• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.23-30
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency of retail businesses by dividing domestic retailers into discount stores, super supermarkets (SSMs), and department stores. It suggests retail-business investment strategies by using data environment analysis (DEA) to analyze how input elements such as store area, parking lot area, number of employees, and sales management expenses for the convenience of customers positively affect business performance measurements such as sales and visiting customers per day. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - The DEA model calculates a ratio of the weighted mean of various inputs to the weighted mean of various outputs and measures the efficiency of a specific decision making unit (DMU). The study included 19 companies (five discount store DMUs, ten SSM DMUs, and four department store DMUs). Because the business elements and sizes of retail store DMUs used in this analysis are different, average per-store input and output variables were used. Data were collected from "The Yearbook of Retail Industry in Korea (2012)." DEA analysis was used to determine differences in efficiency among discount stores, SSMs, and department stores in terms of the business elements of each retail business. It was also used to determine what business elements were excessively invested in by comparing and analyzing efficiency by business elements using SPSS software's ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). Results - The CCR and BCC efficiency analysis found that the efficiency of discount stores is low. We believe that the saturation state of discount stores is a major factor. The ANOVA analysis confirms the VRS hypothesis with a statistically significant difference among the three groups, based on an analysis confidence interval of 95%. CRS and SE were not found to be significantly different among the three groups. As for the post hoc test, which concretely shows differences by group, the Scheffe's multiple comparison analysis test found the average differences between group 1 (discount stores) and group 2 (SSM) to be statistically significant. Conclusions - The DEA efficiency analysis implies that investment in input elements, including store area, parking lot area, and sales management expenses, were excessive in the case of discount stores, while SSMs need to invest more in promotion activities such as gifts, events, and coupons for customer management. Department stores have found that small companies invest excessively in input elements. Department stores need to invest in differentiated shopping mall complexes. This study was limited in acquiring statistical data; various input variables which might have shown more secure customer management and promotional expenses could not be applied. As the study was limited in various aspects of the efficiency analyses because financial analyses of the companies and of causal relationships, including satisfaction and loyalty of visiting customers, were not done, these aspects will be examined in the next study.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.75-84
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• 2014

