• Title/Summary/Keyword: Communication Problem

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Evaluation of the Curvature Reliability of Polymer Flexible Meta Electronic Devices based on Variations of the Electrical Properties (전기적 특성 변화를 통한 고분자 유연메타 전자소자의 곡률 안정성 평가)

  • Kwak, Ji-Youn;Jeong, Ji-Young;Ju, Jeong-A;Kwon, Ye-Pil;Kim, Si-Hoon;Choi, Doo-Sun;Je, Tae-Jin;Han, Jun Sae;Jeon, Eun-chae
    • Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.268-276
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    • 2021
  • As wireless communication devices become more common, interests in how to control the electromagnetic waves generated from the devices are increasing. One of the most commonly used electromagnetic wave control materials is magnetic one, but due to the features that make the product heavy and thick when applied to the product, it is difficult to use them in curved electronic devices. Therefore, a polymer flexible meta electronic device has been presented to sort out the problem, which is thin and can have various curvatures. However, it requires an additional evaluation of curvature reliability. In this study, we developed a method to predict electromagnetic wave control characteristics through the resistance/length of the conductive ink line patterns of polymer flexible meta electronic devices, which is inversely proportional to the electromagnetic wave control characteristics. As the radius of curvature decreased, the resistance/length increased, and there was little variations with the duration times of curvature. We also found that both permanent and recoverable changes along with the removal of curvature were occurred when the curvature was applied, and that the cause of these changes was newly created vertical cracks in the conductive ink line pattern due to the tensile stress applied by applying curvature.

Analysis of the operation status and opinion on the improvement of fishing vessel structure in coastal improved stow net fishery by the questionnaire survey (설문조사를 통한 연안개량안강망어업의 조업 실태 및 어선 구조 개선에 관한 의견 분석)

  • CHANG, Ho-Young;KIM, Min-Son;HWANG, Bo-Kyu;OH, Jong Chul
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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    • v.57 no.4
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    • pp.316-333
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    • 2021
  • In order to understand basic data for improving the fishing system and fishing vessel structure in coastal improved stow net fishery, a questionnaire survey and on-site hearing were conducted from May 10 to June 11, 2019 to analyze opinions on the improvement of operation status and fishing vessel structure. The questionnaire survey consisted of ten questions on the operation status of coastal improved stow net fishery and six questions on the improvement of fishing vessel structure, and the results of each question were analyzed by the region, the captain's age, the captain's career and the age of fishing vessel. As a result of analyzing opinions on the operation status of the coastal improved stow net fishery, it was found that the average time required for casting net was 32.8 to 33.0 minutes and that the average time required for hauling net was 41.0 to 42.2 minutes which took 10 to 12 minutes more than for casting net. The most important work requiring improvement during fishing operation (the first priority) were 'hauling net operation,' 'readjustment and storage of fishing gear,' and 'fish handling' and the hardest factor in fishing management were in the order of 'reduction of catch,' 'labor shortage' and 'rising labor costs.' The most institutional improvement that is most needed in coastal improved stow net fishery was an 'using fine mesh nets.' Most of the respondent to the questions on the experience in hiring foreign crews was 'either hiring or willing to hire foreign crews,' and the average number of foreign crews employed was found to be 2.3 to 2.4 persons. The most important reason for hiring (or considering employment) foreign crews was 'high labor costs.' The degree of communication with foreign crews during fishing operation were 'moderate' or 'difficult to direct work.' The most important problem in hiring foreign crews (the first priority) was an 'illegal departure.' As the survey results on the opinion of structural improvement of coastal improved stow net fishing vessel, the degree of satisfaction with fishing vessel structure related to fishing operation was found to be somewhat unsatisfactory, with an average of 3.3 points on a five-point scale. The inconvenient structure of fishing vessel in possession (the first priority), the space needed most for the construction of new fishing vessel (the first priority) and the space considered important for the construction of new fishing vessel (the first prioprity) was a 'fish warehouse.' The most preferred equipment for the construction of new fishing vessel were 'engine operation monitoring' and 'navigation safety devices.' The average size (tonnage class), the average horse power and the average total length of fishing vessel for proper profit and safety fishing operation was between 13.8 and 14.0 tonnes, 808.3 to 819.5 H.P. and 23.4 to 23.5 meters, respectively. The results of the operation status of coastal improved stow net fishery and the requirement for improving the fishing vessel structure are expected to be provided as basic data for reference when we build or improve the fishing vessel.

