Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northern Illinois University, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [153]-161).

Not available / text

Not available / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northwestern University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 383-409).

The purpose of this study is, therefore, to investigate empirically the firm- and location-specific determinants of the magnitude of FDI by Korean manufacturing MNCs--one of the leading Third World MNCs. This study also examines firm-specific characteristics that distinguish Korean MNCs investing in developing countries from those investing in developed countries.

In the era of globalization, multinational corporations are the center in international economics. Most studies are based on investment flows between developed countries, however. With a firm-level dataset on South Korean multinational corporations, this dissertation adds new insights to the research of multinational corporations from the perspective of an emerging country. The first essay investigates the impact of the level of development of the destination country on employment growth of the multinational corporations in the home country. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we assess the impact of starting to invest in less-advanced countries compared with investing in more-advanced countries. To obtain suitable control groups in each case, we use the propensity score method. The method selects national firms that ex post did not take the investment decisions even though ex ante they would have been equally likely to. We find that moving to less-advanced countries decreases a company's employment growth rate especially in the short run. On the other hand, moving to more-advanced countries does not consistently affect employment growth in any significant way. Including investment decisions of established multinationals in the estimation somewhat weakens but does not overturn this conclusion. The second essay studies the location decision of South Korean multinationals across China's regions with a firm-level dataset. Our conditional logit estimates confirm previous studies that found agglomeration effects along industry and along national lines. In particular, South Korean investors target the region where there are more firms in an industry irrespective of their nationality. At the same time, more affliates from South Korean multinationals also attract new entrants. More importantly, however, we add an upstream and downstream (backward and forward) linkage effect. We find that the presence of upstream and downstream South Korean affiliates significantly increases the likelihood that a South Korean multinational invests in a particular region. At the same time, however, backward and forward linkages at the industry level that do not differentiate by nationality do not seem to matter much. As such, our analysis of investors' location choice brings together two perspectives: (backward and forward) linkages and agglomeration along national lines. The third essay explores regional production networks and off-shoring of material and service inputs in East Asia using the Asian International Input-Output Table (1990, 1995, and 2000). In process of doing so, off-shoring is directly measured from the Table which is not used in the previous literature on this issue. It turns out that East Asian countries source the significant share of inputs within East Asia. Besides material off-shoring, services off-shoring becomes more and more common in the era of globalization. In particular, countries in this region have used goods and services inputs mainly from Japan and the United States. However, in recent years, China and Korea started to supply greater amounts of goods and services inputs. / text

This study has sought to probe the origin of Korean chaebols by employing theories that have been developed to account for the rise of American business organizations. By examining the top four chaebols qualitatively through detailed case analyses and 143 business groups quantitatively through statistical analyses, this study tests hypotheses raised by the three theoretical perspectives. The major findings of this study indicate that the political economy has been the dominant factor that contributed to transforming mediocre business groups into large chaebol groups. In particular, an organization's relationship with the state was of utmost significance. This study also indicates that the institutional isomorphism approach can complement politically motivated or efficiency-oriented theories. One of the major findings of this study is that Chandler's theory accounting for the rise of Korean chaebols is weak. However, its weakness does not stem from its main proposition that strategy calls for structural reform, but from its premise that growth strategy and structure presuppose economic and technological development. Williamson's transaction cost economics has a limited capability to account for the rise of the Korean chaebol. It is argued that the relative weakness of this theory may be inherent in its "universal" nature, which makes little provision for societal and cultural differences between the United States and Korea.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-136). / Microfiche. / xiii, 136 leaves, bound 29 cm

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration