• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1-16
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• 2023

Due to imbalances in supply and demand within the labor market, start-ups have emerged as crucial players in the generation of high-quality employment opportunities, particularly in stagnant job markets. In response to this trend, governments are allocating substantial financial and human resources to initiatives that support start-up development. This has led to an increasing rate of engagement in start-up ventures across diverse age groups, not limited to younger individuals. Start-ups are enterprises focused on the commercialization of innovative ideas with the aim of achieving profitability in the marketplace. Research concerning the successful market integration of new products and the attainment of sustainable growth is pivotal. Such research is instrumental not only for the success of start-ups but also for realizing the broader social functions and contributions that these enterprises can offer. Previous research has often examined new product market-entry strategies, often referred to as new product marketing, particularly for large companies and SMEs. However, there is a gap in studies focusing on prototype marketing strategies specific to start-ups. Thus, this study aims to examine the impact of Pre-announcing marketing strategies on the market attention garnered by start-ups with low recognition and limited infrastructure, and how such attention contributes to their sustainable growth. Specifically, the study aims to uncover the causal relationship between information attributes like relevance, vividness, and novelty in building customer relationships, and their impact on purchase intentions influenced by performance expectations and hedonic motivations. In terms of Pre-announcing information attributes, relevance, vividness, and novelty positively influence performance expectations and hedonic motivations as outlined in the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). These factors, in turn, positively impact the purchase intention for pre-announced new products from start-ups. These findings are expected to provide both theory and practical insights into the factors influencing market entry through the use of Pre-announcing marketing strategies for start-up new products.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.157-175
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• 2022

At this moment, a paradigm shift is taking place across all sectors of society for the transition movements to the digital economy. Various movements are taking place in the global agricultural industry to achieve innovative growth using big data which is a key resource of the 4th industrial revolution. Although the government is making various attempts to promote the use of big data, the movement of the agricultural industry as a key player in the use of big data, is still insufficient. Therefore, in this study, effects of performance expectations, effort expectations, social impact, facilitation conditions, based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology(UTAUT), and innovation tendencies on the acceptance intention of big data were analyzed using the economic and practical benefits that can be obtained from the use of big data for agricultural-related companies as moderating variables. 333 questionnaires collected from agricultural-related companies were used for empirical analysis. The analysis results using SPSS v22.0 and Process macro v3.4 were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on the intention to accept big data by effort expectations, social impact, facilitation conditions, and innovation tendencies. However, it was found that the effect of performance expectations on acceptance intention was insignificant, with social impact having the greatest influence on acceptance intention and innovation tendency the least. Moderating effects of economic benefit and practical benefit between effort expectation and acceptance intention, moderating effect of practical benefit between social impact and acceptance intention, and moderating effect of economic benefit and practical benefit between facilitation condition and acceptance intention were found to be significant. On the other hand, it was found that economic benefits and practical benefits did not moderate the magnitude of the influence of performance expectations and innovation tendency on acceptance intention. These results suggest the following implications. First, in order to promote the use of big data by companies, the government needs to establish a policy to support the use of big data tailored to companies. Significant results can only be achieved when corporate members form a correct understanding and consensus on the use of big data. Second, it is necessary to establish and implement a platform specialized for agricultural data which can support standardized linkage between diverse agricultural big data, and support for a unified path for data access. Building such a platform will be able to advance the industry by forming an independent cooperative relationship between companies. Finally, the limitations of this study and follow-up tasks are presented.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.103-117
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• 2022

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

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.8-15
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• 2010