A CF-based Health Functional Recommender System using Extended User Similarity Measure (확장된 사용자 유사도를 이용한 CF-기반 건강기능식품 추천 시스템)

  • Sein Hong;Euiju Jeong;Jaekyeong Kim
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.29 no.3
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    • pp.1-17
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    • 2023
  • With the recent rapid development of ICT(Information and Communication Technology) and the popularization of digital devices, the size of the online market continues to grow. As a result, we live in a flood of information. Thus, customers are facing information overload problems that require a lot of time and money to select products. Therefore, a personalized recommender system has become an essential methodology to address such issues. Collaborative Filtering(CF) is the most widely used recommender system. Traditional recommender systems mainly utilize quantitative data such as rating values, resulting in poor recommendation accuracy. Quantitative data cannot fully reflect the user's preference. To solve such a problem, studies that reflect qualitative data, such as review contents, are being actively conducted these days. To quantify user review contents, text mining was used in this study. The general CF consists of the following three steps: user-item matrix generation, Top-N neighborhood group search, and Top-K recommendation list generation. In this study, we propose a recommendation algorithm that applies an extended similarity measure, which utilize quantified review contents in addition to user rating values. After calculating review similarity by applying TF-IDF, Word2Vec, and Doc2Vec techniques to review content, extended similarity is created by combining user rating similarity and quantified review contents. To verify this, we used user ratings and review data from the e-commerce site Amazon's "Health and Personal Care". The proposed recommendation model using extended similarity measure showed superior performance to the traditional recommendation model using only user rating value-based similarity measure. In addition, among the various text mining techniques, the similarity obtained using the TF-IDF technique showed the best performance when used in the neighbor group search and recommendation list generation step.

The Effect of Satisfaction Level with the University Entrepreneurship Education, Recognition of Support System, and Mentoring on the Entrepreneurial Intention: The Moderating Effect of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (대학생의 창업교육 만족도와 창업지원제도인식, 창업멘토링이 창업의지에 미치는 영향: 창업효능감을 조절효과로)

  • Yu, Young Cheul;Lee, Won Il
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.187-200
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    • 2023
  • The purpose of this study is to examine how the start-up education, start-up support system, and start-up mentoring directly and indirectly conducted in universities affects entrepreneurial Intention, and to present programs and directions that can increase the possibility of start-up for college students. This study analyzed the effects of college students' satisfaction with university entrepreneurship education, awareness of the entrepreneurship support system, and entrepreneurship mentoring on entrepreneurial will, and then analyzed how entrepreneurship efficacy affects entrepreneurial will as a moderating effect. The recognition of the start-up support system was divided into the government start-up support policy and the university start-up support project, and start-up mentoring was divided into mentoring function (problem-solving function, networking function, communication function, motivation function) and mentor trust (cognitive trust, emotional trust). Regression analysis was performed on satisfaction with college entrepreneurship education, perception of entrepreneurship support system, entrepreneurship mentoring as independent variables, and willingness to entrepreneurship as dependent variables. In addition, entrepreneurship efficacy was designated as a moderating variable and analyzed. As a result of the study, first, it was found that satisfaction with start-up education had a positive (+) effect on college students' willingness to start a business. Second, among the start-up support systems, university start-up support projects were found to have a positive (+) effect on college students' willingness to start a business. Third, as a result of verifying whether entrepreneurial self-efficacy has a moderating effect on the relationship between college start-up support projects and college students' willingness to start a business while recognizing the start-up support system, it was found to have a moderating effect. The following implications can be derived based on the analysis results of this study. First, efforts to improve start-up education will be needed to increase the satisfaction of start-up education. Second, Through the operation of the start-up counseling center in the university, it will be possible to recognize the education system supported by the university, the university start-up support project that can carry out the indirect experience of start-up, and the government start-up support policy that supports funds. Third, It will be necessary to open a program that can provide start-up mentoring through connection with mentors in the start-up field, such as professors, employees, and senior start-ups in universities. Fourth, It is necessary to develop thorough education on the preparation process of start-ups, start-up special lectures where senior start-ups can indirectly experience the failure of start-ups, and programs for customized start-up education according to college students' major and individual tendencies.

