• Title/Summary/Keyword: Business Environment Analysis

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Personalized Recommendation System for IPTV using Ontology and K-medoids (IPTV환경에서 온톨로지와 k-medoids기법을 이용한 개인화 시스템)

  • Yun, Byeong-Dae;Kim, Jong-Woo;Cho, Yong-Seok;Kang, Sang-Gil
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.147-161
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    • 2010
  • As broadcasting and communication are converged recently, communication is jointed to TV. TV viewing has brought about many changes. The IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) provides information service, movie contents, broadcast, etc. through internet with live programs + VOD (Video on demand) jointed. Using communication network, it becomes an issue of new business. In addition, new technical issues have been created by imaging technology for the service, networking technology without video cuts, security technologies to protect copyright, etc. Through this IPTV network, users can watch their desired programs when they want. However, IPTV has difficulties in search approach, menu approach, or finding programs. Menu approach spends a lot of time in approaching programs desired. Search approach can't be found when title, genre, name of actors, etc. are not known. In addition, inserting letters through remote control have problems. However, the bigger problem is that many times users are not usually ware of the services they use. Thus, to resolve difficulties when selecting VOD service in IPTV, a personalized service is recommended, which enhance users' satisfaction and use your time, efficiently. This paper provides appropriate programs which are fit to individuals not to save time in order to solve IPTV's shortcomings through filtering and recommendation-related system. The proposed recommendation system collects TV program information, the user's preferred program genres and detailed genre, channel, watching program, and information on viewing time based on individual records of watching IPTV. To look for these kinds of similarities, similarities can be compared by using ontology for TV programs. The reason to use these is because the distance of program can be measured by the similarity comparison. TV program ontology we are using is one extracted from TV-Anytime metadata which represents semantic nature. Also, ontology expresses the contents and features in figures. Through world net, vocabulary similarity is determined. All the words described on the programs are expanded into upper and lower classes for word similarity decision. The average of described key words was measured. The criterion of distance calculated ties similar programs through K-medoids dividing method. K-medoids dividing method is a dividing way to divide classified groups into ones with similar characteristics. This K-medoids method sets K-unit representative objects. Here, distance from representative object sets temporary distance and colonize it. Through algorithm, when the initial n-unit objects are tried to be divided into K-units. The optimal object must be found through repeated trials after selecting representative object temporarily. Through this course, similar programs must be colonized. Selecting programs through group analysis, weight should be given to the recommendation. The way to provide weight with recommendation is as the follows. When each group recommends programs, similar programs near representative objects will be recommended to users. The formula to calculate the distance is same as measure similar distance. It will be a basic figure which determines the rankings of recommended programs. Weight is used to calculate the number of watching lists. As the more programs are, the higher weight will be loaded. This is defined as cluster weight. Through this, sub-TV programs which are representative of the groups must be selected. The final TV programs ranks must be determined. However, the group-representative TV programs include errors. Therefore, weights must be added to TV program viewing preference. They must determine the finalranks.Based on this, our customers prefer proposed to recommend contents. So, based on the proposed method this paper suggested, experiment was carried out in controlled environment. Through experiment, the superiority of the proposed method is shown, compared to existing ways.

A Study on Users' Resistance toward ERP in the Pre-adoption Context (ERP 도입 전 구성원의 저항)