Purpose - This article aims to examine whether the stock issuance of firms in the retail industry follows Myers' (1984) pecking order theory, which is based on information asymmetry. According to the pecking order model, firms have a sequence of financing decisions, of which the first choice is to use retained earnings, the second one is to get into safe debt, the next involves risky debt, and the last involves finance with outside equity. Since the 2000s, the polarization of the LEs (Large enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) arose in the retail industry. The LEs exhibited an improvement in growth and profitability, whereas SMEs had a tendency to degenerate. This study contributes to corroborating the features of financing decisions in the retail industry distinguished from the other industries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study considers the stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013, and is more concentrated on the stocks in the retail industry. The data were collected from the financial information company, WISEfn. The empirical analysis is conducted by employing two measures of net equity issues (and), which were introduced in Fama and French (2005), and can be calculated from firms' accounting information. All variables are generated as the aggregate value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets, which, in effect, treats the entire sample as a single firm. Substantially, the financing decisions of the firms were analyzed by examining how often and under what circumstances firms issue and repurchase equity. Then, this study compares the features of the retail industry with those of the other industries. Results - The proportion of sample firms that show annual net stock issues reaching the level of the year's average was 54.33% for the 1990s, and fell to 39.93% per year for the 2000s. In detail, the fraction of the small firms actually increases from 45.08% to 51.04%, whereas that of large firms shows a dramatic decline from 58.94% to 24.76%. Considering the fact that the large firms' rapid increase in growth after the 2000s may lead to an increase in equity issues, this result is rather surprising. Meanwhile, net stock repurchases of assets are considerably disproportionate between the large (-50.11%) and the small firms (-15.66%) for the 2000s. Conclusions - Stock issuance of retail firms is not in line with the traditional seasoned equity offering based on information asymmetry. The net stock issuance of the small firms in the retail industry can be interpreted as part of an effort to reorganize business and solicit new investment to resolve degenerating business performance. For large firms, on the other hand, the net repurchase can be regarded as part of an effort to rearrange business for efficiency and amplifying synergy across business sections through spin-off. These results can help the government establish a support policy on retail industry according to size.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.123-128
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of the study is to reexamine the price fairness as practiced by low cost airlines, as a consumer has to experience such inconveniences as inferior airport transportation, extra fees on in-flight meals, and non-negotiable seats, and consumers evaluate such experiences keeping in mind their total costs. This evaluation includes price fairness and allows a reasonable and overall consideration of factors of low cost airlines. It tries to set up a measurement of the indicators consumers' perceptions of price fairness academically as it adapts price fairness to airline services which are renowned for price volatility. Research design, data, and methodology - The research proposes an alternative pricing strategy for the long term profit of low cost airlines after going over conflicts between the traditional theory of consumers' price perception mechanism and flexible fair policy of low cost airlines. It was meaningful when it relates to the early stage of the business, while it enhances the risks relating to the long term survival of low cost airlines. In addition, it is significant as it highlights the negative influences on consumers' perceptions of price fairness, as low cost airlines run on extremely low cost perspectives. Results - The results of the research provide insight into four perspectives, as consumers' perceptions of price fairness are influenced by the frequency and range of price changes and services. The first perspective is that it would lead to positive price evaluation when a low cost airline cuts prices frequently with little changes than one big change. It also would lead to the same result when it comes to necessary services. The second perspective is that one big increase of price would rather undermine the negative aspects of price changes than those of several smaller ones. The third perspective is that additional services would be good to consumers' perceptions of price fairness as compared to discount benefits with respect to the cost. Finally, a low cost airline should consider that consumers will change airlines or defer their flight schedule if the flight fares increase beyond their limits. Conclusions - Low cost airlines should reconsider their pricing policies for services that were provided free earlier. A consumer would not like discount benefits when made to pay for services that were, for long, free of charge. If a low cost airline can provide services with no charge, it should improve volumes if the costs are standardized and, moreover, should consider the charging fees. Alternatively, a consumer can choose between services and fair discount. Low cost airlines are implementing sales promotion strategies, as the competition is more intense than it used to be. In these days, they should regard services over sales promotion, as consumers may prefer to spend money on good premium services. Some differentiation in services could create a good market position for the airlines and, hence, good financial performance.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.25-56
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• 2011

A shifting of marketing paradigms from transaction to relationship has shown in many studies. Although there are many researches about relationship marketing, few of them focuses on relationship marketing combined with retail mix. This study define and measure customer relationship, and find the antecedents and consequences of the customer relationship. For the research, data were collected from 540 persons who are currently customers of five branches of E-mart and Homeplus in Seoul, Korea. Data analysis was performed under the AMOS 6.0. The results are summarized as following; Firstly, the relationship among elements of retail marketing mix and the relationship quality appears significant except communication program. This finding means that communication effect decreases at some point when communication program is excessive. Secondly, the relationship of customer relationship and three factors (frequent shopping intention, up-buying intention and recommend intention) are significant. Thus, this result supports the reasoning why discount stores make an effort to improve customer relationship. Thirdly, the relationship between share of wallet and two factors (frequent shopping intention and recommend intention) appears insignificant. Fourthly, the relationship between share of wallet and up-buying intention is significant. This result implies that up-buying intention is an important factor for discount stores, because up-buying intention is directly linked to financial performance of discount stores. Finally, the direct path between customer relationship and share of wallet is significant relation. For this reason, customer relationship should be managed consistently by discount stores.

