Pollinators are organisms that carry out the pollination process of plants and include Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Coleoptera. Among them, bees not only pollinate plants but also improve urban green spaces damaged by land use changes, providing a habitat and food for birds and insects. Today, however, the number of pollinating plants is decreasing due to issues such as early flowering due to climate change, fragmentation of green spaces due to urbanization, and pesticide use, which in turn leads to a decline in bee populations. The decline of bee populations directly translates into problems, such as reduced biodiversity in cities and decreased food production. Urban beekeeping has been proposed as a strategy to address the decline of bee populations. However, there is a problem asurban beekeeping strategies are proposed without considering the complex structure of the socio-ecological system consisting of bees foraging and pollination activities and are therefore unsustainable. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the socio-ecological system of honeybees, which are pollinators, structurally using system thinking and propose a green space planning strategy to revitalize urban beekeeping. For this study, previous studies that centered on the social and ecological system of bees in cities were collected and reviewed to establish the system area and derive the main variables for creating a causal loop diagram. Second, the ecological structure of bees' foraging and pollination activities and the structure of bees' ecological system in the city were analyzed, as was the social-ecological system structure of urban beekeeping by creating an individual causal loop diagram. Finally, the socio-ecological system structure of honey bees was analyzed from a holistic perspective through the creation of an integrated causal loop diagram. Citizen participation programs, local government investment, and the creation of urban parks and green spaces in idle spaces were suggestedas green space planning strategies to revitalize urban beekeeping. The results of this study differ from previous studies in that the ecological structure of bees and the social structure of urban beekeeping were analyzed from a holistic perspective using systems thinking to propose strategies, policy recommendations, and implications for introducing sustainable urban beekeeping.
Macromia daimoji Okumura, 1949 was designated as an endangered species and also categorized as Class II Endangered wildlife on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List in Korea. The spatial distribution of this species ranged within a region delimited by northern latitude from Sacheon-si(35.1°) to Yeoncheon-gun(38.0°) and eastern longitude from Yeoncheon-gun(126.8°) to Yangsan-si(128.9°). They generally prefer microhabitats such as slowly flowing littoral zones of streams, alluvial stream islands and temporarily formed puddles in the sand-based lowland streams. The objectives of this study were to analyze the similarity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in M. daimoji habitats, to predict the current potential distribution patterns as well as the changes of distribution ranges under global climate change circumstances. Data was collected both from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and by field surveys from April 2009 to September 2022. We adopted MaxEnt model to predict the current and future potential distribution for M. daimoji using downloaded 19 variables from the WorldClim database. The differences of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the mainstream of Nakdonggang were smaller than those in its tributaries and the other streams, based on the surrounding environments and stream sizes. MaxEnt model presented that potential distribution displayed high inhabiting probability in Nakdonggang and its tributaries. Applying to the future scenarios by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), SSP1 scenario was predicted to expand in a wide area and SSP5 scenario in a narrow area, comparing with current potential distribution. M. daimoji is not only directly threatened by physical disturbances (e.g. river development activities) but also vulnerable to rapidly changing climate circumstances. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the habitat environments and establish conservation strategies for preserving population of M. daimoji.
The carbon balance serves as a valuable indicator of a plant's physiological status under diverse environmental conditions. We investigated the photosynthetic and respiratory responses of the Asian surfgrass Phyllospadix iwatensis along the northeast coast of the Korean peninsula in response to changing water temperature (ranging from 5℃ to 30℃) to estimate the seasonal whole-plant carbon balance through a series of incubation experiments. The maximum gross photosynthetic rate (Pmax) showed a significant difference among the temperature treatments, while there was no significant difference in photosynthetic efficiency (α). The maximum gross photosynthetic rate of P. iwatensis reached its peaks at 20℃ treatment (101.65 μmol O2 g-1 DW h-1) but decreased rapidly at 30℃. The saturation irradiance (Ik), compensation irradiance (Ic), and respiration rate (R) of P. iwatensis exhibited significant differences among the temperature treatments. The saturation irradiance increased up to 20-25℃ (121.59-124.50 μmol photons m-2 s-1) and sharply decreased at 30℃. The compensation irradiance and respiration rate increased steadily with rising water temperature. The ratio of Pmax to R (Pmax:R ratio) was the highest at 5℃ but dramatically decreased at 30℃. The whole-plant carbon balance, calculated based on photosynthetic parameters, respiration rates, and biomass, exhibited distinct seasonal variation, increasing during winter and spring and decreasing during summer and fall, which is consistent with the highest in situ growth in spring and severely limited growth at the highest water temperature conditions. Phyllospadix iwatensis displayed a negative carbon balance during late summer, fall, and winter, but demonstrated a positive carbon balance during spring and early summer. Our findings suggest that the rising seawater temperatures associated with climate change may lead to significant alterations in the seagrass ecosystem functioning along the rocky shores of the Korean east coast.