  • Park, Jae-Sung;Cho, Yong-Soo;Koh, Joon
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.77-100
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    • 2009
  • Information Systems (IS) is an essential tool for any organizations. The last decade has seen an increasing body of knowledge on IS usage. Yet, IS often fails because of its misuse or non-use. In general, decisions regarding the selection of a system, which involve the evaluation of many IS vendors and an enormous initial investment, are made not through the consensus of employees but through the top-down decision making by top managers. In situations where the selected system does not satisfy the needs of the employees, the forced use of the selected IS will only result in their resistance to it. Many organizations have been either integrating dispersed legacy systems such as archipelago or adopting a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to enhance employee efficiency. This study examines user resistance prior to the adoption of the selected IS or ERP system. As such, this study identifies the importance of managing organizational resistance that may appear in the pre-adoption context of an integrated IS or ERP system, explores key factors influencing user resistance, and investigates how prior experience with other integrated IS or ERP systems may change the relationship between the affecting factors and user resistance. This study focuses on organizational members' resistance and the affecting factors in the pre-adoption context of an integrated IS or ERP system rather than in the context of an ERP adoption itself or ERP post-adoption. Based on prior literature, this study proposes a research model that considers six key variables, including perceived benefit, system complexity, fitness with existing tasks, attitude toward change, the psychological reactance trait, and perceived IT competence. They are considered as independent variables affecting user resistance toward an integrated IS or ERP system. This study also introduces the concept of prior experience (i.e., whether a user has prior experience with an integrated IS or ERP system) as a moderating variable to examine the impact of perceived benefit and attitude toward change in user resistance. As such, we propose eight hypotheses with respect to the model. For the empirical validation of the hypotheses, we developed relevant instruments for each research variable based on prior literature and surveyed 95 professional researchers and the administrative staff of the Korea Photonics Technology Institute (KOPTI). We examined the organizational characteristics of KOPTI, the reasons behind their adoption of an ERP system, process changes caused by the introduction of the system, and employees' resistance/attitude toward the system at the time of the introduction. The results of the multiple regression analysis suggest that, among the six variables, perceived benefit, complexity, attitude toward change, and the psychological reactance trait significantly influence user resistance. These results further suggest that top management should manage the psychological states of their employees in order to minimize their resistance to the forced IS, even in the new system pre-adoption context. In addition, the moderating variable-prior experience was found to change the strength of the relationship between attitude toward change and system resistance. That is, the effect of attitude toward change in user resistance was significantly stronger in those with prior experience than those with no prior experience. This result implies that those with prior experience should be identified and provided with some type of attitude training or change management programs to minimize their resistance to the adoption of a system. This study contributes to the IS field by providing practical implications for IS practitioners. This study identifies system resistance stimuli of users, focusing on the pre-adoption context in a forced ERP system environment. We have empirically validated the proposed research model by examining several significant factors affecting user resistance against the adoption of an ERP system. In particular, we find a clear and significant role of the moderating variable, prior ERP usage experience, in the relationship between the affecting factors and user resistance. The results of the study suggest the importance of appropriately managing the factors that affect user resistance in organizations that plan to introduce a new ERP system or integrate legacy systems. Moreover, this study offers to practitioners several specific strategies (in particular, the categorization of users by their prior usage experience) for alleviating the resistant behaviors of users in the process of the ERP adoption before a system becomes available to them. Despite the valuable contributions of this study, there are also some limitations which will be discussed in this paper to make the study more complete and consistent.

A Study on Transfer Process Model for long-term preservation of Electronic Records (전자기록의 장기보존을 위한 이관절차모형에 관한 연구)

  • Cheon, kwon-ju
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.16
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    • pp.39-96
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    • 2007
  • Traditionally, the concept of transfer is that physical records such as paper documents, videos, photos are made a delivery to Archives or Records centers on the basis of transfer guidelines. But, with the automation of records management environment and spreading new records creation and management applications, we can create records and manage them in the cyberspace. In these reasons, the existing transfer system is that we move filed records to Archives or Records centers by paper boxes, needs to be changed. Under the needing conditions of a new transfer paradigm, the fact that the revision of Records Act that include some provisions about electronic records management and transfer, is desirable and proper. Nevertheless, the electronic transfer provisions are too conceptional to apply records management practice, so we have to develop detailed methods and processes. In this context, this paper suggest that a electronic records transfer process model on the basis of international standard and foreign countries' cases. Doing transfer records is one of the records management courses to use valuable records in the future. So, both producer and archive have to transfer records itself and context information to long-term preservation repository according to the transfer guidelines. In the long run, transfer comes to be the conclusion that records are moved to archive by a formal transfer process with taking a proper records protection steps. To accomplish these purposes, I analyzed the 'OAIS Reference Model' and 'Producer-Archive Interface Methodology Abstract Standard-CCSDS Blue Book' which is made by CCSDS(Consultative committee for Space Data Systems). but from both the words of 'Reference Model' and 'Standard', we can understand that these standard are not suitable for applying business practice directly. To solve this problem, I also analyzed foreign countries' transfer cases. Through the analysis of theory and case, I suggest that an Electronic Records Transfer Process Model which is consist of five sub-process that are 'Ingest prepare ${\rightarrow}$ Ingest ${\rightarrow}$ Validation ${\rightarrow}$ Preservation ${\rightarrow}$ Archival storage' and each sub-process also have some transfer elements. Especially, to confirm the new process model's feasibility, after classifying two types - one is from Public Records center to Public Archive, the other is from Civil Records center to Public or Civil Archive - of Korean Transfer, I made the new Transfer Model applied to the two types of transfer cases.