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the biologically adverse effect of increased carbon dioxide in seawater on marine bacteria, Vibrio fischeri. We measured the bioluminescence and cell density at every 6 hours for 24 hours of the whole incubation period after exposing test microbes to a range of $CO_2$ concentration such as 380(Control), 1,000, 3,000, 10,000 and 30,000 ppm, respectively. Significant effect on relative luminescence(RLU) of V. fischeri was observed in treatments with $CO_2$ concentration higher than 3,000 ppm at t=12 h. However, the difference of RLU among treatments significantly decreased with the incubation time until t=24 h. Similar trend was observed for the variation of cell density, which was measured as optical density using spectrophotometer. The results showed that a significant relationship between $CO_2$ concentration and bioluminescence of test microbes was observed for the mean time. However, the inhibition of relative bioluminescence and also cell density could be recovered at the concentration levels higher than 3,000 ppm. The dissolved $CO_2$ can be absorbed directly by cell and it can decrease the intracellular pH. Our results implied that microbes might be adversely affected at the initial growing phase by increased $CO_2$. However, they could adapt by increasing ion transport including bicarbonate and then could make their pH back to normal level. Results of this study could be supported to understand the possible influence on marine bacteria by atmospheric increase of $CO_2$ in near future and also by released $CO_2$ during the marine $CO_2$ sequestration activity.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.119-133
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• 2024

As a result of significant investments by the government in promoting public technology commercialization and fostering a venture startup ecosystem, there have been quantitative achievements, such as the registration of over 1,600 Innopolis Start-ups since 2006, generating a total revenue of 1.1 trillion won as of 2021. However, these achievements have been overshadowed by critical qualitative challenges, including a continuous decline in average revenue per Innopolis Start-up. This led to a focus on whether managers' technological and market orientations affect business performance. This study aims to provide insights into improving the qualitative growth of Innopolis Start-ups by analyzing the effects of technological and market orientations on business performance, as well as the moderating effects of adjusting marketing and research and development (R&D) costs on this relationship. Through prior research and empirical analysis, this study derives three main findings. First, technological excellence and innovation significantly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, while technological intensity does not. Second, customer orientation and competitive orientation significantly impact business performance, whereas entry barriers as a single factor do not. Third, adjusting marketing and R&D costs, as controlled variables obtained through general situations, has no direct impact on other variables. However, it interacts with entry barriers, influencing financial business performance, with R&D costs exhibiting a negative buffering effect and marketing costs showing a positive enhancing effect. This study confirms that both technological and market orientations directly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, thus being crucial factors affecting their growth. Moreover, it establishes that investments in marketing and R&D play significant roles in alleviating initial entry barriers and enhancing financial performance. Consequently, it underscores the importance of reinforcing technological and market orientations tailored to the characteristics of Innopolis Start-ups. Additionally, it proposes five theoretical contributions: strengthening institutional support systems for technology commercialization and innovation, improving qualitative evaluation criteria during the selection process of Innopolis Start-ups, conducting comprehensive analyses of technological and market aspects during startup selection, enhancing support for marketing education and consulting for smooth market entry, and supporting expenditure strategies and milestone setting tailored to the industrial characteristics of individual Innopolis Start-ups.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2024

This study empirically analyzed the factors affecting acceptance intention when introducing digital transformation in the passenger vehicle transportation business, and examined the moderating effect of corporate agility. Based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the technology-organization-environment (TOE) model, the study set introduction usability, ease of introduction, digital transformation capability, CEO support, customer demand, and competitive pressure as independent variables, and 316 effective samples were analyzed by setting corporate agility as a modulating variable. As a result of the analysis, ease of introduction, digital transformation capability, CEO support, customer demand, and competitive pressure all had a significant influence on the intention to accept digital transformation, and in particular, digital transformation capability had the greatest influence. This suggests that the ability of companies to effectively utilize digital technology is an essential factor in the success of digital transformation. On the other hand, the usefulness of introduction did not significantly affect the intention to accept, which means that concerns about costs and risks can have a greater impact on the introduction of digital transformation. In addition, corporate agility showed a positive moderating effect in the relationship between acceptance intention and independent variables, and it was shown that the more agile the company can effectively solve the challenges that arise in the process of introducing digital transformation. In particular, when corporate agility is high, the effect of usefulness of introduction changes positively. This study is the first attempt to systematically analyze digital transformation in the passenger vehicle transportation business, and in practice, it has great academic significance and confirmed the importance of digital transformation capabilities and CEO support. However, since the scope of the study is limited to the passenger vehicle transportation business, there is a limit to generalization, research expanded to various industries and fields is needed in the future.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.99-130
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• 2011

