Korea's leadership in 5G and beyond: Footprints and futures

The Korean government has played a crucial role in the development of advanced mobile networks, including 5G. Korea became the first country in the world to not only launch a nationwide 5G network but also to commercialize 5G services. In addition to looking at the steps toward 5G-related developments in Korea, this study used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling analysis to examine how 5G-related discourse was formed in the media after its commercialization. As a result of analyzing news articles in the Korean press with 5G as the main keyword, a total of five topics were derived. Intriguingly, most topics contained several new articles related to government policies. Considering the characteristics of the mobile network industry—e.g. as an industry that receives licenses from the government—this result suggests that 5G-related issues are closely related to government policies. Our topic modeling results confirm that the interventionist promotion policy of the Korean government which acted as a catalyst for technology and business innovation played an important role in Korea's 5G leadership.     

韩国经济发展中的对外贸易

韩国从20世纪60年代试图开始实质性的经济开发，到2004年为止与230多个国家和地区进行贸易。2004年。其GDP是6801亿美元，为世界第10位，人均收入14162美元。交易额4783亿美元，为世界第12位。2004年外币储备额是1991亿美元．居世界第4位。韩国以韩国式经济开发，即实行市场亲和式政府干预的经济政策，通过出口为主导的经济开发实现了经济的快速增长。正高速增长的中国亦以中国式社会主义．以中国式改革开放追求出口和贸易的共同增长。中国和韩国都持续着经济的高速发展．被公认为是以出口和贸易为主的经济开发模式的典范。韩国进口能源、原材料和资本品，出口工业制成品。中国的贸易由外资企业为主进口半成品和资本品，出口工业制成品。而中国贸易在经济发展中所发挥的影响与韩国相比还小。为了持续增长，韩国需要以技术和经营革新提高国际竞争力．尤其要改善以资本品进口为主的贸易结构。     

From developmental to network state: Government restructuring and ICT-led innovation in Korea

This study examines the government leadership and strategic restructuring that guided The Republic of Korea's remarkable ICT-led development from 1980 to the present. That time span coincided with tumultuous political, social and economic transformation inside Korea including the growth of such powerful chaebol industry groups as Samsung, LG and SK. Globally, the period covered by this study featured the growth of new and more powerful digital networks epitomized by the internet. It also marked South Korea's transition from a development to a network state, allowing assessment of what the experience implies for developmental state theory.     

Next Generation Access (NGA) supply side interventions—An international comparison

Over the last years, technical and economic developments towards the deployment of Next Generation (Access) Networks have triggered discussions under which circumstances investments into physical infrastructure are economically viable. In many countries the discussion has arisen regarding conditions under which private investment will/will not be undertaken and whether or not in such cases public policy measures should support deployment. This could come in different ways—from incentivizing private investments to deploying new “state-owned” networks. Public policy can have an impact for example by intervening into a competitive market. The paper tries to provide answers as to “why” such interventions and supply side policies are undertaken (thereby referring to the central role that broadband infrastructures have for the economy) and “how” such interventions take place, for example an analysis of the public policy interventions to drive Next Generation Access Network deployment. The article thereby derives policy patterns that have occurred in different regions of the world.     

Vision of future e-government via new e-government maturity model: Based on Korea's e-government practices

