• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.37-63
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• 2012

In franchise business, exclusive sales territory (sometimes EST in table) protection is a very important issue from an economic, social and political point of view. It affects the growth and survival of both franchisor and franchisee and often raises issues of social and political conflicts. When franchisee is not familiar with related laws and regulations, franchisor has high chance to utilize it. Exclusive sales territory protection by the manufacturer and distributors (wholesalers or retailers) means sales area restriction by which only certain distributors have right to sell products or services. The distributor, who has been granted exclusive sales territories, can protect its own territory, whereas he may be prohibited from entering in other regions. Even though exclusive sales territory is a quite critical problem in franchise business, there is not much rigorous research about the reason, results, evaluation, and future direction based on empirical data. This paper tries to address this problem not only from logical and nomological validity, but from empirical validation. While we purse an empirical analysis, we take into account the difficulties of real data collection and statistical analysis techniques. We use a set of disclosure document data collected by Korea Fair Trade Commission, instead of conventional survey method which is usually criticized for its measurement error. Existing theories about exclusive sales territory can be summarized into two groups as shown in the table below. The first one is about the effectiveness of exclusive sales territory from both franchisor and franchisee point of view. In fact, output of exclusive sales territory can be positive for franchisors but negative for franchisees. Also, it can be positive in terms of sales but negative in terms of profit. Therefore, variables and viewpoints should be set properly. The other one is about the motive or reason why exclusive sales territory is protected. The reasons can be classified into four groups - industry characteristics, franchise systems characteristics, capability to maintain exclusive sales territory, and strategic decision. Within four groups of reasons, there are more specific variables and theories as below. Based on these theories, we develop nine hypotheses which are briefly shown in the last table below with the results. In order to validate the hypothesis, data is collected from government (FTC) homepage which is open source. The sample consists of 1,896 franchisors and it contains about three year operation data, from 2006 to 2008. Within the samples, 627 have exclusive sales territory protection policy and the one with exclusive sales territory policy is not evenly distributed over 19 representative industries. Additional data are also collected from another government agency homepage, like Statistics Korea. Also, we combine data from various secondary sources to create meaningful variables as shown in the table below. All variables are dichotomized by mean or median split if they are not inherently dichotomized by its definition, since each hypothesis is composed by multiple variables and there is no solid statistical technique to incorporate all these conditions to test the hypotheses. This paper uses a simple chi-square test because hypotheses and theories are built upon quite specific conditions such as industry type, economic condition, company history and various strategic purposes. It is almost impossible to find all those samples to satisfy them and it can't be manipulated in experimental settings. However, more advanced statistical techniques are very good on clean data without exogenous variables, but not good with real complex data. The chi-square test is applied in a way that samples are grouped into four with two criteria, whether they use exclusive sales territory protection or not, and whether they satisfy conditions of each hypothesis. So the proportion of sample franchisors which satisfy conditions and protect exclusive sales territory, does significantly exceed the proportion of samples that satisfy condition and do not protect. In fact, chi-square test is equivalent with the Poisson regression which allows more flexible application. As results, only three hypotheses are accepted. When attitude toward the risk is high so loyalty fee is determined according to sales performance, EST protection makes poor results as expected. And when franchisor protects EST in order to recruit franchisee easily, EST protection makes better results. Also, when EST protection is to improve the efficiency of franchise system as a whole, it shows better performances. High efficiency is achieved as EST prohibits the free riding of franchisee who exploits other's marketing efforts, and it encourages proper investments and distributes franchisee into multiple regions evenly. Other hypotheses are not supported in the results of significance testing. Exclusive sales territory should be protected from proper motives and administered for mutual benefits. Legal restrictions driven by the government agency like FTC could be misused and cause mis-understandings. So there need more careful monitoring on real practices and more rigorous studies by both academicians and practitioners.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.325-344
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• 2014