In recent years, a new way of differentiating product design has emerged -better known as 'masterpiece marketing,' this is a strategy where famous art pieces are borrowed on to product designs. Because the recent trends of well-being and LOHAS have encouraged the consumers' desires to enjoy culture and live a more opulent lifestyle, famous and notable paintings have grown to be more of "approachable masterpieces" to the public. As a strategy intended to develop a new consumerism, while still prioritizing customers' values and their satisfaction, companies have been drawn to this new type of marketing. The current consumption society has converted renowned art pieces from simply works of 'high culture' to a further way of marketing, aimed to differentiate products and dominate the market. Though many products have had masterpieces applied to their designs and have been noticed for their marketability, there has been less systematic research done on the scientific background behind this marketing approach. This research focused on the art pieces' fundamental nature of inducing emotions in the viewer, and hypothesized about how the evaluation of a product may be influenced by the affect provoked by the art piece used. To be more specific, if art pieces with different levels of pleasure and arousal -the two axis of emotion suggested by existing research on emotion -were used on each product, the goal was to see how the different levels influenced the consumer's assessment of the products, focusing on product's type as well as the evaluation of their attributes. First, a pretest was done to verify the relationship between the emotion provoked by the art piece and the consumer's preference. There were two types of surveys, each with five drawings from the ten that were assumed to differ in levels of the two axis of emotion. The survey was composed of questions asking for positive emotion, negative emotion, level of arousal, and preference. The correlation between the measurements of positive and negative emotions was -0.792, so an integrated entry was used in the analysis by subtracting the measurement of negative emotions from that of positive emotions. The first hypothesis that paintings that provoke positive emotions will be more preferred than paintings that bring out negative emotions was supported; and through this research, paintings that were to be used for the products were selected. The second pretest was conducted to settle on an item that would be used in the research. Items meant to measure utilitarian and hedonic attributes of milk and chocolate, the two products to be used in the research, were extracted. Because milk is a utilitarian product with strong practical attributes while chocolate is a hedonic product with strong hedonic attributes, these two were selected to be used in this research. The first study was executed to see if there is a difference in attitude about products that have different painting on their designs, which either induces positive or negative emotions. It was also to verify whether this difference in attitude was mediated by the viewer's preference for the art piece. This study showed that when positive emotion inducing painting was used, the product was better evaluated compared to the product with a painting that provokes a negative emotion, thus supporting the second hypothesis. It was also supported that the effect of affect on product evaluation was mediated by preference for the art piece. The second study was done to see the influence of the level of arousal on the evaluation of the product's attributes. Art pieces that differ in the level of arousal were selected through the pretest, and later it verified the hypothesis that the level of arousal has an effect on the assessment of the attributes of the product. In the case of milk, a utilitarian product, the fourth hypothesis that a high-arousal painting will better evaluated for its hedonic attributes was supported, as well as the fifth, which hypothesized that a low-arousal painting will receive a higher assessment for its utilitarian attributes. However, for chocolate, a hedonic product, both fourth and fifth hypotheses were not supported. This study is significant for the following basis: first, it verified the importance of the emotion induced by the painting on the evaluation of the product's attributes, by applying a systematic and scientific method. Second, it expanded from the existing research on positive/negative emotions to confirm the additional influence of the state of arousal on product evaluation.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.966-971
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• 2006