Characteristics of Environmental Factors and Vegetation Community of Zabelia tyaihyonii (Nakai) Hisauti & H.Hara among the Target Plant Species for Conservation in Baekdudaegan (백두대간 중점보전종인 댕강나무의 식생 군집 및 환경인자 특성)

  • Kim, Ji-Dong;Lee, Hye-Jeong;Lee, Dong-Hyuk;Byeon, Jun Gi;Park, Byeong Joo;Heo, Tae-Im
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.111 no.2
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    • pp.201-223
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    • 2022
  • Currently, species extinctions are increasing due to climate change and continued anthropogenic impact. We selected 300 species for conservation with emphasis on plants co-occurring in the Baekdudaegan area, which is a large ecological axis of Korea. We aimed to investigate the vegetation community and environmental characteristics of Zabelia tyaihyonii in the limestone habitat among the target plant species in the Baekdudaegan region to derive effective conservation strategies. In Danyang-gun, Yeongwol-gun, and Jecheon-si, we selected 36 investigation sites where Z. tyaihyonii was present. We investigated the vegetation, flora, soil and physical environment. We also found notable plants such as Thalictrum petaloideum, Sillaphyton podagraria, and Neillia uekii at the investigation sites. We classified forest vegetation community types into 4 vegetation units and 7 species group types. With canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of the vegetation community and habitat factors, we determined the overall explanatory power to be 75.2%, and we classified the environmental characteristics of the habitat of Z. tyaihyonii into a grouping of three. Among these, we detected a relationship between the environmental factors elevation, slope, organic matter, rock ratio, pH, potassium, and sodium. We identified numerous rare and endemic plants, including Thalictrum petaloideum, in the investigation site, and determined that these groups needed to be preserved at the habitat level. In the classification of the vegetation units analyzed based on the emerging plants and the CCA, we reaffirmed the uniqueness and specificity of the vegetation community in the habitat of Z. tyaihyonii. We anticipate that our results will be used as scientific evidence for the empirical conservation of the native habitats of Z. tyaihyonii.

Success Factor in the K-Pop Music Industry: focusing on the mediated effect of Internet Memes (대중음악 흥행 요인에 대한 연구: 인터넷 밈(Internet Meme)의 매개효과를 중심으로)

  • YuJeong Sim;Minsoo Shin
    • Journal of Service Research and Studies
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.48-62
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    • 2023
  • As seen in the recent K-pop craze, the size and influence of the Korean music industry is growing even bigger. At least 6,000 songs are released a year in the Korean music market, but not many can be said to have been successful. Many studies and attempts are being made to identify the factors that make the hit music. Commercial factors such as media exposure and promotion as well as the quality of music play an important role in the commercial success of music. Recently, there have been many marketing campaigns using Internet memes in the pop music industry, and Internet memes are activities or trends that spread in various forms, such as images and videos, as cultural units that spread among people. Depending on the Internet environment and the characteristics of digital communication, contents are expanded and reproduced in the form of various memes, which causes a greater response to consumers. Previously, the phenomenon of Internet memes has occurred naturally, but artists who are aware of the marketing effects have recently used it as an element of marketing. In this paper, the mediated effect of Internet memes in relation to the success factors of popular music was analyzed, and a prediction model reflecting them was proposed. As a result of the analysis, the factors with the mediated effect of 'cover effect' and 'challenge effect' were the same. Among the internal success factors, there were mediated effects in "Singer Recognition," the genres of "POP, Dance, Ballad, Trot and Electronica," and among the external success factors, mediated effects in "Planning Company Capacity," "The Number of Music Broadcasting Programs," and "The Number of News Articles." Predictive models reflecting cover effects and challenge effects showed F1-score at 0.6889 and 0.7692, respectively. This study is meaningful in that it has collected and analyzed actual chart data and presented commercial directions that can be used in practice, and found that there are many success factors of popular music and the mediating effects of Internet memes.

