• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.51-61
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• 2012

This study seeks to understand how the choice of a coffee shop is related to a customer's loyalty and which characteristics of a shop influence this choice. It considers large-sized coffee shops brands whose market scale has gradually grown. The users' choice of shop is determined by price, employee service, shop location, and shop atmosphere. The study investigated the effects of these four properties on the brand attitudes of coffee shops. The effects were found to vary depending on users' characteristics. The properties with the largest influence were shop atmosphere and shop location Therefore, the purpose of the study was to examine the properties that could help coffee shops get loyal customers, and the choice properties that could satisfy consumers' desires The study examined consumers' perceptions of shop properties at selection of coffee shop and the difference between perceptual difference and coffee brand in order to investigate customers' desires and needs and to suggest ways that could supply products and service. The research methodology consisted of two parts: normative and empirical research, which includes empirical analysis and statistical analysis. In this study, a statistical analysis of the empirical research was carried out. The study theoretically confirmed the shop choice properties by reviewing previous studies and performed an empirical analysis including cross tabulation based on secondary material. The findings were as follows: First, coffee shop choice properties varied by gender. Price advantage influenced the choice of both men and women; men preferred nearer coffee shops where they could buy coffee easily and more conveniently than women did. The atmosphere of the coffee shop had the greatest influence on both men and women, and shop atmosphere was thought to be the most important for age analysis. In the past, customers selected coffee shops solely to drink coffee. Now, they select the coffee shop according to its interior, menu variety, and atmosphere owing to improved quality and service of coffee shop brands. Second, the prices of the brands did not vary much because the coffee shops were similarly priced. The service was thought to be more important and to elevate service quality so that price and employee service and other properties did not have a great influence on shop choice. However, those working in the farming, forestry, fishery, and livestock industries were more concerned with the price than the shop atmosphere. College and graduate school students were also affected by inexpensive price. Third, shop choice properties varied depending on income. The shop location and shop atmosphere had a greater influence on shop choice. The customers in an income bracket of less than 2 million won selected low-price coffee shops more than those earning 6 million won or more. Therefore, price advantage had no relation with difference in income. The higher income group was not affected by employee service. Fourth, shop choice properties varied depending on place. For instance, customers at Ulsan were the most affected by the price, and the ones at Busan were the least affected. The shop location had the greatest influence among all of the properties. Among the places surveyed, Gwangju had the least influence. The alternate use of space in a coffee shop was thought to be important in all the cities under consideration. The customers at Ulsan were not affected by employee service, and they selected coffee shops according to quality and preference of shop atmosphere. Lastly, the price factor was found to be a little higher than other factors when customers frequently selected brands according to shop properties. Customers at Gwangju reacted to discounts more than those in other cities did, and the former gave less priority to the quality and taste of coffee. Brand preference varied depending on coffee shop location. Customers at Busan selected brands