• 제목/요약/키워드: Business Software

Search Result 1,522, Processing Time 0.038 seconds

A Study on the Development of an Assessment Index for Selecting Start-ups on Balanced Scorecard (균형성과표(BSC) 기반 창업기업 선정평가지표 개발)

  • Jung, kyung Hee;Choi, Dae Soo
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
    • /
    • v.13 no.6
    • /
    • pp.49-62
    • /
    • 2018
  • The purpose of this study is to develop an assessment index for the selection of promising start-ups, which will enhance the efficiency of program that support start-ups. In order to develop assessment models for selecting start-ups, three major research steps were conducted. First, this study attempted to theoretically redefine the assessment index from the perspective of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) through a literature review. Second, major assessment index were derived using Delphi technique for experts in start-up areas. Third, weights were derived by applying AHP technique to calculate the importance of each index. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, this study attempted to apply the assessment model for selecting start-ups from the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) view through the previous study review. Second, the final major questions were derived with sufficient opinions collected and structured survey of leading start-up experts in areas related to research subjects and elicited the most representative questions. Third, the results of applying the weights of the main selected assessment index, commercialization viewpoint is the most priority, followed by market view, technology development viewpoint, and organizational capability viewpoint. In the middle section, th ability to make products in the commercialization viewpoint, market competitiveness in the market, product discrimination capacity in the technology development perspective, and the ability of the entrepreneur in the organizational capacity perspective were important. Overall important items were found to be in the order of the capabilities of entrepreneurs, market competitiveness, product fire capability, and product discrimination. The importance of small items was highest priority for comparative excellence of competing products, and the degree of marketability, capacity of entrepreneurship, ability to raise capital, desire for entrepreneurship, and passion were shown. The results of this study presented a conceptual alternative to the preceding study on the development of existing selection assessment indexes. And it provides meaningful and important implications as an attempt to develop more sophisticated indicators by overcoming the limitations of empirical research on only some of the evaluation metrics.

The Mediating Effect of Experiential Value on Customers' Perceived Value of Digital Content: China's Anti-virus Program Market (경험개치대소비자대전자내용적인지개치적중개영향(经验价值对消费者对电子内容的认知价值的中介影响): 중국살독연건시장(中国杀毒软件市场))

  • Jia, Weiwei;Kim, Sae-Bum
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
    • /
    • v.20 no.2
    • /
    • pp.219-230
    • /
    • 2010
  • Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.

Impact of Shortly Acquired IPO Firms on ICT Industry Concentration (ICT 산업분야 신생기업의 IPO 이후 인수합병과 산업 집중도에 관한 연구)

  • Chang, YoungBong;Kwon, YoungOk
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.26 no.3
    • /
    • pp.51-69
    • /
    • 2020
  • Now, it is a stylized fact that a small number of technology firms such as Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and a few others have become larger and dominant players in an industry. Coupled with the rise of these leading firms, we have also observed that a large number of young firms have become an acquisition target in their early IPO stages. This indeed results in a sharp decline in the number of new entries in public exchanges although a series of policy reforms have been promulgated to foster competition through an increase in new entries. Given the observed industry trend in recent decades, a number of studies have reported increased concentration in most developed countries. However, it is less understood as to what caused an increase in industry concentration. In this paper, we uncover the mechanisms by which industries have become concentrated over the last decades by tracing the changes in industry concentration associated with a firm's status change in its early IPO stages. To this end, we put emphasis on the case in which firms are acquired shortly after they went public. Especially, with the transition to digital-based economies, it is imperative for incumbent firms to adapt and keep pace with new ICT and related intelligent systems. For instance, after the acquisition of a young firm equipped with AI-based solutions, an incumbent firm may better respond to a change in customer taste and preference by integrating acquired AI solutions and analytics skills into multiple business processes. Accordingly, it is not unusual for young ICT firms become an attractive acquisition target. To examine the role of M&As involved with young firms in reshaping the level of industry concentration, we identify a firm's status in early post-IPO stages over the sample periods spanning from 1990 to 2016 as follows: i) being delisted, ii) being standalone firms and iii) being acquired. According to our analysis, firms that have conducted IPO since 2000s have been acquired by incumbent firms at a relatively quicker time than those that did IPO in previous generations. We also show a greater acquisition rate for IPO firms in the ICT sector compared with their counterparts in other sectors. Our results based on multinomial logit models suggest that a large number of IPO firms have been acquired in their early post-IPO lives despite their financial soundness. Specifically, we show that IPO firms are likely to be acquired rather than be delisted due to financial distress in early IPO stages when they are more profitable, more mature or less leveraged. For those IPO firms with venture capital backup have also become an acquisition target more frequently. As a larger number of firms are acquired shortly after their IPO, our results show increased concentration. While providing limited evidence on the impact of large incumbent firms in explaining the change in industry concentration, our results show that the large firms' effect on industry concentration are pronounced in the ICT sector. This result possibly captures the current trend that a few tech giants such as Alphabet, Apple and Facebook continue to increase their market share. In addition, compared with the acquisitions of non-ICT firms, the concentration impact of IPO firms in early stages becomes larger when ICT firms are acquired as a target. Our study makes new contributions. To our best knowledge, this is one of a few studies that link a firm's post-IPO status to associated changes in industry concentration. Although some studies have addressed concentration issues, their primary focus was on market power or proprietary software. Contrast to earlier studies, we are able to uncover the mechanism by which industries have become concentrated by placing emphasis on M&As involving young IPO firms. Interestingly, the concentration impact of IPO firm acquisitions are magnified when a large incumbent firms are involved as an acquirer. This leads us to infer the underlying reasons as to why industries have become more concentrated with a favor of large firms in recent decades. Overall, our study sheds new light on the literature by providing a plausible explanation as to why industries have become concentrated.

