Department of Sociology

Byung-Soo Kim
Assistant Professor

Byung-Soo Kim received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and joined our department in 2005. His research and teaching interests include economic sociology, formal organizations, political sociology, family and marriage, and social networks.

Research Interests

My academic research involves both quantitative and comparative projects. Three projects define my current research agenda:

(1) I currently attempt to explain how social structural factors -relational, institutional and cultural contexts - influence foreign direct investments at the organizational level. Investigating Korean firms' globalization process, this study focuses on the question of under what conditions, where, and how firms enter foreign markets. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses of the foreign direct investments by Korean firms in the Asia-Pacific Region, I try to answer how social networks among firms, industry isomorphism, and regions' cultural affinities shape a firm's decision to enter the foreign market.

(2) I have worked on a research project (with Michael Rosenfeld) on the independence of young adults and its impact on the structure of American families. Analyzing U.S. Census data using quantitative methods, this project investigates changing family dynamics by analyzing how young adults' economic, social, and geographic independence affect the pattern and likelihood of non-traditional forms of union: interracial and same sex unions. This research links the independence of young adults with the decline of parental control over the mate selection process of their children. In addition, this study finds that same-sex couples are more likely to be interracial than heterosexual couples, indicating that same-sex and interracial couples are part of a common fabric of family diversification. This paper has been published in the American Sociological Review.

(3) A third project is on the emergence and evolution of Christian social movements in South Korea during authoritarian repression, 1972-1979. Drawing upon archival data and social movement theories, I (with Paul Chang) try to answer how religious activists developed strategic and discursive responses to repression, challenging the state's legitimizing rhetoric. This paper is forthcoming in the Sociological Inquiry.

Recent Publications

Bensen, Kenneth and Byung-Soo Kim. 2008. Institutionalism and Capitalism: A
      Dialectical and Historical Contingency Approach. Research in Political Sociology.
      Vol. 17.

Kim, Byung-Soo. 2007. “Ethnic Advantage or Structural Constraint?: Rotating Credit
      Associations within the Korean Immigrant Community in the U.S.,” Michigan
      Sociological Review 21(1): 71-88

Paul Chang and Byung-Soo Kim. 2007. "Differential Impact of Repression
      on Social Movements: Christian Organizations and Liberation Theology
      in South Korea (1972-1979)," Sociological Inquiry 27(3):326-355 .

Rosenfeld, Michael and Byung-Soo Kim. 2005. "Independence of Young Adults
      and the Rise of Interracial Marriage and Same Sex Unions," American
      Sociological Review 70 (4): 541-562.

Kim, Byung-Soo and Kane Lee. 2004. "The Social Origins of the Korean
      Financial Crisis in 1997: Historical and Institutional Perspectives," Stanford
      Journal of East Asian Affairs: Volume 4, Number 1:76-84.

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University of Missouri
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