This paper analyze that the social paradigm shift caused by the new IT has brought the current highly-advanced information society following the industrial and information societies, and proposes a new e-government development model called as “E-Government Maturity Model based on Socio-political Development” that incorporates the level of social maturity based on e-democracy and the maturity level of civic society with statistic model. The new model classifies e-Government development into four stages: “Bureaucratic model”, “Information management model”, “Participatory model”, and “Governance model”. This paper also attempted to apply this model to e-government practices in Korea on the flow of time. E-government in Korea has mainly shown features of one distinct type at a time among four stages, as so far explained above. In this case, the former stage developed to the next level after going through the process of maturation in advancement of ICT and social maturity and political stability. This paper defined the ‘smart society’ as the highly-advanced information society from the Korean case study. Instead of literally interpreting the term ‘smart’, it should be comprehensively re-interpreted as a new academic term that reflects perspectives of social and technological changes, introducing new meanings. The definition and concept or the maturity level of the smart society shall be left for the future study suggestions. We have so far analyzed the characteristics of progressing toward the smart society based on Korea's cases of e-government development. The analysis, though started from certain cases of Korea, will be an applicable model to other countries as well, since Korea is in the leading group in terms of informatization. This paper is distinguished from the other studies because it is an analytical study on the non-technological factors of e-government development: especially focused on the political, socio-economic aspects of e-government. Despite the contribution mentioned above, this paper also has an academic limitation on the generalization of findings because of its a single case study on the Korea. So we will try to explain and analyze the other countries' cases with the research framework: E-Government Maturity Model based on Socio-political Development of this paper in the next studies. So, this model will be expected to be generally expandable and applicable to e-government cases of other countries.     

The evolution of Coca-Cola Australia’s soft drink reformulation strategy 2003–2017: A thematic analysis of corporate documents

Governments around the world are pressuring the soft drink industry to reformulate sugary drinks, in particular through taxes on sugar content or front-of-pack labels identifying products high in sugar. Even in countries with no sugary drink tax, such as Australia, the soft drink industry has a reformulation policy. While reformulation is often framed as a “win-win” solution for business and public health, many public health experts consider it to be a political strategy to improve corporate reputations and minimise the threat of regulation. We use a case study of Australia’s largest soft drink company, Coca-Cola Australia, to examine the evolution of corporate reformulation policies. We analysed a dataset of 144 corporate documents published between 2003 and 2017 to analyse how Coca-Cola’s policies changed and how it described and justified its reformulation initiatives. Between 2003 and 2017, Coca-Cola Australia shifted its reformulation strategy from “offering choice” to “systematic” sugar reformulation. It also presented two predominant rationales for reformulation: that it would grow its business and that it was “part of the solution” to obesity. We discuss these findings in relation to market and regulatory challenges facing the soft drink industry globally, including the spread of sugary drink taxes as well as consumer rejection of artificial sweeteners. This paper examines how a regional branch of the world’s largest soft drink company is adapting to pressures to reduce the sugar in its products as well as the tensions and barriers it faces in negotiating different consumer and public health interpretations of healthy beverages.     

面向“一带一路”战略的航空产业技术进步研究

“一带一路”战略给我国航空业带来更大的发展机遇，作为基础设施重要组成部分的航空相关项目建设将坐实“稳增长”重要支柱的地位。本文运用基于数据包络（DEA）的曼奎斯特（Malmquist）生产率指数方法对我国31个省的航空产业全要素生产率进行实证研究，并分区域比较了航空产业的技术进步与技术效率变动趋势。文章认为在“一带一路”战略的背景下，我国航空产业将加速融入国际社会，航空产品研发能力、系统综合集成能力和数字化生产能力可以得到大幅提升，进而为“一带一路”战略中的国际合作奠定坚实基础。这一良性循环有利于提高自主创新能力，提升航空业的技术进步水平。     

The Nature of Diversified Business Groups: A Research Design and Two Case Studies

Diversified business groups dominate the private sectors of most of the world’s economies. Several of these economies have undergone sudden policy changes that significantly increase domestic competitive intensity. We demonstrate how the changes in corporate scope that accompany such “competitive shocks” can be used to weigh the importance of different explanations for the existence of diversified business groups. We illustrate our reasoning by studying the restructuring of two of India’s largest business groups following a comprehensive post-1991 package of policy reforms. The case studies also elucidate aspects of the restructuring process that should inform larger-sample empirical analyses.     

