한국 수출기업의 해외수입업자 동기부여 방안 연구

초록

From the perspective of agency theory, this study examines the issue of “importer discretion” caused by incomplete contract made between the exporter and the importer. The importer, as an agent of the exporter, usually exercises its discretion in favor of the exporter. However, agency problem occurs in circumstances where the importer as the agent of the exporter is motivated to exercise its direction in its own best interests, which are contrary to those of the exporter. Such an opportunistic behavior of the importer arises from the fact that the importer and the exporter have different interests. Managing such an importer presents an intriguing set of challenges. First, in order to ensure that the importer always acts in the exporter’s best interests, the exporter needs to secure the tool to curb the importer’s opportunistic behaviors. Second, the exporter also needs to secure the tool to increase the importer’s investment specific to the exporting transaction. The transaction-specific investment represents the importer’s commitment to the exporter. To address the two challenges, the exporter offers incentives for the importer both to curb its own opportunistic behaviors and to increase its investment specific to the exporting transaction. We have come up with an incentive framework to deal with the two managerial challenges(<Figure>). The horizontal axis of Figure represents the non-monetary incentives while the vertical axis represents the monetary incentives. The combination of the two dimensions generates four types of importers: one strong in both dimensions (Importers in quadrant 1), another weak in both dimensions (Importers in quadrant 4), a third strong in non-monetary incentives but weak in monetary incentives (Importers in quadrant 2), and the fourth weak in non-monetary incentives but strong in monetary incentives (Importers in quadrant 3). Using the data collected from 112 Korean small and medium-sized exporters, we tested the incentives framework. Importers in quadrant 1 was found to exhibit a low level of opportunistic behaviors but a high level of export transaction-specific investment. It turned out that Importers in quadrant 2 have a moderate level of opportunistic behaviors but a low level of export transaction-specific investment. Importers in quadrant 3 was found to exhibit a moderate level of both opportunistic behaviors and export transaction-specific investment. Importers in quadrant 4 was found to exhibit a high level of opportunistic behavior but a low level of export transaction-specific investment.

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