• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.193-207
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• 2024

Purpose - With the increase of non-face-to-face activities due to the spread of COVID-19, O2O industry has grown rapidly which reduces contact points between suppliers and consumers. O2O platform is now recognized as an indispensable channel of distribution, but the voice is getting louder that it is necessary to check how it contributes to the performance of suppliers or how its fee system or contract terms affects the expansion of O2O industry as the leading companies tend to monopolize the market. Design/methodology/approach - In this study, the scope was limited to the restaurant industry in which transactions are the most active among the O2O industry and a regression analysis was done on 775 businesses that had used guarantor service from the Seoul Credit Guarantee Foundation. Findings - Analysis on the impact of O2O platform system, information, and service quality on the business performance of the sole proprietors revealed that the system quality represented by ease of use and the information quality determined by level of timely, accurate and reliable information provided to the consumers have a statistically significant effect on the improvement of business performance. In addition, the effect of business performance on the loyalty measured by the likelihood of users continuing to use the service as well as recommending it to others was moderated by the satisfaction with contract terms, not by the fee system. Research implications or Originality - Although the number of O2O platform providers has increased manyfold, the membership rate is no more than 20%, which means that the small business owners are still struggling with digital transformation. In order for the O2O industry, which is now commonplace, to form a healthy ecosystem that satisfies both suppliers and consumers, the standard contract guidelines that are acceptable to both parties must be established and the O2O providers must offer services that help suppliers to improve performance.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.35-52
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• 2023

Korea has developed as an influential country over Asia and all over the world based on remarkable economic development. And the background of this development was possible due to the existence of those who sacrificed precious lives and contributed to the nation's existence in the past crisis. Every year, Korea holds an annual commemorative event with people of national merit, Korean War veterans, and their families, expressing gratitude for sacrifices and contributions at home and abroad, and providing economic support. The tragedy of the Korean War and the pro-democracy movement in Korea over the past half century will one day become a history of the distant past over time. As generations change and the purpose and method of exchange by region change, the tragic situation that occurred earlier and the way people sacrificed for the country are expected to be different from before. In particular, it is true that the number of Korean War veterans and their families is gradually decreasing as they are now old. In addition, due to the outbreak of global infectious diseases such as COVID-19, it is difficult to plan and conduct face to face events as well as before. Currently, Korea's digital technology is introducing various methods. 5G communication networks, smart-phones, tablet PCs, and smart devices that can experience virtual reality are already used in our real lives. Business meetings are held in a metaverse environment, and concerts by famous singers are held in an online environment. Artificial intelligence technology has also been introduced in the field of human resource recruitment and customer response services, improving the work efficiency of companies. And it seems that this technology can be used in the field of veterans. In particular, there is a metaverse technology that can vividly show the situation during the Korean War, and a way to digitalize the voices and facial expressions of currently surviving veterans to convey their memories and lessons to future generations in the long run. If this digital technology method is realized on an online platform to hold a veterans' celebration event, veterans and their families on the other side of the world will be able to participate in the event more conveniently.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.103-117
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• 2022

The recent corporate economy, such as the COVID 19 pandemic that has spread all over the world since the beginning of 2020, the acceleration of the 4th industrial revolution, and supply chain management risks triggered by the US-China conflict and the Ukraine crisis, is more serious than ever before. CEOs who have started and managed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more concerned than ever about the sustainability of their businesses in this reality. Nevertheless, there were few empirical studies on the factors that influence the intention of SME CEOs to discontinue business. In this study, the perception of the business environment of SMEs (intensity of competition in key business areas, difficulty in manpower management), corporate competency (employee competency, company product or service competitiveness, supply chain and consumer relations, digital competency and technical expertise), and CEO's competency(trust between employees and the CEO, management competency and perceived health status of CEO) on CEO's intention to discontinue business was discussed. As a result of the study, the intensity of competition in the main business field, and the difficulty in manpower management had a positive (+) effect on the intention to discontinue the business, and the employee competency, product (service) competitiveness, digital competency of the company, and the CEO's Health status had a negative (-) effect on intention to discontinue business. The relationship between these influences was found in the order of CEO's health status, product competitiveness, employee competency, digital competency, competitive strength in the main business, and difficulty in manpower management. It was analyzed that supply chain and consumer relations, trust between employees and the CEO, and management capabilities did not significantly affect the intention to discontinue business. On the other hand, business confidence has a mediating effect between the intensity of competition in the main business field, the difficulty in manpower management, product or service competitiveness, digital competency, trust between employees and the CEO, and the management capability and intention to discontinue business was tested. This study had academic significance in that it empirically analyzed factors related to intention to discontinue business targeting small and medium-sized business CEOs. In practice, as it has been found that business environment awareness, corporate competency, managerial competency, and business confidence are factors that influence the intention to discontinue business, if an action ideas that can reinforce this part can be found, SMEs can achieve sustainable growth or it may help CEO find an meaningful exit.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제22권1호
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제17권2호
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• pp.123-137
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• 2007