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Active Seniors' Organizational and Functional Entrepreneurial Competencies: Discovering Unobserved Heterogeneous Relationships between Entrepreneurial Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Intention using PLS-POS (액티브 시니어의 조직적과 기능적 창업역량: PLS-POS를 이용한 창업 효능감과 창업의지의 이질성 관계 확인)

  • Shin, Hyang Sook;Bae, Jee-eun;Chao, Meiyu;Lee, Yong-Ki
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.15-31
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    • 2022
  • This study was conducted to suggest a start-up policy that includes start-up education and support for active seniors with various careers who try to change their careers before and after retirement. From this point of view, this study divided the factors affecting the entrepreneurial will of active seniors into entrepreneurship organizational and functional competency and identified the effect of these competencies on entrepreneurial efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. In the proposed model, start-up competency is divided into organizational competency (leadership, creativity problem-solving, communication, decision-making) and functional competency (management strategy, marketing, business plan). And this study examined the mediating role of entrepreneurial efficacy in the relationship between entrepreneurial competency factors and entrepreneurial intention. Meanwhile, PLS-POS analysis was performed to uncover the heterogeneity and pattern in the proposed structural model. The survey was conducted with the help of an online survey company from November 27 to December 15, 2020 for the active senior age group from 40 to under 65 years old. Data were collected from a total of 433 panelists and analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.3.7 programs. The findings are as follows. First, the finding shows that the entrepreneurial organizational and functional competencies of active seniors had significant positive(+) effects on entrepreneurial efficacy. Second, the result shows that entrepreneurial organizational and functional competencies of active seniors had significant positive(+) effects on entrepreneurial intention. Third, the findings show that entrepreneurship efficacy had a significantly positive(+) effect on entrepreneurial intention. The findings of PLS-POS show that entrepreneurship education needs to be carried out by identifying the needs that require entrepreneurial organizational and functional competency when training for entrepreneurship competency. In summary, the findings of the current study are to determine what the competency factors are for the government (local government) to increase the policy direction necessary for establishing and implementing entrepreneurship education and training programs to develop policies to enhance the economic activity participation rate of active seniors.

Characteristics and Changes in Scientific Empathy during Students' Productive Disciplinary Engagement in Science (학생들의 생산적 과학 참여에서 발현되는 과학공감의 특성과 변화 분석)

  • Heesun, Yang;Seong-Joo, Kang
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.44 no.1
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    • pp.11-27
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    • 2024
  • This study aimed to investigate the role of scientific empathy in influencing students' productive disciplinary engagement in scientific activities and analyze the key factors of scientific empathy that manifest during this process. Twelve fifth-grade students were divided into three subgroups based on their general empathic abilities. Lessons promoting productive disciplinary engagement, integrating design thinking processes, were conducted. Subgroup discourse analysis during idea generation and prototype stages, two of five problem-solving steps, enabled observation of scientific empathy and practice aspects. The results showed that applying scientific empathy effectively through design thinking facilitated students' productive disciplinary engagement in science. In the idea generation stage, we observed an initial increase followed by a decrease in scientific empathy and practice utterances, while during the prototyping stage, utterance frequency increased, particularly in the later part. However, subgroups with lower empathic abilities displayed decreased discourse frequency in scientific empathy and practice during the prototype stage due to a lack of collaborative communication. Across all empathic ability levels, the students articulated all five key factors of scientific empathy through their utterances in situations involving productive science engagement. In the high empathic ability subgroup, empathic understanding and concern were emphasized, whereas in the low empathic ability subgroup, sensitivity, scientific imagination, and situational interest, factors of empathizing with the research object, were prominent. These results indicate that experiences of scientific empathy with research objects, beyond general empathetic abilities, serve as a distinct and crucial factor in stimulating diverse participation and sustaining students' productive engagement in scientific activities during science classes. By suggesting the potential multidimensional impact of scientific empathy on productive disciplinary engagement, this study contributes to discussions on the theoretical structure and stability of scientific empathy in science education.