Impact of Semantic Characteristics on Perceived Helpfulness of Online Reviews (온라인 상품평의 내용적 특성이 소비자의 인지된 유용성에 미치는 영향)

  • Park, Yoon-Joo;Kim, Kyoung-jae
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.23 no.3
    • /
    • pp.29-44
    • /
    • 2017
  • In Internet commerce, consumers are heavily influenced by product reviews written by other users who have already purchased the product. However, as the product reviews accumulate, it takes a lot of time and effort for consumers to individually check the massive number of product reviews. Moreover, product reviews that are written carelessly actually inconvenience consumers. Thus many online vendors provide mechanisms to identify reviews that customers perceive as most helpful (Cao et al. 2011; Mudambi and Schuff 2010). For example, some online retailers, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor, allow users to rate the helpfulness of each review, and use this feedback information to rank and re-order them. However, many reviews have only a few feedbacks or no feedback at all, thus making it hard to identify their helpfulness. Also, it takes time to accumulate feedbacks, thus the newly authored reviews do not have enough ones. For example, only 20% of the reviews in Amazon Review Dataset (Mcauley and Leskovec, 2013) have more than 5 reviews (Yan et al, 2014). The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the usefulness of online product reviews and to derive a forecasting model that selectively provides product reviews that can be helpful to consumers. In order to do this, we extracted the various linguistic, psychological, and perceptual elements included in product reviews by using text-mining techniques and identifying the determinants among these elements that affect the usability of product reviews. In particular, considering that the characteristics of the product reviews and determinants of usability for apparel products (which are experiential products) and electronic products (which are search goods) can differ, the characteristics of the product reviews were compared within each product group and the determinants were established for each. This study used 7,498 apparel product reviews and 106,962 electronic product reviews from Amazon.com. In order to understand a review text, we first extract linguistic and psychological characteristics from review texts such as a word count, the level of emotional tone and analytical thinking embedded in review text using widely adopted text analysis software LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). After then, we explore the descriptive statistics of review text for each category and statistically compare their differences using t-test. Lastly, we regression analysis using the data mining software RapidMiner to find out determinant factors. As a result of comparing and analyzing product review characteristics of electronic products and apparel products, it was found that reviewers used more words as well as longer sentences when writing product reviews for electronic products. As for the content characteristics of the product reviews, it was found that these reviews included many analytic words, carried more clout, and related to the cognitive processes (CogProc) more so than the apparel product reviews, in addition to including many words expressing negative emotions (NegEmo). On the other hand, the apparel product reviews included more personal, authentic, positive emotions (PosEmo) and perceptual processes (Percept) compared to the electronic product reviews. Next, we analyzed the determinants toward the usefulness of the product reviews between the two product groups. As a result, it was found that product reviews with high product ratings from reviewers in both product groups that were perceived as being useful contained a larger number of total words, many expressions involving perceptual processes, and fewer negative emotions. In addition, apparel product reviews with a large number of comparative expressions, a low expertise index, and concise content with fewer words in each sentence were perceived to be useful. In the case of electronic product reviews, those that were analytical with a high expertise index, along with containing many authentic expressions, cognitive processes, and positive emotions (PosEmo) were perceived to be useful. These findings are expected to help consumers effectively identify useful product reviews in the future.

