• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.11-23
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• 2009

HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) is a 3.5-generation asynchronous mobile communications service based on the third generation of W-CDMA. In Korea, it is mainly provided in through videophone service. Because of the diffusion of more powerful and diversified services, along with steep advances in mobile communications technology, consumers demand a wide range of choices. However, because of the variety of technologies, which tend to overflow the market regardless of consumer preferences, consumers feel increasingly confused. Therefore, we should not adopt strategies that focus only on developing new technology on the assumption that new technologies are next-generation projects. Instead, we should understand the process by which consumers accept new forms of technology and devise schemes to lower market entry barriers through strategies that enable developers to understand and provide what consumers really want. In the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are suggested as the most important factors affecting the attitudes of people adopting new technologies (Davis, 1989; Taylor and Todd, 1995; Venkatesh, 2000; Lee et al., 2004). Perceived usefulness is the degree to which a person believes that a particular technology will enhance his or her job performance. Perceived ease of use is the degree of subjective belief that using a particular technology will require little physical and mental effort (Davis, 1989; Morris and Dillon, 1997; Venkatesh, 2000). Perceived pleasure and perceived usefulness have been shown to clearly affect attitudes toward accepting technology (Davis et al., 1992). For example, pleasure in online shopping has been shown to positively impact consumers' attitudes toward online sellers (Eighmey and McCord, 1998; Mathwick, 2002; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997). The perceived risk of customers is a subjective risk, which is distinguished from an objective probabilistic risk. Perceived risk includes a psychological risk that consumers perceive when they choose brands, stores, and methods of purchase to obtain a particular item. The ability of an enterprise to revolutionize products depends on the effective acquisition of knowledge about new products (Bierly and Chakrabarti, 1996; Rothwell and Dodgson, 1991). Knowledge acquisition is the ability of a company to perceive the value of novelty and technology of the outside (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), to evaluate the outside technology that has newly appeared (Arora and Gambaradella, 1994), and to predict the future evolution of technology accurately (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Consumer innovativeness is the degree to which an individual adopts innovation earlier than others in the social system (Lee, Ahn, and Ha, 2001; Gatignon and Robertson, 1985). That is, it shows how fast and how easily consumers adopt new ideas. Innovativeness is regarded as important because it has a significant effect on whether consumers adopt new products and on how fast they accept new products (Midgley and Dowling, 1978; Foxall, 1988; Hirschman, 1980). We conducted cross-national comparative research using the TAM model, which empirically verified the relationship between the factors that affect attitudes - perceived usefulness, ease of use, perceived pleasure, perceived risk, innovativeness, and perceived level of knowledge management - and attitudes toward HSDPA service. We also verified the relationship between attitudes and usage intention for the purpose of developing more effective methods of management for HSDPA service providers. For this research, 346 questionnaires were distributed among 350 students in the Republic of Korea. Because 26 of the returned questionnaires were inconsistent or had missing data, 320 questionnaires were used in the hypothesis tests. In UK, 192 of the total 200 questionnaires were retrieved, and two incomplete ones were discarded, bringing the total to 190 questionnaires used for statistical analysis. The results of the overall model analysis are as follows: Republic of Korea x2=333.27(p=0.0), NFI=0.88, NNFI=0.88, CFI=0.91, IFI=0.91, RMR=0.054, GFI=0.90, AGFI=0.84, UK x2=176.57(p=0.0), NFI=0.88, NNFI=0.90, CFI=0.93, IFI=0.93, RMR=0.062, GFI=0.90, AGFI=0.84. From the results of the hypothesis tests of Korean consumers about the relationship between factors that affect intention to use HSDPA services and attitudes, we can conclude that perceived usefulness, ease of use, pleasure, a high level of knowledge management, and innovativeness promote positive attitudes toward HSDPA mobile phones. However, ease of use and perceived pleasure did not have a direct effect on intention to use HSDPA service. This may have resulted from the fact that the use of video phones is not necessary for everyday life yet. Moreover, it has been shown that attitudes toward HSDPA video phones are directly correlated with