The advent of the Internet and related Web technologies has created an easily accessible link between a firm and its customers, and has provided opportunities to a firm to use information technology to support supplementary after-sale services associated with a product or service. It has been widely recognized that supplementary services are an important source of customer value and of competitive advantage as the characteristics of the product itself. Many of these supplementary services are information-based and need not be co-located with the product, so more and more companies are delivering these services electronically. Net-based customer service, which is defined as an Internet-based computerized information system that delivers services to a customer, therefore, is the core infrastructure for supplementary service provision. The importance of net-based customer service in delivering supplementary after-sale services associated with product has been well documented. The strategic advantages of well-implemented net-based customer service are enhanced customer loyalty and higher lock-in of customers, and a resulting reduction in competition and the consequent increase in profits. However, not all customers utilize such net-based customer service. The digital divide is the phenomenon in our society that captures the observation that not all customers have equal access to computers. Socioeconomic factors such as race, gender, and education level are strongly related to Internet accessibility and ability to use. This is due to the differences in the ability to bear the cost of a computer, and the differences in self-efficacy in the use of a technology, among other reasons. This concept, applied to e-commerce, has been called the "e-commerce divide." High Internet penetration is not eradicating the digital divide and e-commerce divide as one would hope. Besides, to accommodate personalized support, a customer must often provide personal information to the firm. This personal information includes not only name and address, but also preferences information and perhaps valuation information. However, many recent studies show that consumers may not be willing to share information about themselves due to concerns about privacy online. Due to the e-commerce divide, and due to privacy and security concerns of the customer for sharing personal information with firms, limited numbers of customers adopt net-based customer service. The limited level of customer adoption of net-based customer service affects the firm profits and the customers' welfare. We use a game-theoretic model in which we model the net-based customer service system as a mechanism to enhance customers' loyalty. We model a market entry scenario where a firm (the incumbent) uses the net-based customer service system in inducing loyalty in its customer base. The firm sells one product through the traditional retailing channels and at a price set for these channels. Another firm (the entrant) enters the market, and having observed the price of the incumbent firm (and after deducing the loyalty levels in the customer base), chooses its price. The profits of the firms and the surplus of the two customers segments (the segment that utilizes net-based customer service and the segment that does not) are analyzed in the Stackelberg leader-follower model of competition between the firms. We find that an increase in adoption of net-based customer service by the customer base is not always desirable for firms. With low effectiveness in enhancing customer loyalty, firms prefer a high level of customer adoption of net-based customer service, because an increase in adoption rate decreases competition and increases profits. A firm in an industry where net-based customer service is highly effective loyalty mechanism, on the other hand, prefers a low level of adoption by customers.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.113-132
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• 2007

Price rigidity involves prices that do not change with the regularity predicted by standard economic theory. It is of long-standing interest for firms, industries and the economy as a whole. However, due to the difficulty of measuring price rigidity and price adjustments directly, only a few studies have attempted to provide empirical evidence for explanatory theories from Economics and Marketing. This paper proposes and validates a research model to examine different theories of price rigidity and to predict what variables can explain the observed empirical regularities and variations in price adjustment patterns of Internet-based retailers. I specify and test a model using more than 3 million daily observations on 385 books, 118 DVDs and 154 CDs, sold by 22 Internet-based retailers that were collected over a 676-day period from March 2003 to February 2005. I obtained a number of interesting findings from the estimation of our logit model. First, quality seems to play a role-I find that both price levels as proxies for store quality, and information on the quality of a product consumers have, affect online price rigidity. Second, greater competition(i.e., less industry concentration) leads to less price rigidity(i.e., more price changes) on the Internet. I also find that Internet-based sellers more frequently change the prices of popular products, and the sellers with broader product coverage change prices less frequently, which seem due to economic forces faced by these Internet-based sellers. To the best of my knowledge, this research is the first to empirically assess price rigidity patterns for multiple industries in Internet-based retailing, and attempt to explain the variation in these patterns. I found that price changes are more likely to be driven by quality, competitive and economic considerations. These results speak to both the IS and economics literatures. To the IS literature these results suggest we take economic considerations into account in more sophisticated ways. The existence and variation in price rigidity argue that simplistic assumptions about frictionless and completely flexible digital prices do not capture the richness of pricing behavior on the Internet. The quality, competitive and economic forces identified in this model suggest promising directions for future theoretical and empirical work on their role in these technologically changing markets. To the economics literature these results offer new evidence on the sources of price rigidity, which can then be incorporated into the development of models of pricing at the firm, industry and even macro-economic level of analysis. It also suggests that there is much to be learned through interdisciplinary research between the IS, economics and related business disciplines.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.97-112
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• 2007