• Journal of the Korean Data Analysis Society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.2993-3002
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• 2018

This case study introduces the process of developing the technology rating evaluation model for investment. The technology evaluation rating model for investment is a project that the Financial Services Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy collaborated to expand the scope of technology finance from loan to investment. The technology evaluation model for investment was developed with the aim of predicting high growth companies. The model consists of a statistical model and an expert model. Here, statistical models were modeled by using logistic regression analysis. Expert models gathered opinions of experts and identified the weight of each evaluation item and set the model. The rating system of the model is composed of 10 grades. The distribution of the model was consistent with KTRS grade distribution. Interestingly, the emphasis is on technology and marketability. In the technology valuation grade model for the goddess, there is a considerable difference from the emphasis on managerial competence or business performance.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.270-277
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• 2002

Text filtering is a task of deciding whether a document has relevance to a specified topic. As Internet and Web becomes wide-spread and the number of documents delivered by e-mail explosively grows the importance of text filtering increases as well. The aim of this paper is to improve the accuracy of text filtering systems by using machine learning techniques. We apply AdaBoost algorithms to the filtering task. An AdaBoost algorithm generates and combines a series of simple hypotheses. Each of the hypotheses decides the relevance of a document to a topic on the basis of whether or not the document includes a certain word. We begin with an existing AdaBoost algorithm which uses weak hypotheses with their output of 1 or -1. Then we extend the algorithm to use weak hypotheses with real-valued outputs which was proposed recently to improve error reduction rates and final filtering performance. Next, we attempt to achieve further improvement in the AdaBoost's performance by first setting weights randomly according to the continuous Poisson distribution, executing AdaBoost, repeating these steps several times, and then combining all the hypotheses learned. This has the effect of mitigating the ovefitting problem which may occur when learning from a small number of data. Experiments have been performed on the real document collections used in TREC-8, a well-established text retrieval contest. This dataset includes Financial Times articles from 1992 to 1994. The experimental results show that AdaBoost with real-valued hypotheses outperforms AdaBoost with binary-valued hypotheses, and that AdaBoost iterated with random weights further improves filtering accuracy. Comparison results of all the participants of the TREC-8 filtering task are also provided.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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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).

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.27-37
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• 2012

