• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.109-124
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• 2024

The value of platform companies is rapidly increasing, exerting significant influence across industries. Identifying and fostering promising platform companies is crucial for enhancing national competitiveness. Consequently, tailored evaluation standards are necessary for such companies. This study derived investment decision factors specific to platform companies and compared the importance of each factor using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis. Key factors included platform characteristics, finance, entrepreneur (team), market, and product/service attributes. The findings revealed that platform characteristics were deemed the most crucial factor for investors. Specifically, factors such as platform size, ease of value fixation, core participant group, and data value were identified as pertinent for evaluating platform companies. Moreover, analysis distinguished between investors with prior platform investment experience and those without. Significantly, investors with platform investment experience placed greater emphasis on the value of data secured by platform Furthermore, it was observed that investors prioritized future value and growth potential over current value when investing in platform. Notably, founder/team characteristics, typically highly regarded in previous studies, ranked lower in importance in this study, highlighting a shift in focus. The discrepancy between this study's results and prior research on investment decision factors is attributed to the specificity of the questions posed. By focusing on investment decision factors for platform startups rather than generic startup inquiries, investor responses aligned more closely with platform-focused considerations. Given the burgeoning venture investment landscape, there's a growing need for detailed research on startups within specific sectors like IT, travel, and biotech. This approach can replace extensive research covering all startup types to identify investment decision factors suited to the characteristics of each individual industry.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.66-94
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• 2004

The objective of this study is to examine how to maximize the efficiency of hospital management by minimizing the unit cost of hospital operation. For this purpose, this paper proposes to develop a model of the profit maximization based on the cost minimization dictum using the statistical tools of arriving at the maximum likelihood values. The preliminary survey data are collected from the annual statistics and their analyses published by Korea Health Industry Development Institute and Korean Hospital Association. The maximum likelihood value statistical analyses are conducted from the information on the cost (function) of each of 36 hospitals selected by the random stratified sampling method according to the size and location (urban or rural) of hospitals. We believe that, although the size of sample is relatively small, because of the sampling method used and the high response rate, the power of estimation of the results of the statistical analyses of the sample hospitals is acceptable. The conceptual framework of analyses is adopted from the various models of the determinants of hospital costs used by the previous studies. According to this framework, the study postulates that the unit cost of hospital operation is determined by the size, scope of service, technology (production function) as measured by capacity utilization, labor capital ratio and labor input-mix variables, and by exogeneous variables. The variables to represent the above cost determinants are selected by using the step-wise regression so that only the statistically significant variables may be utilized in analyzing how these variables impact on the hospital unit cost. The results of the analyses show that the models of hospital cost determinants adopted are well chosen. The various models analyzed have the (goodness of fit) overall determination (R2) which all turned out to be significant, regardless of the variables put in to represent the cost determinants. Specifically, the size and scope of service, no matter how it is measured, i. e., number of admissions per bed, number of ambulatory visits per bed, adjusted inpatient days and adjusted outpatients, have overall effects of reducing the hospital unit costs as measured by the cost per admission, per inpatient day, or office visit implying the existence of the economy of scale in the hospital operation. Thirdly, the technology used in operating a hospital has turned out to have its ramifications on the hospital unit cost similar to those postulated in the static theory of the firm. For example, the capacity utilization as represented by the inpatient days per employee tuned out to have statistically significant negative impacts on the unit cost of hospital operation, while payroll expenses per inpatient cost has a positive effect. The input-mix of hospital operation, as represented by the ratio of the number of doctor, nurse or medical staff per general employee, supports the known thesis that the specialized manpower costs more than the general employees. The labor/capital ratio as represented by the employees per 100 beds is shown to have a positive effect on the cost as expected. As for the exogeneous variable's impacts on the cost, when this variable is represented by the percent of urban 100 population at the location where the hospital is located, the regression analysis shows that the hospitals located in the urban area have a higher cost than those in the rural area. Finally, the case study of the sample hospitals offers a specific information to hospital administrators about how they share in terms of the cost they are incurring in comparison to other hospitals. For example, if his/her hospital is of small size and located in a city, he/she can compare the various costs of his/her hospital operation with those of other similar hospitals. Therefore, he/she may be able to find the reasons why the cost of his/her hospital operation has a higher or lower cost than other similar hospitals in what factors of the hospital cost determinants.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.6 no.2 s.24
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• pp.120-128
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• 2005