according to the coffee shop location, and those at Ulsan were not influenced by employee kindness and specialty. The implications of this study are that franchise coffee shop businesses should focus on customers rather than aggressive marketing strategies that increase the number of coffee shops. Thus, they should create an environment with a good atmosphere and set up coffee shops in places that customers have good access to. This study has some limitations. First, the respondents were concentrated in metropolitan areas. Secondary data showed that the number of respondents at Seoul was much more than that at Gyeonggi-do. Furthermore, the number of respondents at Gyeonggi-do was much more than those at the six major cities in the nation. Thus, the regional sample was not representative enough of the population. Second, respondents' ratio was used as a measurement scale to test the perception of shop choice properties and brand preference. The difficulties arose when examining the relation between these properties and brand preference, as well as when understanding the difference between groups. Therefore, future research should seek to address some of the shortcomings of this study: If the coffee shops are being expanded to local areas, then a questionnaire survey of consumers at small cities in local areas shall be conducted to collect primary material. In particular, variables of the questionnaire survey shall be measured using Likert scales in order to include perception on shop choice properties, brand preference, and repurchase. Therefore, correlation analysis, multi-regression, and ANOVA shall be used for empirical analysis and to investigate consumers' attitudes and behavior in detail.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.3-49
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• 2014

Growing interest of stakeholders on corporate responsibilities for environment and tightening environmental regulations are highlighting the importance of environmental management more than ever. However, companies' awareness of the importance of environment is still falling behind, and related academic works have not shown consistent conclusions on the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance. One of the reasons is different ways of measuring these two performances. The evaluation scope of economic performance is relatively narrow and the performance can be measured by a unified unit such as price, while the scope of environmental performance is diverse and a wide range of units are used for measuring environmental performances instead of using a single unified unit. Therefore, the results of works can be different depending on the performance indicators selected. In order to resolve this problem, generalized and standardized performance indicators should be developed. In particular, the performance indicators should be able to cover the concepts of both environmental and economic performances because the recent idea of environmental management has expanded to encompass the concept of sustainability. Another reason is that most of the current researches tend to focus on the motive of environmental investments and environmental performance, and do not offer a guideline for an effective implementation strategy for environmental management. For example, a process improvement strategy or a market discrimination strategy can be deployed through comparing the environment competitiveness among the companies in the same or similar industries, so that a virtuous cyclical relationship between environmental and economic performances can be secured. A novel method for measuring eco-efficiency by utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is able to combine multiple environmental and economic performances, is proposed in this report. Based on the eco-efficiencies, the environmental competitiveness is analyzed and the optimal combination of inputs and outputs are recommended for improving the eco-efficiencies of inefficient firms. Furthermore, the panel analysis is applied