• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.15 no.3 s.68
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• pp.461-471
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• 2007

Many Korean apparel firms have been adopting the global sourcing to enhance their competitive advantages. The purposes of this study were to identify the current status of global sourcing adopted by Korean apparel firms and to provide useful information for the other apparel firms planning the global sourcing. The questionnaire survey was conducted to 65 Korean apparel firms. The firms selected for this study were women's, men's, unisex casual wear manufacturers which made their products at offshore factories. The results show that about half of them started global sourcing before 2000. Unisex casual wear firms were already doing the global sourcing very actively and women's wear firms were followers. The major benefit of the global sourcing was the cost reduction. The firms that had made inroads into the global market find much satisfaction in global sourcing. These early adopters expected their sourcing countries as a future consumer market. The threatening elements of the global sourcing were the difficulties of quality control and labor cost rising. Cost and technical ability were considered importantly in selecting the global sourcing partners. The firms started the global sorucing before 2000 were greatly depended on offshore production. They concerned for the problems related to the global sourcing.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.595-608
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• 2008

Although Korean apparel companies have transformed dramatically from contractors to sourcing companies thanks to the rapid growth of local market, relatively little work has been done identifying the determinants and the patterns of global sourcing activities of Korean companies. The purpose of this study was to outline a conceptual model that may be used to organize and guide global sourcing activities of Korean apparel manufacturers and retailers. The conceptual model identified four important factors, cost factor, strategic non-cost factor, firm's internal factor, and global factor, which affect global sourcing strategies and help predict how companies conduct various sourcing activities. The model also identified two sourcing patterns, outsourcing and intra-firm sourcing. In developing the model, literature review on how manufacturers and retailers in diverse areas including global apparel sourcing was conducted. Managerial implications and directions far future study were offered as well.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.130-136
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• 1999

During the last decade global sourcing has been widely practiced by multinational firms. While the importance of global sourcing has grown rapidly, there have been ralatively few empirical studies on this issue Thus, this study empirically investigates the commonalities and differences between European and Japanese multinational firms sourcing patterns. Especially, this study focuses on two dimensions of global sourcing activities: inter-firm sourcing and intra-firm sourcing.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2015

Although the interaction effects of knowledge sourcing strategies vary depending on environmental conditions such as knowledge intensity, most prior empirical research have failed to prove the effects of environmental conditions on the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. In order to fill this gap, this study examines how knowledge intensity affects the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. The results of this study indicate the interaction effects of knowledge sourcing strategies in high knowledge intensity environment are different from the effects in low knowledge intensity environment. This study expands knowledge management research by identifying the effects of knowledge intensity on the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and firm performance. Furthermore, it offers valuable practical guidelines for managers in selecting successful combinations of knowledge sourcing strategies with the consideration of knowledge intensity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.27 no.9_10
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• pp.1124-1133
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among partnership variables and sourcing performance. Partnership variables were included as: contract conditions, information sharing, communication, conflict, job understanding, monitoring, culture understanding, trust and commitment. Sourcing performance included perceived benefits and sourcing satisfaction. The survey research design was employed with the structured questionnaire. A sample of 104 Korean apparel firms' managers participated in this survey. Apparel firms selected for this study were casual, sports, children's wear firms doing actively international sourcing. For the data analysis, descriptive statistics (i.e., frequency, percent), factor analysis, correlation, and multiple regression analysis were used. Information sharing and job understanding were positively related with trust. That is to say, the better information sharing and the better job understanding apparel firms had higher scores of trust than others. Contract conditions, communication, conflict, and culture understanding were known as predictions of commitment to international outsourcing. The more trust firms had with their vendors, the more commitment the firms had in the international sourcing. This result showed that trust is the essential factor of commitment. Trust and commitment were significantly related with outsourcing performance (i.e., perceived benefits, satisfaction of the international sourcing). Partnership information of international sourcing assembled in the review of literature and the results from this empirical study may assist the domestic apparel firms to make better decision in the adoption process of international sourcing.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.57-81
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• 2008