Technical support of Window XP ended in March, 8, 2014, and it makes OS(Operating System) users fall in a state of confusion. Sudden decision making of OS upgrade and replacement is not a simple problem. Firms need to change the long term capacity plan in enterprise IS management, but they are pressed for time and cost to complete it. Individuals can not help selecting the second best plan, because the following OSs of Window XP are below expectations in performances, new PC sales as the opportunities of OS upgrade decrease, and the potential risk of OS technical support ending had not announced to OS users at the point of purchase. Microsoft as the OS vendors had not presented precaution or remedy for this confusion. Rather, Microsoft announced that the technical support of the other following OSs of Wndow XP such as Window 7 would ended in two years. This conflict between OS vendor and OS users could not happen in one time, but could recur in recent future. Although studies on the ways of OS user protection policy would be needed to escape from this conflict, few prior studies had conducted this issue. This study had challenge to cautiously investigate in such OS user's reactions as the confirmation with OS user's expectation in the point of purchase, three types of justice perception on the treatment of OS vendor, psychological contract violation, satisfaction and the other betrayal behavioral intention in the case of Window XP technical support ending. By adopting the justice perception on this research, and by empirically validating the impact on OS user's reactions, I could suggest the direction of establishing OS user protection policy of OS vendor. Based on the expectation-confirmation theory, the theory of justice, literatures about psychological contract violation, and studies about consumer betrayal behaviors in the perspective of Herzberg(1968)'s dual factor theory, I developed the research model and hypothesis. Expectation-confirmation theory explain that consumers had expectation on the performance of product in the point of sale, and they could satisfied with their purchase behaviors, when the expectation could have confirmed in the point of consumption. The theory of justice in social exchange argues that treatee could be willing to accept the treatment by treater when the three types of justice as distributive, procedural, and interactional justice could be established in treatment. Literatures about psychological contract violation in human behaviors explains that contracter in a side could have the implied contract (also called 'psychological contract') which the contracter in the other side would sincerely execute the contract, and that they are willing to do vengeance behaviors when their contract had unfairly been broken. When the psychological contract of consumers had been broken, consumers feel distrust with the vendors and are willing to decrease such beneficial attitude and behavior as satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention. At the same time, consumers feel betrayal and are willing to increase such retributive attitude and behavior as negative word-of-mouth, complain to the vendors, complain to the third parties for consumer protection. We conducted a scenario survey in order to validate our research model at March, 2013, when is the point of news released firstly and when is the point of one year before the acture Window XP technical support ending. We collected the valid data from 238 voluntary participants who are the OS users but had not yet exposed the news of Window OSs technical support ending schedule. The subject had been allocated into two groups and one of two groups had been exposed this news. The data had been analyzed by the MANOVA and PLS. MANOVA results indicate that the OSs technical support ending could significantly decrease all three types of justice perception. PLS results indicated that it could significantly increase psychological contract violation and that this increased psychological contract violation could significantly reduce the trust and increase the perceived betrayal. Then, it could significantly reduce satisfaction, loyalty, and repurchase intention, and it also could significantly increase negative word-of-month intention, complain to the vendor intention, and complain to the third party intention. All hypothesis had been significantly approved. Consequently, OS users feel that the OSs technical support ending is not natural value added service ending, but the violation of the core OS purchase contract, that it could be the posteriori prohibition of OS user's OS usage right, and that it could induce the psychological contract violation of OS users. This study would contributions to introduce the psychological contract violation of the OS users from the OSs technical support ending in IS field, to introduce three types of justice as the antecedents of psychological contract violation, and to empirically validate the impact of psychological contract violation both on the beneficial and retributive behavioral intentions of OS users. For practice, the results of this study could contribute to make more comprehensive OS user protection policy and consumer relationship management practices of OS vendor.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.99-111
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• 2023

This study aims to confirm that consumers' satisfaction with online shopping websites has changed to a phenomenon different from the past. In other words, in a situation where the use of e-commerce is expanding worldwide after the pandemic and various types of commerce such as mobile commerce and social commerce are formed, the consumer's information processing and decision-making process are meaningful in examining the behavior that has been changed based on the perceived motivation level of consumers by the new environment according to the consumption value and personal characteristics perceived by the consumer. In other words, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of consumption value and need for cognition on the satisfaction toward online websites as a mediating role in the trust of the website. As a result of testing Hypothesis 1, not only the hedonic value of the consumer for the website but also the utilitarian value had a positive influence on the satisfaction toward the website, and in particular, the utilitarian value showed a relatively greater influence than the hedonic value. However, the negative relationship between the need for cognition and satisfaction was found to be at a significant level under one-sided verification. In Hypothesis 2, only the utilitarian value among the consumption values of 2-1 showed a positive effect on satisfaction through a mediating role of trust. It was confirmed that the utilitarian value among the consumption values was an important factor in the satisfaction toward the website. The significance of this study is that, unlike previous research results, not only consumption value based on senses and emotions but also utilitarian value has a greater influence. Therefore, utilitarian value and need for cognition have a stronger influence on satisfaction if they play a mediating role based on the trust of the website used by consumers. These findings reflect the current market trend of online consumption, and they are helpful in the management and strategy of online websites based on consumer behavior understanding and major factors.