to the causal relationship between eco-efficiency and economic performance, and the pooled regression model is used to investigate the relationship between eco-efficiency and economic performance. The four-year eco-efficiencies between 2010 and 2013 of 23 companies are obtained from the DEA analysis; a comparison of efficiencies among 23 companies is carried out in terms of technical efficiency(TE), pure technical efficiency(PTE) and scale efficiency(SE), and then a set of recommendations for optimal combination of inputs and outputs are suggested for the inefficient companies. Furthermore, the experimental results with the panel analysis have demonstrated the causality from eco-efficiency to economic performance. The results of the pooled regression have shown that eco-efficiency positively affect financial perform ances(ROA and ROS) of the companies, as well as firm values(Tobin Q, stock price, and stock returns). This report proposes a novel approach for generating standardized performance indicators obtained from multiple environmental and economic performances, so that it is able to enhance the generality of relevant researches and provide a deep insight into the sustainability of environmental management. Furthermore, using efficiency indicators obtained from the DEA model, the cause of change in eco-efficiency can be investigated and an effective strategy for environmental management can be suggested. Finally, this report can be a motive for environmental management by providing empirical evidence that environmental investments can improve economic performance.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.127-146
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• 2017

Services using artificial intelligence have begun to emerge in daily life. Artificial intelligence is applied to products in consumer electronics and communications such as artificial intelligence refrigerators and speakers. In the financial sector, using Kensho's artificial intelligence technology, the process of the stock trading system in Goldman Sachs was improved. For example, two stock traders could handle the work of 600 stock traders and the analytical work for 15 people for 4weeks could be processed in 5 minutes. Especially, big data analysis through machine learning among artificial intelligence fields is actively applied throughout the financial industry. The stock market analysis and investment modeling through machine learning theory are also actively studied. The limits of linearity problem existing in financial time series studies are overcome by using machine learning theory such as artificial intelligence prediction model. The study of quantitative financial data based on the past stock market-related numerical data is widely performed using artificial intelligence to forecast future movements of stock price or indices. Various other studies have been conducted to predict the future direction of the market or the stock price of companies by learning based on a large amount of text data such as various news and comments related to the stock market. Investing on commodity asset, one of alternative assets, is usually used for enhancing the stability and safety of traditional stock and bond asset portfolio. There are relatively few researches on the investment model about commodity asset than mainstream assets like equity and bond. Recently machine learning techniques are widely applied on financial world, especially on stock and bond investment model and it makes better trading model on this field and makes the change on the whole financial area. In this study we made investment model using Support Vector Machine among the machine learning models. There are some researches on commodity asset focusing on the price prediction of the specific commodity but it is hard to find the researches about investment model of commodity as asset allocation using machine learning model. We propose a method of forecasting four major commodity indices, portfolio made of commodity futures, and individual commodity