• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.71-100
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• 2014

While the role of emotional antecedents of effective selling behavior would be important, the issue has not been fully addressed in the sales literature. To fill this gap, we conceptualize and empirically examine the relationships among salesperson's emotional regulation processes such as emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional labor (EL), effective selling behavior, and sales performance on the basis of educational, occupational, social psychology literature and marketing literature (e.g., Henning-Thurau, Groth, Paul, and Gremler 2006; Kidwell et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2008; Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso 2008). First, salesperson's EI is defined as his or her capability that enables correct perceptions about emotional situations in sales interactions. The EI is expected to work as psychological resources for different types of EL (i.e., deep acting and surface acting) to be performed by salesperson as emotional expression strategies (e.g., Lie et al. 2008). It is, then, expected that the features of EL selected by the salesperson would lead to different levels of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and thereby sales performance (Monaghan 2006). Further, given that salesperson's customer orientation (CO) is found to be an important correlate of ASB (Franke and Park 2006), it is expected that CO would moderate the relationship between EL and ASB (Rozell, Pettijohn, and Parker 2004). Hence, this research attempts to shed additional light on emotionally-driven (EL) as well as cognitively-driven (CO) antecedents of ASB (Frank and Park 2006). The findings of the survey research, done with 336 salespersons in insurance and financial companies, are summarized as follows. First, salespersons with a high level of EI are found to use both deep acting (regulating the emotions themselves) and surface acting (controlling only emotional expressions) in a versatile way, when implementing EL. Second, the more the salesperson performs deep acting, the more he or she shows ASB. It is, then, important for salespersons to use deep acting more frequently in the EL process in order to enhance the quality of interacting with customers through ASB. On the other hand, the salesperson's surface acting did not have a significant relationship with ASB. Moreover, CO was found to moderate the relationship between the salesperson's deep acting and ASB. That is, the context of high CO culture and individual salesperson's deep acting would synergistically make the selling efforts adaptive to customer preferences. Conceptualizing and empirically verifying the antecedent roles of important emotional constructs such as EI and EL in salesperson's effective selling behavior (ASB) and sales performance is a major theoretical contribution in the sales literature. Managerially, this research provides a deeper understanding on the nature of tasks performed by salespersons in service industries and a few guidelines for managing the sales force. First, sales organizations had better consciously assess EI capacity in the selection and nurturing processes of salespersons, given that EI can efficiently drive EL and the resulting effective selling behavior and performance. Further, the concept of EL could provide a framework to understand the salespersons' emotional experiences in depth. Especially, sales organizations may well think over how to develop deep acting capabilities of their sales representatives. In this direction, the training on deep acting strategies would be an essential task for improving effective selling behavior and performance of salespersons. This kind of training had better incorporate the perspectives of customers such that many customers can actually discern whether salespersons are doing either surface acting or deep acting. Finally, based on the synergistic effects of deep acting and CO culture, how to build and sustain CO is always an ever-important task in sales organizations. While the prior sales literature has emphasized the process and structure of highly customer-oriented sales organization, our research not only corroborates the important aspects of customer-oriented sales organization, but also adds the important dimension of competent sales representatives who can resonate with customers by deep acting for sales excellence.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