Knowledge is an essential strategic weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and is the key determinant for organizational growth. When knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout the organization, it increases an organization's value by providing the ability to respond to new and unusual situations. The growing importance of knowledge as a critical resource has forced executives to pay attention to their organizational knowledge. Organizations are increasingly undertaking knowledge management initiatives and making significant investments. Knowledge sourcing is considered as the first important step in effective knowledge management. Most firms continue to make an effort to realize the benefits of knowledge management by using various knowledge sources effectively. Appropriate knowledge sourcing strategies enable organizations to create, acquire, and access knowledge in a timely manner by reducing search and transfer costs, which result in better firm performance. In response, the knowledge management literature has devoted substantial attention to the analysis of knowledge sourcing strategies. Many studies have categorized knowledge sourcing strategies into intemal- and external-oriented. Internal-oriented sourcing strategy attempts to increase firm performance by integrating knowledge within the boundary of the firm. On the contrary, external-oriented strategy attempts to bring knowledge in from outside sources via either acquisition or imitation, and then to transfer that knowledge across to the organization. However, the extant literature on knowledge sourcing strategies focuses primarily on large organizations. Although many studies have clearly highlighted major differences between large and small firms and the need to adopt different strategies for different firm sizes, scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in small firms and what are the differences between small and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on small firm performance from a holistic perspective. By drawing on knowledge based theory from organization science and complementarity theory from the economics literature, this paper is motivated by the following questions: (1) what are the adoption patterns of different knowledge sourcing strategies in small firms (i,e., what sourcing strategies should be adopted and which sourcing strategies work well together in small firms)?; and (2) what are the performance implications of these adoption patterns? In order to answer the questions, this study developed three hypotheses. First hypothesis based on knowledge based theory is that internal-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. Second hypothesis developed on the basis of knowledge based theory is that external-oriented knowledge sourcing is positively associated with small firm performance. The third one based on complementarity theory is that pursuing both internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing simultaneously is negatively or less positively associated with small firm performance. As a sampling frame, 700 firms were identified from the Annual Corporation Report in Korea. Survey questionnaires were mailed to owners or executives who were most erudite about the firm s knowledge sourcing strategies and performance. A total of 188 companies replied, yielding a response rate of 26.8%. Due to incomplete data, 12 responses were eliminated, leaving 176 responses for the final analysis. Since all independent variables were measured using continuous variables, supermodularity function was used to test the hypotheses based on the cross partial derivative of payoff function. The results indicated no significant impact of internal-oriented sourcing strategies while positive impact of external-oriented sourcing strategy on small firm performance. This intriguing result could be explained on the basis of various resource and capital constraints of small firms. Small firms typically have restricted financial and human resources. They do not have enough assets to always develop knowledge internally. Another possible explanation is competency traps or core rigidities. Building up a knowledge base based on internal knowledge creates core competences, but at the same time, excessive internal focused knowledge exploration leads to behaviors blind to other knowledge. Interestingly, this study found that Internal- and external-oriented knowledge sourcing strategies had a substitutive relationship, which was inconsistent with previous studies that suggested complementary relationship between them. This result might be explained using organizational identification theory. Internal organizational members may perceive external knowledge as a threat, and tend to ignore knowledge from external sources because they prefer to maintain their own knowledge, legitimacy, and homogeneous attitudes. Therefore, integrating knowledge from internal and external sources might not be effective, resulting in failure of improvements of firm performance. Another possible explanation is small firms resource and capital constraints and lack of management expertise and absorptive capacity. Although the integration of different knowledge sources is critical, high levels of knowledge sourcing in many areas are quite expensive and so are often unrealistic for small enterprises. This study provides several implications for research as well as practice. First this study extends the existing knowledge by examining the substitutability (and complementarity) of knowledge sourcing strategies. Most prior studies have tended to investigate the independent effects of these strategies on performance without considering their combined impacts. Furthermore, this study tests complementarity based on the productivity approach that has been considered as a definitive test method for complementarity. Second, this study sheds new light on knowledge management research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and small firm performance. Most current literature has insisted complementary relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies on the basis of data from large firms. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study identifies substitutive relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies using data from small firms. Third, implications for practice highlight that managers of small firms should focus on knowledge sourcing from external-oriented strategies. Moreover, adoption of both sourcing strategies simultaneousiy impedes small firm performance.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.55-75
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• 2011

