• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2009

Price promotion typically reduces the price for a given quantity or increases the quantity available at the same price, thereby enhancing value and creating an economic incentive to purchase. It often is used to encourage product or service trial among nonusers of products or services. Thus, it is important to understand the effects of price promotions on quality perception made by consumer who do not have prior experience with the promoted brand. However, if consumers associate a price promotion itself with inferior brand quality, the promotion may not achieve the sales increase the economic incentives otherwise might have produced. More specifically, low qualitative perception through price promotion will undercut the economic and psychological incentives and reduce the likelihood of purchase. Thus, it is important for marketers to understand how price promotional informations about a brand have impact on consumer's unfavorable quality perception of the brand. Previous literatures on the effects of price promotions on quality perception reveal inconsistent explanations. Some focused on the unfavorable effect of price promotion on consumer's perception. But others showed that price promotions didn't raise unfavorable perception on the brand. Prior researches found these inconsistent results related to the timing of the price promotion's exposure and quality evaluation relative to trial. And, whether the consumer has been experienced with the product promotions in the past or not may moderate the effects. A few studies considered differences among product categories as fundamental factors. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of price promotional informations on consumer's unfavorable quality perception under the different conditions. The author controlled the timing of the promotional exposure and varied past promotional patterns and information presenting patterns. Unlike previous researches, the author examined the effects of price promotions setting limit to pretrial situation by controlling potentially moderating effects of prior personal experience with the brand. This manipulations enable to resolve possible controversies in relation to this issue. And this manipulation is meaningful for the work sector. Price promotion is not only used to target existing consumers but also to encourage product or service trial among nonusers of products or services. Thus, it is important for marketers to understand how price promotional informations about a brand have impact on consumer's unfavorable quality perception of the brand. If consumers associate a price promotion itself with inferior quality about unused brand, the promotion may not achieve the sales increase the economic incentives otherwise might have produced. In addition, if the price promotion ends, the consumer that have purchased that certain brand will likely to display sharply decreased repurchasing behavior. Through a literature review, hypothesis 1 was set as follows to investigate the adjustive effect of past price promotion on quality perception made by consumers; The influence that price promotion of unused brand have on quality perception made by consumers will be adjusted by past price promotion activity of the brand. In other words, a price promotion of an unused brand that have not done a price promotion in the past will have a unfavorable effect on quality perception made by consumer. Hypothesis 2-1 was set as follows : When an unused brand undertakes price promotion for the first time, the information presenting pattern of price promotion will have an effect on the consumer's attribution for the cause of the price promotion. Hypothesis 2-2 was set as follows : The more consumer dispositionally attribute the cause of price promotion, the more unfavorable the quality perception made by consumer will be. Through test 1, the subjects were given a brief explanation of the product and the brand before they were provided with a $2{\times}2$ factorial design that has 4 patterns of price promotion (presence or absence of past price promotion * presence or absence of current price promotion) and the explanation describing the price promotion pattern of each cell. Then the perceived quality of imaginary brand WAVEX was evaluated in the scale of 7. The reason tennis racket was chosen is because the selected product group must have had almost no past price promotions to eliminate the influence of average frequency of promotion on the value of price promotional information as Raghubir and Corfman (1999) pointed out. Test 2 was also carried out on students of the same management faculty of test 1 with tennis racket as the product group. As with test 1, subjects with average familiarity for the product group and low familiarity for the brand was selected. Each subjects were assigned to one of the two cells representing two different information presenting patterns of price promotion of WAVEX (case where the reason behind price promotion was provided/case where the reason behind price promotion was not provided). Subjects looked at each promotional information before evaluating the perceived quality of the brand WAVEX in the scale of 7. The effect of price promotion for unfamiliar pretrial brand on consumer's perceived quality was proved to be moderated with the presence or absence of past price promotion. The consistency with past promotional behavior is important variable that makes unfavorable effect on brand evaluations get worse. If the price promotion for the brand has never been carried out before, price promotion activity may have more unfavorable effects on consumer's quality perception. Second, when the price promotion of unfamiliar pretrial brand was executed for the first time, presenting method of informations has impact on consumer's attribution for the cause of firm's promotion. And the unfavorable effect of quality perception is higher when the consumer does dispositional attribution comparing with situational attribution. Unlike the previous studies where the main focus was the absence or presence of favorable or unfavorable motivation from situational/dispositional attribution, the focus of this study was exaus ing the fact that a situational attribution can be inferred even if the consumer employs a dispositional attribution on the price promotional behavior, if the company provides a persuasive reason. Such approach, in academic perspectih sis a large significance in that it explained the anchoring and adjng ch approcedures by applying it to a non-mathematical problem unlike the previous studies where it wis ionaly explained by applying it to a mathematical problem. In other wordn, there is a highrspedency tmatispositionally attribute other's behaviors according to the fuedach aal attribution errors and when this is applied to the situation of price promotions, we can infer that consumers are likely tmatispositionally attribute the company's price promotion behaviors. Ha ever, even ueder these circumstances, the company can adjng the consumer's anchoring tmareduce the po wibiliute thdispositional attribution. Furthermore, unlike majority of previous researches on short/long-term effects of price promotion that only considered the effect of price promotions on consumer's purchasing behaviors, this research measured the effect on perceived quality, one of man elements that affects the purchasing behavior of consumers. These results carry useful implications for the work sector. A guideline of effectively providing promotional informations for a new brand can be suggested through the outcomes of this research. If the brand is to avoid false implications such as inferior quality while implementing a price promotion strategy, it must provide a clear and acceptable reasons behind the promotion. Especially it is more important for the company with no past price promotion to provide a clear reason. An inconsistent behavior can be the cause of consumer's distrust and anxiety. This is also one of the most important factor of risk of endless price wars. Price promotions without prior notice can buy doubt from consumers not market share.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.443-472
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• 2014

