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A Study of the Reactive Movement Synchronization for Analysis of Group Flow (그룹 몰입도 판단을 위한 움직임 동기화 연구)

  • Ryu, Joon Mo;Park, Seung-Bo;Kim, Jae Kyeong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.79-94
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    • 2013
  • Recently, the high value added business is steadily growing in the culture and art area. To generated high value from a performance, the satisfaction of audience is necessary. The flow in a critical factor for satisfaction, and it should be induced from audience and measures. To evaluate interest and emotion of audience on contents, producers or investors need a kind of index for the measurement of the flow. But it is neither easy to define the flow quantitatively, nor to collect audience's reaction immediately. The previous studies of the group flow were evaluated by the sum of the average value of each person's reaction. The flow or "good feeling" from each audience was extracted from his face, especially, the change of his (or her) expression and body movement. But it was not easy to handle the large amount of real-time data from each sensor signals. And also it was difficult to set experimental devices, in terms of economic and environmental problems. Because, all participants should have their own personal sensor to check their physical signal. Also each camera should be located in front of their head to catch their looks. Therefore we need more simple system to analyze group flow. This study provides the method for measurement of audiences flow with group synchronization at same time and place. To measure the synchronization, we made real-time processing system using the Differential Image and Group Emotion Analysis (GEA) system. Differential Image was obtained from camera and by the previous frame was subtracted from present frame. So the movement variation on audience's reaction was obtained. And then we developed a program, GEX(Group Emotion Analysis), for flow judgment model. After the measurement of the audience's reaction, the synchronization is divided as Dynamic State Synchronization and Static State Synchronization. The Dynamic State Synchronization accompanies audience's active reaction, while the Static State Synchronization means to movement of audience. The Dynamic State Synchronization can be caused by the audience's surprise action such as scary, creepy or reversal scene. And the Static State Synchronization was triggered by impressed or sad scene. Therefore we showed them several short movies containing various scenes mentioned previously. And these kind of scenes made them sad, clap, and creepy, etc. To check the movement of audience, we defined the critical point, ${\alpha}$and ${\beta}$. Dynamic State Synchronization was meaningful when the movement value was over critical point ${\beta}$, while Static State Synchronization was effective under critical point ${\alpha}$. ${\beta}$ is made by audience' clapping movement of 10 teams in stead of using average number of movement. After checking the reactive movement of audience, the percentage(%) ratio was calculated from the division of "people having reaction" by "total people". Total 37 teams were made in "2012 Seoul DMC Culture Open" and they involved the experiments. First, they followed induction to clap by staff. Second, basic scene for neutralize emotion of audience. Third, flow scene was displayed to audience. Forth, the reversal scene was introduced. And then 24 teams of them were provided with amuse and creepy scenes. And the other 10 teams were exposed with the sad scene. There were clapping and laughing action of audience on the amuse scene with shaking their head or hid with closing eyes. And also the sad or touching scene made them silent. If the results were over about 80%, the group could be judged as the synchronization and the flow were achieved. As a result, the audience showed similar reactions about similar stimulation at same time and place. Once we get an additional normalization and experiment, we can obtain find the flow factor through the synchronization on a much bigger group and this should be useful for planning contents.

Chinese Communist Party's Management of Records & Archives during the Chinese Revolution Period (혁명시기 중국공산당의 문서당안관리)