The Comparison of Basic Science Research Capacity of OECD Countries

  • Lim, Yang-Taek;Song, Choong-Han
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
    • /
    • v.11 no.1
    • /
    • pp.147-176
    • /
    • 2003
  • This Paper Presents a new measurement technique to derive the level of BSRC (Basic Science and Research Capacity) index by use of the factor analysis which is extended with the assumption of the standard normal probability distribution of the selected explanatory variables. The new measurement method is used to forecast the gap of Korea's BSRC level compared with those of major OECD countries in terms of time lag and to make their international comparison during the time period of 1981∼1999, based on the assumption that the BSRC progress function of each country takes the form of the logistic curve. The US BSRC index is estimated to be 0.9878 in 1981, 0.9996 in 1990 and 0.99991 in 1999, taking the 1st place. The US BSRC level has been consistently the top among the 16 selected variables, followed by Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in order. Korea's BSRC is estimated to be 0.2293 in 1981, taking the lowest place among the 16 OECD countries. However, Korea's BSRC indices are estimated to have been increased to 0.3216 (in 1990) and 0.44652 (in 1999) respectively, taking 10th place. Meanwhile, Korea's BSRC level in 1999 (0.44652) is estimated to reach those of the US and Japan in 2233 and 2101, respectively. This means that Korea falls 234 years behind USA and 102 years behind Japan, respectively. Korea is also estimated to lag 34 years behind Germany, 16 years behind France and the UK, 15 years behind Sweden, 11 years behind Canada, 7 years behind Finland, and 5 years behind the Netherlands. For the period of 1981∼1999, the BSRC development speed of the US is estimated to be 0.29700. Its rank is the top among the selected OECD countries, followed by Japan (0.12800), Korea (0.04443), and Germany (0.04029). the US BSRC development speed (0.2970) is estimated to be 2.3 times higher than that of Japan (0.1280), and 6.7 times higher than that of Korea. German BSRC development speed (0.04029) is estimated to be fastest in Europe, but it is 7.4 times slower than that of the US. The estimated BSRC development speeds of Belgium, Finland, Italy, Denmark and the UK stand between 0.01 and 0.02, which are very slow. Particularly, the BSRC development speed of Spain is estimated to be minus 0.0065, staying at the almost same level of BSRC over time (1981 ∼ 1999). Since Korea shows BSRC development speed much slower than those of the US and Japan but relative]y faster than those of other countries, the gaps in BSRC level between Korea and the other countries may get considerably narrower or even Korea will surpass possibly several countries in BSRC level, as time goes by. Korea's BSRC level had taken 10th place till 1993. However, it is estimated to be 6th place in 2010 by catching up the UK, Sweden, Finland and Holland, and 4th place in 2020 by catching up France and Canada. The empirical results are consistent with OECD (2001a)'s computation that Korea had the highest R&D expenditures growth during 1991∼1999 among all OECD countries ; and the value-added of ICT industries in total business sectors value added is 12% in Korea, but only 8% in Japan. And OECD (2001b) observed that Korea, together with the US, Sweden, and Finland, are already the four most knowledge-based countries. Hence, the rank of the knowledge-based country was measured by investment in knowledge which is defined as public and private spending on higher education, expenditures on R&D and investment in software.

