• Title/Summary/Keyword: Business Process Management System

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Response Modeling for the Marketing Promotion with Weighted Case Based Reasoning Under Imbalanced Data Distribution (불균형 데이터 환경에서 변수가중치를 적용한 사례기반추론 기반의 고객반응 예측)

  • Kim, Eunmi;Hong, Taeho
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.1
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    • pp.29-45
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    • 2015
  • Response modeling is a well-known research issue for those who have tried to get more superior performance in the capability of predicting the customers' response for the marketing promotion. The response model for customers would reduce the marketing cost by identifying prospective customers from very large customer database and predicting the purchasing intention of the selected customers while the promotion which is derived from an undifferentiated marketing strategy results in unnecessary cost. In addition, the big data environment has accelerated developing the response model with data mining techniques such as CBR, neural networks and support vector machines. And CBR is one of the most major tools in business because it is known as simple and robust to apply to the response model. However, CBR is an attractive data mining technique for data mining applications in business even though it hasn't shown high performance compared to other machine learning techniques. Thus many studies have tried to improve CBR and utilized in business data mining with the enhanced algorithms or the support of other techniques such as genetic algorithm, decision tree and AHP (Analytic Process Hierarchy). Ahn and Kim(2008) utilized logit, neural networks, CBR to predict that which customers would purchase the items promoted by marketing department and tried to optimized the number of k for k-nearest neighbor with genetic algorithm for the purpose of improving the performance of the integrated model. Hong and Park(2009) noted that the integrated approach with CBR for logit, neural networks, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) showed more improved prediction ability for response of customers to marketing promotion than each data mining models such as logit, neural networks, and SVM. This paper presented an approach to predict customers' response of marketing promotion with Case Based Reasoning. The proposed model was developed by applying different weights to each feature. We deployed logit model with a database including the promotion and the purchasing data of bath soap. After that, the coefficients were used to give different weights of CBR. We analyzed the performance of proposed weighted CBR based model compared to neural networks and pure CBR based model empirically and found that the proposed weighted CBR based model showed more superior performance than pure CBR model. Imbalanced data is a common problem to build data mining model to classify a class with real data such as bankruptcy prediction, intrusion detection, fraud detection, churn management, and response modeling. Imbalanced data means that the number of instance in one class is remarkably small or large compared to the number of instance in other classes. The classification model such as response modeling has a lot of trouble to recognize the pattern from data through learning because the model tends to ignore a small number of classes while classifying a large number of classes correctly. To resolve the problem caused from imbalanced data distribution, sampling method is one of the most representative approach. The sampling method could be categorized to under sampling and over sampling. However, CBR is not sensitive to data distribution because it doesn't learn from data unlike machine learning algorithm. In this study, we investigated the robustness of our proposed model while changing the ratio of response customers and nonresponse customers to the promotion program because the response customers for the suggested promotion is always a small part of nonresponse customers in the real world. We simulated the proposed model 100 times to validate the robustness with different ratio of response customers to response customers under the imbalanced data distribution. Finally, we found that our proposed CBR based model showed superior performance than compared models under the imbalanced data sets. Our study is expected to improve the performance of response model for the promotion program with CBR under imbalanced data distribution in the real world.

A study for Developing Performance Assessment Model of Technology Entrepreneurship Education Based on BSC - A Case Study to Graduate School of Entrepreneurial Management - (BSC(Balanced Scorecard) 기반의 기술창업교육 성과평가모형 개발 연구 - 창업대학원 성과평가지표 분석과 개선방안도출을 중심으로 -)

  • Yang, Young Seok
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.129-139
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    • 2013
  • This paper is targeted on proposing ameliorating alternative to performance assessment method of GSEM through evaluating the current one, which is initiated by SMBA to induce fair competition among 5 GSEM across the country and accommodate the quality improvement of entrepreneurship education since 2005 after beginning the SMBA support, from the perspective of BSC(Balanced Scorecard) tool. Ultimately, it complements the policy defects of SMBA over GSEM, in particular, in the process of performance assessment and management. This paper carries out two studies as follow. First, throughout reviewing the previous studies relating to BSC applications to non-profit organization, it set out the direction of introducing BSC in assessing performance of GSEM in order to enhance its effectiveness. Second, it evaluate the rationality of performance assessing tools apllied to GSEM by SMBA on the basis of BSC application over non-profit organization, especially in education institution. Research results shows the following implications. First, the current evaluation system over GSEM is just merely assessment itself and not much contributions for the post performance management. Second, The annual evaluation just remains to check up whether the policy goals are met or not. Third, the current evaluation puts much emphasis just on financial inputs and hardware infra, not considering human resources and utilization of government policy and institution. Fourth, the policy goals are unilaterally focused on entrepreneurs. Fifth, the current evaluation systems do not contain any indexes relating to learning and growth perspectives for concerning sustainable and independent growing up. However, lack of empirical testing require this paper to need the further study in the future.