  • Lee, Won-Kyu
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.22
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    • pp.157-199
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    • 2009
  • The organization for managing records and archives did not emerge together with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Such management became active with the establishment of the Department of Documents (文書科) and its affiliated offices overseeing reading and safekeeping of official papers, after the formation of the Central Secretariat(中央秘書處) in 1926. Improving the work of the Secretariat's organization became the focus of critical discussions in the early 1930s. The main criticism was that the Secretariat had failed to be cognizant of its political role and degenerated into a mere "functional organization." The solution to this was the "politicization of the Secretariat's work." Moreover, influenced by the "Rectification Movement" in the 1940s, the party emphasized the responsibility of the Resources Department (材料科) that extended beyond managing documents to collecting, organizing and providing various kinds of important information data. In the mean time, maintaining security with regard to composing documents continued to be emphasized through such methods as using different names for figures and organizations or employing special inks for document production. In addition, communications between the central political organs and regional offices were emphasized through regular reports on work activities and situations of the local areas. The General Secretary not only composed the drafts of the major official documents but also handled the reading and examination of all documents, and thus played a central role in record processing. The records, called archives after undergoing document processing, were placed in safekeeping. This function was handled by the "Document Safekeeping Office(文件保管處)" of the Central Secretariat's Department of Documents. Although the Document Safekeeping Office, also called the "Central Repository(中央文庫)", could no longer accept, beginning in the early 1930s, additional archive transfers, the Resources Department continued to strengthen throughout the 1940s its role of safekeeping and providing documents and publication materials. In particular, collections of materials for research and study were carried out, and with the recovery of regions which had been under the Japanese rule, massive amounts of archive and document materials were collected. After being stipulated by rules in 1931, the archive classification and cataloguing methods became actively systematized, especially in the 1940s. Basically, "subject" classification methods and fundamental cataloguing techniques were adopted. The principle of assuming "importance" and "confidentiality" as the criteria of management emerged from a relatively early period, but the concept or process of evaluation that differentiated preservation and discarding of documents was not clear. While implementing a system of secure management and restricted access for confidential information, the critical view on providing use of archive materials was very strong, as can be seen in the slogan, "the unification of preservation and use." Even during the revolutionary movement and wars, the Chinese Communist Party continued their efforts to strengthen management and preservation of records & archives. The results were not always desirable nor were there any reasons for such experiences to lead to stable development. The historical conditions in which the Chinese Communist Party found itself probably made it inevitable. The most pronounced characteristics of this process can be found in the fact that they not only pursued efficiency of records & archives management at the functional level but, while strengthening their self-awareness of the political significance impacting the Chinese Communist Party's revolution movement, they also paid attention to the value possessed by archive materials as actual evidence for revolutionary policy research and as historical evidence of the Chinese Communist Party.

A study of the plan dosimetic evaluation on the rectal cancer treatment (직장암 치료 시 치료계획에 따른 선량평가 연구)