Adolescent delinquent behavior and the influence of friends: With specific focus on self-efficacy, parent-child conflict and parental control (친구가 청소년의 일탈행동에 미치는 영향: 자기효능감, 부모자녀 갈등 및 부모의 통제를 중심으로)

  • Young-Shin Park;Uichol Kim
    • Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.385-422
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    • 2010
  • This study examines adolescent delinquent behavior and the influence of friends, focusing specifically on friends' delinquent behavior and the influence of self-efficacy, parent-child conflict and parental control. A total of 1,399 adolescents attending five different high schools (male=642, female=756, consisting of 915 student attending high school and 484 students attending vocational high school) completed a questionnaire developed by Ahn, Hwang, Kim and Park (1997) and Bandura's (1995a) self-efficacy scale. Results indicate that those students who attend high school had parents with higher education, socio-economic status and better studying environment at home, while students attending vocational high school had higher parent-child conflict. Students attending high school had higher self-efficacy scores, while students attending vocational high school had higher scores on delinquent behavior. The results of LISREL analyses revealed a similar pattern for high school and vocational high school students. Combined analysis indicate that friends' delinquent behavior, parent-child conflict and parental control had direct and positive effect on students' delinquency behavior. Self-efficacy had a direct and negative influence of delinquency behavior. Similar pattern was obtained for friends' delinquency behavior, in which self-efficacy had a direct and negative influence of their delinquency behavior and their parent-child conflict and parental control had direct and positive effect on their delinquency behavior. In summary, those students who had lower self-efficacy, higher parent-child conflict and parental control, and with friends who are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior, had higher scores on delinquent behavior. Also, those students who had friends with lower self-efficacy scores and with higher parent-child conflict and parental control are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior, which in turn influenced their delinquent behavior. Friends' delinquent behavior had the greatest influence on students' delinquent behavior indicating the role of friends in influencing delinquency among adolescents.

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Information Privacy Concern in Context-Aware Personalized Services: Results of a Delphi Study