ISO 9001, the quality management system issued by the International Organization for Standardization, is being used by architectural design and engineering firms in order to strengthen the capability of business activities through the implementation of the international and advanced quality management systems. However, there have been significant problems in stable implementation and settlement of ISO 9001 in construction industry, which seem to be caused by key employees' lack of proper recognition and comprehension. The purpose of this research, accordingly, is to find and analyze nonconformity results which were found when the third party registrars audited the conformity of companies' quality management systems for ISO 9001 certification especially in architectural design and engineering firms. For this purpose this research was conducted by a cluster analysis of 647 audit reports out of representative 15 architectural design and engineering firms that have been audited periodically from 1997 to 2003 by the third party registrars. The analysis showed that the most frequent problems were generated in the areas of $\ulcorner$Design and Development$\lrcorner$ , $\ulcorner$production and Service Provision$\lrcorner$ , and $\ulcorner$General requirements$\lrcorner$ of the quality management system. The following, the areas of $\ulcorner$Monitoring and Measurement$\lrcorner$ and $\ulcorner$purchasing$\lrcorner$ were also analyzed as main factors which caused frequent nonconformity results. This research also shows that the corrective actions for nonconformity results are closely connected with the whole management activities in architectural design and engineering firms. Consequently, corrective actions for disposition of nonconformities should be implemented more specifically in order to settle and activate the quality management systems in architectural design and engineering firms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.881-893
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• 2007

IT(Information Technology)-based industries have caused a recent digital revolution and the appearance of various types' information service, being largely expanded toward info-communication device company, info-communication service company, software company etc.. Therefore, the needs to evaluate the company value of IT business for M&A or liquidation are growing tremendously. Unlike other industries, however, IT industry has a short lift cycle and so it doesn't have not only a company value-evaluating model for general businesses but the objective one for IT companies yet. So, this thesis analyzes various value-evaluating technique and newly rising ROV. DCF, the change method of company's cash flow including tangible assets into future value, had been applied during the past industrialization economy era and has been persuasively applied to the present. However, the DCF valuation has no option but to make many mistakes because IT companies have more intangible assets than tangible assets. Accordingly, it is ROV, recognized as the new method of evaluating companies' various options normally and quantitatively, that is brought up recently. But the evaluation on the companies' various options is too subjective and theoretical up to now and due to the lack of objective ground and options, it's not possible to be applied to reality. In this thesis, it is found that ROV is more accurate than DCF, comparing DCF and ROV through four examples. As the options applied to ROV are excessively limited, we tried to develop ROV into a new method by deriving five invisible value factors within IT companies. Therefore, on this occasion, we should set up the basic valuation methods on IT companies and should research and develop an effective and various valuation methods suitable to each company like an internet-based company, a S/W developing enterprise, a network-related company among IT companies.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.28
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• pp.35-81
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• 2011

Manhwa is a mass media (to expose all faces of an era such as politics, society, cultures, etc with the methodology of irony, parody, etc). Since the Manhwa records is primary culture infrastructure, it can create the high value-added industry by connecting with fancy, character, game, movie, drama, theme park, advertising business. However, due to lack of active and systematic aquisition system, as precious Manhwa manuscript is being lost every year and the contents hard to preserve such as Manhwa content in the form of electronic records are increasing, the countermeasure of Manhwa contents management is needed desperately. In this study, based on these perceptions, the need of Manhwa records management is examined, and the characteristics and the components of Manhwa records were analyzed. And at the same time, the functions of record management process reflecting the characteristics of Manhwa records were extracted by analyzing various cases of overseas Cartoon Archives. And then, the framework of record-keeping regime was segmented into each of acquisition management service areas and the general Manhwa records archiving strategy, which manages the Manhwa contents records, was established and suggested. The acquired Manhwa content records will secure the context among records and warrant the preservation of records and provide diverse access points by reflecting multi classification and multi-level descriptive element. The Manhwa records completed the intellectual arrangement will be preserved after the conservation in an environment equipped with preservation facilities or preserved using digital format in case of electronic records or when there is potential risk of damaging the records. Since the purpose of the Manhwa records is to use them, the information may be provided to diverse classes of users through the exhibition, the distribution, and the development of archival information content. Since the term of "Manhwa records" is unfamiliar yet and almost no study has been conducted in the perspective of records management, it will be the limit of this study only presenting acquisition strategy, management and service strategy of Manhwa contents and suggesting simple examples. However, if Manhwa records management strategy are possibly introduced practically to Manhwa manuscript repositories through archival approach, it will allow systematic acquisition, preservation, arrangement of Manhwa records and will contribute greatly to form a foundation for future Korean culture contents management.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.373-380
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to estimate satisfaction and evaluation degree of students' spot-practice in department of food and nutrition and to investigate relating factors to them for development of spot-practice Programme. The survey for analysis was conducted through the questionnaires to 229 students finished internship. Proportions of the students were 93.9% for senior, 93.9% for female. Proportions of spot-practice facilities were 38.9%, 46.7%, and 14.4% for school, business & industry, and hospital respectively. The major part of subjects (83.8%) took part in spot-practice during 2 weeks. The satisfaction scores to spot-practice were the lowest for pay, and the highest for a kind of spot-practice facilities. The evaluation scores were the lowest for 'I made a plan and prepared my work in advanced', and the highest for 'I did my best for doing my work'. The satisfaction score in hospital was significantly lower than those in school or business & industry. The satisfaction score in self-operated foodservice was significantly higher than that in contract managed one. However, there no significant differences in evaluation scores by foodsevice employment type. In the case of coincidence of area in spot-practice and residence, or facilities of spot-practice and job desired, the satisfaction and evaluation scores were significantly higher than those of others. The period of spot-practice was significantly positively correlated with satisfaction scores for atmosphere of spot-practice facilities, service and treatment for spot-practice student, while negatively correlated with evaluation score for 'I did my best for doing my work'. The spot-practice pay was significantly positively correlated with satisfaction and evaluation scores for various items. In conclusion, various factors are related to satisfaction and evaluation degree of spot-practice students, and consist concern and support from college St university, foodservice institution, and government for systematic spot-Practice are required.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.21
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• pp.155-175
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• 2009