Scant attention has been given to analyzing how knowledge sourcing strategies affect firm performance in SMEs and what are the differences between SMEs and large firms in the patterns of knowledge sourcing strategies adoption. This study attempts to advance the current literature by examining the impact of knowledge sourcing strategies on SMEs performance. The empirical segment of our work is based on data on knowledge sourcing strategies of SMEs and organizational performance from a sample of 166 Korean firms. Our results indicate knowledge sourcing adoption patterns of SMEs are different from large firms. In addition, the results confirm that substitutability between internal- and external-oriented, person- and external-oriented sourcing strategies. This study sheds new light on knowledge management (KM) research by identifying the relationship between knowledge sourcing strategies and SMEs performance.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.55-69
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• 2014

As Korea's global IT sourcing is sluggish and supply of qualified IT personnel does not meet the demand, IT developers currently do not worry about their job security. The sluggish global sourcing is attributed to the lack of system design and analysis skills as well as lack of communication skills of IT personnel. Most of big Korean IT service firms operate in captive market. This is also attributed to the cause of the sluggish global sourcing. Some IT managers, especially in global IT service firms, concerned about the negative long term effect of the sluggish global sourcing on competitiveness and human infra capability of Korea's IT service industry. Managers in IT service firms expect skill requirement changes in the future when global sourcing becomes active. The skills and knowledge that they wish to retain in-house is business knowledge, system analysis and design knowledge, customer relation management skills, project management skills and industry knowledge. The jobs with the above knowledge usually involve customers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.267-295
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to analyze empirically relationships between learners' psychological factors, knowledge sourcing behavior and knowledge utilization outcomes and to analyze the mediation effect of social learning and relationships among learners. Another purpose is to understand learners' attitude on social learning and knowledge sourcing behavior. The main results of this study are as follows: First, regression results on relationships among learners' psychological factors, knowledge sourcing behavior, knowledge utilization outcomes show that learners' self-efficacy has a positive effect on social learning activity participation, and goal orientation has a positive influence on group knowledge sourcing and social learning activity participation. Users' experiences of social media has a positive effect on group knowledge sourcing, social learning activity participation and social learning interaction. From a knowledge utilization perspective, published knowledge sourcing positively affects knowledge reuse, knowledge application and knowledge innovation. Dyadic knowledge sourcing has positive influence on knowledge reuse. Group knowledge sourcing affects positively knowledge application and knowledge innovation. Second, social learning activity participation factor has full mediation effect on relationship between learners' goal orientation and group knowledge sourcing, and the relationship between users' experiences of social media and group knowledge sourcing. A relationship among members factor has full mediation effect on the relationship between published knowledge sourcing and knowledge reuse, and relationship between published knowledge sourcing and knowledge innovation. Third, the results of in-depth interview show that learners trust and easily collect knowledge from social network services in general. Also, they get a variety of idea for solving information problem from interaction among members in social learning community.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 1999

Global sourcing strategy is the one that apparel firms adopt in order to improve efficiency. Souring statesgies are not limited to the decision of sourcing country or vertical integration of sewing process Sourcing strategies include all the ecision of marketing process from the acquisition of fabric to distribution of products. The present study aims to analyze the soucing strategies of Korea apparel industry in global perspectives by applying transaction cost approach and aims to provide the implications for the future. The results are as follows ; (1) sourcing strategies in the dimension of domestic versus offshore soucing are determined by the experience in foreign business and the degree of fashionability of the product. (2) Firms tend to increase affshore soucing as they accumulate the experience in foreign business because they can decrease transaction costs as the perceived risks decrease (3) Also firms tend to source their products in foreign countries when the products are more fashionable. Brand loyalty of the product is a additional factor that increases the proportion of domestic sourcing. (4) Degree of vertical integration of sourcing is determined by the fashionability brand loyalty and the experience in foreign business. That is firms decrease the transaction costs by avoiding the investment to short life fashion products. However firms increase the control over the high reputation product by in house production. As the apparel firms tend to more marketing oriented and the national boundaries of business envrionment becomes permeable more efficient global sourcing strategies should be stablished, Besides the production costs nonproduction costs should be equallly considered in order to analyze the total costs.