• 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 Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.871-907
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to establish a new rural development policy system based on the unit of a community organizations. This study is to complement or replace the existing rural development system which is based on the unit of rural villages. The communalism which is the core concept of traditional rural villages has been weakened or destroyed. Especially, economic, social and spatial communalism of a rural villages has been weakened rapidly in the process of industralization and urbanization for the last 50 years. This means that strong communalism inside rural villages and neighborhood independence from each others among rural villages are already weakened. Rural villages no longer represent rural area, unlikely the hypothesis policy makers have been used to set up rural development policies. Advanced countries like EU and Japan are well known to have a rural development policy based on the units of social organizations in the rural area. These policies have been on the main stream in the era of local decentralization. Rural resident's organization made rural site's development plan using local assets and submitted to the public sector. Then the public sector examine its value and possibilities as a rural development projects. And public sector finalize the decision on subsidy grant. These policy patterns are already introduced partly in the field of urban development programme as well as rural development programme. It is time to apply those policies more widely and to examine more systematically.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.81-93
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• 2015

Purpose - "Showrooming" refers to the phenomenon where a shopper visits a store to see and compare products but makes the purchase online at a lower price. Surveys on showrooming activities at home and abroad indicate that a significant number of consumers pursue showrooming activities. The advent of "showroomers," who engage in buying activities, hovering both on and offline, while selectively choosing sales channels to suit their needs, is powerful enough to erode the borders between channels and bring about seismic changes in the distribution industry. However, surprisingly, there has been no in-depth discussion on showrooming. This study seeks to theoretically investigate what impact personal characteristics have on showrooming preferences and attitudes in a multi-channel environment. Specifically, assumptions have been made that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping not only have a direct impact on showrooming attitudes but also indirectly affect it through the means of contact motivation. Research design, data, and methodology - To test the hypotheses, this study conducted a survey of male and female shoppers, ages 20 through 40s, who live in metropolitan areas, and have actively showroomed fashion items in the last six months. A clothing item usually purchased after a careful decision-making process was chosen as the target product of the study. The survey was conducted between October and November 2014, using a professional survey service provider. A total of 200 surveys were collected, of which 198 were used for analysis. Conceptual model Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Amos 18.0 were employed for data analysis and model verification. In addition, following the confirmatory factor analysis and measurement model analysis, the theoretical model that corresponds to the research model was analyzed. Results - Analysis results show that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping have a statistically significant and positive (+) impact on showrooming attitudes. In addition, in terms of the indirect influence of price perception and perceived performance risk on showrooming attitudes through means of contact motivation, price perception had a statistically significant and positive impact on means of contact motivation, whereas perceived performance risk did not have a statistically significant impact on it, with the relevant hypothesis rejected. Conclusions - These analysis results imply that the ultimate goal of consumers is to maximize their shopping benefits by selectively and strategically taking advantage of different channels in a complementary manner. This study presents many implications for distributors to encourage a deep understanding of showrooming consumers who have complicated consumption behaviors and to build channel integration strategies. This study has limitations in theoretical and practical implications. Therefore, subsequent studies need to focus on verifying that showrooming activities are based on reasonable and planned decisions by applying the theory of reasoned or planned behavior. In addition, the scope of the study should expand to include web showrooming, where consumers conduct product research online and purchase offline.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.65-75
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• 2019