This study investigates the impact of international oil price fluctuations on overseas construction orders secured by domestic and foreign companies. The analysis employs statistical data spanning the past 20 years, encompassing international oil prices, overseas construction orders from domestic firms, and new overseas construction orders from the top 250 global construction companies. The correlation between these variables is assessed using correlation coefficients(R), determination coefficients(R2), and p-values. The results indicate a strong positive correlation between international oil prices and overseas construction orders. The correlation coefficient between domestic overseas construction orders and oil prices is found to be 0.8 or higher, signifying a significant influence. Similarly, a high correlation coefficient of 0.76 is observed between oil prices and new orders from leading global construction companies. Further analysis reveals a particularly strong correlation between oil prices and overseas construction orders in Asia and the Middle East, potentially due to the prevalence of oil-related projects in these regions. Additionally, a high correlation is observed between oil prices and orders for industrial facilities compared to architectural projects. This suggests an increase in plant construction volumes driven by fluctuations in oil prices. Based on these findings, the study proposes an entry strategy for navigating oil price volatility and maintaining competitiveness in the overseas construction market. Key recommendations include diversifying project locations and supplier bases; utilizing hedging techniques for exchange rate risk management, adapting to local infrastructure and market conditions, establishing local partnerships and securing skilled local labor, implementing technological innovations and digitization at construction sites to enhance productivity and cost reduction The insights gained from this study, coupled with the proposed overseas expansion strategies, offer valuable guidance for mitigating risks in the global construction market and fostering resilience in response to international oil price fluctuations. This approach is expected to strengthen the competitiveness of domestic and foreign construction firms seeking success in the international arena.
In MIS field, the researches on payment services are focused on adoption factors of payment service using behavior theories such as TRA(Theory of Reasoned Action), TAM(Technology Acceptance Model), and TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior). The previous researches presented various adoption factors according to types of payment service, nations, culture and so on even though adoption factors of identical payment service were presented differently by researchers. The payment service industry relatively has strong path dependency to the existing payment methods so that the research results on the identical payment service are different due to payment culture of nation. This paper aims to suggest a successful adoption factor of noble payment service regardless of nation's culture and characteristics of payment and prove it. In previous researches, common adoption factors of payment service are convenience, ease of use, security, convenience, speed etc. But real cases prove the fact that adoption factors that the previous researches present are not always critical to success to penetrate a market. For example, PayByPhone, NFC based parking payment service, successfully has penetrated to early market and grown. In contrast, Google Wallet service failed to be adopted to users despite NFC based payment method which provides convenience, security, ease of use. As shown in upper case, there remains an unexplained aspect. Therefore, the present research question emerged from the question: "What is the more essential and fundamental factor that should takes precedence over factors such as provides convenience, security, ease of use for successful penetration to market". With these cases, this paper analyzes four cases predicted on the following hypothesis and demonstrates it. "To successfully penetrate a market and sustainably grow, new payment service should find non-customer of the existing payment service and provide noble payment method so that they can use payment method". We give plausible explanations for the hypothesis using multiple case studies. Diners club, Danal, PayPal, Square were selected as a typical and successful cases in each category of payment service. The discussion on cases is primarily non-customer analysis that noble payment service targets on to find the most crucial factor in the early market, we does not attempt to consider factors for business growth. We clarified three-tier non-customer of the payment method that new payment service targets on and elaborated how new payment service satisfy them. In case of credit card, this payment service target first tier of non-customer who can't pay for because they don't have any cash temporarily but they have regular income. So credit card provides an opportunity which they can do economic activities by delaying the date of payment. In a result of wireless phone payment's case study, this service targets on second of non-customer who can't use online payment because they concern about security or have to take a complex process and learn how to use online payment method. Therefore, wireless phone payment provides very convenient payment method. Especially, it made group of young pay for a little money without a credit card. Case study result of PayPal, online payment service, shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who reject to use online payment service because of concern about sensitive information leaks such as passwords and credit card details. Accordingly, PayPal service allows users to pay online without a provision of sensitive information. Final Square case result, Mobile POS -based payment service, also shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who can't individually transact offline because of cash's shortness. Hence, Square provides dongle which function as POS by putting dongle in earphone terminal. As a result, four cases made non-customer their customer so that they could penetrate early market and had been extended their market share. Consequently, all cases supported the hypothesis and it is highly probable according to 'analytic generation' that case study methodology suggests. We present for judging the quality of research designs the following. Construct validity, internal validity, external validity, reliability are common to all social science methods, these have been summarized in numerous textbooks(Yin, 2014). In case study methodology, these also have served as a framework for assessing a large group of case studies (Gibbert, Ruigrok & Wicki, 2008). Construct validity is to identify correct operational measures for the concepts being studied. To satisfy construct