• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.37-45
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• 2012

The popularity of courier services in Korea has made it an essential part of the country's domestic logistics industry, bolstering the growth not only of the national economy, but also the quality of people's daily lives. An effective strategy for courier companies in Korea would be to provide high-quality services to their existing target markets with the goal of maximizing customer loyalty. This study investigates structural relationships between customer loyalty and service quality as a set of factors and between customer trust and customer satisfaction. These antecedent relationships will be used to understand the "performance formation model" through service quality. In this study, service quality, as a set of factors, is considered to be the independent variable, while customer satisfaction and customer trust are both treated as intervening variables. Finally, customer loyalty is the dependent variable. Following a review of the literature, this paper's proffered hypothesis will be investigated in terms of whether the independent and intervening variables significantly affect customer loyalty. A statistical analysis of the empirical research was carried out using both SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0 The results of this study's empirical analysis show three conclusions. First, among the intervening variables (customer satisfaction and customer trust), customer satisfaction is significantly correlated with customer loyalty. Customer trust, however, was shown to have little or no relationship to customer loyalty. Second, the quality of service variable seems to influence customer satisfaction, customer trust, and customer loyalty. Third, with respect to the relationship of intervening variables, customer trust affects customer satisfaction. Thus, the companies that have a competitive advantage in Korea have successfully maximized customer loyalty for their existing customers. Courier companies will need to research and study customer needs. Therefore, this research suggests that effective courier service management can be better understood through the application of the service quality performance formation model, which can enhance the quality of service provided by domestic courier services. This research is limited to investigating qualitative variables, such as the service quality factors, customer satisfaction, and customer trust. It would be helpful for future research on courier services to consider quantitative variables, such as price and weight.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.29-45
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• 2015

Systematic theory, concepts, and methodology for the biological evolution have been developed while patterns and principles of the evolution have been actively studied in the past 200 years. Furthermore, they are applied to various fields such as evolutionary economics, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary linguistics, making significant progress in research. In addition, existing studies have applied main biological evolutionary models to artifacts although such methods do not fit to them. These models are also limited to generalize evolutionary patterns of artifacts because they are designed in terms of a subjective point of view of experts who know well about the artifacts. Unlike biological organisms, because artifacts are likely to reflect the imagination of the human will, it is known that the theory of biological evolution cannot be directly applied to artifacts. In this paper, beyond the individual's subjective, the aim of our research is to present evolutionary patterns of a given artifact based on peeping the idea of the public. For this, we propose a text mining approach that presents a systematic framework that can find out the evolutionary patterns of a given artifact and then visualize effectively. In particular, based on our proposal, we focus mainly on a case study of mobile phone that has emerged as an icon of innovation in recent years. We collect and analyze review posts on mobile phone available in the domestic market over the past decade, and discuss the detailed results about evolutionary patterns of the mobile phone. Moreover, this kind of task is a tedious work over a long period of time because a small number of experts carry out an extensive literature survey and summarize a huge number of materials to finally draw a diagram of evolutionary patterns of the mobile phone. However, in this work, to minimize the human efforts, we present a semi-automatic mining algorithm, and through this research we can understand how human creativity and imagination are implemented. In addition, it is a big help to predict the future trend of mobile phone in business and industries.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.47-75
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• 2009