usage intention, which means that perceived usefulness, ease of use, pleasure, a high level of knowledge management, and innovativeness. These relationships form the basis of the intention to buy, contributing to a situation in which consumers decide to choose carefully. A summary of the results of the hypothesis tests of European consumers revealed that perceived usefulness, pleasure, risk, and the level of knowledge management are factors that affect the formation of attitudes, while ease of use and innovativeness do not have an effect on attitudes. In particular, with regard to the effect value, perceived usefulness has the largest effect on attitudes, followed by pleasure and knowledge management. On the contrary, perceived risk has a smaller effect on attitudes. In the Asian model, ease of use and perceived pleasure were found not to have a direct effect on intention to use. However, because attitudes generally affect the intention to use, perceived usefulness, pleasure, risk, and knowledge management may be considered key factors in attitude development from which usage intention arises. In conclusion, perceived usefulness, pleasure, and the level of knowledge management have an effect on attitude formation in both Asian and European consumers, and such attitudes shape these consumers' intention to use. Furthermore, the hypotheses that ease of use and perceived pleasure affect usage intention are rejected. However, ease of use, perceived risk, and innovativeness showed different results. Perceived risk had no effect on attitude formation among Asians, while ease of use and innovativeness had no effect on attitudes among Europeans.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.83-121
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• 2004

This study was carried out to examine how solid the production foundation of rice in Chung-Nam Province is, and, if not, to probe alternative measures through the size of farms specializing in rice, of which direction would be a pivot of rice industry-oriented policy. The results obtained can be summarized as follows : 1. The amount of rice production in Chung-Nam Province is highest in Korea and the size of paddy field area is the second largest : This implying that the probability that rice production in Chung-Nam Province would be severely influenced by a global trend of market conditions. The number of farms specializing in rice becoming the core group of rice farming account for 7.7 percent of the total number of farm household in Korea. Average field area financial support which had been input to farm household by Government had a noticeable effect on the improvement of the policy of farm-size program. 2. Farm-size program in Chung-Nam Province established from 1980 to 2002 in creased the cultivation size of paddy field to 19,484 hectares, and this program enhanced the buying and selling of farmland and the number of farmland bargain reached 6,431 household and 16,517 hectares, respectively, in 1995-2002. Meanwhile, long-term letting and hiring of farmland appeared so active that the bargain acreage reached 6,970 hectares, and farm involved was 7,059 households, however, the farm-exchange-and-unity program did not satisfy our expectation, because the retirement farm operators reluctantly participated to sell their farms. Another reason that had delayed the bargain of farms rested on the general category of social complication attendant upon the exchange and unity operation for scattered farm. Such difficulties would work negative effects out to carry on the target of farm-size work in general. 3. The following measures were presented to propel the farm-size promotion program : a. Occupation shift project, followed by the social security program for retirement and elderly farm operators, should be promptly established and also a number of types of incentives for promoting the letting and hiring work and farm-exchange-and-unity program would also be set up. b. To establish the effective key system of rice production, all the farm operators should increase the unit area yield of rice and lower the production cost. To do so, a great deal of production teams of rice equipped with managerial techniques and capabilities need to be organized. And, also, there should be appropriate arrays of facilities including information system. This plan is desirable to be in line with a diversity of the structural implement of regional integration based on farm system building. c. To extend the size of farm and to improve farm management, we have to devise the enlargement of individual size of farm for maximized management and the utilization of farm-size grouping method. In conclusion, it can be said that the farm-size project in Chung-Nam Province which has continued since the 1980s was satisfactorily achieved. However, we still have a lot of problems to be solved to break down the barrier for attainment of the desirable farm-size operation work.. Farm-size project has fairly close relation with farm specialization in rice and, thus, the positive support for farm household including the integrated program for both retirement farmers and off-farm operators should be considered to pursue the progressive development of the farm-size program, which is key means to successful achievement of rice farming enforcement in Chung-Nam Province.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.166-182