  • Jeong, Hyun Hak;An, Beom Seok;Kim, Dae Il;Lee, Yang Hoon;Lee, Je hee
    • The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.171-178
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    • 2016
  • Purpose : In order to minimize the dose of femoral head as an appropriate treatment plan for rectal cancer radiation therapy, we compare and evaluate the usefulness of 3-field 3D conformal radiation therapy(below 3fCRT), which is a universal treatment method, and 5-field 3D conformal radiation therapy(below 5fCRT), and Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT). Materials and Methods : The 10 cases of rectal cancer that treated with 21EX were enrolled. Those cases were planned by Eclipse(Ver. 10.0.42, Varian, USA), PRO3(Progressive Resolution Optimizer 10.0.28) and AAA(Anisotropic Analytic Algorithm Ver. 10.0.28). 3fCRT and 5fCRT plan has $0^{\circ}$, $270^{\circ}$, $90^{\circ}$ and $0^{\circ}$, $95^{\circ}$, $45^{\circ}$, $315^{\circ}$, $265^{\circ}$ gantry angle, respectively. VMAT plan parameters consisted of 15MV coplanar $360^{\circ}$ 1 arac. Treatment prescription was employed delivering 54Gy to recum in 30 fractions. To minimize the dose difference that shows up randomly on optimizing, VMAT plans were optimized and calculated twice, and normalized to the target V100%=95%. The indexes of evaluation are D of Both femoral head and aceta fossa, total MU, H.I.(Homogeneity index) and C.I.(Conformity index) of the PTV. All VMAT plans were verified by gamma test with portal dosimetry using EPID. Results : D of Rt. femoral head was 53.08 Gy, 50.27 Gy, and 30.92 Gy, respectively, in the order of 3fCRT, 5fCRT, and VMAT treatment plan. Likewise, Lt. Femoral head showed average 53.68 Gy, 51.01 Gy and 29.23 Gy in the same order. D of Rt. aceta fossa was 54.86 Gy, 52.40 Gy, 30.37 Gy, respectively, in the order of 3fCRT, 5fCRT, and VMAT treatment plan. Likewise, Lt. Femoral head showed average 53.68 Gy, 51.01 Gy and 29.23 Gy in the same order. The maximum dose of both femoral head and aceta fossa was higher in the order of 3fCRT, 5fCRT, and VMAT treatment plan. C.I. showed the lowest VMAT treatment plan with an average of 1.64, 1.48, and 0.99 in the order of 3fCRT, 5fCRT, and VMAT treatment plan. There was no significant difference on H.I. of the PTV among three plans. Total MU showed that the VMAT treatment plan used 124.4MU and 299MU more than the 3fCRT and 5fCRT treatment plan, respectively. IMRT verification gamma test results for the VMAT plan passed over 90.0% at 2mm/2%. Conclusion : In rectal cancer treatment, the VMAT plan was shown to be advantageous in most of the evaluation indexes compared to the 3D plan, and the dose of the femoral head was greatly reduced. However, because of practical limitations there may be a case where it is difficult to select a VMAT treatment plan. 5fCRT has the advantage of reducing the dose of the femoral head as compared to the existing 3fCRT, without regard to additional problems. Therefore, not only would it extend survival time but the quality of life in general, if hospitals improved radiation therapy efficiency by selecting the treatment plan in accordance with the hospital's situation.

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A Study on Intelligent Value Chain Network System based on Firms' Information (기업정보 기반 지능형 밸류체인 네트워크 시스템에 관한 연구)