validity, we use multiple sources of evidence such as the academic journals, magazine and articles etc. Internal validity is to seek to establish a causal relationship, whereby certain conditions are believed to lead to other conditions, as distinguished from spurious relationships. To satisfy internal validity, we do explanation building through four cases analysis. External validity is to define the domain to which a study's findings can be generalized. To satisfy this, replication logic in multiple case studies is used. Reliability is to demonstrate that the operations of a study -such as the data collection procedures- can be repeated, with the same results. To satisfy this, we use case study protocol. In Korea, the competition among stakeholders over mobile payment industry is intensifying. Not only main three Telecom Companies but also Smartphone companies and service provider like KakaoTalk announced that they would enter into mobile payment industry. Mobile payment industry is getting competitive. But it doesn't still have momentum effect notwithstanding positive presumptions that will grow very fast. Mobile payment services are categorized into various technology based payment service such as IC mobile card and Application payment service of cloud based, NFC, sound wave, BLE(Bluetooth Low Energy), Biometric recognition technology etc. Especially, mobile payment service is discontinuous innovations that users should change their behavior and noble infrastructure should be installed. These require users to learn how to use it and cause infra-installation cost to shopkeepers. Additionally, payment industry has the strong path dependency. In spite of these obstacles, mobile payment service which should provide dramatically improved value as a products and service of discontinuous innovations is focusing on convenience and security, convenience and so on. We suggest the following to success mobile payment service. First, non-customers of the existing payment service need to be identified. Second, needs of them should be taken. Then, noble payment service provides non-customer who can't pay by the previous payment method to payment method. In conclusion, mobile payment service can create new market and will result in extension of payment market.
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.
This study was conducted to investigate the effects of pergola's shading on the thermal comfort index in the summer. The 3 type of pergolas(
The popularity of communities on the internet has captured the attention of marketing scholars and practitioners. By adapting to the culture of the internet, however, and providing consumer with the ability to interact with one another in addition to the company, businesses can build new and deeper relationships with customers. The economic potential of online communities has been discussed with much hope in the many popular papers. In contrast to this enthusiastic prognostications, empirical and practical evidence regarding the economic potential of the online community has shown a little different conclusion. To date, even communities with high levels of membership and vibrant social arenas have failed to build financial viability. In this perspective, this study investigates the role of various kinds of influencing factors to online community loyalty and basically suggests the framework that explains the process of building purchase loyalty. Even though the importance of building loyalty in an online environment has been emphasized from the marketing theorists and practitioners, there is no sufficient research conclusion about what is the process of building purchase loyalty and the most powerful factors that influence to it. In this study, the process of building purchase loyalty is divided into three levels; characteristics of community site such as content superiority, site vividness, navigation easiness, and customerization, the mediating variables such as self congruency, consumer experience, and consumer to consumer interactivity, and finally various factors about online community loyalty such as visit loyalty, affect, trust, and purchase loyalty are those things. And the findings of this research are as follows. First, consumer-to-consumer interactivity is an important factor to online community purchase loyalty and other loyalty factors. This means, in order to interact with other people more actively, many participants in online community have the willingness to buy some kinds of products such as music, content, avatar, and etc. From this perspective, marketers of online community have to create some online environments in order that consumers can easily interact with other consumers and make some site environments in order that consumer can feel experience in this site is interesting and self congruency is higher than at other community sites. It has been argued that giving consumers a good experience is vital in cyber space, and websites create an active (rather than passive) customer by their nature. Some researchers have tried to pin down the positive experience, with limited success and less empirical support. Web sites can provide a cognitively stimulating experience for the user. We define the online community experience as playfulness based on the past studies. Playfulness is created by the excitement generated through a website's content and measured using three descriptors Marketers can promote using and visiting online communities, which deliver a superior web experience, to influence their customers' attitudes and actions, encouraging high involvement with those communities. Specially, we suggest that transcendent customer experiences(TCEs) which have aspects of flow and/or peak experience, can generate lasting shifts in beliefs and attitudes including subjective self-transformation and facilitate strong consumer's ties to a online community. And we find that website success is closely related to positive website experiences: consumers will spend more time on the site, interacting with other users. As we can see figure 2, visit loyalty and consumer affect toward the online community site didn't directly influence to purchase loyalty. This implies that there may be a little different situations here in online community site compared to online shopping mall studies that shows close relations between revisit intention and purchase intention. There are so many alternative sites on web, consumers do not want to spend money to buy content and etc. In this sense, marketers of community websites must know consumers' affect toward online community site is not a last goal and important factor to influnece consumers' purchase. Third, building good content environment can be a really important marketing tool to create a competitive advantage in cyberspace. For example, Cyworld, Korea's number one community site shows distinctive superiority in the consumer evaluations of content characteristics such as content superiority, site