• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.37-47
• /
• 2010

CRM refers to the operating activities that always maintain and promote good relationship with customers to ultimately maximize the company's profits by understanding the value of customers to meet their demands, establishing a strategy which may maximize the Life Time Value and successfully operating the business by integrating the customer management processes. In our country, many big businesses are introducing CRM initiatively to use it in marketing strategy however, most medium and small sized companies do not understand CRM clearly or they feel difficult to introduce it due to huge investment needed. This study is intended to present CRM promotion strategy and activities plan fit for the medium and small sized companies by analyzing the success factors of the leading companies those have already executed CRM by surveying the precedents to make the distributors out of the industries have close relation with consumers to overcome their weakness in scale and strengthen their competitiveness in such a rapidly changing and fiercely competing market. There are 5 stages to build CRM such as the recognition of the needs of CRM establishment, the establishment of CRM integrated database, the establishment of customer analysis and marketing strategy through data mining, the practical use of customer analysis through data mining and the implementation of response analysis and close loop process. Through the case study of leading companies, CRM is needed in types of businesses where the companies constantly contact their customers. To meet their needs, they assertively analyze their customer information. Through this, they develop their own CRM programs personalized for their customers to provide high quality service products. For customers helping them make profits, the VIP marketing strategy is conducted to keep the customers from breaking their relationships with the companies. Through continuous management, CRM should be executed. In other words, through customer segmentation, the profitability for the customers should be maximized. The maximization of the profitability for the customers is the key to CRM. These are the success factors of the CRM of the distributors in Korea. Firstly, the top management's will power for CS management is needed. Secondly, the culture across the company should be made to respect the customers. Thirdly, specialized customer management and CRM workers should be trained. Fourthly, CRM behaviors should be developed for the whole staff members. Fifthly, CRM should be carried out through systematic cooperation between related departments. To make use of the case study for CRM, the company should understand the customer and establish customer management programs to set the optimal CRM strategy and continuously pursue it according to a long-term plan. For this, according to collected information and customer data, customers should be segmented and the responsive customer system should be designed according to the differentiated strategy according to the class of the customers. In terms of the future CRM, integrated CRM is essential where the customer information gathers together in one place. As the degree of customers' expectation increases a lot, the effective way to meet the customers' expectation should be pursued. As the IT technology improved rapidly, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) appears. On a real-time basis, information about products and customers is obtained massively in a very short time. A strategy for successful CRM promotion should be improving the organizations in charge of contacting customers, re-planning the customer management processes and establishing the integrated system with the marketing strategy to keep good relation with the customers according to a long-term plan and a proper method suitable to the market conditions and run a company-wide program. In addition, a CRM program should be continuously improved and complemented to meet the company's characteristics. Especially, a strategy for successful CRM for the medium and small sized distributors should be as follows. First, they should change their existing recognition in CRM and keep in-depth care for the customers. Second, they should benchmark the techniques of CRM from the leading companies and find out success points to use. Third, they should seek some methods best suited for their particular conditions by achieving the ideas combining their own strong points with marketing. Fourth, a CRM model should be developed that will promote relationship with individual customers just like the precedents of small sized businesses in Switzerland through small but noticeable events.

• Journal of Korean Society of societal Security
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.73-78
• /
• 2011

In order to resolve the problem of change in global climate which is worsening as days go by and to preemptively cope with strengthened restriction on carbon emission, the government enacted 'Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth' in 2010 and selected green technology and green industry as new national growth engines. For this reason, the necessity to use the un-utilized waste heat across the whole industrial system has become an issue, and studies on and applications of recycling in the agricultural and fishery fields such as cultivation of tropical crops and flatfishes by utilizing the waste heat and thermal effluent generated by large industrial complexes including power plants are being actively carried out. In this study, we looked into the domestic and overseas examples of having utilized waste heat abandoned in the form of power plant thermal effluent, and carried out economic efficiency evaluation of sturgeon aquaculture utilizing thermal effluent of Yeongwol LNG Combined Cycle Power Plant in Gangwon-do. In this analysis, we analyzed the economic efficiency of a model business plan divided into three steps, starting from a small scale in order to minimize the investment risk and financial burden, which is then gradually expanded. The business operation period was assumed to be 10 years (2012~2021), and the NVP (Net Present Value) and economic efficiency (B/C) for the operation period (10 years) were estimated for different loan size by dividing the size of external loan by stage into 80% and 40% based on the basic statistics secured through a site survey. Through the result of analysis, we can see that reducing the size of the external loan is an important factor in securing greater economic efficiency as, while the B/C is 1.79 in the case the external loan is 80% of the total investment, it is presumed to be improved to 1.81 when the loan is 40%. As the findings of this study showed that the economic efficiency of sturgeon aquaculture utilizing thermal effluent of power plant can be secured, it is presumed that regional development project items with high added value can be derived though this, and, in addition, this study will greatly contribute to reinforcement of the capability of local governments to cope with climate change.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.175-197
• /
• 2021