RFID that provide automatic identification by reading a tag attached to material through radio frequency without direct touch has some specification, such as rapid identification, long distance identification and penetration, so it is being used for distribution, transportation and safety by using the frequency of 125KHz, 134KHz, 13.56MHz, 433.92MHz, 900MHz, and 2.45GHz. Also it is one of main part of Ubiquitous that means connecting to net-work any time and any place they want. RFID is expected to be new growth industry worldwide, so Korean government think it as prospective field and promote research project and exhibition business program to linked with industry effectively. RFID could be used for access control of person and vehicle according to section and for personal certify with password. RFID can provide more confident security than magnetic card, so it could be used to prevent forgery of register card, passport and the others. Active RFID could be used for protecting operation service using it's long distance date transmission by application with positioning system. And RFID's identification and tracking function can provide effective visitor management through visitor's register, personal identification, position check and can control visitor's movement in the secure area without their approval. Also RFID can make possible of the efficient management and prevention of loss of carrying equipments and others. RFID could be applied to copying machine to manager and control it's user, copying quantity and It could provide some function such as observation of copy content, access control of user. RFID tag adhered to small storage device prevent carrying out of item using the position tracking function and control carrying-in and carrying-out of material efficiently. magnetic card and smart card have been doing good job in identification and control of person, but RFID can do above functions. RFID is very useful device but we should consider the prevention of privacy during its application.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.91-102
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• 2014

The purpose of this research is to perform the consumer typological study of integrated emerging digital advertisement, where IT and advertisement industry were fused, and to propose the theoretical definition about consumer characteristic which is in need for collection of related market subdivision strategy in perspective of business marketing. For this, the Q methodology, the 'subjectivity' research of qualitative perspective, which discovers new theory by interpreting subjective system of thinking, preference, opinion, and recognition of inner side of respondents, was applied and analyzed. Compared to previous quantitative research that pursues hypothesis verification, this Q methodology is not dependent on operational definition proposed by researcher but pursues for analytic study completely reflecting objective testimony of respondents. For this reason, Q study analyzes in-depth the actual consumer type, which can be found at the initial market formation stage of new service, therefore this study is applicable for theorizing the consumer character as a mean of advanced research. This study extracted thirty 'IT integrated digital advertisement type (Q sample)' from thorough literature research and interviews, and eventually discovered a total four consumer types from analyzing each Q sorting research data of 40 respondents (P sample). Moreover, by interpreting subdivided intrinsic characteristic of each group, the four types were named as 'multi-channel digital advertisement pursuit type', 'emotional advertisement pursuit type', 'new media advertisement pursuit type', and Web 2.0 advertisement pursuit type'. The analysis result of this study is being expected for its value of usage as advanced research of academic and industrial research with the emerging digital advertisement industry as a subject, and as basic research in the field of R&D, Marketing program and the field of designing the advertisement creative strategy and related policy.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.33-58
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• 2008

Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts. The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort. The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case. However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity. Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity. A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding, strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an experience of cosmetics. Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked. The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint. Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory. This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers, the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product failure.