Most traditional newspaper publishers provide online editions to counter the competition of online news providers. However, the relationship between the online and print editions of the same newspaper has not been clearly defined. Some see the online newspaper as a substitute, while others consider it a complement. A 2002 NAA online newspaper consumer survey indicated that one-third of its respondents said they were now using the print newspaper less. Others have argued that the online edition will not wipe out print consumption, and may even complement it. While the print edition offers particular advantages such as portability, less eye strain, and the tactile experience of a printed page, the online edition also offers specific advantages such as access to breaking news, continually updated information, access to old archives, etc. All these factors would tend to lower the degree of interchangeability between the products. However, recent empirical studies show that the online edition is a substitute for rather than a complement of the print edition. Still, to some print readers, the online edition provides additional value. In this paper, by capturing the two different aspects of online editions the substitute aspect and the additional value added aspect as well as other available online alternatives, we develop an analytical model to derive the optimal production and distribution strategies of both online and print editions. Confronting the "free versus fee" issue, we show that it is optimal to provide an online version of the print newspaper for free to non-print subscribers. However, the amount of free news content that the publishers need to put on the Web depends on the available alternatives on the online market. The "fee" and "free" options both have merits and demerits as well. If the publisher charges for the online version of the print newspaper, she can generate revenue from the fee charged to online readers. However, doing so will limit the size of the online audience and further reduce online advertising revenue. At the same time, by providing a high-quality online version and charging for it, the price of the print newspaper must stay low in order to lure high valued readers. On the contrary, if the publisher provides an online version of the print newspaper for free, she can obtain a larger audience for the online version. At the same time, by providing a low-quality online newspaper, the publisher can increase the print newspaper price to get more revenue from high valued offline readers, although no revenue is incoming from online version readers. Through systematic measuring of all the pros and cons, our analysis shows that the optimal option is not "fee" but "free."

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.37-51
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• 2017

We investigated how entrepreneurship, information technology acceptance, and media utilization influence on office worker commitment and how effects are modulated by learning orientation. The purpose of this study is to identify variables that influence on office worker commitment. To do so, entrepreneurship, information technology acceptance, and media utilization that are the core competencies of individuals and organizations in the era of smart information are proposed as predictor variables, office worker commitment as a outcome variable and learning orientation as a modulator. For this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted on office workers, and finally 340 valid questionnaires are used for analysis. Hierarchical regression analysis is used with demographic characteristics as control variables and learning orientation as a modulating variables. A result showed that the higher need for achievement and proactiveness of entrepreneurship is, the higher job commitment is and that the perceived usefulness of information technology acceptance and communication utilization ability of media utilization competitiveness have a positive effect on job commitment. A research showed that learning orientation is modulating the relationship between entrepreneurship and job commitment, and between media utilization capability and job commitment, respectively. We concluded that we should actively seek synergies of learning orientation along with accumulation of online communication utilization capacity and perceived usefulness of information technology, and of proactiveness need for achievement and in entrepreneurship in order to improve the work committment in the smart information society where the digital environment is advanced.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• 제12권6호
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• pp.41-47
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• 2017

This study is an empirical analysis of the welfare of small and medium venture company trade. In the past, although the study analyzes the trade welfare for representative firm, this research is focusing on the distribution of an entire industry of companies analyzed. In this study, medium-to venture enterprise-scale for logarithmic normal distribution and Pareto distribution is estimated, and this study investigates the trading welfare changes. Results of the analysis can be summarized as follows. First of all, greater trade benefits enterprise-scale heterogeneity appeared to be significant. The result of this finding appeared to be the same to large firms as well as small and medium ventures. Trading welfare, assuming the distribution of Pareto rather than logarithmic normal distribution it's supposed to be overwhelmingly large. Secondly, the case of large corporations shows the more trade welfare than that of small and medium venture companies. Third, assuming homogeneous distribution of enterprise-scale trade welfare differences did not exist. Finally, from the point of view of increasing the welfare of trade, the diversity aiming of venture business is a very important role in the long term, because of the small and medium-sized ventures trade role.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.13-20
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• 2005

Upon the request of balanced development of the country and making inroads into the continent of China the development of the west coast was begun in the late 1980s, which has been being continued till recently under the blueprint of making the western part of the capital region to be the hub of northeastern Asia. As more lively development is expected to continue in the area, there are many occurrences of change in topology and terrain in the west coast. This study was done to detect the topographic and terrain change of the vicinity of the west coast. To make the basic map of the change in topology and terrain, the mosaic images were made using landsat images. The accuracy of the images was examined by comparing them with GCP through 1:25,000's digital map. After that, among the resultant images of the 1970s and 2000s, those of Sihwa, Hwaong and Ansan, the lands reclaimed by drainage were compared to observe the change in the area. From the results, it was concluded that, in case of the land the topological change was not so big due to the development in the reclaimed land or the bare land, and the area of agriculture and downtown increased, the drainage and bare land area decreased by comparing the change of land use.