Recently, researches on Management Information Systems (MIS) have laid out theoretical foundation and academic paradigms by introducing diverse theories, themes, and methodologies. Especially, academic paradigms of MIS encourage a user-friendly approach by developing the technologies from the users' perspectives, which reflects the existence of strong causal relationships between information systems and user's behavior. As in other areas in social science the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) has rapidly increased in recent years especially in the MIS area. The SEM technique is important because it provides powerful ways to address key IS research problems. It also has a unique ability to simultaneously examine a series of casual relationships while analyzing multiple independent and dependent variables all at the same time. In spite of providing many benefits to the MIS researchers, there are some potential pitfalls with the analytical technique. The research objective of this study is to provide some guidelines for an appropriate use of SEM based on the assessment of current practice of using SEM in the MIS research. This study focuses on several statistical issues related to the use of SEM in the MIS research. Selected articles are assessed in three parts through the meta analysis. The first part is related to the initial specification of theoretical model of interest. The second is about data screening prior to model estimation and testing. And the last part concerns estimation and testing of theoretical models based on empirical data. This study reviewed the use of SEM in 164 empirical research articles published in four major MIS journals in Korea (APJIS, ISR, JIS and JITAM) from 1991 to 2007. APJIS, ISR, JIS and JITAM accounted for 73, 17, 58, and 16 of the total number of applications, respectively. The number of published applications has been increased over time. LISREL was the most frequently used SEM software among MIS researchers (97 studies (59.15%)), followed by AMOS (45 studies (27.44%)). In the first part, regarding issues related to the initial specification of theoretical model of interest, all of the studies have used cross-sectional data. The studies that use cross-sectional data may be able to better explain their structural model as a set of relationships. Most of SEM studies, meanwhile, have employed. confirmatory-type analysis (146 articles (89%)). For the model specification issue about model formulation, 159 (96.9%) of the studies were the full structural equation model. For only 5 researches, SEM was used for the measurement model with a set of observed variables. The average sample size for all models was 365.41, with some models retaining a sample as small as 50 and as large as 500. The second part of the issue is related to data screening prior to model estimation and testing. Data screening is important for researchers particularly in defining how they deal with missing values. Overall, discussion of data screening was reported in 118 (71.95%) of the studies while there was no study discussing evidence of multivariate normality for the models. On the third part, issues related to the estimation and testing of theoretical models on empirical data, assessing model fit is one of most important issues because it provides adequate statistical power for research models. There were multiple fit indices used in the SEM applications. The test was reported in the most of studies (146 (89%)), whereas normed-test was reported less frequently (65 studies (39.64%)). It is important that normed- of 3 or lower is required for adequate model fit. The most popular model fit indices were GFI (109 (66.46%)), AGFI (84 (51.22%)), NFI (44 (47.56%)), RMR (42 (25.61%)), CFI (59 (35.98%)), RMSEA (62 (37.80)), and NNFI (48 (29.27%)). Regarding the test of construct validity, convergent validity has been examined in 109 studies (66.46%) and discriminant validity in 98 (59.76%). 81 studies (49.39%) have reported the average variance extracted (AVE). However, there was little discussion of direct (47 (28.66%)), indirect, and total effect in the SEM models. Based on these findings, we suggest general guidelines for the use of SEM and propose some recommendations on concerning issues of latent variables models, raw data, sample size, data screening, reporting parameter estimated, model fit statistics, multivariate normality, confirmatory factor analysis, reliabilities and the decomposition of effects.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.558-565
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to work related musculoskeletal disorders are a major. Occupational disease of the dental care profession is no exception. The survey was self-reported questionars of 300 dental hygienists that 268 dental hygienists reply to self-reported survey. This study results are as follows: Subjects of research analyzing the degree of physical musculoskeletal disorders pain, shoulder 90.3%, neck 89.2%, leg 83.6%, 81.7% back, hand/wrist/fingers 75.7%, arm/elbow, according to 52.8%. Therefore the work province of the research object people the musculoskeletal disorders appeared different. Generally characteristic was taller dental hygienists lower back pain and were out of less weight, study subjects had neck and arm pain. 29~33 year-old age the shoulder, over the age of 34 the arm/elbow to be high (p<0.05). Working environment to become a career, the more hand/wrist/fingers and the pain increased (p<0.05). The neck, shoulders (p<0.05), arm (p<0.01), waist high in the 3~4 years experience. And leg/foot was in the 1~2 years experience. This increase in working hours had increased pain in the neck but the hand/wrist/finger pain in the small hours of experience in the high pain(p<0.01). Conclusion of the musculoskeletal disorders of the dental hygienists often than the average for this risk is recognized. When it occurs early in treatment can be simple, but time is left to revert to normal when you do not already. Therefore, maintaining proper posture and dental hygienists, pain or fatigue appeared to accumulate immediately treated continued efforts are needed.

• Review of Culture and Economy
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.141-173
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• 2018

In this article, we explore how artistic fame is formed by analyzing antecedents of fame the extent to which the name of an actor or his/her work is positively known by his/her audiences among Korean handicraft artists. Drawing on prior literature on reputation and fame, we clarify the differences between the concept of reputation and the concept of fame and further distinguish three types of reputation among individual artists, depending on its sources expert reputation, market reputation, and peer reputation. We employ the mixed method in this study, in which we first conducted open-end interviews with three kinds of constituents (i.e., critics, market intermediaries, and artists) and then developed and tested the hypotheses derived from the insights we had obtained from the interviews. We further considered the impact of reputational work, defined as the level of effort devoted and activities performed by an artist him(her)self geared toward promoting his(her) work, on artistic fame. We find that there are large differences in factors associated with artistic fame between non elite and elite Korean handicraft artist groups, where elite status is captured by artists' educational background (i.e., Seoul National University and Hongik University, which are considered elite schools in accordance with prior research). Specifically, findings suggest that among non elite status artists, recognition by experts, or what we call expert reputation, acquired through national awards and invitations from prominent exhibitions as well as artists' own reputational work that incurs high cost, such as self-financed exhibition openings, were shown to be highly significant factors associated with artistic fame, which was measured as the number of media exposures related to her/his art work. By contrast, among elite status artists, peer reputation acquired through an artist's institutional affiliations and relatively low cost artists' own reputational work, such as self listing on a highly publicized magazine, were shown to be significant factors associated with fame. Taken together, this paper contributes to research on cultural industries and markets by highlighting the importance of understanding artistic fame not just as the outcome of her/his talent but as the social product that arises at the intersection of actors (artists) and her/his audiences in the social evaluation process.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.68-76
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• 2021