  • Lee, Yon-Nim;Kwon, Oh-Byung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.63-86
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    • 2010
  • Personalized services directly and indirectly acquire personal data, in part, to provide customers with higher-value services that are specifically context-relevant (such as place and time). Information technologies continue to mature and develop, providing greatly improved performance. Sensory networks and intelligent software can now obtain context data, and that is the cornerstone for providing personalized, context-specific services. Yet, the danger of overflowing personal information is increasing because the data retrieved by the sensors usually contains privacy information. Various technical characteristics of context-aware applications have more troubling implications for information privacy. In parallel with increasing use of context for service personalization, information privacy concerns have also increased such as an unrestricted availability of context information. Those privacy concerns are consistently regarded as a critical issue facing context-aware personalized service success. The entire field of information privacy is growing as an important area of research, with many new definitions and terminologies, because of a need for a better understanding of information privacy concepts. Especially, it requires that the factors of information privacy should be revised according to the characteristics of new technologies. However, previous information privacy factors of context-aware applications have at least two shortcomings. First, there has been little overview of the technology characteristics of context-aware computing. Existing studies have only focused on a small subset of the technical characteristics of context-aware computing. Therefore, there has not been a mutually exclusive set of factors that uniquely and completely describe information privacy on context-aware applications. Second, user survey has been widely used to identify factors of information privacy in most studies despite the limitation of users' knowledge and experiences about context-aware computing technology. To date, since context-aware services have not been widely deployed on a commercial scale yet, only very few people have prior experiences with context-aware personalized services. It is difficult to build users' knowledge about context-aware technology even by increasing their understanding in various ways: scenarios, pictures, flash animation, etc. Nevertheless, conducting a survey, assuming that the participants have sufficient experience or understanding about the technologies shown in the survey, may not be absolutely valid. Moreover, some surveys are based solely on simplifying and hence unrealistic assumptions (e.g., they only consider location information as a context data). A better understanding of information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services is highly needed. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify a generic set of factors for elemental information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services and to develop a rank-order list of information privacy concern factors. We consider overall technology characteristics to establish a mutually exclusive set of factors. A Delphi survey, a rigorous data collection method, was deployed to obtain a reliable opinion from the experts and to produce a rank-order list. It, therefore, lends itself well to obtaining a set of universal factors of information privacy concern and its priority. An international panel of researchers and practitioners who have the expertise in privacy and context-aware system fields were involved in our research. Delphi rounds formatting will faithfully follow the procedure for the Delphi study proposed by Okoli and Pawlowski. This will involve three general rounds: (1) brainstorming for important factors; (2) narrowing down the original list to the most important ones; and (3) ranking the list of important factors. For this round only, experts were treated as individuals, not panels. Adapted from Okoli and Pawlowski, we outlined the process of administrating the study. We performed three rounds. In the first and second rounds of the Delphi questionnaire, we gathered a set of exclusive factors for information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services. The respondents were asked to provide at least five main factors for the most appropriate understanding of the information privacy concern in the first round. To do so, some of the main factors found in the literature were presented to the participants. The second round of the questionnaire discussed the main factor provided in the first round, fleshed out with relevant sub-factors. Respondents were then requested to evaluate each sub factor's suitability against the corresponding main factors to determine the final sub-factors from the candidate factors. The sub-factors were found from the literature survey. Final factors selected by over 50% of experts. In the third round, a list of factors with corresponding questions was provided, and the respondents were requested to assess the importance of each main factor and its corresponding sub factors. Finally, we calculated the mean rank of each item to make a final result. While analyzing the data, we focused on group consensus rather than individual insistence. To do so, a concordance analysis, which measures the consistency of the experts' responses over successive rounds of the Delphi, was adopted during the survey process. As a result, experts reported that context data collection and high identifiable level of identical data are the most important factor in the main factors and sub factors, respectively. Additional important sub-factors included diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionalities, and embedded and disappeared sensor devices. The average score of each factor is very useful for future context-aware personalized service development in the view of the information privacy. The final factors have the following differences comparing to those proposed in other studies. First, the concern factors differ from existing studies, which are based on privacy issues that may occur during the lifecycle of acquired user information. However, our study helped to clarify these sometimes vague issues by determining which privacy concern issues are viable based on specific technical characteristics in context-aware personalized services. Since a context-aware service differs in its technical characteristics compared to other services, we selected specific characteristics that had a higher potential to increase user's privacy concerns. Secondly, this study considered privacy issues in terms of service delivery and display that were almost overlooked in existing studies by introducing IPOS as the factor division. Lastly, in each factor, it correlated the level of importance with professionals' opinions as to what extent users have privacy concerns. The reason that it did not select the traditional method questionnaire at that time is that context-aware personalized service considered the absolute lack in understanding and experience of users with new technology. For understanding users' privacy concerns, professionals in the Delphi questionnaire process selected context data collection, tracking and recording, and sensory network as the most important factors among technological characteristics of context-aware personalized services. In the creation of a context-aware personalized services, this study demonstrates the importance and relevance of determining an optimal methodology, and which technologies and in what sequence are needed, to acquire what types of users' context information. Most studies focus on which services and systems should be provided and developed by utilizing context information on the supposition, along with the development of context-aware technology. However, the results in this study show that, in terms of users' privacy, it is necessary to pay greater attention to the activities that acquire context information. To inspect the results in the evaluation of sub factor, additional studies would be necessary for approaches on reducing users' privacy concerns toward technological characteristics such as highly identifiable level of identical data, diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionality, embedded and disappearing sensor devices. The factor ranked the next highest level of importance after input is a context-aware service delivery that is related to output. The results show that delivery and display showing services to users in a context-aware personalized services toward the anywhere-anytime-any device concept have been regarded as even more important than in previous computing environment. Considering the concern factors to develop context aware personalized services will help to increase service success rate and hopefully user acceptance for those services. Our future work will be to adopt these factors for qualifying context aware service development projects such as u-city development projects in terms of service quality and hence user acceptance.