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Knowledge Production Function in South Korea : An Empirical Analysis (우리나라 지식생산함수 : 실증분석)

  • Cho, Sang-Sup;Jung, Dong-Jin
    • Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.383-405
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    • 2007
  • In this paper we estimate knowledge production function for 15 South Korean industry sectors using panel data. To accommodate the influence of inter-sectoral interactions on the creation of knowledge, we estimate parameters for related knowledge production functions using the Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated Regression(DSUR) model proposed by Mark et al. (2005). We find the elasticity of knowledge production with respect to the size of research staff to be 0.25 and that with respect to the existing stock of knowledge to be 0.35. The fact that the elasticity of new knowledge creation with regard to the existing knowledge stock is below 1 in South Korea corroborates the view that the rate of long-term growth of her economy is chiefly determined by the elasticity related to production functions of goods and services and the rate of population growth, and that her government policy, to ensure a continued growth for the Korean economy, must shift the focus of R&D policies from the current direct intervention-centered model to one consisting of indirect measures, namely supporting knowledge management and diffusion and the creation of a knowledge sharing system. In terms of R&D policy implications it could be consider that the national knowledge production system should strengthen the cumulative process of knowledge accumulation and population for research and development. Our country R&D policy, also, need to adopt a global approach to increase knowledge stock at the highest levels of a country.

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The Influence of Using Intention by G4C Smart Application Service Characteristics: Comparing Korea and China (G4C 스마트 앱 서비스 특성이 사용의도에 미치는 영향: 한·중 비교 분석을 중심으로)

  • Chang, Hui-Qiang;Kim, Hwa-Kyung;Lee, Jong-Ho
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.12 no.11
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    • pp.85-100
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    • 2014
  • Purpose - Recently, the prevalence of high-speed mobile communication technology (4G) and mobile devices (smart phones, tablet PC, etc.) is leading innovative changes across all fields in society as well as business environments. Furthermore, a diversified mobile application service has spread rapidly through mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet PCs. Accordingly, the traditional E-government services paradigm has rapidly changed into mobile intelligence. To identify the influencing factors on the using intention of G4C smart app services, based on previous studies, the variables that influence using G4C smart app services are defined; these are user cognitive factors (perceived usefulness, perceived easiness), user characteristics factors (user innovativeness, self-efficiency, social influence), service quality factors (convenience, interactivity, accessibility), and system quality factors (instant connectivity, safety). Research design, data, and methodology - This is designed not only to collect data with a questionnaire survey (9/22/13~10/23/13) but also to test hypotheses with SEM by SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 in both Korea and China. All items are used with Likert 5 scales. A total of 643 questionnaires (Korea 318, China 325) are used. Results - The perceived usefulness and perceived easiness in user cognitive factors have positive influence on using intention. The user innovativeness, self-efficiency, and social factors in user characteristics factors have positive influences on using intention. The convenience, interactivity, and accessibility in service quality factors have positive influences on both reliability and using intention. Safety in system quality has positive influence on both reliability and using intention. Reliability has positive influence on using intention. The control variables (Korea and China) affect its control hypothesis. Strategies and implications are suggested to assist the public using the intention of smartphone's e-government services based on the results of the empirical analysis. The mobile application service can be considered a new emergence of the paradigm just like the government's on-line portal websites appeared in the past. Under this prevailing situation of mobile smart devices, to promote the success of e-government mobile APP services, accurate analysis and understanding of users should precede anything, to provide services to grasp and satisfy users' desire properly. Conclusions - This study proposes implications to help E-governmental officers and companies make strategies. First, this is expected to give some information on the understanding and knowledge regarding the process of G4C smart APP service based on the empirical study. Second, this helps to make future policies and ways about E-government G4C smart APP service. Third, it is proved that super speed mobile communication technology and devices including phones will be crucial to change the structure of E-government services in 2-3 years. Fourth, it is necessary to increase the trust and using intention of users. Fifth, considering what type of environment users are placed in, to present proper public information matching their inclination, is important. Finally, various ways of experiencing service to explore potential users and ceaseless public relations are required.