Recently, with the development of deep learning technology, research on unstructured data analysis is being actively conducted, and it is showing remarkable results in various fields such as classification, summary, and generation. Among various text analysis fields, text classification is the most widely used technology in academia and industry. Text classification includes binary class classification with one label among two classes, multi-class classification with one label among several classes, and multi-label classification with multiple labels among several classes. In particular, multi-label classification requires a different training method from binary class classification and multi-class classification because of the characteristic of having multiple labels. In addition, since the number of labels to be predicted increases as the number of labels and classes increases, there is a limitation in that performance improvement is difficult due to an increase in prediction difficulty. To overcome these limitations, (i) compressing the initially given high-dimensional label space into a low-dimensional latent label space, (ii) after performing training to predict the compressed label, (iii) restoring the predicted label to the high-dimensional original label space, research on label embedding is being actively conducted. Typical label embedding techniques include Principal Label Space Transformation (PLST), Multi-Label Classification via Boolean Matrix Decomposition (MLC-BMaD), and Bayesian Multi-Label Compressed Sensing (BML-CS). However, since these techniques consider only the linear relationship between labels or compress the labels by random transformation, it is difficult to understand the non-linear relationship between labels, so there is a limitation in that it is not possible to create a latent label space sufficiently containing the information of the original label. Recently, there have been increasing attempts to improve performance by applying deep learning technology to label embedding. Label embedding using an autoencoder, a deep learning model that is effective for data compression and restoration, is representative. However, the traditional autoencoder-based label embedding has a limitation in that a large amount of information loss occurs when compressing a high-dimensional label space having a myriad of classes into a low-dimensional latent label space. This can be found in the gradient loss problem that occurs in the backpropagation process of learning. To solve this problem, skip connection was devised, and by adding the input of the layer to the output to prevent gradient loss during backpropagation, efficient learning is possible even when the layer is deep. Skip connection is mainly used for image feature extraction in convolutional neural networks, but studies using skip connection in autoencoder or label embedding process are still lacking. Therefore, in this study, we propose an autoencoder-based label embedding methodology in which skip connections are added to each of the encoder and decoder to form a low-dimensional latent label space that reflects the information of the high-dimensional label space well. In addition, the proposed methodology was applied to actual paper keywords to derive the high-dimensional keyword label space and the low-dimensional latent label space. Using this, we conducted an experiment to predict the compressed keyword vector existing in the latent label space from the paper abstract and to evaluate the multi-label classification by restoring the predicted keyword vector back to the original label space. As a result, the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score used as performance indicators showed far superior performance in multi-label classification based on the proposed methodology compared to traditional multi-label classification methods. This can be seen that the low-dimensional latent label space derived through the proposed methodology well reflected the information of the high-dimensional label space, which ultimately led to the improvement of the performance of the multi-label classification itself. In addition, the utility of the proposed methodology was identified by comparing the performance of the proposed methodology according to the domain characteristics and the number of dimensions of the latent label space.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
• /
• 2023.04a
• /
• pp.7-7
• /
• 2023

