The Four Largest South Korean Business Groups and Foreign Technology: Acquisition of Technology and Foreign Direct Investment

摘要

This paper deals with the acquisition of foreign technology and with foreign direct investment by the four largest South Korean business group0s. Major conclusions are: (1) the groups successfully acquired oreign, state-of-the-art technology for large-scale production of lower and middle market segment products within a very broad range of industries; (2) the msot important current problems for the groups (lack of own high-technology and low equity and profit rates) are genuine results of the same strategy, which led to the successful acquisition of foreign non-high-end technology; (3) although all four groups undertook foreign direct investment of considerable scale, these investments were mainly restricted to a few geographic areas and product groups, and it is far too early to speak of a real 'globalization' of group operations.