• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.99-120
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to clarify the industrialization process, and locational factors and linkages of manufacturing in Jangyu-Myun, a suburb of Metropolitan Pusan, toward which heavy decentralization of manufacturing from Pusan has been done. Hard data and soft data were used as the basic data. Hard data used for this study were both the statistical data which consists of the number of establishments and employee classified by product type, firm size, organizational type and unit area(dong) which were listed in statistics yearbooks, and the list of the owner's names, addresses, employee number, products and headquarters of firms which were listed in firm directories. Soft data were the results of the interviews with the 53 owners of firms surveyed among the firms selected by Proportional Stratified Sampling Method. The major findings were as follows: (1) Manufacturing location in Jangyu-Myun was regularized in 1980's in which decentralization of manufacturing was activiated. Though the industrialization of study area resulted from the birth, relocation and establishment of branches of the firms originated from the other regions, the relocation of small outer-oriented firms from the central city was the most important factor among them. (2) The main locational factors which induced the decentralizing manufacturing from the central city into Jangyu-Myun are closely related to land, transportation, personal factor, raw material suppliers and market. (3) The differences of important locational factors by the size and organizational type of firms are relevant to the characteristics of manufacturing location. (4) The changes of linkages attendant upon locational changes of firms were not so great and were localized in labor supply and marketing. (5) The strength of linkages is strong in the procurement of materials, in the subcontraction and in the marketing, but not in the ordering. (6) The main factors influencing on the formation of linkages are different by the types of linkages: monopolistic and oligopolistic supply are important in procurement linkages; characteristics of products and production capacity in the subcontraction and ordering; characteristics of products and the subsequent difficulties, in the marketing. (7) With the exception of procurement linkages, the strength of linkages with the outside of the study area are stronger than the linkages with the inside. The strength of linkages with the outside has distance-decay-function and strong linkages with the central city. (8) These spatial characteristics of linkages are different by products type, firm size and organizational type of firms: the spatial ranges of linkages are wider in the multi-location firms than in the single-location firms; the larger the firm size, the wider the spatial range of linkages: there is no consistent trend by products type. In conclusion, some facts described above were proved to be consistent with the results of proceeding studies in the other areas: influence of central city manufacturing relocation on industrialization in the suburb: different decentralization by products type, firm size and organizational types of firms: different locational factors by products type, firm size and organizational types of firms; linkage changes attendant upon locational changes of firms; spatial differences of linkages by products type, firm size and organizational type of firms. Some other factors were proved to be partly consistent: locational factors and spatial characteristics of linkages. Accordingly I think that the results of previous studies on the other areas can be applicable to the explanation of the location and linkage of manufacturing in Jangyu-Myun. For the better explanation on the characteristics of manufacturing decentralization from the central city, more empirical case studies on the location and linkage of manufacturing in the suburb areas are necessary.