Multi-Variate Tabular Data Processing and Visualization Scheme for Machine Learning based Analysis: A Case Study using Titanic Dataset (기계 학습 기반 분석을 위한 다변량 정형 데이터 처리 및 시각화 방법: Titanic 데이터셋 적용 사례 연구)

  • Juhyoung Sung;Kiwon Kwon;Kyoungwon Park;Byoungchul Song
    • Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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    • v.25 no.4
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    • pp.121-130
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    • 2024
  • As internet and communication technology (ICT) is improved exponentially, types and amount of available data also increase. Even though data analysis including statistics is significant to utilize this large amount of data, there are inevitable limits to process various and complex data in general way. Meanwhile, there are many attempts to apply machine learning (ML) in various fields to solve the problems according to the enhancement in computational performance and increase in demands for autonomous systems. Especially, data processing for the model input and designing the model to solve the objective function are critical to achieve the model performance. Data processing methods according to the type and property have been presented through many studies and the performance of ML highly varies depending on the methods. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in deciding which data processing method for data analysis since the types and characteristics of data have become more diverse. Specifically, multi-variate data processing is essential for solving non-linear problem based on ML. In this paper, we present a multi-variate tabular data processing scheme for ML-aided data analysis by using Titanic dataset from Kaggle including various kinds of data. We present the methods like input variable filtering applying statistical analysis and normalization according to the data property. In addition, we analyze the data structure using visualization. Lastly, we design an ML model and train the model by applying the proposed multi-variate data process. After that, we analyze the passenger's survival prediction performance of the trained model. We expect that the proposed multi-variate data processing and visualization can be extended to various environments for ML based analysis.

Research Framework for International Franchising (국제프랜차이징 연구요소 및 연구방향)

  • Kim, Ju-Young;Lim, Young-Kyun;Shim, Jae-Duck
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-118
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    • 2008
  • The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

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The Influence of Store Environment on Service Brand Personality and Repurchase Intention (점포의 물리적 환경이 서비스 브랜드 개성과 재구매의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Hyoung-Gil;Kim, Jung-Hee;Kim, Youn-Jeong
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.141-173
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    • 2007
  • The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

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A Store Recommendation Procedure in Ubiquitous Market for User Privacy (U-마켓에서의 사용자 정보보호를 위한 매장 추천방법)