Purpose - Along with Chinese exchange rate's reform advancement, the issue of exchange rate of RMB has increasingly become the heated focus in the world. In July 2005, China carried out the reform of the exchange rate system, and this behavior has aroused the attention of the world. However, the dispute on whether the theory of purchasing power parity holds or not in China still exists. As such, this paper will attempt to explore whether the purchasing power parity is significant in China. Research design, data, and methodology - The monthly data from July 2005 to December 2017 will be employed to analyze the nominal exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar and the nominal exchange rate of RMB against the euro. Based on these datum, an empirical analysis will be conducted under the unit root test and the cointegration test to exploit the significance of purchasing power parity in China. Results - The findings of this paper reveal that an increase in China's consumer price index will lead to an increase in the RMB exchange rate, which will lead to the depreciation of RMB. Concomitantly, an increase in the consumer price index in the US and Europe will result in a decrease in the RMB exchange rate, which will lead to an appreciation of RMB. In general, in terms of the US, if US consumer price index increases by 1%, China's nominal exchange rate against US dollar will decrease by 0.905%; if China's consumer price index increases by 1%, China's nominal exchange rate against US dollar will increase by 0.648%. In terms of Europe, if Europe consumer price index increases by 1%, China's nominal exchange rate against euro will decrease by 0.277%; If China's consumer price index increases by 1%, China's nominal exchange rate against euro will increase by 0.235%. Conclusions - Generally speaking, the empirical evidences this paper provided show that the purchasing power parity theory has a certain explanatory ability for the decision of RMB exchange rate. As such, the purchasing power parity cannot hold completely, and China's government should continue to deepen the reform of the exchange rate system to improve China's exchange rate market.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.85-97
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• 2015

This study examined the effects of outside directors and CEO duality on acquisition strategies and performance of Korean firms in high-technology industry. Based on the resource dependence theory, we focused on the service and resource-dependence roles from board of directors in the process of decision-making of acquisition strategies. In addition, CEO opportunism behavior rises when CEO serves as chairperson of board and induces the negative effects on acquisition performance. Specifically, we investigated the interaction effects between outside directors ratio and CEO duality. For the period of 2004 to 2012, 246 acquisitions of Korean firms in high-technology industry were analyzed to test our intended hypotheses. Our results indicate that there exist positive relationship between outside director ratio and acquisition performance for Korean high-technology firms. Negative associations prevail between CEO duality and performance consequences of acquisitions. While outside director ratio has a positive effect on acquisition performance when there is a presence of CEO duality, negative effect prevail for outside director ratio on acquisition performance in the absence of CEO duality position to hold our interaction hypothesis. The favor of dual structure can be explained with implications referring to unity of command and strong leadership driven from CEO duality that enhances the resource dependence roles of board of directors in the context of high-technology industry acquisition behaviors rendered by Korean firms.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.71-78
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• 2016

Religion can affect on every day lives of individuals in society. Also, religion can affect on personal networks and the formation of a social culture that may lead to influence individual decision makers. Religion can influence values and ethics of people in society. However, according to the secularization hypothesis, as an economy becomes more efficient and the members of a society becomes more educated, the influence and control of religion over people tend to become diminished more. How is religion related with entrepreneurship? There are not so many empirical studies that examine relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. The purpose of this article is that we empirically examine how religious commitment, in addition to individual traits such as need for achievement, perceived creativity, problem solving ability and entrepreneurial parents or friends. Our study is based on survey sample of 229 college students in Korea. The results we found are as follows. First, religious commitment does not have effect on entrepreneurial intention. Also, religion commitment has no relationship with need for achievement, perceived creativity, problem solving ability, and entrepreneurial parents or friends. Second, consistent with previous studies, need for achievement and entrepreneurial parents or friends have meaningful effect on entrepreneurial intention. Third, perceived creativity is a full mediation variable between need for achievement and entrepreneurial intention.

• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.5 s.67
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• pp.31-42
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• 2006

Design, to all of us living in the 21st century, is not just an action that revs up the production and consumption as an added value of an industry, but it is recognized as a broader social and cultural action in practice. The purpose of this study is to broaden the role of design as a principal body producing culture, and to proclaim that design itself has to have self-sufficiency as culture. The study starts from a hypothesis that the action of design should be at the core of cultural industry. The study includes studying the documents on and analyzing the current status and case studies of cultural industry and design policies for macro view. Comparative research and analysis of how designers from three countries, Korea, United States and England, perceive policies is a microscopic part of this study. The methods for this study include survey for quantitative research in Korea, United States and England, and intensive interviews for qualitative research to explain past facts and the current situation of design policies. The survey compares design professionals of three countries, and the intensive interviews are done with manager level design professionals who are both decision makers and policy makers. On order to prove the appropriateness of the survey structure, three pilot studies and a pre-test were carried out. As shown in the verification of the subject of study, if, in the cultural industry which was considered to be the blossom of 20th century, the blind running without intervention of reason still keeps its former state and is unable to go beyond history, we will not be able to enter the age of mentality and fall behind. The value of design that we shall judge depends on the dialectic of 'past' and 'present' regarding the principle of enlightenment, and it will open up a new philosophy, a new civilization and a new world.