Purpose - The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors contributing to sustainable competitive advantage for multi-level marketing (MLM) firms in Malaysia. The selected variables in this study are company image, product innovation, leadership, distributor rewards system and distributor training system. Research design, data, and methodology - Quantitative research method is employed with collected sample size of 398 respondents using judgmental sampling technique. Normality and reliability test were performed in the first stage utilizing SPSS 22 and Confirmatory Factory Analysis (CFA) and variance analysis were obtained in the subsequent stage, following up with the overall fit of the measurement model, Structural Equation Model (SEM) using AMOS 22 with maximum likelihood estimation to assess the internal consistency, convergent validity and discriminant validity. Results - The research findings show that company image, leadership, distributor rewards system and distributor training system were supported and are factors affecting the sustainable competitive advantage of MLM companies in Malaysia. However, in this study, product innovation was not supported but this result does not depict that it is trivial and inconsequential in maintain sustainable advantage. Conclusion - Companies can build sustainable competitive advantage by focusing on these contributing factors. Several other comments and implications were brought to light and discussed in the paper.

Purpose - While many related prior studies have focused on the segregation by race and ethnicity, the academic interest in the separation of residence by income and social class is gradually increasing. This study aims to not only investigate spatial pattern of economic segregation and poverty rate in South Korea, but also shed light on what affect residential distribution of the poor. Research design, data, and methodology - The unit of analysis is Si-Gun-Gu municipal level entities of South Korea. Most demographic, socioeconomic, and residential variables were derived from Korean Census Data in 2015. In order to examine spatial patterns of economic segregation and poverty rate in South Korea, a series of measurements and visualization was conducted through the Geo-Segregation Analyzer and ArcGIS programs. Determinants of economic segregation and local poverty rates were investigated by regression analyses using STATA. Results - The spatial patterns of areas with high poverty rates were extremely clustered, while the distribution of areas with high economic segregation was relatively evenly distributed. Demographic, residential, and local factors appeared to affect whether the poor live in particular area or spread evenly. Conclusions - The factors that raise the poverty rate result in lower level of economic segregation, while factors that reduce the poverty rate lead to severe level of economic segregation.

Purpose - This study aims to investigate and analyze the factors that affect women's work productivity based on ethnic in the food and beverage industry. Also, it is also to determine whether there are differences in the productivity of female workers based on these ethnic groups. Research design, data, and Methodology - The approach of this research is quantitative by using multiple linear regression analysis and analysis of different tests using SPSS and tested on 114 samples of female workers in various small-scale, medium-sized food and beverage industry categories and large in Makassar City, Indonesia. Determination of samples based on proportional stratified sampling. Industry sampling criteria based on some workers, assets and wealth. Results and Conclusions - The results of this study state that health, years of service, work ethic, age, wages, and work environment have a significant effect on work productivity. While the level of education, the number of dependents does not have a considerable impact, the fact that there is a difference in the productivity index of female workers in a significant sector is compared to small and medium scale enterprises, including the variables of government policies related to pension insurance, work accident insurance and health insurance.

Purpose - Based on the analysis of Kazakhstan's experience of digital transformation, this study suggests a concept for digital solution to optimize organizational process, create trust networking between the center of state scholarships programs and recipients. In addition, the authors contribute to the current discussions of an effective digital transformation of state services. Research design, data, and methodology - Policy analysis is based on the combination of both primary and secondary materials collected during a Policy Research Project conducted in Kazakhstan in 2017. It involved semi-structured interviews with the state scholarship' recipients, ICT experts and findings from academic articles. Results - Findings are represented via Policy Development Matrix - a table with three options (status quo, partial change, total change) to deal with policy challenges. Authors suggest a concept for digital solution following the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) principles for optimizing core business processes, communication and networking strategies of the state scholarships program. Conclusions - At the time when digitalization becomes trending for states, the transformation of the state education policy is inevitable. The rapid development of digital technologies creates new opportunities for a single integration platform with key principles of Smart Remote Management in the state scholarships programs.

