-politico-economic processes at the national scale or in terms of the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats. This paper, however, denies this perspective on the basis of the strategic relational approach to the state and the multi-scalar perspective. In particular, it argues that the state actions for national industrialization have been the outcome of complex interactions, conflicts and negotiations among social forces, acting in and through the state, and at diverse geographical scales. This paper attempts to empirically prove this argument on the basis of a case study on the construction processes of Gumi Industrial Complex. The development of Gumi Industrial Complex cannot be solely explained in terms of either the plan rationality of the national bureaucrats or the political motivation related to the fact that Gumi was the hometown of President Park Jung-Hee. This paper argues that the development of Gumi Industrial Complex was heavily influenced by the role of the following actors; place-dependent local actors in Gumi and the multi-scalar agents, such as the Korean-Japanese businessmen and the national parliament members elected in the Gumi electoral district.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.155-174
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• 1997

This paper's main objective is to present an assessment of the impact of NAFTA on the economic structure of the Mexican northem borderlands. The NAFTA is the strategy of a free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, first mentioned by Salinas in June 1990 and established since January 1994. Mexican govemment permitted factories called maquiladoras at the northem borderlands for the first time in 1965. in the early 1980s Mexico was in a deep economic crisis and the international environment was adverse to Mexico. Mexico began to move toward an open economy and abandoned the import-substitution industrialization model that characterized Mexico since the 1930s. Through the new economic reform, the market system was preferred to the regulation; the private ownership, to the public ownership; and the competition, to the protection. The most phenomenal urbanization in northem Mexico has occurred around the major crossing points along the Mexico-U.S. border. The rapid urbanization in northern Mexico has been much due to the industrialization, brought about bv the maquiladora programs and, recently, by the NAFTA.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.215-228
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• 2006

Because of the technological innovation of information-communication, the liberalization of world trade and the intensification of regionalisation, the world economic space is in progress of globalization that is not only a product but also a capital, technology and labour move freely over the countries. In the globalized economic space, the multinational finns accelerate a globalization of capital and labour by exporting the capital to the peripherals countries for the low cost of production and importing the low wage labour from the peripherals countries. East Asia which appeared one of the world triad economic axis with a rapid regional economic growth after 1980's intensifies the regionalisation of capital and labour. As the increase of gap in cost of production and income level among the countries, not only the direction of flows of capital and labour but also the traits of migrant labour also changes remarkably.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.713-726
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• 2004

This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of innovation activities and informal networks of venture companies in Daegu region. The most important knowledge source of them for innovation is in house. The next are customers, competitors, and public supporters. And it was investigated that regional venture companies have participated in 1-5 informal network organizations. They primarily achieve such knowledges as, technologies, new business opportunities, and marketing information, through participation in informal networks. The reasons why they have taken part in informal networks are to get new informations and acquire new business opportunities. Particularly The informal networks between ventures companies and other regional economic actors have helped the regional venture companies to obtain more economic performance and to establish social capital, such as faith, with other economic actors.