中国数字经济规模测算研究——基于国际比较的视角

伴随着信息技术的快速发展及其与经济运行方式的不断融合,数字经济已被视为经济增长的“新引擎”,在世界上多数国家的发展战略中占据重要位置,数字经济规模测算研究是当前国内外统计机构与研究学者面临的亟待解决的问题。本文在系统梳理信息经济、互联网经济、数字经济演变历程的基础上,提炼数字经济的内涵与形成要素,构建数字经济规模核算框架,界定数字经济核算范围,确定数字经济产品,筛选数字经济产业,对2007—2017年中国数字经济增加值与总产出等指标进行测算,并将测算结果与美国和澳大利亚进行比较。测算结果表明:2017年,中国数字经济增加值53028.85亿元,占国内生产总值的6.46%;数字经济总产出147574.05亿元,占国内总产出的6.53%。基于国际比较的视角,2017年,中国数字经济增加值约为美国的58.12%;数字经济增加值占GDP比重低于美国0.44个百分点;2016年,中国数字经济增加值约为美国的52.77%,占GDP比重低于美国0.77个百分点,略高于澳大利亚0.03个百分点。近年来,中国数字经济增加值年均实际增长率明显高于美国和澳大利亚。2008—2017年,中国数字经济增加值年均实际增长率达14.43%,明显高于国内生产总值年均实际增长率8.27%,数字经济推动经济增长的作用明显。本文深化了数字经济规模核算框架研究,系统监测了中国数字经济的发展规模与结构,为进一步完善中国数字经济统计核算体系和提出促进数字经济高质量发展的战略措施提供参考依据。     

The end justifies the definition: The manifold outlooks on the digital divide and their practical usefulness for policy-making

Based on the theory of the diffusion of innovations through social networks, the article discusses the main approaches researchers have taken to conceptualize the digital divide. The result is a common framework that addresses the questions of who (e.g. divide between individuals, countries, etc.), with which kinds of characteristics (e.g. income, geography, age, etc.), connects how (mere access or effective adoption), to what (e.g. phones, Internet, digital TV, etc.). Different constellations in these four variables lead to a combinatorial array of choices to define the digital divide. This vast collection of theoretically justifiable definitions is contrasted with the question of how the digital divide is defined in practice by policy makers. The cases of the United States, South Korea, and Chile are used to show that many diverse actors with dissimilar goals are involved in confronting the digital divide. Each of them takes a different outlook on the challenge. This leads to the question if this heterogeneity is harmful and if countries that count with a coherent national strategy and common outlook on digital development do better than others. It is shown that the effect of a coherent vision is secondary to tailor-made sector-specific efforts. On the contrary, a one-size-fits-all outlook on a multifaceted challenge might rather be harmful. This leads to the conclusion that it is neither theoretically feasible, nor empirically justifiable to aim for one single definition of the digital divide. The digital divide is best defined in terms of a desired impact. Since those are diverse, so are the definitions of the challenge. The best that can be done is to come up with a comprehensive theoretical framework that allows for the systematic classification of different definitions, such as the one presented in this article.     

Liberalisation policy,industry structure and productivity changes in Korea’s telecommunications industry

The paper examines the efficiency implications of the liberalisation policy in Korea’s telecommunications industry. The paper develops a contextual understanding of the Korean evolutionary path and discusses various transitional difficulties and additional complications posed by business conglomerates that Korea confronted. Examining factors affecting efficiency, the paper shows how the government commitment to the liberalisation schedule imposed a credible competitive threat to the incumbent carriers and enhanced dynamic efficiency of the industry.     

‘New order’ or business as usual: uncertainties and issues for frequency policy and WARC 79

One by one previously calm, traditional areas of telecommunications planning and policy have been upset and their landscapes changed beyond recognition by technological and social change: examples now familiar include the revolution in network planning brought about by digital and stored-program technologies, and the steady trend, most notable in the USA but increasingly visible in Europe, towards more competition, initially in such ‘peripheral’ areas as the supply of terminals and the development of private ‘affinity’ networks. At the same time international affairs have been transformed in the past twenty years by such factors as the increasing assertiveness of the developing countries, the growing importance of international cooperation and international institutions in a high-technology world economy, and the new world role of China. All these forces converge in the international process of frequency-spectrum regulation carried on through the International Telecommunication Union and due for thorough-going review at the General World Administrative Radio Conference to be held in September 1979 (WARC 79), the first such conference for twenty years.     