  • PDF

A Study on the Factors of Satisfaction with Stock Investment : Focusing on the Moderating Effect of the Stock Message Framing (주식 투자 만족도 형성 요인에 관한 연구 : 주식 메시지 프레이밍에 대한 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Hae-young
    • Journal of Venture Innovation
    • /
    • v.1 no.2
    • /
    • pp.47-59
    • /
    • 2018
  • With the recent, rapid changes in the socio-economic environment, organizations of today are now required to present a framework of realistic consumer behaviors based on psychology, economy, and finance, in order to understand their investing customers. Stock investors show differences in terms of their decisions or evaluations in the process of investing. This is due to what is called the 'framing effect.' The decision frames of the investors are defined differently, and, as a result, this affects the decisions made by the investors. Preceding studies on stock investment rarely touched the topic of the effect of message framing on market participants in their stock investment, especially regarding the differences in terms of their risk management behaviors based on the message framing in stock investment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of stock investment message framing on market participants in their investment decision making and empirically validate whether this message framing effect has a moderating effect on the factors of investment satisfaction. For this, 494 participants with stock investment experiences were interviewed from May 1 to 26, 2018, and the results were used as the data for the empirical analysis. The analysis of the data was conducted using SPSS 22.0 statistical analysis software. The results of this study were as follows; First, of the stock investment behavioral factors, the stock comprehension, recommendation by others for a stock, and the degree of risks of a stock affected stock investment satisfaction in a positive manner. And, of the behavioral factors of stock investment, stock comprehension, stock brand, recommendation on the stocks from others, past performances, and risk levels of stocks affected the intent of continued stock investment in a positive manner. Second, message framing turned out to affect stock investment satisfaction in a positive manner, and it also had a significant moderating effect to the relationship between the stock investment behavior and stock investment satisfaction. Third, message framing was found to affect continued stock investment intent significantly, with a significant moderating effect in the relationship between stock investment behavioral factor and continued stock investment intent.

Investigation of Factors on the Sensory Characteristics of Milk Bread with Tumeric Powder (Curcuma longa L.) Using Fractional Factorial Design Method (부분배치법을 활용한 울금 분말 첨가 우유식빵의 관능적 영향 인자 탐색)

  • Jung, Kyong Im;Park, Jae Ha;Kim, Mi Jeong
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
    • /
    • v.43 no.4
    • /
    • pp.592-603
    • /
    • 2014
  • We developed various recipes of turmeric powder (Curcuma longa L.) added to milk bread and assessed the individual effects of seven ingredients [milk ($X_1$), turmeric powder ($X_2$), bread improver ($X_3$), fresh yeast ($X_4$), butter ($X_5$), sugar ($X_6$), and salt ($X_7$)] as well as the 2-way interaction effects of the ingredients on the sensory characteristics of breads using fractional factorial design method. The center and end points of each component were determined via literature review and multiple test baking. Seven trained sensory test panels evaluated the outside appearance (OA), inside appearance (IA), and flavor & texture (FT) of 38 breads using 46 items of sensory evaluation. Findings are as follows: for the OA, $X_1$ (P<0.05) and $X_4$ (P<0.0001) exhibited significant individual effects, whereas $X_1*X_7$, $X_2*X_5$, $X_3*X_6$, and $X_4*X_6$ indicated significant interaction effects (P<0.05). For the IA, $X_1$ (P<0.0001), $X_4$ (P<0.0001), $X_6$ (P<0.05), $X_2*X_4$ (P<0.05), and $X_3*X_6$ (P<0.01) showed individual and interaction effects, respectively. For the FT, $X_1$ and $X_2$ showed the most significant individual effect (P<0.0001), followed by $X_4$, $X_5$ and $X_6$ (P<0.05) in descending order. $X_4*X_7$ indicated the only significant interaction effect. We computed the magnitudes of the 2-way interaction effects of the ingredients with a distinct emphasis. Model equations predicting the levels of the ingredient effects on the breads were also provided via regression analyses. In summation, $X_4$ appeared to be the most significant component affecting the sensory characteristics based on its individual and 2-way interaction effects. Further, $X_6$, $X_1$, $X_2$, and $X_5$ indicated both individual and interaction effects. $X_3$ and X7 showed only interaction effects. The center point effect appeared to be unequivocal for whole sensory characteristics. Findings of the present study may provide insights into the selection of ingredients to derive an optimal model for turmeric powder-added bread using the response surface method hereafter.

An effect on the Job-satisfaction and Service quality of the effect factor on Job-satisfaction of Family Restaurant Service Staff (외식업체 종사원의 직무만족 영향요인이 직무만족과 서비스품질에 미치는 영향)

