• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.269-279
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• 2024

The study explores the evolving landscape of overseas expansion strategies by Korean corporations, focusing on recent geopolitical tensions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and disruptions in global supply chains. It emphasizes the challenges faced by industries producing high-value products and delves into the concept of "Friend-Shoring" policies in the United States, leading major Korean companies to invest in local semiconductor, battery, and automotive factories. Recognizing the potential fragmentation of Korea's manufacturing sector, the paper introduces the "Mother Factory" strategy as a policy initiative, inspired by Japan's model, to establish core production facilities domestically. The discussion unfolds by examining the cases of major companies in Japan and the United States, highlighting the need for Korea to adopt a mother factory strategy to mitigate risks associated with friend-shoring policies. Inspired by Intel's "Copy Exactly" approach, the paper proposes a Korean mother factory model integrating smart factory technology and digital twin systems. This strategic shift aims to enhance responsiveness to geopolitical challenges and fortify the competitiveness of Korean high-tech industries. Finally, the paper proposes a Korean Mother Factory based on smart factory concepts. The suggested model integrates smart factory technology and digital twin frameworks to enhance responsiveness and fortify competitiveness. In conclusion, the paper advocates for the adoption of a comprehensive Korean Mother Factory model to address contemporary challenges, foster advanced manufacturing, and ensure the sustainability and competitiveness of Korean high-tech industries in the global landscape. The proposed strategy aligns with the evolving dynamics of the manufacturing sector and emphasizes technological advancements, collaboration, and strategic realignment.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.1-48
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• 2013

Taking the cases of Korean garment factories in Binh Duong area, this study aims to explain the phases and causes of the wildcat strikes that have rapidly expanded recently in Vietnam. For the purpose, this study raises several questions as follows. Why the strikes sometimes increase and decrease other times? Why the factory workers prefer a wildcat strike even though it is politically risky, unproductive, and complicated? By the same token, why the foreign management cannot or will not preemptively preclude the wildcat strikes that are usually predictable and the workers are mostly able to accomplish their demands? While answering these questions, this study explores the economic, political, and socio-cultural conditions of the wildcat strikes respectively. Based on the fieldwork in around 30 Korean owned garment factories and the interview with around 100 Vietnamese factory workers in Binh Duong, this study confirms several findings on the phases and causes of the strikes in the area in specific and in Vietnam in general. First, the annual trends of the wildcat strikes reflect the macroeconomic conditions in which the consumer prices and the labor market in Vietnamese economy and business conditions in the world economy are pivotal. Second, however, the influence of macroeconomic conditions on both the management and the workers in the garment factories are differential, depending on the financial situations of the multinational corporations and the workers' capability of reproducing their household economies. Thirdly, the possibility of the wildcat strike in each factory is relatively independent on the financial conditions of a factory and rather associated with the stable political structure and active political processes within the factory that enable the management and the workers to efficiently communicate each other. Lastly, the necessity of establishing political stability in a factory arises from the distinctive social and cultural characteristics of the multinational corporation in which foreign managers and native workers inevitably live in separate and different socio-cultural worlds.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.67-111
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• 2009

지난여름 베트남 남부의 호치민시와 인근의 공장지대는 전례 없는 파업의 확산을 경험했다. 연구자가 만난 한국기업의 매니저들은 이를 "파업의 도미노 현상"으로 묘사했다. 호치민시 노동조합의 고위간부는 "도이머이(Doi Moi) 이후 노사관계에 가장 혼란스러운 변화가 일어나고 있다"라고 단언하기도 했다. 본 연구는 한국계 다국적 공장을 사례로 1) 최근 파업의 정치경제학적 배경은 무엇인지를 살펴본 다음, 2) 왜 어떤 공장은 최근의 파업의 소용돌이 속에서 상대적으로 안전했던 반면 다른 기업은 그렇지 못했는지, 3) 왜 어떤 공장은 파업의 과정에서 협상을 성공적으로 이끈 반면 다른 기업은 그렇지 못했는지, 4) 최근의 파업이 개별 다국적 공장의 체제에 어떤 사회적, 문화적, 정치적 영향을 미쳤는지 살펴보고자 하였다. 연구자는 연구목적을 위하여 호치민 인근과 동나이에 위치한 약 20여개의 공장을 방문하였으며 서로 다른 특징을 가지고 있는 3개의 섬유공장을 선별하여 현지연구를 실시하였다. 이 가운데 첫 번째 공장은 연구자가 90년대 말 현지연구를 실시하여 공장체제의 성격을 잘 알고 있는 다국적 공장이었다. 나머지 두 공장은 재정 상황과 정치과정의 특징이 첫 번째 공장과 대조될 뿐 아니라 서로 다른 공장이었다. 세 공장을 비교 연구함으로써 연구자는 다국적 공장의 재정적 혹은 경제적 상태가 노동쟁의의 성격을 만드는 주요한 조건이 되지만, 회사의 경제적 조건이 양호하고 경영진이 온정주의적 철학을 실천하고 있다고 해서 파업을 미연에 방지할 수 없다는 점을 보여주고자 하였다. 호치민 인근의 파업이 크게는 세계적인 경제위기, 작게는 회사의 재정상태에 영향을 받고 있지만 특정 공장에서 노동쟁의가 일어나는가의 여부는 이 공장의 정치과정과 레짐의 성격에 의해 좌우된다는 점을 밝히고자 했다. 특히 다국적 공장의 정치과정의 안정을 위해서는 '매개자' 역할을 하는 베트남 중간간부, 사무실 직원, 노조간부 등의 역할이 매우 중요하였다. 이들이 위계적으로 그리고 사회문화적으로 다른 외국인 경영진과 공장 노동자의 갈등을 어떻게 흡수하고 중재하는가에 따라 공장체제의 안정 여부가 달려 있었다. 이번 파업은 각각 다른 정치경제적 조건을 가진 여러 공장의 경영진과 노동자가 이러한 사실을 새삼 깨닫게 하는 계기로 작용했다.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2019