  • Kim, Jae-Kyeong;Chae, Kyung-Hee;Gu, Ja-Chul
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.123-145
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    • 2008
  • Recently, as the information communication technology develops, the discussion regarding the ubiquitous environment is occurring in diverse perspectives. Ubiquitous environment is an environment that could transfer data through networks regardless of the physical space, virtual space, time or location. In order to realize the ubiquitous environment, the Pervasive Sensing technology that enables the recognition of users' data without the border between physical and virtual space is required. In addition, the latest and diversified technologies such as Context-Awareness technology are necessary to construct the context around the user by sharing the data accessed through the Pervasive Sensing technology and linkage technology that is to prevent information loss through the wired, wireless networking and database. Especially, Pervasive Sensing technology is taken as an essential technology that enables user oriented services by recognizing the needs of the users even before the users inquire. There are lots of characteristics of ubiquitous environment through the technologies mentioned above such as ubiquity, abundance of data, mutuality, high information density, individualization and customization. Among them, information density directs the accessible amount and quality of the information and it is stored in bulk with ensured quality through Pervasive Sensing technology. Using this, in the companies, the personalized contents(or information) providing became possible for a target customer. Most of all, there are an increasing number of researches with respect to recommender systems that provide what customers need even when the customers do not explicitly ask something for their needs. Recommender systems are well renowned for its affirmative effect that enlarges the selling opportunities and reduces the searching cost of customers since it finds and provides information according to the customers' traits and preference in advance, in a commerce environment. Recommender systems have proved its usability through several methodologies and experiments conducted upon many different fields from the mid-1990s. Most of the researches related with the recommender systems until now take the products or information of internet or mobile context as its object, but there is not enough research concerned with recommending adequate store to customers in a ubiquitous environment. It is possible to track customers' behaviors in a ubiquitous environment, the same way it is implemented in an online market space even when customers are purchasing in an offline marketplace. Unlike existing internet space, in ubiquitous environment, the interest toward the stores is increasing that provides information according to the traffic line of the customers. In other words, the same product can be purchased in several different stores and the preferred store can be different from the customers by personal preference such as traffic line between stores, location, atmosphere, quality, and price. Krulwich(1997) has developed Lifestyle Finder which recommends a product and a store by using the demographical information and purchasing information generated in the internet commerce. Also, Fano(1998) has created a Shopper's Eye which is an information proving system. The information regarding the closest store from the customers' present location is shown when the customer has sent a to-buy list, Sadeh(2003) developed MyCampus that recommends appropriate information and a store in accordance with the schedule saved in a customers' mobile. Moreover, Keegan and O'Hare(2004) came up with EasiShop that provides the suitable tore information including price, after service, and accessibility after analyzing the to-buy list and the current location of customers. However, Krulwich(1997) does not indicate the characteristics of physical space based on the online commerce context and Keegan and O'Hare(2004) only provides information about store related to a product, while Fano(1998) does not fully consider the relationship between the preference toward the stores and the store itself. The most recent research by Sedah(2003), experimented on campus by suggesting recommender systems that reflect situation and preference information besides the characteristics of the physical space. Yet, there is a potential problem since the researches are based on location and preference information of customers which is connected to the invasion of privacy. The primary beginning point of controversy is an invasion of privacy and individual information in a ubiquitous environment according to researches conducted by Al-Muhtadi(2002), Beresford and Stajano(2003), and Ren(2006). Additionally, individuals want to be left anonymous to protect their own personal information, mentioned in Srivastava(2000). Therefore, in this paper, we suggest a methodology to recommend stores in U-market on the basis of ubiquitous environment not using personal information in order to protect individual information and privacy. The main idea behind our suggested methodology is based on Feature Matrices model (FM model, Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003) that uses clusters of customers' similar transaction data, which is similar to the Collaborative Filtering. However unlike Collaborative Filtering, this methodology overcomes the problems of personal information and privacy since it is not aware of the customer, exactly who they are, The methodology is compared with single trait model(vector model) such as visitor logs, while looking at the actual improvements of the recommendation when the context information is used. It is not easy to find real U-market data, so we experimented with factual data from a real department store with context information. The recommendation procedure of U-market proposed in this paper is divided into four major phases. First phase is collecting and preprocessing data for analysis of shopping patterns of customers. The traits of shopping patterns are expressed as feature matrices of N dimension. On second phase, the similar shopping patterns are grouped into clusters and the representative pattern of each cluster is derived. The distance between shopping patterns is calculated by Projected Pure Euclidean Distance (Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003). Third phase finds a representative pattern that is similar to a target customer, and at the same time, the shopping information of the customer is traced and saved dynamically. Fourth, the next store is recommended based on the physical distance between stores of representative patterns and the present location of target customer. In this research, we have evaluated the accuracy of recommendation method based on a factual data derived from a department store. There are technological difficulties of tracking on a real-time basis so we extracted purchasing related information and we added on context information on each transaction. As a result, recommendation based on FM model that applies purchasing and context information is more stable and accurate compared to that of vector model. Additionally, we could find more precise recommendation result as more shopping information is accumulated. Realistically, because of the limitation of ubiquitous environment realization, we were not able to reflect on all different kinds of context but more explicit analysis is expected to be attainable in the future after practical system is embodied.