Analysis of future business or investment opportunities, such as business feasibility analysis and company or technology valuation, necessitate objective estimation on the relevant market and expected sales. While there are various ways to classify the estimation methods of these new sales or market size, they can be broadly divided into top-down and bottom-up approaches by benchmark references. Both methods, however, require a lot of resources and time. Therefore, we propose a data-based intelligent demand forecasting system to support evaluation of new business. This study focuses on analogical forecasting, one of the traditional quantitative forecasting methods, to develop sales forecasting intelligence systems for new businesses. Instead of simply estimating sales for a few years, we hereby propose a method of estimating the sales of new businesses by using the initial sales and the sales growth rate of similar companies. To demonstrate the appropriateness of this method, it is examined whether the sales performance of recently established companies in the same industry category in Korea can be utilized as a reference variable for the analogical forecasting. In this study, we examined whether the phenomenon of "mean reversion" was observed in the sales of start-up companies in order to identify errors in estimating sales of new businesses based on industry sales growth rate and whether the differences in business environment resulting from the different timing of business launch affects growth rate. We also conducted analyses of variance (ANOVA) and latent growth model (LGM) to identify differences in sales growth rates by industry category. Based on the results, we proposed industry-specific range and linear forecasting models. This study analyzed the sales of only 150,000 start-up companies in Korea in the last 10 years, and identified that the average growth rate of start-ups in Korea is higher than the industry average in the first few years, but it shortly shows the phenomenon of mean-reversion. In addition, although the start-up founding juncture affects the sales growth rate, it is not high significantly and the sales growth rate can be different according to the industry classification. Utilizing both this phenomenon and the performance of start-up companies in relevant industries, we have proposed two models of new business sales based on the sales growth rate. The method proposed in this study makes it possible to objectively and quickly estimate the sales of new business by industry, and it is expected to provide reference information to judge whether sales estimated by other methods (top-down/bottom-up approach) pass the bounds from ordinary cases in relevant industry. In particular, the results of this study can be practically used as useful reference information for business feasibility analysis or technical valuation for entering new business. When using the existing top-down method, it can be used to set the range of market size or market share. As well, when using the bottom-up method, the estimation period may be set in accordance of the mean reverting period information for the growth rate. The two models proposed in this study will enable rapid and objective sales estimation of new businesses, and are expected to improve the efficiency of business feasibility analysis and technology valuation process by developing intelligent information system. In academic perspectives, it is a very important discovery that the phenomenon of 'mean reversion' is found among start-up companies out of general small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as stable companies such as listed companies. In particular, there exists the significance of this study in that over the large-scale data the mean reverting phenomenon of the start-up firms' sales growth rate is different from that of the listed companies, and that there is a difference in each industry. If a linear model, which is useful for estimating the sales of a specific company, is highly likely to be utilized in practical aspects, it can be explained that the range model, which can be used for the estimation method of the sales of the unspecified firms, is highly likely to be used in political aspects. It implies that when analyzing the business activities and performance of a specific industry group or enterprise group there is political usability in that the range model enables to provide references and compare them by data based start-up sales forecasting system.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.85-101
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to test whether prices of personal computers reflect their varying degrees of non-marketable characteristics including after-sales service. This purpose is carried out using the hedonic price model. In this paper, we estimated 74 functional forms of hedonic price model using the quadratic Box-Cox transformation function and selected one based on the three criteria: expected signs, the statistical significance of estimated coefficients, and goodness of fit in terms of root-mean-square-percentage-error. In this study, we found hat as the after-sales service level increases the price of the personal computer increases. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the less after-sales service offered with a personal computer, the less consumers are willing to pay for the personal computer, when all else remain constant. This finding shows that since the market works indirectly to influence pricing, the need to rely on consumer protection legislation to guarantee after-sales service is lessened. This study also found that after-sales service supported by each personal computer producer is not a free service, thus produces have a profit incentive for providing after-sales service.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.115-121
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to deal with disputes between the seller and the buyer in connection with the Letter of Credit (LC) in a sales contract. The Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) provides the rules on the fundamental breaches which can lead to termination of the sales contract but the CISG is not enough to govern issues arising from the LC disputes when the sales contract is not clear about the payment terms. This paper tried to find some solutions to the disputes by considering international rules, such as the Principles of European Contract Law (PECL). Research design, data and methodology: The methodology applied in this study was an analysis of some court decisions and extended literature review. Results: The study revealed that in contracts for the sale of international goods, the buyer was obliged to open an LC as manner of payment. If the buyer failed to open an LC or amend the terms of the LC, the seller could avoid the contract because this could deprive the seller's expected interest. Conclusions: Few studies in Korea have been comprehensively analyzed in terms of the obligations of regarding the LC with respect to the CISG in court cases. This study suggests safeguarding the buyer and seller when the LC is considered absolute or conditional.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.83-90
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• 2016

Purpose - During the last two years, convenient stores (CS) are emerging as one of the most fast-growing retail trades in Korea. The goal of this work is to forecast and to analyze sales at CS using ARIMA-Intervention model (IM) and exponential smoothing method (ESM), together with sales at supermarkets in South Korea. Considering that two retail trades above are homogeneous and comparable in size and purchasing items on off-line distribution channel, individual behavior and characteristic can be detected and also relative superiority of future growth can be forecasted. In particular, the rapid growth of sales at CS is regarded as an everlasting external event, or step intervention, so that IM with season variation can be examined. At the same time, Winters ESM can be investigated as an alternative to seasonal ARIMA-IM, on the assumption that the underlying series shows exponentially decreasing weights over time. In case of sales at supermarkets, the marked intervention could not be found over the underlying periods, so that only Winters ESM is considered. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - The dataset of this research is obtained from Korean Statistical Information Service (1/2010~7/2016) and Survey of Service Trend of Korea Statistics Administration. This work is exploited time series analyses such as IM, ESM and model-fitting statistics by using TSPLOT, TSMODEL, EXSMOOTH, ARIMA and MODELFIT procedures in SPSS 23.0. Results - By applying seasonal ARIMA-Intervention model to sales at CS, the steep and persisting increase can be expected over the next one year. On the other hand, we expect the rate of sales growth of supermarkets to be lagging and tied up constantly in the next 2016 year. Conclusions - Based on 2017 one-year sales forecasts for CS and supermarkets, we can yield the useful information for the development of CS and also for all retail trades. Future study is needed to analyze sales of popular items individually such as tobacco, banana milk, soju and so on and to get segmented results. Furthermore, we can expand sales forecasts to other retail trades such as department stores, hypermarkets, non-store retailing, so that comprehensive diagnostics can be delivered in the future.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.25-34
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• 2012