futures, using SVM model. The four major commodity indices are Goldman Sachs Commodity Index(GSCI), Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index(DJUI), Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index(TRCI), and Rogers International Commodity Index(RI). We selected each two individual futures among three sectors as energy, agriculture, and metals that are actively traded on CME market and have enough liquidity. They are Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Corn, Wheat, Gold and Silver Futures. We made the equally weighted portfolio with six commodity futures for comparing with other commodity indices. We set the 19 macroeconomic indicators including stock market indices, exports & imports trade data, labor market data, and composite leading indicators as the input data of the model because commodity asset is very closely related with the macroeconomic activities. They are 14 US economic indicators, two Chinese economic indicators and two Korean economic indicators. Data period is from January 1990 to May 2017. We set the former 195 monthly data as training data and the latter 125 monthly data as test data. In this study, we verified that the performance of the equally weighted commodity futures portfolio rebalanced by the SVM model is better than that of other commodity indices. The prediction accuracy of the model for the commodity indices does not exceed 50% regardless of the SVM kernel function. On the other hand, the prediction accuracy of equally weighted commodity futures portfolio is 53%. The prediction accuracy of the individual commodity futures model is better than that of commodity indices model especially in agriculture and metal sectors. The individual commodity futures portfolio excluding the energy sector has outperformed the three sectors covered by individual commodity futures portfolio. In order to verify the validity of the model, it is judged that the analysis results should be similar despite variations in data period. So we also examined the odd numbered year data as training data and the even numbered year data as test data and we confirmed that the analysis results are similar. As a result, when we allocate commodity assets to traditional portfolio composed of stock, bond, and cash, we can get more effective investment performance not by investing commodity indices but by investing commodity futures. Especially we can get better performance by rebalanced commodity futures portfolio designed by SVM model.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1972.03a
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• pp.3.4-5
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• 1972

생활수준이 낮은 단계에 있어서는 우선 식량에 대한 수요가 강하다. 인간의 욕구가 만족스럽게 먹는다는 것에 대하여 제일 강하게 발동하는 것이다 그러나 점차 과학기술과 산업과 경제가 발전하여 성장과정에 오르게 되고 소득수준도 향상하게 되면 시장기구를 통해서 구입 할 수 있는 개인의 물적 소비재에 대해서는 점차 충족하게 되며 식량이외에도 의복, 전기기구 및 일용생활용품, 자동차 등에 이르기까지 더욱 고차원의 소비재가 보급하게 되는 것이다. 이렇게 되며는 사람의 욕구는 사적 재물이나 물적 수요에서 점진적으로 공공재나 또는 질적 수요(주택, 생활환경 등)의 방향으로 움직이게 되는 것으로써 여기에 환경오염 또는 공해문제에 대하여 의식하게 된다. 그러나 여기에서 더욱이 문제점이 되는 것은 소득 수준의 향상 과정이란 그 자체가 환경오염의 커다란 요인이라는 점이며 자동차의 급격한 보급과 생활의 편의성을 구하여 집중되는 도시인구의 집적, 높은 소득을 보장하기 위한 생산성 높은 중화학공업의 발전 등등은 그 자체가 환경권이란 사람이 요구하는 고차원의 권리를 침해하는 직접적인 요인이 된다는 것이다. 이와 같은 환경오염이나 공해문제에 대한 세계적인 논의는 이미 시작된 지 오래이지만 현재는 우리의 건강보호를 위해서나 생활환경의 보전을 위해서라는 점에서는 그치는 것이 아니고, 더욱 넓혀서 자연의 보호, 자원의 보호라는 견지로 확대되고 있다. 이와 같은 세계적인 확대된 이해와 이에 대한 대책강구의 제안은 1968년 국제연합의 경제사회이사회에서 스웨덴 정부대표에 의하여 제시되었으며 1969년의 우- 탄트 사무총장의 인간환경에 관한 보고서, 1970년 Nixon 미대통령의 연두일반교서 그리고 1972년 5월 6일 스웨덴의 스톡홀롬에서 개최되는 인간환경회의의 주제 등을 통해서 알 수 있고, 종래의 공해나 생활환경의 오염문제라는 좁은 개념에서가 아니고 인간환경전체의 문제로 다루고 있는 것이다. 즉 환경개발(도시, 산업, 지역개발에 수반된 문제), 환경오염(인위적 행위에 의하여 환경의 대인간조건이 악화하는 문제) 자연ㆍ자원의 보호관리(지하, 해양자원, 동식물, 풍경경치의 문제)란 3개 측면에서 다루고 있는 것이다. 환경오염이란 문제를 중 심하여 보면 환경을 구성하는 기본적인 요소로서 대기, 물, 토지 또는 지각. 그리고 공간의 사대요소로 집약하여 생각할 수 있음으로 이 4요소의 오염이 문제가 되는 것이다. 대기의 오염은 환경의 오염중 가장 널리 알려진, 또 가장 오랜 역사를 가진 오염의 문제로써 이에 속하는 오염인자는 분진, 매연, 유해가스(유황산화물, 불화수소, 염화수소, 질소산화물, 일산 화염소 등) 등 대기의 1차 오염과 1차 존재한 물질이 자외선의 작용으로 변화발생 하는 오존, PAN등 광화학물질이 형성되는 2차적인 오염을 들 수 있다. 