• Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.201-230
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• 2001

Conserving the recored cultural inheritance is actually the duty of all of us. Above all, the management and conservation of archives and documents is up to archivists who have technical knowledge about archival science. Archivists have to not only conserve archives and documents but also carry out classifying and appraising them in order to define them as current historic ones. The fundamental education about archival science is made up of history and law. Because Archive is the organisation which manage archives and documents produced by legal and administrative actions. Although there are still arguments about technical knowledge and degree archivists have to acquire, most of them prefer the studies related with history and emphasize legal studies to be the general boundary of archivits' ideology and trust. The training course about conservation of archives is conducted in about 9 National Archives of Torino, Milano, Venezia, Genova, Bologna, Parma, Roma, Napoli, Palermo. The training course in 19th was mostly based on the lectures of Phaleography, Diplomatics. There were not the education about archival science yet. Toward the end of 19th and 20th, people stressed the most basic subject in the training course of National Archive was not Phaleography and Diplomatics but archival science. The goal of archival science is to study the institution and organisation transferring archives and documents to Archive. And also it help archivists not wander about with ignorance of organisational and original procedures and divisions but know exactly theirs works. Like this, the studies on institution and organisation have got in the saddle as a branch of archival science since a few ten years. While archival science didn't evoke sympathy among people and experienced the tedious and difficult path in italy and other countries, Archive was managed by experts of other branches. As a result, there were a lot of faults in Archival Science. Specializing training course for Italian archivists came into being under the backdrop of Social Science Institute of Roma National University in 1925. The archival course of universities accomplished by the studies of history, law and economy. And such as Eugenio Casanova and Giorgio Cencetti were devoted archival science was abled to settle down in national archive. The training course for experts of 'archival science, 'Phaleography and Diplomatics' in National Archive of Bologna(Archivio di Stato di Bologna) is one of courses conducted in 17 National Archives in italy. This course is gratuitous and made up of 8 subjects(Archivistica, Paleografia, Diplomatica, Storia dell' Archivio, Notariato e documenti privati, istituzione medievale, istituzione moderna, istituzione contemporanea) students have to complete for two years. Students can receive the degree through passing twice written exam and once oral test. After department of Culture and education finally puts the marks of students, the chief Nationa Archive of Bologna confer the degree of 'archival science Phaleography and Diplomatics' on students passing the exams. This degree authenticates trainees' qualification which enables him to work at the archive in province, district and administrative capital city and archive of comunity and so on. Italian training course naturally leads archivists to keep in contact with valuable cultural inheritance through training in Archive. And it shows the intention to strengthen the affinity with each documents in the spot of archival management before training archivists. Also this is appraised as one of positive policies to conserve the local cultual inheritante in connection with the original qualitity of national archive with testify the history of each region. Traning course for archivist in Italy shows us the way how we have to prepare and proceed it. First, from producing documents to conserving than forever there has introduced 'original order that is to say a general rule to respect the first order given at the time producing documents'. Management of administrative documents is related consistently with one of historical documents. Second, the traning course for archivist is managing around 17 national archives. because italian national archive lay stress not or rducation of theory bus on train for archivest working in the first time of archival science. Third, diplomatics and phaleography for studies about historical document support archives. Forth, the studies on history id proceeding by cooperation between archivist and historian around archive. How our duties is non continuinf disputer who has to conserve and manage document and archives, but traing experts who having ability, vision and flexible thought, responsibility about archivals.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.20-37
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• 2012

After withdrawal of military troops of Chinese Tang dynasty in the 18th year of King Moon-moo's reign(678), the Silla Kingdom had actually unified the Korean peninsula and had divided the territory into 9 states benchmarking the China's local administrations adjustment system. He had established local administrative units by deploying secondary capitals, counties and prefectures in the nine states. The so-called "9 Provinces and 5 Secondary capitals" are what constitutes the local administrations system. The provinces can be compared to current provinces of the Republic of Korea(hereinafter Korea), and secondary capitals to megalopolises. According to a chapter of the Samkuksaki(三?