  • Sung, Tae-Eung;Kim, Kang-Hoe;Moon, Young-Su;Lee, Ho-Shin
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.67-88
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    • 2018
  • Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.

Prediction of fertilizer demands up to the year of 2,000 from agronomic view points - Review and Discussion - (농경학적(農耕學的) 입장(立場)에서 본 서기(西紀) 2,000년(年)까지의 비료수요(肥料需要) 전망(展望) - 종합고찰(綜合考察) -)

  • Hong, Chong-Woon;Shin, Yong-Hwa
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.9 no.3
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    • pp.211-220
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    • 1976
  • The objective of this paper is to summarize and disicuss the results of studies for the prediction of fertilizer demands up to the year of 2000, from the agromic biew points. 1. The approximated demands of fertilizers figured out from the view point of nutrient requirement and fertilizer efficiency of major crops are 1,162,000M/T (N;554,100 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 360,100 M/T and $K_2O$, 247,000 M/T) at 1980, 1,471,400 M/T (N: 694,800 M/T, $P_2O_5$;465,400M/T and $K_2O$ ;311,200 M/T) at 1990 and 1,764,00 M/T (N;812,500 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 592,300 M/T and $K_2O$;359,200 M/T) at 2000${\cdots}{\cdots}$ (Approximation I) 2. Upon the basis of approximation on the yield levels of major crops per unit area and on the expansion of arable land, the demands of fertilizers at the years of 1980, 1990 and 2000 are predicted as 1,149,300 M/T (N;603,700 M/T $P_2O_5$; 305,500 M/T and $K_2O$, 240,100 M/T) 1,551,100 M/T(N:814,700M/T, $P_2O_5$;412,300 M/T and $K_2O$;324,00 M/T) and 2,253,800 M/T (N;1,183,800M/T, $P_2O_5$; 586,400M/T and $K_2O$, 470,900 M/T), respectively${\cdots}{\cdots}$(Approximation II) 3. When the recent relationships between the increases in yeid of major crops and the amounts of fertilizers for those crops per unit area are brought into consideration for the estimation of future demands of fertilizers, the predicted demands at the years of 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 1,287.600 M/T (N;677,100 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 342,000 M/T, and $K_2O$;268,500 M/T), 2,085,600M/T (N;1,096,700 M/T, $P_2O_5$;533,900 M/T, and $K_2O$;435,000 M/T and 3,380,600 M/T (N;1,777,800M/T, $P_2O_5$;897,800M/T and $K_2O$;705,000M/T) respectively (Approximation III) 4. Approximation I will be closer estimate under such condition that only rice will maintain self suficiency and other food crops will be covered by domestic production by around 50 percent, which is not desirable situation. 5. When higher self suficiency leveles of major food crops are sought through the introduction of improved varieties and expansion of cropping area and arable land by increased land utilization and reclamation of hillside land and tidal land, the Approximations II and III will become close to reality, If improved fertilizers and improved method of fertilizer applications are widely applied at the farmers fields to increase the fertilizer efficiency the former will be closer figure, if not, the latter may be better estimates.

