Globalization and transformation of human resource management in South Korea

Developments in the area of globalization, labour markets and human resource management (HRM) are topical and have high profiles. Yet they are often underpinned by several older and implicit views. This paper examines five propositions in this respect. We discuss globalization, often taken as driving such developments, and the role of supportive and limiting factors to its influence. We use the case of South Korea, as the main direction of change here is seen as from 'traditional' employment security and seniority-based systems of employee resourcing and rewarding, towards 'newer' flexible and performance-based ones. This seems, on the surface, a case of practice transfer in a somewhat inhospitable climate. We examine and evaluate the restraints, direction and extent of such changes, and arguments that HRM systems are being transformed by such developments. We find that the situation is more constrained and ambiguous.     

Local development and embedded large firms

A classification of potential ties between large firms and local economies is proposed, first, by working on various sections of literature concerning multinational enterprises, subsidiaries and regional development. Then, building on a model of a dynamic local economy, i.e. the vital industrial district, a framework is sketched in which different combinations of linkages are put in relation to different pools and degrees of strength of social capital and other local factors. The main object of this paper is to present that framework and illustrate a proposition nested in it. The proposition is that involvement in knowledge exchange and institutional building, identifying ‘developmental embeddedness’, is more probable where and when the local factors are neither ‘too weak’ nor ‘too strong’, and contextual policies fostering the developmental role of large firm units are present.     

The macroeconomic response to real and financial factors,commodity prices,and monetary policy: International evidence

This study estimates a variety of small dynamic factor macro models where the factors are time-varying. The sample consists of 20 economies from around the world. Using quarterly data since the late 1990s, I find that the focus of some policymakers on the negative spillovers from monetary shocks is exaggerated. Four separate types of shocks are identified, and these can easily offset each other with a neutral to positive overall economic impact in some economies investigated here. However, a few economies, namely Brazil, Chile and China, experience a net economic loss from spillovers.     

Inward investment and endogenous development. The convergence of the strategies of large firms and territories?

Inward investment is often understood as an inadequate instrument for self-sustained growth and as being responsible for the insufficient development of peripheral areas. Globalization and increasing competition within the markets, however, changed the firms' and regions' adjustment environment, and led to the convergence of spatial strategies of the large innovative firms and the development strategies of regional and local governments. This process contributes toward the integration of the external firms within local productive systems and, therefore, large innovative firms can play a relevant role in endogenous development processes. Although the convergence of strategies is not a phenomenon that can be generalized for all types of firms and territories, a new line of action opens up that permits improved productive restructuring and economic development, even in less favoured and peripheral regions.     

1980～1991年中国证券市场演进的历史特征

1980～1991年间的中国证券市场,是生于夹缝的失衡市场、曲折兴起的分割市场、极不成熟的新兴市场.这些特征反映出中国证券市场复苏和起步是在市场经济极不发达与体制转轨的大背景下展开的,既具历史必然性,又有时代局限性;既为证券市场的后续成长奠定了一定的基础,也隐含着有待化解的诸多矛盾和波折.中国证券市场的健康发展需要新的理论创新、体制革命和制度变革.     

East meets west—Corporate governance in Asian emerging markets: A literature review and research agenda

This review examines how corporate governance mechanisms in the Asian emerging markets (AEMs) context affect firm-level outcomes. Literature about characteristics of the main corporate governance actors (boards and owners), their effects on firm-level outcomes, and contingency factors in AEMs offers interesting first insights. I synthetize these results and develop a research agenda that proposes how AEM corporate governance research should extend (but not ignore) agency theory, how AEM research about firm effects of corporate governance could take a stakeholder-oriented perspective, and how research could utilize the AEM institutional context to model contingency factors and extend our theoretical understanding of corporate governance.