기외 카도미움, 연등 유해중금속이나 방사선물질이 대기로부터 토지를 오염시켜서 토지에 서식하는 생물의 오염을 야기케 한다는 점등이 명백하여지고 있으며 대기의 오염은 이런 오염물질이 대기중에서 이동하여 강우에 의한 침강물질의 변화를 일으키게 되며 소위 광역오염문제를 발생케하며 동시에 토지의 토질저하등을 가져오게 한다. 물의 오염은 크게 내육수의 오염과 해양의 오염의 양면으로 나누어 볼 수 있다. 하천의 오염을 방지하고 하천을 보호하기 위한 움직임 역시 환경오염의 역사상 오래된 문제이며 시초에는 인분뇨와의 연결에서 오는 세균에 의한 오염이나 양수 기타 일반하수와의 연결에서 오는 오염에 대비하는 것부터 시작하였지만 근래에는 산업공장폐수에 의한 각종 화학적유해물질과 염료 그리고 석유화학의 발달에 의한 폐유등으로 인한 수질오탁문제가 점차 크게 대두되고 있다. 이것은 측 오염이란 시초에 우리에게 주는 불쾌감이 크므로 이것을 피하자는 것부터 시작하여 인간의 건강을 지키고 각종 사용수를 보존하자는 용수보존으로 그리고 이제는 건강과 용수보존뿐만 아니라 이것이 농림 수산물에 대한 큰 피해를 주게됨으로써 오는 자연환경의 생태계보전의 문제로 확대전환하고 있는 것이다. ？간 특히 해양오염에 대한 문제는 국지적인 것에만 끝이는 것이 아니고 전세계의 해양에 곧 연결되는 것이므로 세계각국의 공통관심사로 등장케 되었으며 이것은 특히 폐유가 유류수송 도중에 해양에 투기되는 유류에 의한 해양의 유막성형에서 오는 기상의 변화와 물피해등이 막심함으로 심각화 되고 있다. 각국이 자국의 해안과 해양을 보호하기 위하여 조치를 서두르고 있는 현시점에서 볼 때에는 이는 국제문제화하고 있으며 세계적인 국제적 협력과 협조의 필요성이 강조되는 좋은 예라 하겠다. 토양의 오염에 있어서는 대기나 수질의 오염이 구국적으로 토양과 관련되고 토양으로 환원되는 것이지만 근래에 많이 보급사용되는 농약과 화학비료의 문제는 토양자체의 오염에만 그치는 것이 아니고 농작물을 식품으로 하여 섭취함으로써 발생되는 인체나 기타생물체의 피해를 고려할 때 더욱 중요한 것이며, 또 토질의 저하를 가져오게 하여 농림생산에 미치는 영향이 적지 않을 것이다. 지반강하는 지각 에 주는 인공적 영향의 대표적인 것으로써 지하수나 지하 천연가스를 채취이용하기 위하여 파들어 감으로써 지반이 침하 하는 것이며 건축물에 대한 영향 특히 풍수해시의 재해를 크게 할 우려가 있는 것이다. 공간에 있어서의 환경오염에는 소음, 진동, 광선, 악취 등이 있다. 이들은 특수한 작업환경의 경우를 제외하고는 건강에 직접적인 큰 피해를 준다고 생각할 수 없으나 소음, 진동, 관선, 악취 등은 일반 일상시민생활에 불쾌나 불안을 줌으로써 안정된 생활을 방해하는 요인이 되는 것이다. 공간의 오염물로써 새로운 주목을 끌게된 것은 도시산업폐기물로써 이들은 대기나 물 또는 토지를 오염시킬 뿐만 아니라 공간을 점령함으로써 도시의 미관이나 기능을 손상케 하는 것이다. 즉 노배폐차의 잔해, 냉장고등고형폐기물등의 재생불가능한 것이나 비니루등 합성물질로 된 용기나 포장 등으로 연소분해 되지 않은 내구소비재가 이에 해당하는 것으로 이는 maker의 양식에 호소하여 그 책임 하에 해결되어야 할 문제로 본다. 이렇듯 환경오염은 각양각색으로 그 오염물질의 주요 발생원인 산업장이나 기타 기관에서의 발생요인을 살펴보며는 다음과 같은 것으로 요약할 수 있다. A. 제도적 요인 1. 관리체재의 미비 2. 관리법규의 미비 3. 책임소재의 불명확 B. 자재적 요인 1. 사용자재의 선택부적 2. 개량대책급 연구의 미흡 C. 기술적 요인 1. 시설의 설계불량, 공정의 결함 2. 시설의 점검, 보전의 불충분 3. 도출물의 취급에 대한 검사부족 4. 발생방지 시설의 미설치, 결함 D. 교육적 요인 1. 오염물질 방제지식의 결여 2. 법규의 오해, 미숙지 E. 경제적 요인 1. 자금부족 2. 융자상의 문제 3. 경제성의 문제 F. 정신적 요인 1. 사회적 도의심의 결여(이기주의) 2. 태만 3. 무지, 무관심 등이다. 따라서 환경오염의 방지란 상기한 문제의 해결에 기대하지 않을 수 없으나 이를 해결하기 위하여는 국내적 국제적 상호협조에 의한 사회각층의 총력적 대책이 시급한 것이다. 이와 같은 환경오염이 단속된다 하며는 미구에 인류의 건강은 물론 그 존립마저 기대하기 어려울 것이며, 현재는 점진적으로 급성피해에 대하여는 그 흥미가 집중되어 그 대비책도 많이 논의되고 있지만 미량의 단속접촉에 의한 만성축적에 관한 문제나 이와 같은 환경오염이 앞으로 태어날 신생률에 대한 영향이나 유전정보에 관한 연구는 장차에 대비하는 문제로써 중요한 것이라 생각된다. 기외에 우려되는 점은 오염방지책을 적극 추진함으로써 올 수 있는 파생적인 문제이다. 즉 오염을 방지하기 위하여 생산기업체가 투자를 하게 되며는 그만큼 생산원가가 상승할 것이며 소비가격도 오를 것이다. 반면 이런 시책에 뒤떨어진 후진국의 값싼 생산국은 자연 수입이 억제 당할 것이며, 이렇게되면 후진국은 무역경쟁에서 큰 상처를 입게될 것이고 뿐만 아니라 선진국에 필요한 오염물질의 발생이 높은 생산기기를 자연후진국에 양도하게 될 것임으로 후진국의 환경오염은 배가할 우려가 있는 것이다. 또 해양오염을 방지할 목적에서와 같이 자국의 해안보호를 위하여 마련된 법의 규제는 타국의 선박운항에 많은 제약을 가하게 될 것이며 이것 역시 시설이 미약한 약소후진국의 선박에 크게 영향을 미치게 될 것임으로 교통, 해운, 무역등을 통한 약소후진국의 경제성장에 제동을 거는 것이 될 것이다. 이렇듯 환경오염의 문제는 환경자체에 대해서만 아니라 부산물적으로 특히 후진국에는 의외 문제를 던져주게 되는 것임으로 환경오염에 대해서는 물론, 전술한 바와 같이 인간환경전체의 문제로써 Nixon 대통령이 말한 결의와 창의와 그리고 자금을 가지고 과감하게 대처해 나가야 할 것이다.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.91-108
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• 2020

Korea's famous soccer players are steadily performing well in international leagues, which led to higher interests of Korean fans in the international leagues. Reflecting the growing social phenomenon of rising interests on international leagues by Korean fans, the study examined the overall consumer perception in the consumption of uniform by domestic soccer fans and compared the changes in perception following the transfers of the players. Among others, the paper examined the consumer perception and purchase factors of soccer fans shown in social media, focusing on periods before and after the recruitment of Heung-Min Son to English Premier League's Tottenham Football Club. To this end, the EPL uniform is the collection keyword the paper utilized and collected consumer postings from domestic website and social media via Python 3.7, and analyzed them using Ucinet 6, NodeXL 1.0.1, and SPSS 25.0 programs. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the uniform of the club that consistently topped the league, has been gaining attention as a popular uniform, and the players' performance, and the players' position have been identified as key factors in the purchase and search of professional football uniforms. In the case of the club, the actual ranking and whether the league won are shown to be important factors in the purchase and search of professional soccer uniforms. The club's emblem and the sponsor logo that will be attached to the uniform are also factors of interest to consumers. In addition, in the decision making process of purchase of a uniform by professional soccer fan, uniform's form, marking, authenticity, and sponsors are found to be more important than price, design, size, and logo. The official online store has emerged as a major purchasing channel, followed by gifts for friends or requests from acquaintances when someone travels to the United Kingdom. Second, a classification of key control categories through the convergence of iteration correlation analysis and Clauset-Newman-Moore clustering algorithm shows differences in the classification of individual groups, but groups that include the EPL's club and player keywords are identified as the key topics in relation to professional football uniforms. Third, between 2002 and 2006, the central theme for professional football uniforms was World Cup and English Premier League, but from 2012 to 2015, the focus has shifted to more interest of domestic and international players in the English Premier League. The subject has changed to the uniform itself from this time on. In this context, the paper can confirm that the major issues regarding the uniforms of professional soccer players have changed since Ji-Sung Park's transfer to Manchester United, and Sung-Yong Ki, Chung-Yong Lee, and Heung-Min Son's good performances in these leagues. The paper also identified that the uniforms of the clubs to which the players have transferred to are of interest. Fourth, both male and female consumers are showing increasing interest in Son's league, the English Premier League, which Tottenham FC belongs to. In particular, the increasing interest in Son has shown a tendency to increase interest in football uniforms for female consumers. This study presents a variety of researches on sports consumption and has value as a consumer study by identifying unique consumption patterns. It is meaningful in that the accuracy of the interpretation has been enhanced by using a cluster analysis via convergence of iteration correlation analysis and Clauset-Newman-Moore clustering algorithm to identify the main topics. Based on the results of this study, the clubs will be able to maximize its profits and maintain good relationships with fans by identifying key drivers of consumer awareness and purchasing for professional soccer fans and establishing an effective marketing strategy.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.1-33
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• 2019

The small and medium sized enterprises (hereinafter SMEs) are already at a competitive disadvantaged when compared to large companies with more abundant resources. Manufacturing SMEs not only need a lot of information needed for new product development for sustainable growth and survival, but also seek networking to overcome the limitations of resources, but they are faced with limitations due to their size limitations. In a new era in which connectivity increases the complexity and uncertainty of the business environment, SMEs are increasingly urged to find information and solve networking problems. In order to solve these problems, the government funded research institutes plays an important role and duty to solve the information asymmetry problem of SMEs. The purpose of this study is to identify the differentiating characteristics of SMEs that utilize the public information support infrastructure provided by SMEs to enhance the innovation capacity of SMEs, and how they contribute to corporate performance. We argue that we need an infrastructure for providing information support to SMEs as part of this effort to strengthen of the role of