To survive in the global competitive environment, enterprise should be able to solve various problems and find the optimal solution effectively. The big-data is being perceived as a tool for solving enterprise problems effectively and improve competitiveness with its' various problem solving and advanced predictive capabilities. Due to its remarkable performance, the implementation of big data systems has been increased through many enterprises around the world. Currently the big-data is called the 'crude oil' of the 21st century and is expected to provide competitive superiority. The reason why the big data is in the limelight is because while the conventional IT technology has been falling behind much in its possibility level, the big data has gone beyond the technological possibility and has the advantage of being utilized to create new values such as business optimization and new business creation through analysis of big data. Since the big data has been introduced too hastily without considering the strategic value deduction and achievement obtained through the big data, however, there are difficulties in the strategic value deduction and data utilization that can be gained through big data. According to the survey result of 1,800 IT professionals from 18 countries world wide, the percentage of the corporation where the big data is being utilized well was only 28%, and many of them responded that they are having difficulties in strategic value deduction and operation through big data. The strategic value should be deducted and environment phases like corporate internal and external related regulations and systems should be considered in order to introduce big data, but these factors were not well being reflected. The cause of the failure turned out to be that the big data was introduced by way of the IT trend and surrounding environment, but it was introduced hastily in the situation where the introduction condition was not well arranged. The strategic value which can be obtained through big data should be clearly comprehended and systematic environment analysis is very important about applicability in order to introduce successful big data, but since the corporations are considering only partial achievements and technological phases that can be obtained through big data, the successful introduction is not being made. Previous study shows that most of big data researches are focused on big data concept, cases, and practical suggestions without empirical study. The purpose of this study is provide the theoretically and practically useful implementation framework and strategies of big data systems with conducting comprehensive literature review, finding influencing factors for successful big data systems implementation, and analysing empirical models. To do this, the elements which can affect the introduction intention of big data were deducted by reviewing the information system's successful factors, strategic value perception factors, considering factors for the information system introduction environment and big data related literature in order to comprehend the effect factors when the corporations introduce big data and structured questionnaire was developed. After that, the questionnaire and the statistical analysis were performed with the people in charge of the big data inside the corporations as objects. According to the statistical analysis, it was shown that the strategic value perception factor and the inside-industry environmental factors affected positively the introduction intention of big data. The theoretical, practical and political implications deducted from the study result is as follows. The frist theoretical implication is that this study has proposed theoretically effect factors which affect the introduction intention of big data by reviewing the strategic value perception and environmental factors and big data related precedent studies and proposed the variables and measurement items which were analyzed empirically and verified. This study has meaning in that it has measured the influence of each variable on the introduction intention by verifying the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables through structural equation model. Second, this study has defined the independent variable(strategic value perception, environment), dependent variable(introduction intention) and regulatory variable(type of business and corporate size) about big data introduction intention and has arranged theoretical base in studying big data related field empirically afterwards by developing measurement items which has obtained credibility and validity. Third, by verifying the strategic value perception factors and the significance about environmental factors proposed in the conventional precedent studies, this study will be able to give aid to the afterwards empirical study about effect factors on big data introduction. The operational implications are as follows. First, this study has arranged the empirical study base about big data field by investigating the cause and effect relationship about the influence of the strategic value perception factor and environmental factor on the introduction intention and proposing the measurement items which has obtained the justice, credibility and validity etc. Second, this study has proposed the study result that the strategic value perception factor affects positively the big data introduction intention and it has meaning in that the importance of the strategic value perception has been presented. Third, the study has proposed that the corporation which introduces big data should consider the big data introduction through precise analysis about industry's internal environment. Fourth, this study has proposed the point that the size and type of business of the corresponding corporation should be considered in introducing the big data by presenting the difference of the effect factors of big data introduction depending on the size and type of business of the corporation. The political implications are as follows. First, variety of utilization of big data is needed. The strategic value that big data has can be accessed in various ways in the product, service field, productivity field, decision making field etc and can be utilized in all the business fields based on that, but the parts that main domestic corporations are considering are limited to some parts of the products and service fields. Accordingly, in introducing big data, reviewing the phase about utilization in detail and design the big data system in a form which can maximize the utilization rate will be necessary. Second, the study is proposing the burden of the cost of the system introduction, difficulty in utilization in the system and lack of credibility in the supply corporations etc in the big data introduction phase by corporations. Since the world IT corporations are predominating the big data market, the big data introduction of domestic corporations can not but to be dependent on the foreign corporations. When considering that fact, that our country does not have global IT corporations even though it is world powerful IT country, the big data can be thought to be the chance to rear world level corporations. Accordingly, the government shall need to rear star corporations through active political support. Third, the corporations' internal and external professional manpower for the big data introduction and operation lacks. Big data is a system where how valuable data can be deducted utilizing data is more important than the system construction itself. For this, talent who are equipped with academic knowledge and experience in various fields like IT, statistics, strategy and management etc and manpower training should be implemented through systematic education for these talents. This study has arranged theoretical base for empirical studies about big data related fields by comprehending the main variables which affect the big data introduction intention and verifying them and is expected to be able to propose useful guidelines for the corporations and policy developers who are considering big data implementationby analyzing empirically that theoretical base.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-102
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• 2009

With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.