Considering Households' Occupation and Their View towards Forest Conservation (가구 생업과 그에 따른 삼림보호 인식에 관한 고찰)

  • Panta, Menaka;Kim, Kye-Hyun;Lee, Chol-Young
    • Journal of Korea Spatial Information System Society
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.73-78
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    • 2009
  • 100 households' survey was carried out in 2007 in Chitwan to foresee the people's livelihood and their insight into the forest conservation. This analysis revealed that households' was mainly survived with multiple livelihood categories where 98% citizens belong to food crops and 92% to livestock husbandry. The households' income shared by agriculture (crop and livestock), forest and remittance was 37% and 20% respectively. Results further showed that income distribution was somehow equal with Gini coefficient 0.25 than with the 0.37 of landholdings size. But, average per capita income of households was lower than the national standard with 33% of households below the poverty thresholds and 0.0945 poverty gap index. Similarly, 85% respondents assured for the current degraded status of forest and 83% of households for not participated in forest management activities due to low awareness in 82% households. These findings shows the forest assets could be unduly degraded in the past and forest availability which is extracting from the remaining forest is also decreasing in the area. Thus, tendency of forest dependency has been shifting to the small scale farming, other livelihood sources such as local business and services. This information could be useful in planning and decision-making process in searching of better alternative for the local livelihood as well as sustainable forest conservation strategy.

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Priority Analysis of Project Stage-wise Risk Factors : Focusing on New Product Development Projects in ICT Industry (프로젝트 단계별 리스크 요인들의 우선순위 분석 : ICT(정보통신기술)산업 분야의 신제품 개발 프로젝트를 중심으로)

  • Jang, Heeseok;Choi, Sungyong;Lee, Minho
    • Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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    • v.41 no.3
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    • pp.72-82
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    • 2018
  • In this paper, we identify risk factors that are likely to occur during the lifecycle of a new product development (NPD) project from the literatures, and identify the three objectives or three constraints that will ultimately be achieved for project success in the ICT industry : performance (scope/quality), schedule (time), and cost. Firstly, we interviewed the project experts to classify the risk factors according that the final project objectives are changeable based on scope/quality, time and cost budget constraints. Secondly, the survey for pairwise comparisons between the risk factors was asked to the project managers and members who had ever actually participated in the NPD projects of ICT industry to determine the priority ranks on relative importance using AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). The risk factors negatively affecting the goals of projects were analyzed by using the AHP respectively in four project stages during the life cycle of the project. The comparison of risk factors within each stage is a different approach unlike the literatures which have covered project's overall risk assessment. There is an advantage that risk management can be effectively performed with priorities according to each stage from the start to the end of the project. In other words, it is necessary to identify what risk factors will occur in each stage, and to have ideas at each stage with the priorities so that they can be mitigated and eliminated before actual occurrence. As a result, risks on scope & quality changes were found to be the most important considerations for initiative stage of NPD projects in the ICT industry, whereas in the final stage, risks on schedule (time) changes were the most important priorities. Among the ICT industry product categories, 'communication and broadcasting devices' and 'IT and communication based devices' generally have a high priority in terms of risks on scope & quality changes when initiating the project. At the closing stage of the project, however, considering that schedule (time) changeable risk is getting higher, these products tend to target at B2B market rather than B2C because the new products must be delivered and launched in time as customer firm required.

A Study on Social Supports for the Elderly Housing in Senior Concentrated Cities in the United States and Canada : Focused on Small Cities along Rural Counties (미국과 캐나다 노인밀집도시의 노인주거관련 사회적지원에 관한 연구 : 농촌지역 소도시를 중심으로)