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The Present Status and a Proposal of the Prospective Measures for Parasitic Diseases Control in Korea (우리나라 기생충병관리의 현황(現況)과 효율적방안에 관(關)한 연구(硏究))

  • Loh, In-Kyu
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.1-16
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    • 1970
  • The present status of control measures for public health important helminthic infections in Korea was surveyed in 1969 and the following results were obtained. The activities of parasitic examination and Ascaris treatment for the positives which were done during 1966 to 1969 were brought in poor result and could not decrease the infection rate. It is needed to improve or strengthen the activities. The mass treatment activities for paragonimiasis and clonorchiasis in the areas which were designated by the Ministry of Health were carried out during 1965 to 1968 with no good results in decrease of estimated number of the patients. There were too many pharmaceutical companies where many kinds of anthelmintics were produced. It may be better to reduce the number of anthelmintics produced and control the quality. The human feces, the most important source of helminthic infections, was generally not treated in sanitary ways because of the poor sewerage system and no sewage treatment plant in urban areas and insanitary latrines in rural areas. The field soils of 170 specimens were collected from 34 areas out of 55 urban and tourist areas where night soil has been prohibited by a regulation to be used as a fertilizer, and examined for parasites contamination with the result of Ascaris egg detection in 44%. Some kinds of vegetables of 64 specimens each from the supply agents of parasite free vegetables and general markets were collected and examined for parasites contamination with the results of Ascaris egg detection in 25% and 36% respectively. The parasite control activities and the ability of parasitological examination techniques in the health centers of the country were not satisfactory. The budget of the Ministry of Health for the parasite control was very poor. The actual expenditure needed for cellophane thick smear technique was 8 Won per a specimen. As a principle the control of helminthic infections might be led toward breaking the chain of events in the life cycle of the prasites and eliminating environmental and host factors concerned with the infections, and the following methods nay be pointed out. 1) Mass treatment might be done to eliminate human reservoirs of an infection. 2) Animal reservoirs which are related with human infections night be eliminated. 3) The excretes of reservoirs, particularly human feces, should be treated in sanitary ways by the means of sanitary sewerage system and sewage treatment plant in urban areas and sanitary latrines such as waterborne latrine, aqua privy and pit latrine in rural areas. The increase of national economical development and prohibition of the habit of using night soils as a fertilizer might be very important factors to achieve the purpose. 4) The control of vehicles and intermediate hosts might be done by the means of prohibition of soil contamination with parasites, food sanitation, insect control and snail control. 5) The improvement of insanitary attitudes and bad habits which are related with parasitic infections night be done by the means of prohibition of habit of using night soils as a fertilizer, and improving eating habits and personal hygiene. 6) Chemoprophylactic measure and vaccination may be effective to prevent the infections or the development of a parasite to adult in the bodies when the bodies were invaded by parasites. Further studies and development of this kind of measures are needed.