史記) which had recorded the achievements of king Kyoungdeok in December in his 16th year on the throne(757), the local administrative units had amounted to 5 secondary capitals, 117 counties and 293 prefectures. There are still lots of ambiguous points since there have never been any consultation on locations of provinces and secondary capitals' castles, and on structures of cities because the researches for local cities inside the 9 Provinces and 5 Secondary capitals in the Unified Silla Kingdom has been conducted centering on the historic literatures only. The research for restoring structures of cities seen from an archeological perspective are limited to the studies of Taewoo Park("A study on the local cities in the Unified Kingdom Age" 1987) and that of the author("A study on the restoration of planned cities for the Unified Silla Kingdom in terms of the structures and realities of the castles in the 9 Provinces and 5 Secondary capitals" 2009). The Gangneung city of Gangwon province was originally called Haseoryang(河西良) of the Gogureo Kingdom as an ancient nation of Ye(濊). According to "Samkuksaki", it had evolved from Haseoju(河西州) to a secondary capitals in the 8th year of King Seonduk(639). Afterwards, it had been renamed as Myeongju(溟洲) in the 16th year of King Kyoungduk(757), and then several other names were given to it after Goryo dynasty. Taewoo Park claims that it is being defined as a sanctuary remaining in Myoungjudong because of the vestige of bare castle, and this cannot be ascertained due to the on-going urbanization processes. Also, the Kwandong university authority is suggesting an opinion of regarding Myeongju mountain castle located 3 Kms southwest of the center of Gangwon city as commanding post for the pertinent state. The author has restored the pertinent area into a city composed of villages within a lattice framework like Silla Keumkyoung and many other cities. The structure is depicted next. The downtown of Gangneung is situated on a flat terrain at the west bank of Namdaecheon stream flowing southwest to northeast along the inner area of the city. Though there isn't any hill comparatively higher than others in the vicinity, hills are continuously linked east to west along the northern area of the downtown, and the maximum width of flat terrain is about 1 Km and is not so large. Currently, urbanization is being proceeded into the inner portion of Gangneung city, the lands in all directions from the hub of Gangneung station have been readjusted, and thus previous land-zoning program is almost nullified. However, referring to the topographic chart drawn at the time of Japanese colonial rule, it can be validated that land-zoning program to accord the lattice framework with the length of its one side equaling to 190m leaves its vestige about 0.8Km northwest to southeast and about 1.7Km northeast to southwest of the vicinity of Okcheondong, Imdangdong, Geumhakdong, Myeongjudong, and etcetera which comprize the hub of the downtown. The land-zoning vestige within the lattice framework, compared to other cases related with the '9 states and 5 secondary capitals', is very much likely to be that of the Unified Silla Kingdom. That the length of a side of a lattice framework is 190m as opposed to that of Silla Geumkyoung and other cities with their 140m or 160m long sides is a single survey item in the future. The baseline direction for zoning the lands is tilting approximately 37.5 degrees west of northwest to southeast axis in accordance with the topographic features. It seems that this phenomenon takes place because of the direction of Namdaecheon and the geographic constraints of the hills in the north. Reviewing minimally, a rectangular size of zoned land by 4 Pangs(坊) on the northwest to southeast side multiplied by 7 Pangs(坊) on the northeast to southwest side had been restored within a lattice framework. Otherwise, considering the extent of expansion of the existing zoned lands in the lattice framework and one more Pang(坊) being added to each side, it is likely that the size could have been with 5 Pangs(坊) on the northwest to southeast side multiplied by 8 Pangs(坊) on the northeast to southwest side(950 M on the northwest to southeast side multiplied by 1,520m on the northeast to southwest side). The overall shape is rectangle, but land-zoning programs reminiscent of rebuilt roads(red phoenix road) like Jang-an castle(長安城) of Chinese Tang dynasty or Pyoungseong castle(平城城) in Japan is not to be validated. There are some historic items among the roof tiles and earthen wares excavated at local administrative office sites or Gangneung's town castle in Joseon dynasty inside the area assumed to be containing municipal vestiges even though archeological survey for the vestige of Myeongju has not been made yet, and these items deserve dating back to the Unified Silla Kingdom age. Also, all of the construction sites at local administrative authorities of the Joseon dynasty are showing large degrees of slant in the azimuth. This is a circumstantial evidence indicating the fact that the inherited land-zoning programs to be seen in Gangneung in terms of the lattice framework had ever existed in the past. Also, the author does not decline that Myeongju mountain castle had once been the commanding post when reviewing the roof tiles at the edge of eaves in this stronghold. The ancient municipal castles in the Korean peninsula are composed of castles on the flat terrain as well as hilly areas and the cluster of strongholds like Myounghwal, Namhan, Seohyoung mountain castles built around municipal castle of Geumkyoung based on a lattice framework program. Considering that mountain castles are spread in the vicinity of municipal vestiges in other cities other than the 9 states and 5 secondary capitals, it is estimated that Myeongju was assuming the function of commanding post incorporating cities on the flat terrain and castles on the hills.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2004