  • Lee, In-Soo
    • Journal of Families and Better Life
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    • v.29 no.3
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    • pp.23-41
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    • 2011
  • The purpose of this study is to explore social supports for elderly housing and their residential lives in small cities along rural counties of the United States and Canada, and suggest future implications for age-concentrated rural villages in Korea. In this study, five small and medium cities in non-metropolitan counties of California and Ontario province were visited and elderly residents and service experts were interviewed about their perceptions of community integrated social support networks for senior residences. The senior housing complexes were built due to influx of both metropolitan and rural residents seeking warm localities, traffic connections, business purposes in active production areas. and leisure attractions. There are five main social support networks for senior housing issues in these areas. First, the areas are claimed for senior zones and accordingly health industries are encouraged by local authorities. Second, the community is homogeneously constructed as a senior friendly environment and include features such as an RV park and mobile cottages. Third, senior-helping seniors are offered active work through golf-cluster active retirement communities. Fourth, traditional theme production camps are mobilized by the elderly workers. Lastly, an information system is maintained for screening volunteers and for senior abuse prevention. On the other hand, residential lives are occasionally negatively influenced by unbalanced concentrations of elderly facilities such as nursing stations and funeral homes. For the future of Korean rural elderly policies, suggestions are made as follows: first, an integrated urban and rural township that contains attractive places for early retiring people who seek a warm atmosphere in later life needs to be constructed. Second, an integrated model retirement village of urban and rural retirement life needs to be initiated as a measure of evaluating the adaptation process of movers in senior concentrated zones. Third, a cooperation system among governmental ministries needs to be formed with the long- term goal of establishing a traditional rural town of independent housing districts and medical facilities in rural areas. Fourth, productive and active lifestyles need to be maintained as the local community and government develop successful retirement rural villages, by limiting the expansion of nursing related facilities. Finally, generation integrated visiting welfare programs and services need to be further developed for the housing areas especially in the winter, when social integration and activity are relatively low.

자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘을 이용한 컨테이너 식별자 인식

  • Kim, Jae-Yong;Park, Chung-Sik;Kim, Gwang-Baek
    • Proceedings of the Korea Inteligent Information System Society Conference
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    • 2005.11a
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    • pp.500-506
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    • 2005
  • 본 논문에서는 자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘을 이용한 운송 컨테이너 식별자 인식 시스템을 제안한다. 일반적으로 운송 컨테이너의 식별자들은 글자의 색이 검정색 또는 흰색으로 이루어져 있는 특정이 있다. 이러한 특성을 고려하여 원 컨테이너 영상에 대해 검은색과 흰색을 제외하고는 모든 부분을 잡음으로 처리하기 위해 퍼지 추론 방법을 이용하여 식별자 영역과 바탕영역을 구별한다. 식별자 영역으로 구분 된 영역은 그대로 두고, 바탕 영역으로 구분된 영역 은 전체 영상의 평균 픽셀 값으로 대체시킨다. 그리고 Sobel 마스크를 이용하여 에지를 검출하고, 추출된 에지를 이용하여 수직 블록과 수평 블록을 검출 하여 컨테이너의 식별자 영역을 추출하고 이진화한다. 이진화 된 식별자 영역에 대해 검정색의 빈도수를 이용하여 흰바탕과 민바탕을 구분하고 4 방향 윤곽선 추적 알고리즘을 적용하여 개별 식별자를 추출 한다. 개별 식별자 인식을 위해 자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘을 제안하여 개별 식별자 인식에 적용한다. 제안된 자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘은 입력층과 은닉층 사이의 구조를 ART-l을 개선하여 적용하고 은닉층과 출력층 사이에는 일반화된 델타 학습 방법과 Delta-bar-Delta 알고리즘을 적용하여 학습 및 인식 성능을 개선한다. 실제 80 개의 컨테이너 영상을 대상으로 실험한 결과, 제안된 식별자 추출 방법이 이전의 개별 추출 방법보다 추출률이 개선되었고 FCM 기반 자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘보다 제안된 자가 생성 지도 학습 알고리즘이 컨테이너 식별자의 학습 및 인식에 있어서 개선된 것을 확인하였다.색 문제를 해결하고자 하는 것이 연구의 목적이다. 정보추출은 사용자의 관심사에 적합한 문서들로부터 어떤 구체적인 사실이나 관계를 정확히 추출하는 작업을 가리킨다.앞으로 e-메일, 매신저, 전자결재, 지식관리시스템, 인터넷 방송 시스템의 기반 구조 역할을 할 수 있다. 현재 오픈웨어에 적용하기 위한 P2P 기반의 지능형 BPM(Business Process Management)에 관한 연구와 X인터넷 기술을 이용한 RIA (Rich Internet Application) 기반 웹인터페이스 연구를 진행하고 있다.태도와 유아의 창의성간에는 상관이 없는 것으로 나타났고, 일반 유아의 아버지 양육태도와 유아의 창의성간의 상관에서는 아버지 양육태도의 성취-비성취 요인에서와 창의성제목의 추상성요인에서 상관이 있는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 창의성이 높은 아동의 아버지의 양육태도는 일반 유아의 아버지와 보다 더 애정적이며 자율성이 높지만 창의성이 높은 아동의 집단내에서 창의성에 특별한 영향을 더 미치는 아버지의 양육방식은 발견되지 않았다. 반면 일반 유아의 경우 아버지의 성취지향성이 낮을 때 자녀의 창의성을 향상시킬 수 있는 것으로 나타났다. 이상에서 자녀의 창의성을 향상시키는 중요한 양육차원은 애정성이나 비성취지향성으로 나타나고 있어 정서적인 측면의 지원인 것으로 밝혀졌다.징에서 나타나는 AD-SR맥락의 반성적 탐구가 자주 나타났다. 반성적 탐구 척도 두 그룹을 비교 했을 때 CON 상호작용의 특징이 낮게 나타나는 N그룹이 양적으로 그리고 내용적으로 더 의미 있는 반성적 탐구를 했다용을 지원하는 홈페이지를 만들어 자료