The Evolution of “Competition”: Lessons for 21st Century Telecommunications Policy

For over a century, assessments of competition or the lack thereof have been central to how public policy treats the telecommunications industry. This centrality continues today. Yet, numerous foundational questions about this concept persist. In this paper, we chronicle how the definition of “competition” has evolved in economics and has been applied in the communications arena. The academic literature on competition hits an important inflection point in the mid-20th century with the development of “workable competition”: a term that is equated to “effective competition.” We find that while the concept of “effective competition” is central to policy formation at the FCC, the Commission’s own applications of “effective competition” are inconsistent. Given the centrality of this concept, and its inconsistent applications to date, we draw upon the seminal contributions to the development of the notion of “effective competition” to offer a modern definition suitable for application in 21st century communications markets.     

Race,ethnicity, and telecommunications policy issues of access and representation: Centering communities of color and their concerns

This paper examines how and why activist groups representing marginalized communities of color are increasingly engaging in communications technology policy issues, particularly in relation to issues of digital access and representation. It explores three distinct but related case studies to disentangle the issues and concerns of a range of communities of color, and the challenges and opportunities for their advocates in navigating the highly technical communications technology policy arena: the first case study, which centers on the NAACP's original opposition to net neutrality, reveals the primacy of issues surrounding the “digital divide” to populations of color, and the difficulties of engaging in technical conversations surrounding Internet governance when issues of access persist. Meanwhile, the second case reviews the campaign by Free Press to promote set-top box liberalization as an issue of representation and diversity to both policymakers and citizens. The final case, which examines the work of the Tribal International Carrier to build an alternative internet service network for Native populations, highlights the precarity which organizations must strategically navigate in order to mitigate the influence of both the state and large corporations over Internet policy issues in order to both serve and represent their constituents. In all, this paper presents and extends upon a novel approach to communications policy research, foregrounding the need to integrate critical race frameworks and, relatedly, to center the breadth, depth, and lived experiences of communities of color, which can therein facilitate more inclusive digital media and communication environments and policy structures.     

Network position and identity: A language-based perspective on strategizing

This article explores processes of strategizing within business networks by showing how managers employ sensemaking to cope with network paradoxes. It takes the linguistic turn to analyze how participants discursively construct their organizations' identities and positions within a ‘designed’ network context. In doing so, the paper attempts to answer the research question posed so provocatively over a decade ago by Håkansson and Ford (2002): by exploring how companies interact in business networks. Our contribution is to show how firms interact by taking a language-based perspective on strategy to help understand the links between network, organizational and micro-levels of social construction. An in-depth discussion of a case study is presented, with particular emphasis on the identity-constructing processes affecting (and affected by) the positioning and strategizing of various network actors. We conclude by reflecting on the theoretical and practical contributions of our analysis, the latter focusing on tensions in Indigenous business development.     

Knowledge diversity and coordination: The effect of intrafirm inventor task networks on absorption speed

Research Summary: We combine the absorptive capacity and social network theory approaches to predict how intrafirm “whole” network characteristics affect the firm's speed of absorption of external knowledge to produce inventions. We start from the widely accepted view that distant, externally‐developed knowledge is difficult to absorb into the focal firm's own knowledge production. We suggest that high levels of intrafirm inventor task network diversity and task network density are essential for a diversity of knowledge inputs and coordinated actions regarding knowledge transfer, which in turn, reduces problems related to the absorption of knowledge—especially in the case of knowledge that is distant from the focal firm. The results of an event history study of 113 pharmaceutical firms that engaged in technology in‐licensing from 1986 to 2003 provide general support for our hypotheses. Managerial Summary: Firms keen to keep up with an uncertain and ever‐changing industry environment, can benefit from the speedy introduction of inventions. We examine how firms absorb licensed‐in technologies to nurture the rapid development of own related inventions. We show that a firm's absorption speed depends on the characteristics of the internal collaboration networks among the firm's inventor employees. More specifically, technologically diverse and well‐connected inventor networks improve the firm's ability to absorb external technologies quickly. This applies especially to externally acquired technologies that are unfamiliar to the firm. Depending on the distance of the acquired technology from the focal firm combined with speed‐inducing inventor network characteristics, our estimates suggest that firms can reduce the time needed for absorption by several months.     