vividness, and customerization. Particularly, comsumer evaluation about customerization was remarkably higher than the other sites. In this point, we can conclude that providing comsumers with good, unique and highly customized content will be urgent and important task directly and indirectly impacting to self congruency, consumer experience, c-to-c interactivity, and various loyalty factors of online community. By creating enjoyable, useful, and unique online community environments, online community portals such as Daum, Naver, and Cyworld are able to build customer loyalty to a degree that many of today's online marketer can only dream of these loyalty, in turn, generates strong economic returns. Another way to build good online community site is to provide consumers with an interactive, fun, experience-oriented or experiential Web site. Elements that can make a dot.com's Web site experiential include graphics, 3-D images, animation, video and audio capabilities. In addition, chat rooms and real-time customer service applications (which link site visitors directly to other visitors, or with company support personnel, respectively) are also being used to make web sites more interactive. Researchers note that online communities are increasingly incorporating such applications in their Web sites, in order to make consumers' online shopping experience more similar to that of an offline store. That is, if consumers are able to experience sensory stimulation (e.g. via 3-D images and audio sound), interact with other consumers (e.g., via chat rooms), and interact with sales or support people (e.g. via a real-time chat interface or e-mail), then they are likely to have a more positive dot.com experience, and develop a more positive image toward the online company itself). Analysts caution, however, that, while high quality graphics, animation and the like may create a fun experience for consumers, when heavily used, they can slow site navigation, resulting in frustrated consumers, who may never return to a site. Consequently, some analysts suggest that, at least with current technology, the rule-of-thumb is that less is more. That is, while graphics etc. can draw consumers to a site, they should be kept to a minimum, so as not to impact negatively on consumers' overall site experience.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPSt) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEAt), the current leverage ratio(LEVt), the current operating return on assets(ROAt), the current business risk(RISKt), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURNt), and the current dividend premium(DPREMt). In these control variables, CEAt, LEVt, and ROAt are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROAt and RISKt are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURNt is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREMt is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.
Introduction As consumers' purchase behavior change into a rational and practical direction, the discount store industry came to have keen competition along with rapid external growth. Therefore as a solution, distribution businesses are concentrating on developing PB(Private Brand) which can realize differentiation and profitability at the same time. And as improvement in customer loyalty beyond customer satisfaction is effective in surviving in an environment with keen competition, PB is being used as a strategic tool to improve customer loyalty. To improve loyalty among PB users, it is necessary to develop PB by examining properties of a customer group, first of all, quality level perceived by consumers should be met to obtain customer satisfaction and customer trust and consequently induce customer loyalty. To provide results of systematic analysis on relations between antecedents influenced perceived quality and variables affecting customer loyalty, this study proposed a research model based on causal relations verified in prior researches and set 16 hypotheses about relations among 9 theoretical variables. Data was collected from 400 adult customers residing in Seoul and the Metropolitan area and using large scale discount stores, among them, 375 copies were analyzed using SPSS 15.0 and Amos 7.0. The findings of the present study followed as; We ascertained that the higher company reputation, brand reputation, product experience and brand familiarity, the higher perceived quality. The study also examined the higher perceived quality, the higher customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. The findings showed that the higher customer satisfaction and customer trust, the higher customer loyalty. As for moderating effects between PB and NB in terms of influences of perceived quality factors on perceived quality, we can ascertain that PB was higher than NB in the influences of company reputation on perceived quality while NB was higher than PB in the influences of brand reputation and brand familiarity on perceived quality. These results of empirical analysis will be useful for those concerned to do marketing activities based on a clearer understanding of antecedents and consecutive factors influenced perceived quality. At last, discussions about academical and managerial implications in these results, we suggested the limitations of this study and the future research directions. Research Model and Hypotheses Test After analyzing if antecedent variables having influence on perceived quality shows any difference between PB and NB in terms of their influences on them, the relation between variables that have influence on customer loyalty was determined as Figure 1. We established 16 hypotheses to test and hypotheses are as follows; H1-1: Perceived price has a positive effect on perceived quality. H1-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of perceived price on perceived quality. H2-1: Company reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H2-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of company reputation on perceived quality. H3-1: Brand reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H3-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand reputation on perceived quality. H4-1: Product experience has a positive effect on perceived quality. H4-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of product experience on perceived quality. H5-1: Brand familiarity has a positive effect on perceived quality. H5-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand familiarity on perceived quality. H6: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. H7: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer trust. H8: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H9: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer trust. H10: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H11: Customer trust has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Results from analyzing main effects of research model is shown as