  • 이형백;노진옥
    • Journal of Applied Tourism Food and Beverage Management and Research
    • /
    • v.16 no.2
    • /
    • pp.175-199
    • /
    • 2005
  • Family Restaurant is a service business of a kind. The role of service operator is to improve a sales of service goods through maximizing the service value with customer satisfaction at the moment of MOT(moment of truth). Family Restaurant come to the great growth on the face of it. In future, it will place emphasis more and more on not hardware but software including service quality. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to research the effect on service quality of the job satisfaction of Family Restaurant's service staff. Data was collected from the employee who are working at Family Restaurant located in Taegu. The empirical research has been done over 50days from 1April, 2004 to 20May, 2004. In conclusion of empirical analysis, 4 hypotheses were significant among 7 hypotheses suggested in this study. The research showed as follows : First, the organic trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed positive influence on job satisfaction. Second, the personal trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed positive influence on service quality. Third, the official trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed negative influence on job satisfaction. Fourth, the organic trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed positive influence on service quality. Fifth, the personal trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed negative influence on service quality. Sixth, the organic trait among the effect factor of job satisfaction perceived by Family Restaurant service staff showed negative influence on service quality. Seventh, the job satisfaction of Family Restaurant service staff showed positive influence on service quality. Besides, the critical points of this study are as follows; First, we designated the subject of research to the employee of Family Restaurant only. Second, multi-situations(time, holiday) which can happen as service was offered, wasn't concerned. Third, as service quality was estimated by general service quality, the research in future should subdivide service quality more. I, finally, applied the pervious researches on job satisfaction and service quality in the employee of Family Restaurant. To extend more this research model in future, the variables like customer satisfaction should be added.

  • PDF

Recommending Core and Connecting Keywords of Research Area Using Social Network and Data Mining Techniques (소셜 네트워크와 데이터 마이닝 기법을 활용한 학문 분야 중심 및 융합 키워드 추천 서비스)

  • Cho, In-Dong;Kim, Nam-Gyu
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.17 no.1
    • /
    • pp.127-138
    • /
    • 2011
  • The core service of most research portal sites is providing relevant research papers to various researchers that match their research interests. This kind of service may only be effective and easy to use when a user can provide correct and concrete information about a paper such as the title, authors, and keywords. However, unfortunately, most users of this service are not acquainted with concrete bibliographic information. It implies that most users inevitably experience repeated trial and error attempts of keyword-based search. Especially, retrieving a relevant research paper is more difficult when a user is novice in the research domain and does not know appropriate keywords. In this case, a user should perform iterative searches as follows : i) perform an initial search with an arbitrary keyword, ii) acquire related keywords from the retrieved papers, and iii) perform another search again with the acquired keywords. This usage pattern implies that the level of service quality and user satisfaction of a portal site are strongly affected by the level of keyword management and searching mechanism. To overcome this kind of inefficiency, some leading research portal sites adopt the association rule mining-based keyword recommendation service that is similar to the product recommendation of online shopping malls. However, keyword recommendation only based on association analysis has limitation that it can show only a simple and direct relationship between two keywords. In other words, the association analysis itself is unable to present the complex relationships among many keywords in some adjacent research areas. To overcome this limitation, we propose the hybrid approach for establishing association network among keywords used in research papers. The keyword association network can be established by the following phases : i) a set of keywords specified in a certain paper are regarded as co-purchased items, ii) perform association analysis for the keywords and extract frequent patterns of keywords that satisfy predefined thresholds of confidence, support, and lift, and iii) schematize the frequent keyword patterns as a network to show the core keywords of each research area and connecting keywords among two or more research areas. To estimate the practical application of our approach, we performed a simple experiment with 600 keywords. The keywords are extracted from 131 research papers published in five prominent Korean journals in 2009. In the experiment, we used the SAS Enterprise Miner for association analysis and the R software for social network analysis. As the final outcome, we presented a network diagram and a cluster dendrogram for the keyword association network. We summarized the results in Section 4 of this paper. The main contribution of our proposed approach can be found in the following aspects : i) the keyword network can provide an initial roadmap of a research area to researchers who are novice in the domain, ii) a researcher can grasp the distribution of many keywords neighboring to a certain keyword, and iii) researchers can get some idea for converging different research areas by observing connecting keywords in the keyword association network. Further studies should include the following. First, the current version of our approach does not implement a standard meta-dictionary. For practical use, homonyms, synonyms, and multilingual problems should be resolved with a standard meta-dictionary. Additionally, more clear guidelines for clustering research areas and defining core and connecting keywords should be provided. Finally, intensive experiments not only on Korean research papers but also on international papers should be performed in further studies.

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

  • Kim, Mingun;Kim, Kyoung-Jae
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.20 no.4
    • /
    • pp.107-120
    • /
    • 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.