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This chapter addresses the emerging trends in Australia’s food destinations and analyzes different demands for this experience from a Korean tourism market perspective. Tourism Australia’s report on the international market research was analyzed, and the findings indicate that four main food experiences were sought by Koreans. A sense of landscapes plays an important role in enhancing their local food experiences. Multicultural food, health conscious markets, and food shopping are also crucial for developing Australia’s competitive advantage in this area. This chapter suggests marketing implications and directions for future research to explore cross-cultural gaps in food culture and behaviors from the perspectives of Asian tourism markets.

The relationship between diversification and organizational performance has been the subject of numerous studies over the years (Palepu, 1985; Rumelt, 1974). However, strategy scholars have universally defined diversification using a narrow definition, namely that corporate diversification is a function or reflection of the number of products/businesses in a firm's portfolio. The present study argues that such a definition has become outdated given the impact of international market diversification (Kim, Hwang, & Burgers, 1989; Rugman, 1979). Integrating these two views of corporate diversification, we investigate diversification‐performance differences using market‐ and product‐based measures of diversification and an international sample. Results suggest that the traditional model of diversification may not be applicable to all countries and that international differences exist.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interconnection between the corporatisation of K-beauty and Korea’s nation branding exercise and its links with soft power. Through the investigation of the transformation of Korea’s beauty industry, the authors seek to illustrate the inter-relationship of the market systems and national identification practices.

This study employed the qualitative case study approach to examine the latest development of Korea’s medical tourism. Through analysing a variety of secondary data that associated to the latest development of cosmetic tourism, this paper presents the impact of the transformation and reconfiguration of Korea’s beauty industry on the country’s nation branding strategy and the development of Korea’s soft power in the global marketplace.

The findings highlight how Korea’s new cosmetic tourism industry contributed to the renewal of Korea’s nation brand in the global market. The findings also illustrate the interconnection of the emerging Korean popular cultural products (K-pop and K-beauty) in the regional and global marketplace.

The findings demonstrate the role of market in re-defining a nation’s brand and identity. The findings also illustrate how market-driven strategy influences the development of a nation’s soft power in the regional and/or global marketplace.

The study shows that practitioners can be active agents in nation branding. Through highlighting strategies to develop soft power within and beyond the country boundary, this study shows how market agents, governments and other stakeholders can co-create a market system that transform and reconfigure the nation brand in the global marketplace.

In additional to explore the transformation of the beauty industry in Korea, this paper also presents the history and transformation of the beauty standards in Korea and other Asian cultures. Such dialogue invites marketing and consumer researchers to further explore the role of history and culture in guiding the production and consumption of new (consumption) standards.

This is the first paper that connects the theory of soft power in nation branding and country-of-origin literature. The case analysis of the socio-historical development of K-beauty also demonstrates how non-Western cultural goods enter the international marketplace. In summary, this paper provides new conceptual framework that illustrates a new collaborative mechanism that engages government and practitioners to co-create new cultural norms and standards to the local and international markets.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a framework for marketing cultural goods (e.g. music) to global markets by examining modes of entry and positioning strategies used by media producers of the South Korean music industry.

An historic analysis was implemented to investigate the modalities and structures through which cultural products are produced and disseminated. Data for this study came from 314 articles collected from www.allkpop.com, a leading English-language, South Korean popular culture news site.

The cultural technology framework consists of the institutionalization of cultural technology, exportation of cultural content, collaborations with local talent, and joint ventures with local markets.

The findings emerge from an analysis of South Korean popular music industries, and further research is needed to generalize the results across cultural industries.

The cultural technology framework can be applied to cultural industries such as music, film, comics, and art, where culture and language could be barriers to adoption.

This study outlines a framework for the modes of entry and positioning strategies of cultural goods (e.g. music) in international markets. Extant literature has examined global marketing from the purview of durable consumer goods and brands, with limited insights into cultural products. More broadly, this paper addresses the call for more qualitative inquiry into international marketing topics.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a survey of recent studies on Korean firms’ financial policies and their interactions with financial markets, and suggest directions for future research.

The authors review the finance research on Korean firms and markets, focusing on the articles published in the last 20 years.

This survey of the recent Korean finance literature covers the research on the capital structure and the distinct financing behaviors of chaebol-affiliated firms and independent firms; the factors affecting the costs of capital and firms’ preferences for capital budgeting methods; raising capital through public and private equity issuance; corporate governance and the market for corporate control; payout policies; and bank-firm relationship. The authors suggest a number of future research directions that may lead to significant contributions to the literature.

This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the post-crisis corporate finance literature in Korea.