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Recommender Systems using Structural Hole and Collaborative Filtering (구조적 공백과 협업필터링을 이용한 추천시스템)

  • Kim, Mingun;Kim, Kyoung-Jae
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.107-120
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    • 2014
  • This study proposes a novel recommender system using the structural hole analysis to reflect qualitative and emotional information in recommendation process. Although collaborative filtering (CF) is known as the most popular recommendation algorithm, it has some limitations including scalability and sparsity problems. The scalability problem arises when the volume of users and items become quite large. It means that CF cannot scale up due to large computation time for finding neighbors from the user-item matrix as the number of users and items increases in real-world e-commerce sites. Sparsity is a common problem of most recommender systems due to the fact that users generally evaluate only a small portion of the whole items. In addition, the cold-start problem is the special case of the sparsity problem when users or items newly added to the system with no ratings at all. When the user's preference evaluation data is sparse, two users or items are unlikely to have common ratings, and finally, CF will predict ratings using a very limited number of similar users. Moreover, it may produces biased recommendations because similarity weights may be estimated using only a small portion of rating data. In this study, we suggest a novel limitation of the conventional CF. The limitation is that CF does not consider qualitative and emotional information about users in the recommendation process because it only utilizes user's preference scores of the user-item matrix. To address this novel limitation, this study proposes cluster-indexing CF model with the structural hole analysis for recommendations. In general, the structural hole means a location which connects two separate actors without any redundant connections in the network. The actor who occupies the structural hole can easily access to non-redundant, various and fresh information. Therefore, the actor who occupies the structural hole may be a important person in the focal network and he or she may be the representative person in the focal subgroup in the network. Thus, his or her characteristics may represent the general characteristics of the users in the focal subgroup. In this sense, we can distinguish friends and strangers of the focal user utilizing the structural hole analysis. This study uses the structural hole analysis to select structural holes in subgroups as an initial seeds for a cluster analysis. First, we gather data about users' preference ratings for items and their social network information. For gathering research data, we develop a data collection system. Then, we perform structural hole analysis and find structural holes of social network. Next, we use these structural holes as cluster centroids for the clustering algorithm. Finally, this study makes recommendations using CF within user's cluster, and compare the recommendation performances of comparative models. For implementing experiments of the proposed model, we composite the experimental results from two experiments. The first experiment is the structural hole analysis. For the first one, this study employs a software package for the analysis of social network data - UCINET version 6. The second one is for performing modified clustering, and CF using the result of the cluster analysis. We develop an experimental system using VBA (Visual Basic for Application) of Microsoft Excel 2007 for the second one. This study designs to analyzing clustering based on a novel similarity measure - Pearson correlation between user preference rating vectors for the modified clustering experiment. In addition, this study uses 'all-but-one' approach for the CF experiment. In order to validate the effectiveness of our proposed model, we apply three comparative types of CF models to the same dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed model outperforms the other comparative models. In especial, the proposed model significantly performs better than two comparative modes with the cluster analysis from the statistical significance test. However, the difference between the proposed model and the naive model does not have statistical significance.

An Empirical Study in Relationship between Franchisor's Leadership Behavior Style and Commitment by Focusing Moderating Effect of Franchisee's Self-efficacy (가맹본부의 리더십 행동유형과 가맹사업자의 관계결속에 관한 실증적 연구 - 가맹사업자의 자기효능감의 조절효과를 중심으로 -)

  • Yang, Hoe-Chang;Lee, Young-Chul
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.49-71
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    • 2010
  • Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

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