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The Impact of Market Environments on Optimal Channel Strategy Involving an Internet Channel: A Game Theoretic Approach (시장 환경이 인터넷 경로를 포함한 다중 경로 관리에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 게임 이론적 접근방법)

  • Yoo, Weon-Sang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.119-138
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    • 2011
  • Internet commerce has been growing at a rapid pace for the last decade. Many firms try to reach wider consumer markets by adding the Internet channel to the existing traditional channels. Despite the various benefits of the Internet channel, a significant number of firms failed in managing the new type of channel. Previous studies could not cleary explain these conflicting results associated with the Internet channel. One of the major reasons is most of the previous studies conducted analyses under a specific market condition and claimed that as the impact of Internet channel introduction. Therefore, their results are strongly influenced by the specific market settings. However, firms face various market conditions in the real worlddensity and disutility of using the Internet. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various market environments on a firm's optimal channel strategy by employing a flexible game theory model. We capture various market conditions with consumer density and disutility of using the Internet.

    shows the channel structures analyzed in this study. Before the Internet channel is introduced, a monopoly manufacturer sells its products through an independent physical store. From this structure, the manufacturer could introduce its own Internet channel (MI). The independent physical store could also introduce its own Internet channel and coordinate it with the existing physical store (RI). An independent Internet retailer such as Amazon could enter this market (II). In this case, two types of independent retailers compete with each other. In this model, consumers are uniformly distributed on the two dimensional space. Consumer heterogeneity is captured by a consumer's geographical location (ci) and his disutility of using the Internet channel (${\delta}_{N_i}$).
    shows various market conditions captured by the two consumer heterogeneities.
    (a) illustrates a market with symmetric consumer distributions. The model captures explicitly the asymmetric distributions of consumer disutility in a market as well. In a market like that is represented in
    (c), the average consumer disutility of using an Internet store is relatively smaller than that of using a physical store. For example, this case represents the market in which 1) the product is suitable for Internet transactions (e.g., books) or 2) the level of E-Commerce readiness is high such as in Denmark or Finland. On the other hand, the average consumer disutility when using an Internet store is relatively greater than that of using a physical store in a market like (b). Countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria, or the market for "experience goods" such as shoes, could be examples of this market condition. summarizes the various scenarios of consumer distributions analyzed in this study. The range for disutility of using the Internet (${\delta}_{N_i}$) is held constant, while the range of consumer distribution (${\chi}_i$) varies from -25 to 25, from -50 to 50, from -100 to 100, from -150 to 150, and from -200 to 200.
    summarizes the analysis results. As the average travel cost in a market decreases while the average disutility of Internet use remains the same, average retail price, total quantity sold, physical store profit, monopoly manufacturer profit, and thus, total channel profit increase. On the other hand, the quantity sold through the Internet and the profit of the Internet store decrease with a decreasing average travel cost relative to the average disutility of Internet use. We find that a channel that has an advantage over the other kind of channel serves a larger portion of the market. In a market with a high average travel cost, in which the Internet store has a relative advantage over the physical store, for example, the Internet store becomes a mass-retailer serving a larger portion of the market. This result implies that the Internet becomes a more significant distribution channel in those markets characterized by greater geographical dispersion of buyers, or as consumers become more proficient in Internet usage. The results indicate that the degree of price discrimination also varies depending on the distribution of consumer disutility in a market. The manufacturer in a market in which the average travel cost is higher than the average disutility of using the Internet has a stronger incentive for price discrimination than the manufacturer in a market where the average travel cost is relatively lower. We also find that the manufacturer has a stronger incentive to maintain a high price level when the average travel cost in a market is relatively low. Additionally, the retail competition effect due to Internet channel introduction strengthens as average travel cost in a market decreases. This result indicates that a manufacturer's channel power relative to that of the independent physical retailer becomes stronger with a decreasing average travel cost. This implication is counter-intuitive, because it is widely believed that the negative impact of Internet channel introduction on a competing physical retailer is more significant in a market like Russia, where consumers are more geographically dispersed, than in a market like Hong Kong, that has a condensed geographic distribution of consumers.
    illustrates how this happens. When mangers consider the overall impact of the Internet channel, however, they should consider not only channel power, but also sales volume. When both are considered, the introduction of the Internet channel is revealed as more harmful to a physical retailer in Russia than one in Hong Kong, because the sales volume decrease for a physical store due to Internet channel competition is much greater in Russia than in Hong Kong. The results show that manufacturer is always better off with any type of Internet store introduction. The independent physical store benefits from opening its own Internet store when the average travel cost is higher relative to the disutility of using the Internet. Under an opposite market condition, however, the independent physical retailer could be worse off when it opens its own Internet outlet and coordinates both outlets (RI). This is because the low average travel cost significantly reduces the channel power of the independent physical retailer, further aggravating the already weak channel power caused by myopic inter-channel price coordination. The results implies that channel members and policy makers should explicitly consider the factors determining the relative distributions of both kinds of consumer disutility, when they make a channel decision involving an Internet channel. These factors include the suitability of a product for Internet shopping, the level of E-Commerce readiness of a market, and the degree of geographic dispersion of consumers in a market. Despite the academic contributions and managerial implications, this study is limited in the following ways. First, a series of numerical analyses were conducted to derive equilibrium solutions due to the complex forms of demand functions. In the process, we set up V=100, ${\lambda}$=1, and ${\beta}$=0.01. Future research may change this parameter value set to check the generalizability of this study. Second, the five different scenarios for market conditions were analyzed. Future research could try different sets of parameter ranges. Finally, the model setting allows only one monopoly manufacturer in the market. Accommodating competing multiple manufacturers (brands) would generate more realistic results.