Currently, the main technologies of various fourth industries are big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, blockchain, mixed reality (MR), and drones. In particular, "digital twin," which has recently become a global technological trend, is a concept of a virtual model that is expressed equally in physical objects and computers. By creating and simulating a Digital twin of software-virtualized assets instead of real physical assets, accurate information about the characteristics of real farming (current state, agricultural productivity, agricultural work scenarios, etc.) can be obtained. This study aims to streamline agricultural work through automatic water management, remote growth forecasting, drone control, and pest forecasting through the operation of an integrated control system by constructing digital twin data on the main production area of the nojinot industry and designing and building a smart farm complex. In addition, it aims to distribute digital environmental control agriculture in Korea that can reduce labor and improve crop productivity by minimizing environmental load through the use of appropriate amounts of fertilizers and pesticides through big data analysis. These open-field agricultural technologies can reduce labor through digital farming and cultivation management, optimize water use and prevent soil pollution in preparation for climate change, and quantitative growth management of open-field crops by securing digital data for the national cultivation environment. It is also a way to directly implement carbon-neutral RED++ activities by improving agricultural productivity. The analysis and prediction of growth status through the acquisition of the acquired high-precision and high-definition image-based crop growth data are very effective in digital farming work management. The Southern Crop Department of the National Institute of Food Science conducted research and development on various types of open-field agricultural smart farms such as underground point and underground drainage. In particular, from this year, commercialization is underway in earnest through the establishment of smart farm facilities and technology distribution for agricultural technology complexes across the country. In this study, we would like to describe the case of establishing the agricultural field that combines digital twin technology and open-field agricultural smart farm technology and future utilization plans.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.103-117
• /
• 2019

Under the uncertainties and the consequent turmoils of the IMF financial crisis in Korea, Hyunsung Techno was founded in 1997 on the basis of automobile press molding which is critical for the quality of automobile. Ever since, Hyunsung Techno has grown rapidly based on the domestic market; however, gradually, it had faced a stalemate in terms of the saturation, on the supply side and the growth limit, on the demand side, of the domestic molding market. Accordingly, Hyunsung pushed for a strategy to localize overseas markets and a new acquisition strategy instead of resting on the domestic mold industry's growth, and the success of these strategies enabled it to leap forward into a global company with five companies including affiliates and 70 billion won in sales. The main reason why Hyunsung Techno evolved from a small and medium-sized manufacturing company into a global businesses is due to the success of Boa Constrictor M&A strategy. Its acquisition strategy is not just a successful case of any acquisition, but a rare, maybe the first domestic case of a successful acquisition of a primary supplier by a secondary supplier. Through the success of this strategy, Hyunsung Techno has achieved a continuous growth of businesses, an increase in sales volume, and expansion into new businesses. And on top of that, this achievements is leading it to be a global conglomerate In this study, Hyunsung Techno's success strategy, which is transformed from a small domestic manufacturing company into a global enterprise, was analyzed in detail with its development stages divided into start-up, overseas expansion, acquisitions, and business diversification. Eventually, this case study is meant to offer strategic implications for other small and medium-sized businesses under the current, gloomy economy of low or zero growth of today.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.229-256
• /
• 2023

The increase in telecommuting and household electricity demand due to the pandemic has led to significant changes in electricity demand patterns. This has led to difficulties in identifying KEPCO's PPA (power purchase agreements) and residential solar power generation and has added to the challenges of electricity demand forecasting and grid operation for power exchanges. Unlike other energy resources, electricity is difficult to store, so it is essential to maintain a balance between energy production and consumption. A shortage or overproduction of electricity can cause significant instability in the energy system, so it is necessary to manage the supply and demand of electricity effectively. Especially in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the importance of data has increased, and problems such as large-scale fires and power outages can have a severe impact. Therefore, in the field of electricity, it is crucial to accurately predict the amount of power generation, such as renewable energy, along with the exact demand for electricity, for proper power generation management, which helps to reduce unnecessary power production and efficiently utilize energy resources. In this study, we reviewed the renewable energy generation forecasting system, its objectives, and practical applications to construct optimal aggregated power resources using data from 169 power plants provided by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, developed an aggregation algorithm considering the settlement of the forecasting system, and applied it to the analytical logic to synthesize and interpret the results. This study developed an optimal aggregation algorithm and derived an aggregation configuration (Result_Number 546) that reached 80.66% of the maximum settlement amount and identified plants that increase the settlement amount (B1783, B1729, N6002, S5044, B1782, N6006) and plants that decrease the settlement amount (S5034, S5023, S5031) when aggregating plants. This study is significant as the first study to develop an optimal aggregation algorithm using aggregated power resources as a research unit, and we expect that the results of this study can be used to improve the stability of the power system and efficiently utilize energy resources.

