ABSTRACT
FDI is a way of market entry by MNEs, which endows them with control and ownership over foreign subsidiaries established in host countries. In this chapter, I explore firm-level data on 39,423 inbound FDI notifications to Korea over the period between 2005 and 2017 and discuss theoretical and empirical explanations of the inbound FDI decisions of foreign investors into Korea. Key findings from this chapter are as follows: (1) inbound FDI into Korea has consistently increased over the period with a regional nature from Asia-Pacific; (2) they are shown to be phenomenal in service industries, with country of origin in OECD member countries, and toward the metropolitan Seoul areas within the country; and (3) a majority of them maintain full ownership over their investments for the purpose of establishing business offices. The chapter concludes with a summary of the data observations and managerial and policy implications from the observations.