As the competition in domestic markets increases, multinational retailers are expanding globally. Multinational discounters such as Wal‐Mart and Carrefour have been vying against Korean discounters for market share with the full liberalization of the distribution sector in 1997. This study examined various aspects of discount store retailing (store attributes, shopping costs) and consumers’ shopping motives, values, and retail outcomes (e.g. shopping excitement, satisfaction and repatronage intention), to understand Korean consumers’ discount store patronage. Significant differences were found in store image perceptions and shoppers’ internal orientations between multinational discount store patrons vs Korean discount store patrons. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This study aims to analyze how the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) market in Korea will evolve, the opportunities and/or threats of network operators and how the MVNO market will be forged in the future.

This study provides competitive analysis, market evaluation and current regulatory assessment of the Korean MVNO marketplace.

While there are many positive prospects of MVNO in Korea, a series of complicated techno‐economic issues arise.

The current development of MVNO sheds light on the growing challenges of the dynamics of industry, regulation and technology.

While MVNOs continue to flourish in some markets, their diffusion in other regions is often very limited and continues to drastically decrease.

The results suggest a sustainable ecosystem of MVNO and propose an appropriate policy to promote MVNO diffusion.

This study aims to investigate the current and future status of overseas halal food marketing and develops strategies for improving the competitiveness of Korean seafood companies in the global halal food market.

The research uses a case study approach and a semi-structured review of previously published data. Evidence collected from literature reviews, supported by research studies, anecdotal proof, personal reflection and experience is also used. It also considers the perspectives of various stakeholder groups in the global halal food supply chain.

The global halal food market is forecasted to reach US$1.914tn in 2021. At present, Korea holds a small share of this market. To enter the emerging Islamic market, there is a need to develop strategies. This study recommends the following main strategies to improve the competitiveness of Korean seafood companies in the halal food market: reduce mistrust by improving halal authentication and certification standards; understand consumer behavior and develop marketing strategies according to the respective country’s socioeconomic and geographic status; train industry employees and develop competitive halal seafood products; exploit the rising global influence of Hanryu; establish a halal logistics/supply chain and halal industrial parks; and promote digital marketing and tourism. Moreover, the government should also subsidize halal seafood development, as well as provide export and international trade insurances.

As the Muslim population continues to grow, the importance of global halal food marketing also increases. Therefore, strategies for improving the competitiveness of Korean seafood companies in the global halal food market need to be taken into account.

This study examines what motivates firms to go and remain abroad despite uncertain profit potential. In a departure from probing traditional market-seeking, profit-driven motives, the authors explore how domestically driven, sociocultural motivations may shape the foreign market entry decisions of Korean commercial banks (KCBs). The authors argue that, due to the power imbalance between KCBs and their chaebol clients within the historical and cultural contexts of their relationships, KCBs' foreign market entries may depend more on their clients' presence in these markets than on their profit potential.

The authors focus on the foreign market entries of KCBs and their client firms. Using the data of 8 KCBs and their client firms belonging to the 60 business groups (chaebols) of Korea, the authors analyze 6,577 observations involving the dyadic relationship between a KCB and its client firm in 15 host countries from 2005 to 2014.

The authors find that the number of clients' subsidiaries operating in foreign markets may increase the likelihood of KCBs entering these markets. Moreover, when KCBs earn more domestic profit from client firms, the potential Korean market in the host country is greater, and the institutional distance between the host country and Korea is smaller.

In addition to the critical role of a bank-centered financing system in advancing a developing country and its firms, the authors’ findings suggest that firms should pay attention to the local diaspora and the institutional distance between the host and home countries in order to manage power-imbalanced relationships and make them sustainable.

The study contributes to the literature on foreign market entry by demonstrating how the home country's sociocultural factors may worsen the power imbalance, thereby pushing firms to make seemingly irrational decisions to go and stay abroad. That is, KCBs' foreign operations may be a way of seeking relational benefits with client firms, which would serve as a source of long-term domestic market profits. The authors’ findings thus highlight the need to consider how sociocultural factors may also shape firms' decision-making in their international business.

The Korean Government wishes to transform the nation into a Northeast Asian business hub. Following economic crisis, there are attempts to move the economy towards a new market‐oriented paradigm of economic growth based on foreign direct investment (FDI) and market friendly transparent corporate governance, replacing the old model of the developmental state, involving intimate and opaque business‐government relations, which has dominated Korean policy for at least three decades. This paper presents findings from 37 interviews conducted with senior executives of foreign companies and various chambers of commerce in Korea. The paper offers new insights into the critical and often invisible issues which need to be confronted and successfully resolved for the transformation of Korea. In providing a critical analysis, the paper examines alternative interpretations of the hub concept, key advantages offered by Korea, the main barriers to becoming a hub, competition from other locations and draws lessons for government policy makers.