Many studies have focused on the importance of organizational integration when companies try to achieve growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). However, there has been little research that focuses on the new branding or customer base integration of the M&A process, despite the fact that this integration is very important for achieving M&A goals and business performance in industries such as retail. The purpose of this study is to provide an M&A case study of the retail industry, focused especially on the new branding and customer integration of two department stores. This study examined key integration processes in terms of brand name and membership systems of both companies by examining how the merged company achieved its new branding and the integration of its membership systems. The methodology of this research is the case study, which is used in both normative and empirical studies for distribution research in Korea. This research analyzes the case of both new branding and customer membership systems of the two companies. The new branding initiatives of this case centered on decision making including brand extension and brand naming. The customer membership integration of the two companies is analyzed on the basis of the customer reward programs that include both financial and service rewards. This study shows the success factors of new branding and customer integration in the M&A process in terms of achieving marketing goals and business performance as follows: First, companies should identify the integration areas by analyzing the brand and membership of both companies and make a balanced decision for both the customer and company. Second, the goals of new branding and membership integration in the M&A process should not emphasize business efficiency from a short-term perspective but rather should consider brand power and business synergy from a long-term perspective. Third, the post-merger integration process of the brand or customer areas requires not only the organized execution of integration tasks but also follow-up programs for changes in business strategy and marketing-related programs to realize the synergy effects of integrated organization. Although this study provides a detailed review and analysis of the new branding and customer integration processes in post-merger integration and in identifying the primary decision-making areas of these processes, there are some limitations requiring further research that may overcome or compensate for these limitations. The suggested future research areas are as follows: First, since this research is a case study of only one M&A, it makes few theoretical contributions such as new propositions or theories or possibilities for generalization. This limitation can be overcome through further research using multiple cases, which may lead to new propositions. Second, the methodology of this study lacks sufficient rigor in terms of its analytic approach because this case study was developed and analyzed descriptively. Further research is needed to compensate for these limitations, such as using a theory-based approach or comparative analysis approach that makes case analysis more systematic.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.111-122
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to survey the successful cases of small and medium Business Systematization Cognition by examining their entrepreneurial characteristics and analysing the factors affecting their success. To that end, previous studies on the association types of small businesses were studied. A research model was developed, and research hypotheses for an empirical analysis were established upon it. Suh et al. (2010) insist on the importance of Small Business Systematization in Korea but also show that small business performance is suffering: they are too small to stand alone. That is why association is so crucial for them: they must stand together. Unfortunately, association is difficult, as they have few specific links and little motivation. Even in franchising networks, association tends to be initiated by big franchisers, not small ones. In that sense, association among small businesses is crucial for their long-term survival. With this in mind, this study examines how they think and feel about the issue of 'Industrial Classification', how important Industrial Classification is to their business success, and what kinds of problems it raises in the markets. This study seeks the different cognitions among the association types of small businesses from the perspectives of participation motivation, systematization expectation, policy demand level, and management performance. We assume that different industrial classification types of small businesses will have different cognitions concerning these factors. There are four basic industrial classification types of small businesses: retail sales, restaurant, service, and manufacturing. To date, most of the studies in this area have focused on collecting data on the external environments of small businesses or performing statistical analyses on their status. In this study, we surveyed 4 market areas in Busan, Masan, and Changwon in Korea, where business associations consist of merchants, shop owners, and traders. We surveyed 330 shops and merchants by sending a questionnaire or visiting. Finally, 268 questionnaires were collected and used for the analysis. An ANOVA, T-test, and regression analyses were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results demonstrate that there are differences in cognition depending upon the industrial classification type. Restaurants generally have a higher cognition concerning job offer problems and a lower cognition concerning their competitiveness. Restaurants also depend more on systematization expectation than do the other industrial classification types. On the policy demand level, restaurants have a higher cognition. This study identifies several factors that are contributing to management performance through differences in cognition that depend upon association type: systematization expectation and policy demand level have positive effects on management performance; participation motivation has a negative effect on management performance. We confirm also that the image factors of different cognitions are linked to an awareness of the value of systematization and that these factors show sequential and continual patterns in the course of generating performances. In conclusion, this study carries significant implications in its classifying of small businesses into the four different associational types (retail sales, restaurant, services, and manufacturing). We believe our study to be the first one to conduct an empirical survey in this subject area. More studies in this area will likely use our research frameworks. The data show that regionally based industrial classification associations such as those in rural cities or less developed areas tend to suffer more problems than those in urban areas. Moreover, restaurants suffer more problems than the norm. Most of the problems raised in this study concern the act of 'associating itself'. Most associations have serious difficulties in associating. On the other hand, the area where they have the least policy demand is that of service types. This study contributes to the argument that associating, rather than financial assistance or management consulting, promotes the start-up and managerial performance of small businesses. This study also has some limitations. The main limitation is the number of questionnaires. We could not survey all the industrial classification types across the country because of budget and time limitations. If we had, we could have produced many more useful results and enhanced the precision of our analysis. The history of systemization is very short and the number of industrial classification associations is relatively low in Korea. We should keep in mind, though, that this is very crucial to systemization entrepreneurs starting their businesses, as it can heavily affect their chances of success. Being strongly associated with each other might be critical to the business success of industrial classification members. Thus, the government needs to put more effort and resources into supporting the drive of industrial classification members to become more strongly associated.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.147-162
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to present practical improvement plans for policy fund support in national policy banks through an analysis of the efficiency of policy fund support. It targets small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) that received policy funding from national policy banks in '17 and '18 consecutively. As for the analysis method, characteristic analysis and corresponding sample T-test was performed. The analysis results are as follows. First, as a result of analyzing the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises, most of the financial funds were concentrated on the manufacturing industry. By region, the western region of Gyeonggi Province, by credit rating, was A grade, technology grade was T5, and the use of funds was mostly concentrated on facility funds. Second, as a result of efficiency analysis, profitability had a positive effect on total capital return, stability had a positive effect on interest compensation ratio, and activity had a positive effect on total capital turnover. In conclusion, it is expected to provide practical improvement plans to support policy funds to influence the growth and distribution of funds appropriate to the needs of SMEs.