Relationships Among Employees' IT Personnel Competency, Personal Work Satisfaction, and Personal Work Performance: A Goal Orientation Perspective (조직구성원의 정보기술 인적역량과 개인 업무만족 및 업무성과 간의 관계: 목표지향성 관점)

  • Heo, Myung-Sook;Cheon, Myun-Joong
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.63-104
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    • 2011
  • The study examines the relationships among employee's goal orientation, IT personnel competency, personal effectiveness. The goal orientation includes learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Personal effectiveness consists of personal work satisfaction and personal work performance. In general, IT personnel competency refers to IT expert's skills, expertise, and knowledge required to perform IT activities in organizations. However, due to the advent of the internet and the generalization of IT, IT personnel competency turns out to be an important competency of technological experts as well as employees in organizations. While the competency of IT itself is important, the appropriate harmony between IT personnel's business capability and technological capability enhances the value of human resources and thus provides organizations with sustainable competitive advantages. The rapid pace of organization change places increased pressure on employees to continually update their skills and adapt their behavior to new organizational realities. This challenge raises a number of important questions concerning organizational behavior? Why do some employees display remarkable flexibility in their behavioral responses to changes in the organization, whereas others firmly resist change or experience great stress when faced with the need to alter behavior? Why do some employees continually strive to improve themselves over their life span, whereas others are content to forge through life using the same basic knowledge and skills? Why do some employees throw themselves enthusiastically into challenging tasks, whereas others avoid challenging tasks? The goal orientation proposed by organizational psychology provides at least a partial answer to these questions. Goal orientations refer to stable personally characteristics fostered by "self-theories" about the nature and development of attributes (such as intelligence, personality, abilities, and skills) people have. Self-theories are one's beliefs and goal orientations are achievement motivation revealed in seeking goals in accordance with one's beliefs. The goal orientations include learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Specifically, a learning goal orientation refers to a preference to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations, and improving one's competence. A performance approach goal orientation refers to a preference to demonstrate and validate the adequacy of one's competence by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments. A performance avoid goal orientation refers to a preference to avoid the disproving of one's competence and to avoid negative judgements about it, while focusing on performance. And the study also examines the moderating role of work career of employees to investigate the difference in the relationship between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness. The study analyzes the collected data using PASW 18.0 and and PLS(Partial Least Square). The study also uses PLS bootstrapping algorithm (sample size: 500) to test research hypotheses. The result shows that the influences of both a learning goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.301, t = 3.822, P < 0.000) and a performance approach goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.224, t = 2.710, P < 0.01) on IT personnel competency are positively significant, while the influence of a performance avoid goal orientation(${\beta}$ = -0.142, t = 2.398, p < 0.05) on IT personnel competency is negatively significant. The result indicates that employees differ in their psychological and behavioral responses according to the goal orientation of employees. The result also shows that the impact of a IT personnel competency on both personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.395, t = 4.897, P < 0.000) and personal work performance(${\beta}$ = 0.575, t = 12.800, P < 0.000) is positively significant. And the impact of personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.148, t = 2.432, p < 0.05) on personal work performance is positively significant. Finally, the impacts of control variables (gender, age, type of industry, position, work career) on the relationships between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness(personal work satisfaction work performance) are partly significant. In addition, the study uses PLS algorithm to find out a GoF(global criterion of goodness of fit) of the exploratory research model which includes a mediating variable, IT personnel competency. The result of analysis shows that the value of GoF is 0.45 above GoFlarge(0.36). Therefore, the research model turns out be good. In addition, the study performs a Sobel Test to find out the statistical significance of the mediating variable, IT personnel competency, which is already turned out to have the mediating effect in the research model using PLS. The result of a Sobel Test shows that the values of Z are all significant statistically (above 1.96 and below -1.96) and indicates that IT personnel competency plays a mediating role in the research model. At the present day, most employees are universally afraid of organizational changes and resistant to them in organizations in which the acceptance and learning of a new information technology or information system is particularly required. The problem is due' to increasing a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty in improving past practices in accordance with new organizational changes. It is not always possible for employees with positive attitudes to perform their works suitable to organizational goals. Therefore, organizations need to identify what kinds of goal-oriented minds employees have, motivate them to do self-directed learning, and provide them with organizational environment to enhance positive aspects in their works. Thus, the study provides researchers and practitioners with a matter of primary interest in goal orientation and IT personnel competency, of which they have been unaware until very recently. Some academic and practical implications and limitations arisen in the course of the research, and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.

