• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.51-58
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• 2013

Purpose - Nowadays, more than ever before, fierce competition, deep market segmentation, short product life cycles, and intensifying customer needs are putting increasing pressure on franchise's organizations to satisfy their customers by creating market-oriented relationships with and enhancing their market knowledge of them. One way that this might be achieved is by establishing deep ties (i.e., job commitment and job satisfaction) with their employees. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how two important constructs of franchises' strategic efforts, LO (learning orientation) and RMO (relationship marketing orientation), affect job satisfaction, given the mediating role of job commitment. A franchise system comprises a set of contractual arrangements by which mutual obligations are performed. An organizational learning goal motivates employees to improve their abilities and master the tasks they perform. Relationship marketing, in addition, is to identify, establish, maintain, and enhance relationships with customers and other stakeholders to ensure that the objectives of all parties are met and this is done through the mutual exchange of promises. In a relationship marketing orientation, then, a firm creates, maintains, and enhances a strong relationship with its customers by sustaining long-term ties. This study was designed to examine the evolution of various theoretical approaches to franchise systems in order to determine whether theories about firms have significantly affected the franchise system. To this end, the authors developed a structural model consisting of several constructs. Previous studies have suggested that franchises' learning and relationship marketing orientations are important occupational immersion dimensions driving job satisfaction. Research design, data, methodology - We empirically tested a process of how the learning orientation and the relationship marketing orientation influence job commitment and job satisfaction using survey data drawn from 150 responding franchisees who were interviewed about their individual tendencies. Results - The results of this study provide empirical evidence that learning orientation, relationship marketing orientation, and job commitment all influence franchisees' job satisfaction. The results of this study indicate that, first, learning orientation had a significant effect on job satisfaction; second, relationship marketing orientation was positively related to job commitment; third, job commitment had a significant effect on job satisfaction. We also found that relationship marketing orientation and job satisfaction were mediated by job commitment. Conclusions - The findings of this study confirm the importance of learning orientation and relationship marketing orientation in maintaining a positive marketing relationship between franchiser and franchisee from to the perspective of the market. This indicates that franchiser support such as educational programs provided by the franchiser will help franchisees attain higher business management achievement and satisfaction. Moreover, a positive relationship between franchisees and consumers can be maintained through tie effects. Our findings also suggest that learning orientation plays a critical role in job satisfaction within the franchise system.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.318-329
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• 2013

Spatial information has influenced government policy formation, business strategy implementation, and our everyday life enormously. Digital earth enterprises providing global spatial data services emerge as spatial data industry grows rapidly. So it is highly desirable to grasp recent trends in the industry and find critical success factors (CSFs) for the digital earth firms. The purpose of this study is to compare strategies of digital earth enterprises and find CSFs for them. In addition, strategy analysis framework elaborations, systematic analysis of spatial data industry and market segmentation based on value chain are also performed to trace and cope with the volatile industry environment. Derived CSFs are as follows. First, acquisition of differentiated high quality spatial data is needed. Second, customer oriented convergent contents should be developed. Third, advanced platform functionalities must be provided to consumers. Finally, construction of efficient and effective global value chain is desirable.