Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the risk of war aroused by North Korea’s threatening actions trigger strategic responses from US multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in South Korea. The authors compare two competing perspectives of real options and risk diversification to see which prevails when US MNEs are facing risk of war.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors hand collected news articles regarding North Korea’s threatening actions that may trigger strategic responses from MNEs operating in South Korea. The authors use archival data of US MNEs to verify our results.

Findings

Empirical tests of the two competing perspectives reveal that US MNEs adopt the risk diversification strategy when threatened by the risk of war. However, as MNEs have more available foreign markets outside the host country that is at risk of war, MNEs tend to take an operational flexibility approach more seriously and shift their productions to the remaining global operations. The ownership structure of the subsidiary does not appear to have significant effect on US MNEs’ strategic risk management.

Originality/value

This paper compares two perspectives, namely, real options and risk diversification, to observe how US MNEs treat their subsidiaries when facing risk of war in South Korea.

中文翻译：

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实物期权灵活性或风险分散：美国跨国公司面临战争风险时的风险管理

目的

本文的目的是研究朝鲜的威胁行动引发的战争风险如何触发在韩国经营的美国跨国企业 (MNEs) 的战略反应。作者比较了实物期权和风险分散的两种相互竞争的观点，看看当美国跨国公司面临战争风险时，哪种观点占上风。

设计/方法/方法

作者手工收集了有关朝鲜威胁行动的新闻文章，这些行动可能引发在韩国运营的跨国公司的战略反应。作者使用美国跨国公司的档案数据来验证我们的结果。

发现

对两种竞争观点的实证检验表明，美国跨国公司在面临战争风险威胁时采取风险分散战略。然而，由于跨国公司在面临战争风险的东道国之外拥有更多可用的外国市场，跨国公司往往更认真地采取运营灵活性方法，并将其生产转移到剩余的全球业务中。子公司的所有权结构似乎对美国跨国公司的战略风险管理没有显着影响。

原创性/价值

本文比较了实物期权和风险分散两个视角，观察美国跨国公司在韩国面临战争风险时如何对待子公司。