To investigate the effect of eating habits and lifestyle on the food intake of university students in Daejeon, 104 male students(26.75％) and 282 female students(73.75％) were surveyed about their food intake, eating habits, and lifestyle using the questionnaire. The major food served as breakfast was steamed rice(76.05％) and there was a little significant difference between male and female. The major food served as lunch was also steamed rice(73.77％) and male students ate it more than female ones. According to the survey, 41.95％ of the subjects had breakfast regularly, and 24.35％ seldom, which showed no significant difference between male and female. In case of lunch, the percentile of subjects(54.55％) who had regularly eaten lunch was more than that of breakfast, and there was a little significant difference between male and female. The survey said most subjects(49.22％) had eaten dinner irregularly, which rate was higher in male students. The meal skipped usually was the breakfast(24.35％), which rate was higher in female students. The reason why the subjects skipped the meal was mainly due to the lack of sufficient time for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner to the weight loss. Among the subjects, 80％ said they were non-smokers; 96.44％ in female students and 35.58％ in male ones. In case of drinking, most subjects said they sometimes drank(67.19％) and the frequency of drinking was once or twice a month(51.99％), which showed the significant difference between male and female. In the aspects of effects of drinking and smoking on the food intake, the drinking practice after eating was shown to be the highest(55.98％); smoking generally affected the food intake, which showed the difference between male and female. Food intake during the examination period didn't show any differences to the usual one or increased a little bit, which showed a difference between male and female. Losing appetite during the examination period was shown mainly in the female students. When they felt blue or tired, the food intake decreased, which showed a significant difference between male and female was shown. When feeling good, the food intake significantly increased, which showed a significant difference between male and female. Therefore, there was a significant difference between male and female in the actual eating habits and in the aspects of food intake.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.151-166
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• 1991

In this paper, a simple game-theoretic entry deterrence model is developed that integrates both limit pricing and predatory pricing. While there have been extensive studies which have dealt with predation and limit pricing separately, no study so far has analyzed these closely related practices in a unified framework. Treating each practice as if it were an independent phenomenon is, of course, an analytical necessity to abstract from complex realities. However, welfare analysis based on such a model may give misleading policy implications. By analyzing limit and predatory pricing within a single framework, this paper attempts to shed some light on the effects of interactions between these two frequently cited tactics of entry deterrence. Another distinctive feature of the paper is that limit and predatory pricing emerge, in equilibrium, as rational, profit maximizing strategies in the model. Until recently, the only conclusion from formal analyses of predatory pricing was that predation is unlikely to take place if every economic agent is assumed to be rational. This conclusion rests upon the argument that predation is costly; that is, it inflicts more losses upon the predator than upon the rival producer, and, therefore, is unlikely to succeed in driving out the rival, who understands that the price cutting, if it ever takes place, must be temporary. Recently several attempts have been made to overcome this modelling difficulty by Kreps and Wilson, Milgram and Roberts, Benoit, Fudenberg and Tirole, and Roberts. With the exception of Roberts, however, these studies, though successful in preserving the rationality of players, still share one serious weakness in that they resort to ad hoc, external constraints in order to generate profit maximizing predation. The present paper uses a highly stylized model of Cournot duopoly and derives the equilibrium predatory strategy without invoking external constraints except the assumption of asymmetrically distributed information. The underlying intuition behind the model can be summarized as follows. Imagine a firm that is considering entry into a monopolist's market but is uncertain about the incumbent firm's cost structure. If the monopolist has low cost, the rival would rather not enter because it would be difficult to compete with an efficient, low-cost firm. If the monopolist has high costs, however, the rival will definitely enter the market because it can make positive profits. In this situation, if the incumbent firm unwittingly produces its monopoly output, the entrant can infer the nature of the monopolist's cost by observing the monopolist's price. Knowing this, the high cost monopolist increases its output level up to what would have been produced by a low cost firm in an effort to conceal its cost condition. This constitutes limit pricing. The same logic applies when there is a rival competitor in the market. Producing a high cost duopoly output is self-revealing and thus to be avoided. Therefore, the firm chooses to produce the low cost duopoly output, consequently inflicting losses to the entrant or rival producer, thus acting in a predatory manner. The policy implications of the analysis are rather mixed. Contrary to the widely accepted hypothesis that predation is, at best, a negative sum game, and thus, a strategy that is unlikely to be played from the outset, this paper concludes that predation can be real occurence by showing that it can arise as an effective profit maximizing strategy. This conclusion alone may imply that the government can play a role in increasing the consumer welfare, say, by banning predation or limit pricing. However, the problem is that it is rather difficult to ascribe any welfare losses to these kinds of entry deterring practices. This difficulty arises from the fact that if the same practices have been adopted by a low cost firm, they could not be called entry-deterring. Moreover, the high cost incumbent in the model is doing exactly what the low cost firm would have done to keep the market to itself. All in all, this paper suggests that a government injunction of limit and predatory pricing should be applied with great care, evaluating each case on its own basis. Hasty generalization may work to the detriment, rather than the enhancement of consumer welfare.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.413-420