It has been five years since the Post-Construction Sale System of Housing was introduced. The purpose of this study is to identify objectives and effects of the Post-Construction Sale System of Housing and analyze change of profitability at different sales time from a supplier's point of view. Apartment buildings construction projects performed in Seoul are used for the case study. The present value of sales revenues, sensitivity and the present value of expected sales prices are analyzed. According to the findings, first, profits made from a Pre-construction sales system was 5.1%~6.2% higher than those from a Post-construction sales system. Among four plans of a Pre-construction sales system (A, B, C and D plan), sales revenue from the A plan, which takes a deposit at the time of starting construction, was the greatest. Second, increase of the rate of discount and decrease of sales revenues are in direct proportion. The bigger rate of discount leads actual reduction of sales revenues. Third, for the present value of sales revenues reflecting change in basic model construction cost, a Pre-construction sales system showed a little higher than that of a Post-construction sales system by approximately 2%. It should be known that this study suggests profitability of Pre-and Post-construction sales system by clearly measuring them in the supplier's point of view and calculates sales revenues, considering change of a sale price following change of sales time.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.85-91
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• 2019

Since online shopping has become common, people can easily buy fashion goods anytime, anywhere. Therefore, consumers quickly respond to various environmental variables such as weather and sales prices. Thus, utilizing big data for efficient inventory management has become very important in the fashion industry. In this paper, the changes in sales volume of fashion goods due to changes in temperature is analyzed via the proposed big data analysis algorithm by utilizing actual big data from Korean fashion company 'B'. According to the analytic results, the proposed big data analysis algorithm found both expected and unexpected changes in sales volume depending on the characteristics of the fashion goods.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1-16
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to identify the expectation of vocational abilities and the level of the existing abilities of the door-to-door saleswomen in the cosmetic industry, in order to provide baseline information that can be used to improve sales ability. The data were collected from 1,168 respondents to a questionnaire. Major findings were as follows: 1. The most commonly expected aptitude for the door-to-door salesperson was the ability 'to gain the confidence from customers'. The other important aptitudes were 'good attitudes', 'product information' and 'pleasant personality and patience'. 2. The overall level of the abilities according to their self-evaluation when compared with the level of expected abilities was 64.9 %. The item that received the lowest self-evaluation was 'ability in developing new market and audience'. 3. Vocational ability expectation was affected most strongly by education level. The variables that affected self-evaluation were career paths, education level, income, sales volume and position.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2013

It is difficult to determine an appropriate discount price for daily perishable products to increase profit from a long-term standpoint. Even if the discount pricing is efficient to increase profit of the day, consumers memorize the sales price and they might hesitate to purchase the product at a regular price the following day. The authors discussed the inventory clearance pricing for a single period in our previous study by constructing a mathematical model to derive an optimal sales price to maximize the expected profit by considering the reference price effect of demand. This paper extends the discussion to handle the discount pricing for multiple periods. A mathematical analysis is first conducted to reveal the properties on an objective function, which is the present value of total expected profits for multiple periods. An algorithm is then proposed to derive an optimal price for asymmetric consumers. Numerical experiments investigate the characteristics of the objective function and optimal pricings.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.111-121
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• 2015

A correct information of customer returns ratio under e-commerce is not always shared between supply chain (SC) members. Also, it is important issue for SC members to handle the unsold products in a market. This paper discusses the impact of information sharing of customer returns ratio on an optimal sales strategy including resale of customer returns and buyback policy for a SC under e-commerce with a manufacturer and a retailer. A retailer sells a single product and resells the resalable customer returns in the same market. A manufacturer produces the products and buys back the unsold products as to their quality from the retailer. The integrated SC (ISC) determines the optimal product order quantity to maximize the expected profit of the whole SC. The decentralized SC (DSC) makes the optimal decisions for order quantity and the wholesale price of products to maximize the expected profit of each SC member. The effect of information sharing is discussed between SC members under ISC and DSC. The analysis numerically investigates how information sharing of the returns ratio affects the optimal decision and the expected profits under ISC and DSC. Besides, effect of SC coordination to encourage the shift to ISC is discussed.