Foodborne outbreaks frequently occur worldwide and result in huge economic losses. It is the therefore important to estimate the costs associated with foodborne diseases to minimize the economic damage. At the same time, it is difficult to accurately estimate the economic loss from foodborne disease due to a wide variety of cost components. In Korea, there are a limited number of analytical studies attempting to estimate such costs. In this study we investigated the components of economic cost used in foreign countries to better estimate the cost of foodborne disease in Korea. Seven recent studies investigated the cost components used to estimate the cost of foodborne disease in humans. This study categorized the economic loss into four types of cost: direct costs, indirect costs, food business costs, and government administration costs. The healthcare costs most often included were medical (outpatient) and hospital costs (inpatient). However, these cost components should be selected according to the systems and budgets of medical services by country. For non-healthcare costs, several other studies considered transportation costs to the hospital as an exception to the cost of inpatient care. So, further discussion is needed on whether to consider inpatient care costs. Among the indirect costs, premature mortality, lost productivity, lost leisure time, and lost quality of life/pain, grief and suffering costs were considered, but the opportunity costs for hospital visits were not considered in any of the above studies. As with healthcare costs, government administration costs should also be considered appropriate cost components due to the difference in government budget systems, for example. Our findings will provide fundamental information for economic analysis associated with foodborne diseases to improve food safety policy in Korea.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.109-144
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• 2014

In 2010, large areas of European airspace were closed by the volcanic ash generated by the eruption of Icelandic volcano and it disrupted global trade, business and travel which caused a huge economic damage on the air transport industry. This brought concerned about the economic impact by the eruption of Mt. Baekdu volcano. In this paper, we analyze the affected areas of the air transport industry were decided by calculating the PM10 density of volcanic ash changed over time and by determining the safe upper limit of ash density in their airspace. We separate the sales in the air transport industry according to each airline, airport, and month to estimate the direct losses when all flights inside a restricted zone were canceled. Also, we estimate the indirect losses in regional output, income, and value-added of the different major industries using interindustry (input-output) analysis. There is no direct damage from VEI 1 to VEI 5. But when VEI is 6, all flights to and from Yangyang airport will be canceled due to the No Fly Zone. And some flights to and from the airports Gimhae, Ulsan and Pohang will be restricted due to the Time Limited Zone. When VEI is 7, Yangyang, Gimhae, Ulsan, Pohang and Daegu airports will be closed and all flights will be canceled and delayed. During this time, the total economic losses on the air transport industry are estimated at 8.1 billion won(direct losses of about 3.55 billion won, indirect losses of about 4.57 billion won). Gimhae international airport accounted for 92% of the total loss and is the most affected area according to the volcanic ash scenario of Mt. Baekdu.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.23-40
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• 2023

This study examines the customer value factors affecting the intention to continue using the mobile app of department stores, which are traditional offline retailers, in the retail industry that is rapidly digitalizing and becoming mobile. This study clarifies multidimensional customer value in three dimensions; functional, convenience, and social. Functional value refers to the integrated channel, and consistent customer experience provided between channels in the omnichannel retail environment, while convenience value is the convenience of saving time and effort save while customers use a mobile app. Social value refers to the improvement of social approval or social self-concept occurring due to the use of products or services related to green marketing within the mobile app of the department store. The influence of each on the dependent variable, the mobile app's continuous use intention, was analyzed by using the three dimensions of customer value as independent variables. Data was collected from customers who have a history of using the mobile app of Shinsegae Department Store in Korea, and a confirmatory analysis was conducted using Smart PLS 4.0. The analysis results showed that all three dimensions of customer value; functional value, convenience value, and social value, had a positive (+) influence on customers' intention to continue using the mobile app, and the influence of functional value had the greatest impact. As functional value appears to be the most important influencing factor due to the omnichannel retail trend by advancement of technology, it suggests that it is important for department stores, and offline retailers, to provide integrated channels. This provides insights into the direction of customer-centered strategy formulation for activating department store mobile apps and suggests basic analytical data for customized services and marketing activities that department stores can effectively meet the changing expectations and demands of customers through new mobile channels rather than existing offline channels.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.44-56
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• 2009