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to develop a motivation scale for participation sport tourism and to produce implications of potential use of MSPST for sport tourism distribution emphasizing the needs of sport tourists and the functions required to satisfy those needs. Research design, data, and methodology - The Motivation Scale for Participation Sport Tourism (MSPST) was developed in three stages. A literature review generated 8 dimensions with 42-items in the first stage. Second, an expert review phase refined the initial item pool, which resulted in 35 items. Result - Exploratory factor analysis was employed to produce an 8-factor, 28 item pool. The reduced version was confirmed via structural equation modeling, indicating an acceptable model of fit. The final MSPST consisted of 8 dimensions of motivation, including friendship, family, solitude, challenges, intrinsic, achievement, nature, and competition. Conclusions - The MSPST is a valid and reliable scale of tourists' motives for participating in sports. The results supported the suggested measures of motives associated with participation sport tourism regarding construct, convergent and discriminant validity. A body of knowledge about motives provides insights for policy-makers seeking to support distributional industries for sport tourism and finally to promote economy on both regional and national levels.

Purpose - This study aims to examine the impact of work values on entrepreneurial attitudes, and test the moderating effect of entrepreneurial opportunity identification on the above mentioned relationship as well. Research design, data, and methodology - A questionnaire survey was conducted to 258 employees who comes from 8 different types of the enterprises in northwestern of China, and the corresponding research model was verified. Results - The results show that "comfort and security" (one dimension of work values) has a significant negative impact on entrepreneurial attitudes. Another two dimensions of work values, such as "competence and growth" and "status and independence" have a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial attitudes. In addition, entrepreneurial opportunity identification has a significant moderating effect on the relations between work values and entrepreneurial attitudes. Specifically, only the entrepreneurship opportunity identification positively moderates the relationship between status & independence and entrepreneurial attitudes. Conclusions - This research further enriches the relevant theories of organizational behavior and entrepreneurships. This study also has guiding significance and value for management practice, especially for this research results implies, that is, individual's ability to entrepreneurial opportunity identification (e.g., identify feasible distribution channel for potential new venture) is important in entrepreneurship.

Purpose - This paper investigates the long term impact of RFID investment on firm value in Korea. We wand to find out why the long term performance of some firm's RFID investment is better than others. To understand the dynamics of the long term returns from RFID investment announcements, we divide our events into groups for each of the independent firm characteristic variable such as investment time period, kind of markets, industries, solvency and growth potential. We composed portfolios based on the RFID investment announcement date for each group and evaluate the monthly abnormal excess returns. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on these calendar-time portfolios, we measure the long term returns from 86 RFID investment announcements of 46 firms from 2003 to 2017. We construct the calendar-time portfolio for 3, 6, 9, 12 months of holding periods. Using the weighted least squares method, we regress the raw monthly returns of the portfolios on the Fama-French model and Carhart(1997) model. As a result, we can get the estimated risk adjusted mean monthly abnormal excess return α_P for each of the calendar-time portfolio. Results - We found that early adopters, large firms, non-manufacturing firms have very significant excess returns. We also found modestly significant excess returns for financially stable firms and slow growing firms. Put together, top managers of the firms which plan to invest RFID should understand the strategic role of RFID adoption and the generalized business process of distribution information technology investment in Korea. Moreover, the findings of this paper provide useful trading strategies to the managers of large funds who are considering on investing in RFID adopting firms. Conclusions - Put together, the results of this paper give us a new insight into how the RFID and IT technology in general and other characteristic factors' interactions affect the long term performance of firms. Using the unbiased estimates of long term returns of the calendar-time portfolios, this paper extends the understandings on short term impact of RFID adoption of existing studies. This paper also extends the current understandings of firm characteristics that affect the long term performance of RFID adopting firms.