Retail Product Development and Brand Management Collaboration between Industry and University Student Teams (산업여대학학생단대지간적령수산품개발화품패관리협작(产业与大学学生团队之间的零售产品开发和品牌管理协作))

  • Carroll, Katherine Emma
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.239-248
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    • 2010
  • This paper describes a collaborative project between academia and industry which focused on improving the marketing and product development strategies for two private label apparel brands of a large regional department store chain in the southeastern United States. The goal of the project was to revitalize product lines of the two brands by incorporating student ideas for new solutions, thereby giving the students practical experience with a real-life industry situation. There were a number of key players involved in the project. A privately-owned department store chain based in the southeastern United States which was seeking an academic partner had recognized a need to update two existing private label brands. They targeted middle-aged consumers looking for casual, moderately priced merchandise. The company was seeking to change direction with both packaging and presentation, and possibly product design. The branding and product development divisions of the company contacted professors in an academic department of a large southeastern state university. Two of the professors agreed that the task would be a good fit for their classes - one was a junior-level Intermediate Brand Management class; the other was a senior-level Fashion Product Development class. The professors felt that by working collaboratively on the project, students would be exposed to a real world scenario, within the security of an academic learning environment. Collaboration within an interdisciplinary team has the advantage of providing experiences and resources beyond the capabilities of a single student and adds "brainpower" to problem-solving processes (Lowman 2000). This goal of improving the capabilities of students directed the instructors in each class to form interdisciplinary teams between the Branding and Product Development classes. In addition, many universities are employing industry partnerships in research and teaching, where collaboration within temporal (semester) and physical (classroom/lab) constraints help to increase students' knowledge and experience of a real-world situation. At the University of Tennessee, the Center of Industrial Services and UT-Knoxville's College of Engineering worked with a company to develop design improvements in its U.S. operations. In this study, Because should be lower case b with a private label retail brand, Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst's (1999) revised Retail Apparel Product Development Model was used by the product development and brand management teams. This framework was chosen because it addresses apparel product development from the concept to the retail stage. Two classes were involved in this project: a junior level Brand Management class and a senior level Fashion Product Development class. Seven teams were formed which included four students from Brand Management and two students from Product Development. The classes were taught the same semester, but not at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, each class was introduced to the industry partner and given the problem. Half the teams were assigned to the men's brand and half to the women's brand. The teams were responsible for devising approaches to the problem, formulating a timeline for their work, staying in touch with industry representatives and making sure that each member of the team contributed in a positive way. The objective for the teams was to plan, develop, and present a product line using merchandising processes (following the Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst model) and develop new branding strategies for the proposed lines. The teams performed trend, color, fabrication and target market research; developed sketches for a line; edited the sketches and presented their line plans; wrote specifications; fitted prototypes on fit models, and developed final production samples for presentation to industry. The branding students developed a SWOT analysis, a Brand Measurement report, a mind-map for the brands and a fully integrated Marketing Report which was presented alongside the ideas for the new lines. In future if the opportunity arises to work in this collaborative way with an existing company who wishes to look both at branding and product development strategies, classes will be scheduled at the same time so that students have more time to meet and discuss timelines and assigned tasks. As it was, student groups had to meet outside of each class time and this proved to be a challenging though not uncommon part of teamwork (Pfaff and Huddleston, 2003). Although the logistics of this exercise were time-consuming to set up and administer, professors felt that the benefits to students were multiple. The most important benefit, according to student feedback from both classes, was the opportunity to work with industry professionals, follow their process, and see the results of their work evaluated by the people who made the decisions at the company level. Faculty members were grateful to have a "real-world" case to work with in the classroom to provide focus. Creative ideas and strategies were traded as plans were made, extending and strengthening the departmental links be tween the branding and product development areas. By working not only with students coming from a different knowledge base, but also having to keep in contact with the industry partner and follow the framework and timeline of industry practice, student teams were challenged to produce excellent and innovative work under new circumstances. Working on the product development and branding for "real-life" brands that are struggling gave students an opportunity to see how closely their coursework ties in with the real-world and how creativity, collaboration and flexibility are necessary components of both the design and business aspects of company operations. Industry personnel were impressed by (a) the level and depth of knowledge and execution in the student projects, and (b) the creativity of new ideas for the brands.