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• 2005

Purpose: Neuroreceptor PET studies require 60-120 minutes to complete and head motion of the subject during the PET scan increases the uncertainty in measured activity. In this study, we investigated the effects of the data-driven head mutton correction on the evaluation of endogenous dopamine release (DAR) in the striatum during the motor task which might have caused significant head motion artifact. Materials and Methods: $[^{11}C]raclopride$ PET scans on 4 normal volunteers acquired with bolus plus constant infusion protocol were retrospectively analyzed. Following the 50 min resting period, the participants played a video game with a monetary reward for 40 min. Dynamic frames acquired during the equilibrium condition (pre-task: 30-50 min, task: 70-90 min, post-task: 110-120 min) were realigned to the first frame in pre-task condition. Intra-condition registrations between the frames were performed, and average image for each condition was created and registered to the pre-task image (inter-condition registration). Pre-task PET image was then co-registered to own MRI of each participant and transformation parameters were reapplied to the others. Volumes of interest (VOI) for dorsal putamen (PU) and caudate (CA), ventral striatum (VS), and cerebellum were defined on the MRI. Binding potential (BP) was measured and DAR was calculated as the percent change of BP during and after the task. SPM analyses on the BP parametric images were also performed to explore the regional difference in the effects of head motion on BP and DAR estimation. Results: Changes in position and orientation of the striatum during the PET scans were observed before the head motion correction. BP values at pre-task condition were not changed significantly after the intra-condition registration. However, the BP values during and after the task and DAR were significantly changed after the correction. SPM analysis also showed that the extent and significance of the BP differences were significantly changed by the head motion correction and such changes were prominent in periphery of the striatum. Conclusion: The results suggest that misalignment of MRI-based VOI and the striatum in PET images and incorrect DAR estimation due to the head motion during the PET activation study were significant, but could be remedied by the data-driven head motion correction.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.9
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• pp.69-98
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• 2005

The security industry for civilians (Private Security), was first introduced to Korea via the US army's security system in the early 1960's. Shortly after then, official police laws were enforced in 1973, and private security finally started to develop with the passing of the 'service security industry' law in 1976. Korea's Private Security industry grew rapidly in the 1980's with the support of foreign funds and products, and now there are thought to be approximately 2000 private security enterprises currently running in Korea. However, nowadays the majority of these enterprises are experiencing difficulties such as lack of funds, insufficient management, and lack of control over employees, as a result, it seems difficult for some enterprises to avoid the low production output and bankruptcy. As a result of this these enterprises often settle these matters illegally, such as excessive dumping or avoiding problems by hiring inappropriate employees who don't have the right skills or qualifications for the jobs. The main problem with the establishment of this kind of security service is that it is so easy to make inroads into this private service market. All these hindering factors inhibit the market growth and impede qualitative development. Based on these main reasons, I researched this area, and will analyze and criticize the present condition of Korea's private security. I will present a possible development plan for the private security of Korea by referring to cases from the US and Japan. My method of researching was to investigate any related documentary records and articles and to interview people for necessary evidence. The theoretical study, involves investigation books and dissertations which are published from inside and outside of the country, and studying the complete collection of laws and regulations, internet data, various study reports, and the documentary records and the statistical data of many institutions such as the National Police Office, judicial training institute, and the enterprises of private security. Also, in addition, the contents of professionals who are in charge of practical affairs on the spot in order to overcomes the critical points of documentary records when investigating dissertation. I tried to get a firm grasp of the problems and difficulties which people in these work enterprises experience, this I thought would be most effective by interviewing the workers, for example: how they feel in the work places and what are the elements which inpede development? And I also interviewed policemen who are in charge of supervising the private escort enterprises, in an effort to figure out the problems and differences in opinion between domestic private security service and the police. From this investigation and research I will try to pin point the major problems of the private security and present a developmental plan. Firstly-Companies should unify the private police law and private security service law. Secondly-It is essential to introduce the 'specialty certificate' system for the quality improvement of private security service. Thirdly-must open up a new private security market by improving old system. Fourth-must build up the competitive power of the security service enterprises which is based on an efficient management. Fifth-needs special marketing strategy to hold customers Sixth-needs positive research based on theoretical studies. Seventh-needs the consistent and even training according to effective market demand. Eighth-Must maintain interrelationship with the police department. Ninth-must reinforce the system of Korean private security service association. Tenth-must establish private security laboratory. Based on these suggestions there should be improvement of private security service.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.85-109