government funded institutions; in this study, we specifically identify the target of such a policy and furthermore empirically demonstrate the effects of such policy-based efforts. Our goal is to help establish the strategies for building the information supporting infrastructure. To achieve this purpose, we first classified the characteristics of SMEs that have been found to utilize the information supporting infrastructure provided by government funded institutions. This allows us to verify whether selection bias appears in the analyzed group, which helps us clarify the interpretative limits of our study results. Next, we performed mediator and moderator effect analysis for multiple variables to analyze the process through which the use of information supporting infrastructure led to an improvement in external networking capabilities and resulted in enhancing product competitiveness. This analysis helps identify the key factors we should focus on when offering indirect support to SMEs through the information supporting infrastructure, which in turn helps us more efficiently manage research related to SME supporting policies implemented by government funded institutions. The results of this study showed the following. First, SMEs that used the information supporting infrastructure were found to have a significant difference in size in comparison to domestic R&D SMEs, but on the other hand, there was no significant difference in the cluster analysis that considered various variables. Based on these findings, we confirmed that SMEs that use the information supporting infrastructure are superior in size, and had a relatively higher distribution of companies that transact to a greater degree with large companies, when compared to the SMEs composing the general group of SMEs. Also, we found that companies that already receive support from the information infrastructure have a high concentration of companies that need collaboration with government funded institution. Secondly, among the SMEs that use the information supporting infrastructure, we found that increasing external networking capabilities contributed to enhancing product competitiveness, and while this was no the effect of direct assistance, we also found that indirect contributions were made by increasing the open marketing capabilities: in other words, this was the result of an indirect-only mediator effect. Also, the number of times the company received additional support in this process through mentoring related to information utilization was found to have a mediated moderator effect on improving external networking capabilities and in turn strengthening product competitiveness. The results of this study provide several insights that will help establish policies. KISTI's information support infrastructure may lead to the conclusion that marketing is already well underway, but it intentionally supports groups that enable to achieve good performance. As a result, the government should provide clear priorities whether to support the companies in the underdevelopment or to aid better performance. Through our research, we have identified how public information infrastructure contributes to product competitiveness. Here, we can draw some policy implications. First, the public information support infrastructure should have the capability to enhance the ability to interact with or to find the expert that provides required information. Second, if the utilization of public information support (online) infrastructure is effective, it is not necessary to continuously provide informational mentoring, which is a parallel offline support. Rather, offline support such as mentoring should be used as an appropriate device for abnormal symptom monitoring. Third, it is required that SMEs should improve their ability to utilize, because the effect of enhancing networking capacity through public information support infrastructure and enhancing product competitiveness through such infrastructure appears in most types of companies rather than in specific SMEs.