Knitting Asia, Weaving Development: Globalization of the Korean Apparel Industry - Hardcover

Joonkoo Lee is Associate Professor of Organization Studies, School of Business at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. His main areas of research include globalization and development, specifically global and regional value chains, value chain governance, and economic and social upgrading in apparel, electronics and cultural/creative industries, focusing on Asia. He co-authored a book titled Mobile Asia Capitalisms, Value Chains and Mobile Telecommunication in Asia (Seoul National University Press, 2018). His work has appeared in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Industrial and Corporate Change, International Labour Review, Journal of Business Ethics, critical perspectives on international business, and Journal of International Business Policy. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Duke University and M.A. and B.A. from Seoul National University.

Hyunji Kwon is a Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University. Herresearch interests center around flexible employment arrangements, changes in organizational-level employment relations, and labor market inequality. As the principal investigator (PI), she has recently completed a multi-year research project funded by Korea’s National Research Foundation, which examined the roles and strategic actions of globalizing actors in the complex and turbulent fields of transnational corporations and global production networks. Currently, she is paying close attention to the evolving work contracts and norms, as well as the precarity and resilience of workers in the labor market with a particular focus on the creative and knowledge economy industries. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Before joining Seoul National University, she worked as a research fellow at Korea Labor Institute and as a lecturer in the Department of Management at King’s College London.

Hyun-Chin Lim is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Director of Civil Society Program, Asia Center, Seoul National University. He is also Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea. His main areas of research include global civil society, sociology of development, comparative capitalism, and democracy, focusing on Asia and Latin America. He authored and edited books, such as Dependent Development in South Korea (Seoul National University Pres, 1985), East meets West (Brill, 2007), Democracy in Crisis (Baiksan, 2018), and Capitalism and Capitalism in Asia (Seoul National University, 2018). He contributed his papers to journals, such as Journal of Contemporary Asia, Korean Social Science Journal, Korean Observer, Development and Society, and Journal of International Business Policy. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University, after obtaining M. A. and B. A. from Seoul National University.

“This edited collection provides a rare look at the dynamic growth and multinationalization of Korean apparel firms. Despite their economic and social significance at home and abroad, little attention has been paid to the evolving nature of their business and strategies. This volume highlights their contributions as well as the challenges they are confronting in the fast-changing global apparel industry.”

― Kihak Sung, Chairman/CEO of Youngone Corporation and Former President of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF)

“The Korean apparel industry is an intriguing case in the study of industrial development because it was one of Korea’s leading export sectors in the 1970s and 1980s, and then Korea adopted a critical middleman role in the subsequent internationalization of the apparel global value chain (GVC) since the 1990s. This edited volume highlights this new phase of globalization and regionalization by zooming in on Korean multinational first-tier suppliers and their role in fostering the expansion of the apparel GVC in Southeast Asia, Central America and other global regions.”

― Gary Gereffi, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Value Chains Center at Duke

This book offers a fresh look at the global apparel industry, focusing on Korean multinational corporations (MNCs) and their growing role in building regional connections and shaping economic and social development in Asia. Focusing on the multinationalization of Korean apparel firms over the past decades and their upgrading to first-tier suppliers in apparel global value chains, this edited volume highlights a host of new challenges these emerging MNCs confront in the rapidly changing global apparel industry and provides an in-depth view of their expanding role and adaptive strategies in configuring regional connections in post-Pandemic Asia.

Joonkoo Lee is an Associate Professor in the School of Business at Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Hyunji Kwon is a Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Hyun-Chin Lim is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Director of the Civil Society Program in Asia Center at Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.