Facing famine: Somali experiences in the famine of 2011

In 2011–12, Somalia experienced the worst famine of the twenty- first century. Since then, research on the famine has focused almost exclusively on the external response, the reasons for the delay in the international response, and the implications for international humanitarian action in the context of the “global war on terror.” This paper focuses on the internal, Somali response to the famine. Themes of diversification, mobility and flexibility are all important to understanding how people coped with the famine, but this paper focuses on the factor that seemed to determine whether and how well people survived the famine: social connectedness, the extent of the social networks of affected populations, and the ability of these networks to mobilize resources. These factors ultimately determined how well people coped with the famine. The nature of reciprocity, the resources available within people’s networks, and the collective risks and hazards faced within networks, all determined people’s individual and household outcomes in the famine and are related to the social structures and social hierarchies within Somali society. But these networks had a distinctly negative side as well—social identity and social networks were also exploited to trap humanitarian assistance, turn displaced people into “aid bait,” and to a large degree, determined who benefited from aid once it started to flow. This paper addresses several questions: How did Somali communities and households cope with the famine of 2011 in the absence of any state-led response—and a significant delay in a major international response? What can be learned from these practices to improve our understanding of famine, and of mitigation, response and building resilience to future crises?     

Global political economy of technology standardization: A case of the Korean mobile telecommunications market

This paper examines empirical cases of standardization in the Korean mobile market as vehicles for approaching the broader political and institutional context of standardization in telecommunications. A consideration of Korean standardization in the mobile telecommunications market is particularly interesting because it reveals how the state's political interests influence standards decisions, which are primarily driven by market and technological changes in telecommunications. Judged from the social construction of technology perspective which sheds light not only on technology itself but also on political, social and economic interests that surround transformations in technology, this paper highlights power relations among the major actors that have made technology standards decisions in Korea regarding second (2G) and third-generation (3G) mobile telephony. The paper also attempts to show how the Korean government has dealt with the diverse interests of various market actors while pursuing its own policy agenda.     

The political economy of the Korean telecommunications reform

South Korea proclaimed a gradual economic liberalization ever since the early 1980s. Regardless of her vow to do so, however, most of liberalization efforts turned out to be a sheer rhetoric. In sharp contrast, genuine market liberalization and regulatory reforms are being introduced in the telecommunication sector, which is unprecedented in the Korean economic history. Why and how could Korea pursue such a full scale market liberalization and regulatory reforms in the telecommunications sector? Though it is argued that a regulatory convergence in economic management is found in everywhere in the world, the particular speed, scope, and/or processes of a country’s telecommunication reform cannot be understood correctly without examining the structures and institutions of the Korean political economy and of the telecommunications industry. This paper examines the causes and consequences of the Korean telecommunication reform by analyzing the relevant institutional changes both in domestic and international, which largely affect the interaction among those involved in the process of market liberalization and regulatory reforms.     

The influence of policy networks on policy output. A comparison of organic farming policy in the Czech Republic and Poland

Although, at the time of accession to the EU, organic farming policies formally were equally developed in the Czech Republic and Poland, a closer investigation reveals some variation. This paper takes a policy network perspective to explore the policy differences between these two countries. Common network themes are used to link networks with policy output. It is argued that the capacity of the organic sector and its structural organization, its cohesion, and the relationship between organic interest groups and the government affect the political discourse, and, in consequence, how organic farming policy is elaborated.