This study examines the normalization of Korean GM management between the Korean government and GM in terms of external negotiation game and internal negotiation game using Putnam's Two-Level Games. In addition, GM's Win-set change and negotiation strategy were analyzed. This analysis suggested implications for the optimal negotiation strategy for mutual cooperation between multinational corporations and local governments in the global business environment. First, the negotiation strategy for Korea's normalization of GM management in Korea can be shifted to both the concession theory and the opposition theory depending on the situation change and the government policy centered on the cautious theory. Second, GM will maximize its bargaining power through 'brink-end tactics' by utilizing the fact that the labor market is stabilized, which is the biggest weakness of the Korean government, while maintaining a typical Win-set reduction strategy. GM will be able to restructure at any time in terms of global management strategy, and if the financial support of the Korean government is provided, it will maintain the local factory but withdraw the local plant at the moment of stopping the support. In negotiations on the normalization of GM management in Korea, it is necessary to prepare a problem and countermeasures for various scenarios and to maintain a balance so that the policy does not deviate to any one side.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.39-46
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• 2017

Dongguan City of Guangdong province, one of the core areas of the Pearl River Delta, has also pursued economic development through the geographical advantage close to Hong Kong. In the early 1980s, small and medium-sized multinational corporations related to home appliances industry from Hong Kong invested to the Dongguan area and set up a production factory. In the mid-1990s, as Taiwanese PC manufacturers invested, local industrial clusters have developed in Dongguan with core of the IT, PC components and electronic industries. The case of the IT industrial cluster in Dongguan is a typical example of the development of Chinese manufacturing industry after the reform of China. This paper focused on the coupling strategy case of Dongguan City industrial cluster in Guangdong province, and theoretically compared the endogenous growth factor analysis(NMID) of regional industrial development with the regional differentiation of industry based on external linkage with global production network(GPN).

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.148-162
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• 1993

There is much speculation that modern capi-talist society is undergoing fundamental and qualitative chnge towards flexible specialization. The purpose of this study is to examine this hypothesis. This paper focusses on: the idea of flexible specialization; the significance of this transition; industrial district; and the implicati-ons of this new production system for Korean industrial space. Main arguments of this study are as follows: First, as all different groups of researchers apply the idea of flexible specialization according to their own specifications, the current debate on this topic is not much fruitful. Not surpri-singly, the concept of flexible specialization has overlapped with subocontracting. This intergration of subcontracting into flexible specialization systems, however, is inappropriate because the two concepts have different historical contexts. The other cause of this controversy is its inherent weekness, conceptual ambiguity. Thus, today's flexibility becomes tomorrow's rigidity. Secondly, transition towards flexible speciali-zation has only been partially achieved even in advanced capitalist countries. The application of dualistic explanatory framework, such as rigidity versus flexibiity, mass production versus small-lot multi-product production, and de-skilling versus re-skilling, has resulted in great exaggeration of the transformation, from Fordism to post-Fordism. There is no intermediary part between two places. Considering that the workers allocated to the Fordist mass production assembly line are not as large as one might imagine, the shift from mass to flexible production has only limited implications for the transformation of capitalist economy. Thirdly, 'industrial district' contorversy has contributed to highlighting the importance of small firms and areas as production space. The agglomeration of small firms in specific areas is common in Korea, but it is quite different from the industrial district based on flexible specialization. The Korean phenomenon stems from close interactions with its major parent firm rather than interactions between flexible, specialized, autonomous and technology-intensive smll firms. Most Korean subcontractors are still low-skilled, labour-intensive, and heavily dependent on their mojor parent firms. Thus, the assertion that the Seoul Metropolitan Area adopts flexible specialization has no base. Fourthly, the main concern of flexible speciali zation is small firms. However, the corporate organization that needs product diversification and technological specialization is oligopolistic large corporations typified by multinational corporations. It is because of this that most of these organizations are adoptiong Fordist mass production methods. The problem of product diversification will be resolved naturally if economic internationalization progresses further. What is more important for business success is the quality and price competitiveness of firms rather than product diversification. Lastly, in order to dispel further misunderst-anding on this issue, it is imparative that the conceptual ambiguity is resolved most urgently. This study recommends adoption of more speci-fied and direct terminology (such as, factory automation, computer design, out-sourcing, the exploitation of part-time labor, job redesign) rather than that of ideological ones (such as, Taylorism, Fordism, neo-Taylorism, neo-Fordism, post-fordism, flexible specialization, peripheral post-Fordism). As the debates on this topic just started, we still have long way to go until consensus is reached.