Purpose - The existing marketing studies using Social Network Analysis have assumed that network structure variables are time-invariant. However, a node's network position can fluctuate considerably over time and the node's network structure can be changed dynamically. Hence, if such a dynamic structural network characteristics are not specified for virtual goods purchase model, estimated parameters can be biased. In this paper, by comparing a time-invariant network structure specification model(base model) and time-varying network specification model(proposed model), the authors intend to prove whether the proposed model is superior to the base model. In addition, the authors also intend to investigate whether coefficients of network structure variables are random over time. Research design, data, and methodology - The data of this study are obtained from a Korean social network provider. The authors construct a monthly panel data by calculating the raw data. To fit the panel data, the authors derive random effects panel tobit model and multi-level mixed effects model. Results - First, the proposed model is better than that of the base model in terms of performance. Second, except for constraint, multi-level mixed effects models with random coefficient of every network structure variable(in-degree, out-degree, in-closeness centrality, out-closeness centrality, clustering coefficient) perform better than not random coefficient specification model. Conclusion - The size and importance of virtual goods market has been dramatically increasing. Notwithstanding such a strategic importance of virtual goods, there is little research on social influential factors which impact the intention of virtual good purchase. Even studies which investigated social influence factors have assumed that social network structure variables are time-invariant. However, the authors show that network structure variables are time-variant and coefficients of network structure variables are random over time. Thus, virtual goods purchase model with dynamic network structure variables performs better than that with static network structure model. Hence, if marketing practitioners intend to use social influences to sell virtual goods in social media, they had better consider time-varying social influences of network members. In addition, this study can be also differentiated from other related researches using survey data in that this study deals with actual field data.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the government support project on traditional market and the interaction effect between the government support project and the competition intensity. Therefore, this study focuses on the competition intensity of individual stores in traditional markets, unlike the traditional research flow, which is beyond the competitive structure of traditional markets and large retailers. Research design, data, and methodology - This study is based on the data of 'Statistics of Traditional Market in 2017'. In this study, a multiple regression equation was constructed using the number of government support projects as an independent variable, competition intensity as an interaction, and sales per store, number of customers per store as a dependent variable for analysis. A multiple regression equation was constructed for the main effect analysis. To investigate the effect of the interaction, cohen(1980)'s regression equation and two-way ANOVA were used. Results - First, according to this study, the traditional market participated in the government support project showed that the sales and the number of visitors per store in the traditional market were higher than those in the non-participation market. Second, the impact of government support projects on sales per store(also number of visiting customers per store) can be different depending on the competition intensity. More specifically, if the market is politically supported by a market with a high level of competition, it may be more effective than the market with no support. Conclusions - Based on the results of the study, we suggested academic and practical implications and suggested that competition intensity of stores in the traditional market should be considered in the future. The implications of this study are as follows. First, the effects of the government's traditional market support project were analyzed empirically. Second, this study is different from the previous studies in that it examined the competitive strengths and the effects of individual stores in traditional markets, away from competition between traditional market and large retailers. Third, it provided practical implications for the operation of government support projects.

Purpose - Why, why is it difficult to predict the appropriateness of self-employment, and what are the countermeasures and policy proposals to overcome. This study intends to further develop the field of statistical variables. It is necessary to overcome the limitation of existing proper scale research in Korea. We need to find statistical variables that can determine the appropriateness of self-employment in Korea. These efforts will be helpful in evaluating OECD countries and statistics and developing domestic economic indicators. Research design, data, and methodology - It is the discovery of statistical indicators and complementary indicators that have not been revealed in previous studies. Therefore, we sought to find new statistical parameters based on the statistics of the Korea National Statistical Office, the Bank of Korea, and overseas OECD statistics. (Proper Size of Adequacy) is defined as the specific gravity or number of the self-employed in Korea, which is shown as "Out Put" by statistical analysis of STATA panel statistical data. It is possible to further develop variables such as gross domestic product, gross national product, economic growth rate, unemployment rate, income tax rate, consumer price, tax level, exports, import amount, bill default I want to dig. Results - In addition to expanding economic indicators that can be explained by self-employment determinants, we have developed a variety of methods such as linear and non-linear (U-shaped, inverted U-shaped). It is the improvement of the self-employment determinants and the analysis method to estimate the appropriate scale. Conclusions - The proposed contents are reflected in self - employment appropriateness evaluation data and hope to help the government to select the policy support and to evaluate the government business after the policy support. These efforts are expected to be of great help to operators operating their own businesses, and to government and related institutional practitioners who support them. In this way, self-employment will be created in accordance with the Korean situation, where the happy life of all the people becomes the premise and the inclusive economic activities are guaranteed. It will improve the method of analyzing proper scale of small business owners and self-employed in Korea.