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• 2018

Recommender system recommends the items expected to be purchased by a customer in the future according to his or her previous purchase behaviors. It has been served as a tool for realizing one-to-one personalization for an e-commerce service company. Traditional recommender systems, especially the recommender systems based on collaborative filtering (CF), which is the most popular recommendation algorithm in both academy and industry, are designed to generate the items list for recommendation by using 'overall rating' - a single criterion. However, it has critical limitations in understanding the customers' preferences in detail. Recently, to mitigate these limitations, some leading e-commerce companies have begun to get feedback from their customers in a form of 'multicritera ratings'. Multicriteria ratings enable the companies to understand their customers' preferences from the multidimensional viewpoints. Moreover, it is easy to handle and analyze the multidimensional ratings because they are quantitative. But, the recommendation using multicritera ratings also has limitation that it may omit detail information on a user's preference because it only considers three-to-five predetermined criteria in most cases. Under this background, this study proposes a novel hybrid recommendation system, which selectively uses the results from 'traditional CF' and 'CF using multicriteria ratings'. Our proposed system is based on the premise that some people have holistic preference scheme, whereas others have composite preference scheme. Thus, our system is designed to use traditional CF using overall rating for the users with holistic preference, and to use CF using multicriteria ratings for the users with composite preference. To validate the usefulness of the proposed system, we applied it to a real-world dataset regarding the recommendation for POI (point-of-interests). Providing personalized POI recommendation is getting more attentions as the popularity of the location-based services such as Yelp and Foursquare increases. The dataset was collected from university students via a Web-based online survey system. Using the survey system, we collected the overall ratings as well as the ratings for each criterion for 48 POIs that are located near K university in Seoul, South Korea. The criteria include 'food or taste', 'price' and 'service or mood'. As a result, we obtain 2,878 valid ratings from 112 users. Among 48 items, 38 items (80%) are used as training dataset, and the remaining 10 items (20%) are used as validation dataset. To examine the effectiveness of the proposed system (i.e. hybrid selective model), we compared its performance to the performances of two comparison models - the traditional CF and the CF with multicriteria ratings. The performances of recommender systems were evaluated by using two metrics - average MAE(mean absolute error) and precision-in-top-N. Precision-in-top-N represents the percentage of truly high overall ratings among those that the model predicted would be the N most relevant items for each user. The experimental system was developed using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The experimental results showed that our proposed system (avg. MAE = 0.584) outperformed traditional CF (avg. MAE = 0.591) as well as multicriteria CF (avg. AVE = 0.608). We also found that multicriteria CF showed worse performance compared to traditional CF in our data set, which is contradictory to the results in the most previous studies. This result supports the premise of our study that people have two different types of preference schemes - holistic and composite. Besides MAE, the proposed system outperformed all the comparison models in precision-in-top-3, precision-in-top-5, and precision-in-top-7. The results from the paired samples t-test presented that our proposed system outperformed traditional CF with 10% statistical significance level, and multicriteria CF with 1% statistical significance level from the perspective of average MAE. The proposed system sheds light on how to understand and utilize user's preference schemes in recommender systems domain.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.5-20
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• 1997

War and poverty depress the consumption of cosmetics, while peace and prosperity encourage their proliferation. With the end of World War II, the US, Europe and Japan witnessed rapid growth of their cosmetic industries. The ending of the Cold War has stimulated the growth of the industry in Eastern Europe. Improved economies, and mass communication are also responsible for the fast growth of the cosmetic industries in many Asian nations. The rapid development of the cosmetic industry in mainland China over the past decade proves that changing economies and political climates can deeply affect the health of our business. In addition to war, economy, political climate and mass communication, factors such as lifestyle, religion, morality and value concepts, can also affect the growth of our industry. Cosmetics are the product of the society. As society and the needs of its people change, cosmetics also evolve with respect to their contents, packaging, distribution, marketing concepts, and emphasis. In many ways, cosmetics mirror our society, reflecting social changes. Until the early 