시장지원제도가 국내 외식기업의 해외시장 진입유형 선택에 미치는 영향

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to verify the determinants of Korean food service firms’ choice of foreign market entry mode by applying the institution theory. It analyzed how intellectual property rights protection, trade freedom, and investment freedom, which are critical market-supporting institutions for foreign food service firms, affect the choice of entry mode. The results of the ordinal logistic regression analysis by dividing the entry mode into transaction mode, alliance mode, and investment mode according to the level of control and resource commitment are as follows. First, the weaker the host country's institution to protect intellectual property rights, the more foreign companies choose entry mode with a higher level of control and resource commitment. It is interpreted that if intellectual property rights, which are important for food service firms, are not properly protected, foreign companies choose an entry mode with higher control in spite of investment burden. Second, the stricter the trade freedom institution is implemented, the higher the level of control and resource commitment is preferred. Since the taste and price of food matter a lot in the restaurant industry, the possibility of bringing in food ingredients and procurement costs are very critical in order to implement the same taste and price as in Korea in a foreign country. Therefore, if free trade is guaranteed, they would try to secure taste and price competitiveness by taking out essential ingredients directly from Korea. The reason why the transaction is internalized is that Korean food ingredients are not actively traded in overseas markets, so it is not only difficult to obtain locally, but also very expensive. Third, the hypothesis for the investment freedom institution is not statistically adopted, which is inferred to be because the headquarters' control is secured to a considerable extent even in master franchise contracts due to the nature of the food service industry. This study is of great significance in that it empirically identified that when Korean food service companies enter overseas markets, they change their entry strategies according to the market-supporting institutions of host countries.