• Development and Reproduction
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.97-105
• /
• 2008

Vinclozolin (VCZ) is a systemic fungicide commonly used in fruits, vegetables and the wine industry. VCZ and its metabolites, butenoic acid (M1) and enanilide (M2) derivatives, act as anti-androgens through actions on the androgen receptor. Although there is growing body of evidence that VCZ's action as an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) in male reproductive physiology and pathphysiology, no evidence on the VCZ's EDC action in female is available yet. Previously we found that the prepubertal VCZ exposures could effectively delay the onset of puberty in female rats, suggesting the postponed or weakened activities of hypothalamus-pituitary-ovary (H-P-O) reproductive hormonal axis. The present study was performed to examine whether the VCZ administration affects the transcriptional activities of reproductive hormone-related genes in the same animal model. VCZ (10 mg/kg/day) was administered daily from postnatal day 21 (PND 21) through the day when the first vaginal opening (V.O.) was observed. To determine the transcriptional changes of reproductive hormone-related genes in hypothalamus and pituitary, total RNAs were extracted and applied to the semiquantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). As a result, treatment with VCZ significantly lowered the transcriptional activity of nitric oxide synthase-2 (NOS-2) which is known to adjust gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) secretion in the hypothalamus (p<0.01). Similarly, the mRNA levels of KiSS-1, G protein-coupled receptor 54 (GPR54) and GnRH were significantly decreased in hypothalamus (p<0.01) from VCZ-treated group. As expected, the transcriptional activities of luteinizing hormone-${\beta}$ (LH-${\beta}$) and follicle stimulating hormone-${\beta}$ (FSH-${\beta}$) in the anterior pituitary from VCZ-treated group were also significantly lower than those from the control group. The present study indicates that(i) the inhibitory effect of VCZ exposure on the onset of puberty in immature female rats could be derived from the reduced transcriptional activities of gonadotropin subunits and their upstream modulators such as GnRH and KiSS-1 in hypothalamus-pituitary neuroendocrine axis, and (ii) these inhibitory effects could be mediated by NO signaling pathway.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.432-441
• /
• 2012

In this study, the transfer rate of wild type Listeria mon, ytogenes (LM) was investigated to establish the standard of safety management during pork meat pr, essing for meat to meat and meat to food contact surfaces contamination at 5 and $10^{\circ}C$. The transfer rate of LM from meat to meat during the pr, essing increased from 0.02% after 30 min to 0.42% after 120 min at $5^{\circ}C$, while for conveyor belt and stainless steel, it decreased from 0.015% and 0.013% after 30 min to 0.002% and 0.0003% after 120 min at $5^{\circ}C$, respectively (p < 0.05). When temperature increased to $10^{\circ}C$, the transfer rates of LM from meat to meat, conveyor belt and stainless steel were the highest at 60 min exposure, and all decreased after 120 min. In reverse, the transfer rate from food contact surface to pork meat was significantly higher than that from pork meat to food contact surface (p < 0.01). Also, the transfer rate to conveyor belt was significantly higher than stainless steel (p < 0.05) and it was highest at 30 min exposure time in both 5 and $10^{\circ}C$. This study indicates that the transfer and adherence rates of LM are influenced by the contact time and temperature. Consequently, these results were utilized to develop a predictive model with a high level of confidence which can lead to prevent cross-contamination during pork meat processing.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.209-223
• /
• 2010