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  • Consumer's Negative Brand Rumor Acceptance and Rumor Diffusion (소비자의 부정적 브랜드 루머의 수용과 확산)

    • Lee, Won-jun;Lee, Han-Suk
      • Asia Marketing Journal
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      • v.14 no.2
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      • pp.65-96
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      • 2012
    • Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R2 of adoption of rumor is .476 and R2 of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

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    A Study on Startups' Dependence on Business Incubation Centers (창업보육서비스에 따른 입주기업의 창업보육센터 의존도에 관한 연구)

    • Park, JaeSung;Lee, Chul;Kim, JaeJon
      • Korean small business review
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      • v.31 no.2
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      • pp.103-120
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      • 2009
    • As business incubation centers (BICs) have been operating for more than 10 years in Korea, many early stage startups tend to use the services provided by the incubating centers. BICs in Korea have accumulated the knowledge and experience in the past ten years and their services have been considerably improved. The business incubating service has three facets : (1) business infrastructure service, (2) direct service, and (3) indirect service. The mission of BICs is to provide the early stage entrepreneurs with the incubating service in a limited period time to help them grow strong enough to survive the fierce competition after graduating from the incubation. However, the incubating services sometimes fail to foster the independence of new startup companies, and raise the dependence of many companies on BICs. Thus, the dependence on BICs is a very important factor to understand the survival of the incubated startup companies after graduation from BICs. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the firm's dependence on BICs and to characterize the relationships among the identified factors. The business incubating service is a core construct of this study. It includes various activities and resources, such as offering the physical facilities, legal service, and connecting them with outside organizations. These services are extensive and take various forms. They are provided by BICs directly or indirectly. Past studies have identified various incubating services and classify them in different ways. Based on the past studies, we classify the business incubating service into three categories as mentioned above : (1) business infrastructure support, (2) direct support, and (3) networking support. The business infrastructure support is to provide the essential resources to start the business, such as physical facilities. The direct support is to offer the business resources available in the BICs, such as human, technical, and administrational resources. Finally, the indirect service was to support the resource in the outside of business incubation center. Dependence is generally defined as the degree to which a client firm needs the resources provided by the service provider in order to achieve its goals. Dependence is generated when a firm recognizes the benefits of interacting with its counterpart. Hence, the more positive outcomes a firm derives from its relationship with the partner, the more dependent on the partner the firm must inevitably become. In business incubating, as a resident firm is incubated in longer period, we can predict that her dependence on BICs would be stronger. In order to foster the independence of the incubated firms, BICs have to be able to manipulate the provision of their services to control the firms' dependence on BICs. Based on the above discussion, the research model for relationships between dependence and its affecting factors was developed. We surveyed the companies residing in BICs to test our research model. The instrument of our study was modified, in part, on the basis of previous relevant studies. For the purposes of testing reliability and validity, preliminary testing was conducted with firms that were residing in BICs and incubated by the BICs in the region of Gwangju and Jeonnam. The questionnaire was modified in accordance with the pre-test feedback. We mailed to all of the firms that had been incubated by the BICs with the help of business incubating managers of each BIC. The survey was conducted over a three week period. Gifts (of approximately ₩10,000 value) were offered to all actively participating respondents. The incubating period was reported by the business incubating managers, and it was transformed using natural logarithms. A total of 180 firms participated in the survey. However, we excluded 4 cases due to a lack of consistency using reversed items in the answers of the companies, and 176 cases were used for the analysis. We acknowledge that 176 samples may not be sufficient to conduct regression analyses with 5 research variables in our study. Each variable was measured through multiple items. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis to assess their unidimensionality. In an effort to test the construct validity of the instruments, a principal component factor analysis was conducted with Varimax rotation. The items correspond well to each singular factor, demonstrating a high degree of convergent validity. As the factor loadings for a variable (or factor) are higher than the factor loadings for the other variables, the instrument's discriminant validity is shown to be clear. Each factor was extracted as expected, which explained 70.97, 66.321, and 52.97 percent, respectively, of the total variance each with eigen values greater than 1.000. The internal consistency reliability of the variables was evaluated by computing Cronbach's alphas. The Cronbach's alpha values of the variables, which ranged from 0.717 to 0.950, were all securely over 0.700, which is satisfactory. The reliability and validity of the research variables are all, therefore, considered acceptable. The effects of dependence were assessed using a regression analysis. The Pearson correlations were calculated for the variables, measured by interval or ratio scales. Potential multicollinearity among the antecedents was evaluated prior to the multiple regression analysis, as some of the variables were significantly correlated with others (e.g., direct service and indirect service). Although several variables show the evidence of significant correlations, their tolerance values range between 0.334 and 0.613, thereby demonstrating that multicollinearity is not a likely threat to the parameter estimates. Checking some basic assumptions for the regression analyses, we decided to conduct multiple regression analyses and moderated regression analyses to test the given hypotheses. The results of the regression analyses indicate that the regression model is significant at p < 0.001 (F = 44.260), and that the predictors of the research model explain 42.6 percent of the total variance. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 address the relationships between the dependence of the incubated firms and the business incubating services. Business infrastructure service, direct service, and indirect service are all significantly related with dependence (β = 0.300, p < 0.001; β = 0.230, p < 0.001; β = 0.226, p < 0.001), thus supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. When the incubating period is the moderator and dependence is the dependent variable, the addition of the interaction terms with the antecedents to the regression equation yielded a significant increase in R2 (F change = 2.789, p < 0.05). In particular, direct service and indirect service exert different effects on dependence. Hence, the results support Hypotheses 5 and 6. This study provides several strategies and specific calls to action for BICs, based on our empirical findings. Business infrastructure service has more effect on the firm's dependence than the other two services. The introduction of an additional high charge rate for a graduated but allowed to stay in the BIC is a basic and legitimate condition for the BIC to control the firm's dependence. We detected the differential effects of direct and indirect services on the firm's dependence. The firms with long incubating period are more sensitive to indirect service positively, and more sensitive to direct service negatively, when assessing their levels of dependence. This implies that BICs must develop a strategy on the basis of a firm's incubating period. Last but not least, it would be valuable to discover other important variables that influence the firm's dependence in the future studies. Moreover, future studies to explain the independence of startup companies in BICs would also be valuable.