Impulse purchasing is defined as an immediate purchase with no pre-shopping intentions. Previous studies of impulse buying have focused primarily on factors linked to marketing mix variables, situational factors, and consumer demographics and traits. In previous studies, marketing mix variables such as product category, product type, and atmospheric factors including advertising, coupons, sales events, promotional stimuli at the point of sale, and media format have been used to evaluate product information. Some authors have also focused on situational factors surrounding the consumer. Factors such as the availability of credit card usage, time available, transportability of the products, and the presence and number of shopping companions were found to have a positive impact on impulse buying and/or impulse tendency. Research has also been conducted to evaluate the effects of individual characteristics such as the age, gender, and educational level of the consumer, as well as perceived crowding, stimulation, and the need for touch, on impulse purchasing. In summary, previous studies have found that all products can be purchased impulsively (Vohs and Faber, 2007), that situational factors affect and/or at least facilitate impulse purchasing behavior, and that various individual traits are closely linked to impulse buying. The recent introduction of new distribution channels such as home shopping channels, discount stores, and Internet stores that are open 24 hours a day increases the probability of impulse purchasing. However, previous literature has focused predominantly on situational and marketing variables and thus studies that consider critical consumer characteristics are still lacking. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study builds on this third tradition of research and focuses on individual trait variables, which have rarely been studied. More specifically, the current study investigates whether impulse buying tendency has a positive impact on impulse buying behavior, and evaluates how consumer characteristics such as the need for cognitive closure (NFCC), psychological wellbeing, and susceptibility to interpersonal influences affect the tendency of consumers towards impulse buying. The survey results reveal that while consumer affective impulsivity has a strong positive impact on impulse buying behavior, cognitive impulsivity has no impact on impulse buying behavior. Furthermore, affective impulse buying tendency is driven by sub-components of NFCC such as decisiveness and discomfort with ambiguity, psychological wellbeing constructs such as environmental control and purpose in life, and by normative and informational influences. In addition, cognitive impulse tendency is driven by sub-components of NFCC such as decisiveness, discomfort with ambiguity, and close-mindedness, and the psychological wellbeing constructs of environmental control, as well as normative and informational influences. The present study has significant theoretical implications. First, affective impulsivity has a strong impact on impulse purchase behavior. Previous studies based on affectivity and flow theories proposed that low to moderate levels of impulsivity are driven by reduced self-control or a failure of self-regulatory mechanisms. The present study confirms the above proposition. Second, the present study also contributes to the literature by confirming that impulse buying tendency can be viewed as a two-dimensional concept with both affective and cognitive dimensions, and illustrates that impulse purchase behavior is explained mainly by affective impulsivity, not by cognitive impulsivity. Third, the current study accommodates new constructs such as psychological wellbeing and NFCC as potential influencing factors in the research model, thereby contributing to the existing literature. Fourth, by incorporating multi-dimensional concepts such as psychological wellbeing and NFCC, more diverse aspects of consumer information processing can be evaluated. Fifth, the current study also extends the existing literature by confirming the two competing routes of normative and informational influences. Normative influence occurs when individuals conform to the expectations of others or to enhance his/her self-image. Whereas informational influence occurs when individuals search for information from knowledgeable others or making inferences based upon observations of the behavior of others. The present study shows that these two competing routes of social influence can be attributed to different sources of influence power. The current study also has many practical implications. First, it suggests that people with affective impulsivity may be primary targets to whom companies should pay closer attention. Cultivating a more amenable and mood-elevating shopping environment will appeal to this segment. Second, the present results demonstrate that NFCC is closely related to the cognitive dimension of impulsivity. These people are driven by careless thoughts, not by feelings or excitement. Rational advertising at the point of purchase will attract these customers. Third, people susceptible to normative influences are another potential target market. Retailers and manufacturers could appeal to this segment by advertising their products and/or services as products that can be used to identify with or conform to the expectations of others in the aspiration group. However, retailers should avoid targeting people susceptible to informational influences as a segment market. These people are engaged in an extensive information search relevant to their purchase, and therefore more elaborate, long-term rational advertising messages, which can be internalized into these consumers' thought processes, will appeal to this segment. The current findings should be interpreted with caution for several reasons. The study used a small convenience sample, and only investigated behavior in two dimensions. Accordingly, future studies should incorporate a sample with more diverse characteristics and measure different aspects of behavior. Future studies should also investigate personality traits closely related to affectivity theories. Trait variables such as sensory curiosity, interpersonal curiosity, and atmospheric responsiveness are interesting areas for future investigation.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).