Korea's business is composed of a few large-sized enterprises (which can be abbreviated as LSE) and a majority of small-sized enterprises (SSE). Although there has been a growing recognition of the need for the development of medium-sized enterprises (MSE) which can serve as a link between SSE and LSE, as yet there has not yet been a consensus on the definition, characteristics and the function of the MSE in Korea. Nowadays, the world is being globalized, and Japan and China are in competition to ne a great economic power. While East Asia is experiencing rapid changes, promoting MSE which can secure flexibility and efficiency through covering up the limitation of LSE and SSE is needed in order to respond the global market which is being specialized. The features of MSE in Japan can be listed as follows. First, the MSE in Japan is developing the company through getting into niche markets which are hard for major companies to enter rather than developing markets in order to compete against major companies directly. While MSEs are endeavoring to build the business firmly in the domestic market, they can possess special and competitive technical skills through trials and errors; so that they can get a chance develop their business through independent business system rather than putting their effort to compete against major companies. Second, from the MSEs with competitive edge in the market, there are many contributions to the national exportation. Those MSEs produce in domestic and maintain the quality of high price products which need cutting-edge technology, while they relocate the low and middle priced goods to the country where manufacturing costs are low, so that they can maintain the price competitiveness. Third, the industrial structure in Japan is formed from dual structure between major companies and small sized companies. In other words, in Japan's industrial structure which are composed of subcontract structure, this dual structure has taken a major role of small sized companies' growth and manufacturing businesses' international competitive power. Forth, MSE in Japan adopt a strategy of putting their value on qualitative scale growth rather than quantitative scale growth. In this paper, the case of Japanese MSE is analyzed. Along with its long history of Industrialization, Japan has a corporate environment where the SSEs can develop as a MSE and later a LSE through a full-support system. Among its SSEs, there are a number of world class corporations equipped with a large domestic market, win-win cooperation with the LSEs and an independent technology development. It can also be observed that these SSEs develop into MSEs with sustainable growth potentials. This study will focus on the condition under which the MSEs of Japan have been developed, and how they have survived the competition between SSEs and LSEs. Through this study, this paper attempts to offer solutions to Korea's polarization between the SSE and LSE, while providing the basis for SSEs revitalization. In general, if both extremities phenomenon deepen between LSE and SSE, there are possible fears of occurring disutility in national economy by the monopolization of LSE. For that reason, enterprise group, which can make SSE or MSE compete LSE in some area and ease the monopoly and oligopoly problem, is needed. This awareness has been shared for ages long. Nevertheless, there is no legal definition for MSE in Japan, and there is no definition about the enterprise size or unified view of MSE between scholars, but it is defined differently by each of academical person or research institution and study meeting. For that reason, this paper will organize the definition of MSE in Japan, and then will propose the characteristics of the background which has made MSE secure competitiveness and sustainable growth in global market. This study focus on that because through this process, the positive change to the awareness of MSE can be proposed in Korea and to seek the policy direction for building institutional framework which can make SSE become MES. Through this way, the fundamentals for SSE to become MSE can be managed and some appropriate suggestions which will be able to make MSE enter the global market in the future can also be proposed. Due to these facts, this study is very important and well timed task. In a sense of this way, this study will examine the definition and role of MSE in Japan. after this examination, this study will deal with the status, special feature, and promotion policy for MSE. Through this analysis of MSE in Japan, the foundation which be able to set the desirable role model for MSE in Korea can be proposed. Also, the political implication which is needed to push ahead to contribute to creating employment and economic growth through sustainable growth of MSEs in economic system of Korea can be offered through this study. It has been found that Japan's MSE functions as an indispensable link among various industrial structures by holding a significant position in employment rate, production and value added. Although the MSEs took up less than 1% of the entire number of businesses with 2700 manufacturing firms and 7000 non-manufacturing firms, its employment ratios are about 15%, while taking about 25% of the manufacturing industry's exports. In industries such as machinery and electronics which is considered Japan's major industry, the MSEs showed a higher than average ratio of manufacturing exports and employment rate. It can be analyzed that behind Japan's advantageous industries, close and deeply knit MSEs exist. Although there are no clearly stated policies geared towards the MSEs by the Japanese government, various political measures exist such as the R&D Project and the inducement of cooperation between enterprises which gives room for MSEs to participate in the SSE policies. In relation to these findings, the following practical measures can be considered in order to revitalize Korea's MSEs: First, there is a need for a legal definition of MSE and the incentives to provide legal support for its growth. Second, if a law to support the MSEs is established, it could provide a powerful inducement for the SSE to grow as a MSE, rather than stay as a SSE. Third, there is a need for a strategy of MSEs to establish a stable base in the domestic market and then advance to the global market with the accumulated trial and error and competitiveness. Fourth, the SSE themselves need the spirit of entrepreneurship in order to make the leap to a MSE. Because if nothing is to be changed about the system on the firms that grew, and the parts of the past custom was left to be managed alone, confusion and absence of management can take place. No matter how much tax favors the government will give and no matter how much incentive there could be through the policies, there are limits for industries to higher the ability to propagate. And because of that it is a period where industries need their own innovative skills to reform their firms.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.32-43
• /
• 2009

Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.