An Exploratory Study on Marketing of Financial Services Companies in Korea (한국 금융회사 마케팅 현황에 대한 탐색 연구)

  • Chun, Sung Yong
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.111-133
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    • 2010
  • Marketing financial services used to be easier. Today, the competition in financial services is fierce. Not only has the competition become more intense, financial services have also changed structurally. In an environment with various customer needs and severe competitions, the marketing in financial services industry is getting more difficult and more important than before. However, there are still not enough studies on financial services marketing in Korea whereas lots of research papers have been published frequently in some international journals. The purpose of this paper is (1)to review the literature on financial services marketing, (2)to investigate current marketing activities based on in-depth interview with financial marketing managers in Korea, and (3)to suggest some implications for future research on the financial services marketing. Financial products are not consumer products. In fact, they are not products at all in the way product marketing is usually described. Nor are they altogether like services. The financial industry operates in a unique way, and its marketing tasks are correspondingly complex. However, the literature review shows that there has been a lack of basic studies which dealt with inherent characteristics of financial services marketing compared to the research on marketing in other industries. Many studies in domestic marketing journals have so far focused only on the general customer behaviors and the special issues in some financial industries. However, for more effective financial services marketing, we have to answer following questions. Is there any difference between financial service marketing and consumer packaged goods marketing? What are the differences between the financial services marketing and other services marketing such as education and health services? Are there different ways of marketing among banks, securities firms, insurance firms, and credit card companies? In other words, we need more detailed research as well as basic studies about the financial services marketing. For example, we need concrete definitions of financial services marketing, bank marketing, securities firm marketing, and etc. It is also required to compare the characteristics of each marketing within the financial services industry. The products sold in each market have different characteristics such as duration and degree of risk-taking. It means that there are sub-categories in financial services marketing. We have to consider them in the future research on the financial services marketing. It is also necessary to study customer decision making process in the financial markets. There have been little research on how customers search and process information, compare alternatives, make final decision, and repeat their choices. Because financial services have some unique characteristics, we need different understandings in the customer behaviors compared to the behaviors in other service markets. And also considering the rapid growth in financial markets and upcoming severe competition between domestic and global financial companies, it is time to start more systematic and detailed research on financial services marketing in Korea. In the second part of this paper, I analyzed the results of in-depth interview with 20 marketing managers of financial services companies in Korea. As a result, I found that the role of marketing departments in Korean financial companies are mainly focused on the short-term activities such as sales support, promotion, and CRM data analysis although the size and history of marketing departments to some extent show a sign of maturity. Most companies established official marketing departments before 2001. Average number of employees in a marketing department is about 58. However, marketing managers in eight companies(40% of the sample) still think that the purpose of marketing is only to support and manage general sales activities. It shows that some companies have sales-oriented concept rather than marketing-oriented concept. I also found three key words which marketing managers think importantly in financial services markets. They are (1)Trust in customer relationship, (2)Brand differentiation, and (3)Rapid response to customer needs. 50% of the sample support that "Trust" is the most important key word in the financial services marketing. It is interesting that 80% of banks and securities companies think that "Trust" is the most important thing, whereas managers in credit card companies consider "Rapid response to customer needs" as the most important key word in their market. In addition, there are different problems recognition of marketing managers depending on the types of financial industries they belong to. For example, in the case of banks and insurance companies, marketing managers consider "a lack of communication with other departments" as the most serious problem. On the other hand, in the case of securities firms, "a lack of utilization of customer data" is the most serious problem. These results imply that there are different important factors for the customer satisfaction depending on the types of financial industries, and managers have to consider them when marketing financial products in more effective ways. For example, It will be necessary for marketing managers to study different important factors which affect customer satisfaction, repeat purchase, degree of risk-taking, and possibility of cross-selling according to the types of financial industries. I also suggested six hypothetical propositions for the future research.

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