Correlation between Value Strategies and Financial Performance in Leading Industries

주력산업에서 가치전략과 재무성과의 상관관계

Korea’s five leading industries-chemical, automobile, shipbuilding, metal and electronics-have been the growth engines of the Korean economy for the last 30 years. However, with their performance weakening in the past few years, Korea’s annual growth rate has dropped to less than 2%. Just as the Japanese economy struggled through the lost decades, Korea’s leading industries have been facing signals of arriving at a Strategic Inflection Point (“SIP”) since the mid-2000s. The objective of this study is to present an appropriate value strategy for Korean firms in leading industries to gain sustainable competitive advantages. This paper examines the following issues : First, it diagnoses the signs and timing of SIP for the five leading industries. Second, this study examines 78 Korean and Japanese firms in order to understand the adaptation strategies of the highest and lowest performing firms from a value strategy point of view. Third, it empirically analyzes the correlation between the indicators of value strategy and the accounting performances of the Korean and Japanese firms. The data set used in the cluster analysis were collected from KISLINE database of NICE Information Service and annual reports. The findings in the case analyses of high and low performing companies show that high value-added specialty chemical materials and electronic component manu-facturers that had a strong focus on value creation were defined as high performing companies. And in the cosmetic and automobile industries, companies with a strong emphasis on value appropriation gained high performance. Furthermore, the study conducted a cluster analysis based on two indicators R&D and advertisement expense. The analysis shows that a significant gap exists in the operating incomes among three groups classified under the value strategy. The study recommends that Korean firms are requested to increase R&D expenditure, conduct M&A and collaborate with companies that own source technologies to narrow the technology gap and improve their segment portfolio from commodity to value-added products.