• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.227-256
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• 2013

Existing multinational subsidiary typologies seem to have limitations in two respects. First, the prevalence of subsidiary classification along two-dimensions fails to capture many distinct subsidiary types. Failure to reflect a sufficient richness in dimensionality can give rise to a partial picture of subsidiary typologies in the international business literature. A new typology developed from multi-dimensional approach will be required for reflecting various subsidiary roles in the multinational enterprise. Second, multinational subsidiary performing a number of activities is hard to be defined functionally across the value chain activities. In addition, multinational subsidiary roles can vary dramatically. In conclusion, despite a growing amount of work on subsidiary typologies, there seems to be limited convergence of results. the study regarding subsidiary roles still remain a challenge. In this respect, the purpose of this study is to develop a new typology based on multi-dimensional approach in order to overcome the limitations of traditional typologies. To classify subsidiary types, we propose 8 types of multinational subsidiary according to three dimensions that are adopted: (1) number of required value chain activities (2) subsidiary's sourcing capability and autonomy (3) global orientation (3) The case study analyzing Korean foreign subsidiaries appropriate for 8 types is performed to establish the validity of this study.

• 한국디지털정책학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.323-335
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• 2005

Globalization of economy brings both opportunities and threats especially for companies in developing countries such as Korea. Globalization is an opportunity because it may expand the size of market for the company where globalization brings a threat for developing global competitiveness. If the company has already built competitive advantage in its business domain, the company can easily transfer market growth to profit improvement. However, if the company has not developed competitive advantage, globalization of economy will give a serious threat for the survivor of the company. The company might lose its own domestic market share. For the less famous brand of product or company name, international expansion is a challenging strategy. The study evaluated organizational performance of companies that try international expansion by utilizing Miles and Snow's strategy typology. We clustered organizations based on their strategy typology (prospector, analyzer, defender, and reactor) in view of the level of product diversification, new product development instances, level of localization, and autonomy of foreign subsidiary. With the strategy typology, we evaluated international strategy in view of product competitiveness, marketing strategy, human resource strategy, and organizational strategy. The regression result demonstrates that the performance of the company is significantly higher when the company employs prospector strategy. We also found out that product quality and emphasis for developed countries in international expansion are the most important factors for success.