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• 1994

Kyonggi Province in the late Chosun dynasty was a center of superior government offices including 'Han' River water-road transportation and was located in the middle of an 'X'-shaped arterial road network. Because of these reasons, Kyonggi Province had a faster inflow of commodities, informations and technics compared with the other province. At this period of time, every local 'Eup' (name of administrative district) had not been affected by their above administrative districts and had their own autonomy. For this reason, every 'Eup' could be developed as a town, even if its size was small when it had sufficient internal growing conditions. Moreover, the markets ('Si-Jon') in big towns and periodical markets which were spread over the Kyonggi Province played role of commercial functions of town. And because military bases for the defence of the royal capital in Kyonggi Province also took parts of a non-agricultural city role, Xyonggi Provinc had much more possibilities of growing as a town rather than the other provinces. The towns of the late Chosun Dynasty were, except the capital and superior administrative districts which were governed by the 'You-Su', small towns which had only about 3, 000-5, 000 people. Most of the town dewellers were local officials, nobles, merchants, craftmen and slaves. And the farmers who lived near town became a pseudo-towner through suburb agriculture. Among these people, the merchants were leaders of townization. The downtowns were affected by the landform and traffic roads. The most fundamental function of towns were administrative. The opcial's grade, which was dispatched to the local administrative district ('Kun' or 'Hyun'), was decided by the size of population and agricultural land of each county. Large county which was governed by a high ranking opcial had more possibilities to develop as a large town. Because they supervised other opcials of lower rank and obtained more land and population for the town. The phonomena of farm abandonment after the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592-1598 stimulated the development of towns for commercial function. The commercial functions of towns were evident in the Si-Jon or Nan-Jon (names of markets) in the big cities such as Hansung and Kaesung, meanffwhile in the local areas it was emerged in the shape of periodical market networks as allied with near markets (which were called as Jang-Si) or permanent markets which were grown up from periodical markets. These facts of commercial development induced the birth of commercial town. Kyonggi Province showed the weak points of its defense system during both wars (Japanese Invasion in 1592 and Manchu's Invasion in 1636). The government reinforced its defense system by adding 4 'You-Su-Bus' and several military bases. Each local districts ('Eup'), where Geo-Jins were established, were stimulated to be a town while Jin-Kwan system were, adjusted and enforced. Among Dok-Jins(name of solitary military bases), Youngjongjin was grown up as a large garrison town which only played a role of defense. The number of towns that took roles of non-agricultural functions in Kyonggi Province was 52. Among these towns, 29 were developed as big towns which had above 3, 000 people and most of these towns were located on the northwest-southeast axes of 'X'-shaped arterial trafic network in the Chosn Dynasty, This fact points out that the traffic road is one of the important causes of the development of towns. When we make hierarchy of the towns of Kyonggi Province according to its population and how many functions it had, we can make it as 6 grades. The virst grade town 'Hansung' was the biggest central town of administration, commerce and defdnse. The 2nd grade town includes 'Kaesung' which had historical inertia that it had been the capital of the Koryo Dynesty. The 3rd grade towns include some 'You- Su-Bus' such as Soowon, Kanghwa, Kwangju and also include Mapo, Yongsan and from this we can imagine that the commercial development in the late Chosun Dynasty extremely affected the townization. The 4th-6th grade towns had smiliar population but it can be discriminated by how many town functions it had. So the 4th grade towns were the core of administration, commerce and defense function. 5th grade towns had administrative functions and one of commercial and defense functions. 6th grade towns had only one of these functions. When we research and town conditions of each grades as the ratio of non-agricultural population, we can find out that the towns from the 1st grade to 4th grade show difference by degree of townization but from the 4th grade to 6th grade towns do not show big difference in general.