Purpose : 'Programming' describes the process that stimulus at a critical period of development has lifelong effects. The fact that low birth weight links to the risk of elevated blood pressures in adult life is well known. This study aims to examine whether this link is evident in the newborn by investigating the relationship of the intrauterine growth indices and neonatal blood pressure(BP). Methods : We studied 127 neonates who were born at Ewha Womans' Hospital and their mothers enrolled our cohort study during pregnancy. Data on the mothers and details of the birth records were tracked and collected from medical charts. Neonatal BP was measured within 24 hours after birth. Results : Neonatal SBP was positively correlated to intrauterine growth indices; birth weight(BW)(r=0.4), head circumference(HC)(r=0.4), and birth height(r=0.3). However, an inverse relationship existed, between HC/BW ratio and neonatal SBP(r=-0.4). After adjusting for the baby's sex, maternal BP, and gestational age, neonatal SBP still associated with intrauterine growth indices. SBP was 7 mmHg higher in the highest BW group(${\geq}90percentiles$) compared to the lowest group(<10 percentiles). On the other hand, SBP was 17 mmHg lower in the highest HC/BW group(${\geq}90percentiles$) compared in the lowest group(<10 percentiles). Conclusion : This study could not find the evidence that intrauterine growth retardation affect on elevated neonatal BP. It suggests that the initiating events of BP programming may occur during postnatal growth period. To identify the critical starting period that intrauterine growth retardation leads to elevated BP, a study tracking BP changes from birth to childhood is required.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.21-43
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• 2008

The task network which is formed of different individuals can be recognized as a social network. Therefore, the way to communicate with people inside or outside the network has considerable influence on their outcome. Moreover, the position on which a member stands in a network shows the different effects of the information systems supporting communication with others. In this paper, it is to be studied how personal CMC (computer-mediated communication) tools affect the mission that those who work for a network perform through diverse task networks. Especially, we focused on synchronicity of CMC. On this score, the perspective of Media Synchronicity Theory was taken that had been suggested by criticizing Media Richness Theory. It is the objective, from this perspective, to find which characteristics of networks make the value of IT supporting synchronicity high. In the research trends of social networks, there have been two traditional perspectives to explain the effect of network: embeddedness and diversity ones. These differ from the aspect which type of social network can provide much more economic benefits. As similar studies have been reported by various researchers, these are also divided into the bonding and bridging views which are based on internal and external tie, respectively, Size, density, and centrality were measured as the characteristics of personal task networks. Size means the level of relationship between members. It is the total number of other colleagues who work with a specific member for a certain project. It means, the larger the size of task network, the more the number of coworkers who interact each other through the job. Density is the ratio of the number of relationships arranged actually to the total number of available ones. In an ego-centered network, it is defined as the ratio of the number of relationship made really to the total number of possible ones between members who are actually involved each other. The higher the level of density, the larger the number of projects on which the members collaborate. Centrality means that his/her position is on the exact center of whole network. There are several methods to measure it. In this research, betweenness centrality was adopted among them. It is measured by the position on which one member stands between others in a network. The determinant to raise its level is the shortest geodesic that represents the shortest distance between members. Centrality also indicates the level of role as a broker among others. To verify the hypotheses, we interviewed and surveyed a group of employees of a nationwide financial organization in which a groupware system is used. They were questioned about two CMC applications: MSN with a higher level of synchronicity and email with a lower one. As a result, the larger the size of his/her own task network, the smaller its density and the higher the level of his/her centrality, the higher the level of the effect using the task network with CMC tools. Above all, this positive effect is verified to be much more produced while using CMC applications with higher-level synchronicity. Among the a variety of situations under which the use of CMC gives more benefits, this research is considered as one of rare cases regarding the characteristics of task network as moderators by focusing ITs for the operation of his/her own task network. It is another contribution of this research to prove empirically that the values of information system depend on the social, or comparative, characteristic of time. Though the same amount of time is shared, the social characteristics of users change its value. In addition, it is significant to examine empirically that the ITs with higher-level synchronicity have the positive effect on productivity. Many businesses are worried about the negative effect of synchronous ITs, for their employees are likely to use them for personal social activities. However. this research can help to dismiss the concern against CMC tools.