Assessment of Competitiveness Improvement on Multinational Enterprises based in Korea

Purpose – This study’s the ultimate goal is to analyze competitiveness improvement on multinational enterprises as firstly providing which factors are to strengthen or weaken competitiveness, secondly investigating if hypotheses development and research design is correct and thirdly finding significant implications for research and practices across country specific advantage.

Design/methodology – Using feedback data provided by 250 firms, we extracted variable factors and hypotheses, which were empirically carried out by reliability and validity testing, correlation analysis, path analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis to prove which factors are to make the positive effect on the improvement of overseas subsidiaries’ management performance and competitiveness.

Findings – Through proceeding empirical analysis study, we found out that technology management capability, knowledge management capability, and local management capability had a statistically significant effect on the improvement of overseas subsidiaries’ competitiveness, while linked activity capability revealed a negative effect.

Originality/value – During business globalization, overseas investments and establishment of overseas subsidiaries have been essential. It is anticipated that this study results would be meaningful for analysis on multinational enterprises’ competitiveness and helpful in promoting their entry into Korean market and enhancing their competitiveness. This paper would also help Korea government develops new FDI model and induce more investment from global major companies to Korea region.