70's, cosmetics in the US were primarily developed for white women. The civil rights movement of the 60's gave birth to ethnic cosmetics, and products designed for African-Americans became popular in the 70's and 80's. The consumerism of the 70's led the FDA to tighten cosmetic regulations, forcing manufacturers to disclose ingredients on their labels. The result was the spread of safety-oriented, "hypoallergenic" cosmetics and more selective use of ingredients. The new ingredient labeling law in Europe is also likely to affect the manner in which development chemists choose ingredients for new products. Environmental pollution, too, can affect cosmetics trends. For example, the concern over ozone depletion in the stratosphere has promoted the consumption of suncare products. Similarly, the popularity of natural cosmetic ingredients, the search of non-animal testing methods, and ecology-conscious cosmetic packaging seen in recent years all reflect the profound influences of our changing world. In the 1980's, a class of efficacy-oriented skin-care products, which the New York Times dubbed "serious" cosmetics, emerged in the US. "Cosmeceuticals" refer to hybrids of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals which have gained importance in the US in the 90's and are quickly spreading world-wide. In spite of regulatory problems, consumer demand and new technologies continue to encourage their development. New classes of cosmeceuticals are emerging to meet the demands of increasingly affluent Asian consumers as we enter the 21st century. as we enter the 21st century.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.169-196
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• 2017

The fourth industrial revolution represents a revolutionary change in the business environment and its ecosystem, which is a fusion of Information Technology (IT) and other industries. In line with these recent changes, the Ministry of Employment and Labor of South Korea announced 'the Fourth Industrial Revolution Leader Training Program,' which includes five key support areas such as (1) smart manufacturing, (2) Internet of Things (IoT), (3) big data including Artificial Intelligence (AI), (4) information security, and (5) bio innovation. Based on this program, we can get a glimpse of the South Korean government's efforts and willingness to emit leading human resource with advanced IT knowledge in various fusion technology-related and newly emerging industries. On the other hand, in order to nurture excellent IT manpower in preparation for the fourth industrial revolution, the role of educational institutions capable of providing high quality IT education services is most of importance. However, these days, most IT educational institutions have had difficulties in providing customized IT education services that meet the needs of consumers (i.e., learners), without breaking away from the traditional framework of providing supplier-oriented education services. From previous studies, it has been found that the provision of customized education services centered on learners leads to high satisfaction of learners, and that higher satisfaction increases not only task performance and the possibility of business application but also learners' recommendation intention. However, since research has not yet been conducted in a comprehensive way that consider both antecedent and consequent factors of the learner's satisfaction, more empirical research on this is highly desirable. With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, a rising interest in various convergence technologies utilizing information technology (IT) has brought with the growing realization of the important role played by IT-related education services. However, research on the role of IT education service quality in the context of IT education is relatively scarce in spite of the fact that research on general education service quality and satisfaction has been actively conducted in various contexts. In this study, therefore, the five dimensions of IT education service quality (i.e., tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) are derived from the context of IT education, based on the SERVPERF model and related previous studies. In addition, the effects of these detailed IT education service quality factors on learners' educational satisfaction and their work application/recommendation intentions are examined. Furthermore, the moderating roles of learner position (i.e., practitioner group vs. manager group) and participation motivation (i.e., voluntary participation vs. involuntary participation) in relationships between IT education service quality factors and learners' educational satisfaction, work application intention, and recommendation intention are also investigated. In an analysis using the structural equation model (SEM) technique based on a questionnaire given to 203 participants of IT education programs in an 'M' IT educational institution in Seoul, South Korea, tangibles, reliability, and assurance were found to have a significant effect on educational satisfaction. This educational satisfaction was found to have a significant effect on both work application intention and recommendation intention. Moreover, it was discovered that learner position and participation motivation have a partial moderating impact on the relationship between IT education service quality factors and educational satisfaction. This study holds academic implications in that it is one of the first studies to apply the SERVPERF model (rather than the SERVQUAL model, which has been widely adopted by prior studies) is to demonstrate the influence of IT education service quality on learners' educational satisfaction, work application intention, and recommendation intention in an IT education environment. The results of this study are expected to provide practical guidance for IT education service providers who wish to enhance learners' educational satisfaction and service management efficiency.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.