• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.93-112
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• 2015

Depending on the change in consumer's consumption pattern, existing retail shop has evolved in hypermarket or convenience store offering grocery and daily products mostly. Therefore, it is important to maintain the inventory levels and proper product configuration for effectively utilize the limited space in the retail store and increasing sales. Accordingly, this study proposed proper product configuration and inventory level strategy based on RFM(Recency, Frequency, Monetary) model and SOM(self-organizing map) for manage the retail shop effectively. RFM model is analytic model to analyze customer behaviors based on the past customer's buying activities. And it can differentiates important customers from large data by three variables. R represents recency, which refers to the last purchase of commodities. The latest consuming customer has bigger R. F represents frequency, which refers to the number of transactions in a particular period and M represents monetary, which refers to consumption money amount in a particular period. Thus, RFM method has been known to be a very effective model for customer segmentation. In this study, using a normalized value of the RFM variables, SOM cluster analysis was performed. SOM is regarded as one of the most distinguished artificial neural network models in the unsupervised learning tool space. It is a popular tool for clustering and visualization of high dimensional data in such a way that similar items are grouped spatially close to one another. In particular, it has been successfully applied in various technical fields for finding patterns. In our research, the procedure tries to find sales patterns by analyzing product sales records with Recency, Frequency and Monetary values. And to suggest a business strategy, we conduct the decision tree based on SOM results. To validate the proposed procedure in this study, we adopted the M-mart data collected between 2014.01.01~2014.12.31. Each product get the value of R, F, M, and they are clustered by 9 using SOM. And we also performed three tests using the weekday data, weekend data, whole data in order to analyze the sales pattern change. In order to propose the strategy of each cluster, we examine the criteria of product clustering. The clusters through the SOM can be explained by the characteristics of these clusters of decision trees. As a result, we can suggest the inventory management strategy of each 9 clusters through the suggested procedures of the study. The highest of all three value(R, F, M) cluster's products need to have high level of the inventory as well as to be disposed in a place where it can be increasing customer's path. In contrast, the lowest of all three value(R, F, M) cluster's products need to have low level of inventory as well as to be disposed in a place where visibility is low. The highest R value cluster's products is usually new releases products, and need to be placed on the front of the store. And, manager should decrease inventory levels gradually in the highest F value cluster's products purchased in the past. Because, we assume that cluster has lower R value and the M value than the average value of good. And it can be deduced that product are sold poorly in recent days and total sales also will be lower than the frequency. The procedure presented in this study is expected to contribute to raising the profitability of the retail store. The paper is organized as follows. The second chapter briefly reviews the literature related to this study. The third chapter suggests procedures for research proposals, and the fourth chapter applied suggested procedure using the actual product sales data. Finally, the fifth chapter described the conclusion of the study and further research.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.47-63
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to suggest the basic information for diverse and balanced research and development in this field with understanding research trends related to safety education in home economics. In order to so, this study makes population and sampling by targeting cases which refer to 'safety' on 15 papers of academic journals related to home economics registered in the National Research Foundation from 2001 to 2015, 244 papers related to safety education area and 179 master doctorate thesis by searching keyword as 'safety'. Analysis contents are research trends of papers related to safety education by year and by subject and research trends of safety education by area and by research method. As a result of the study, first, the number of research papers related to safety education by year on home economics curriculum repeated increase and decrease and there have been consistent studies conducted on safety education with 14-52 papers per every year and yearly average 28.2 papers. On the other hand, the most number of studies conducted in 2015 with 52 papers which are twice as much of 26 papers in 2014. This seems to be affected by the announcement of safety comprehensive countermeasures from government and the emphasis of safety subject on 2015 curriculum revision of the Ministry of Education. Second, with regards to research trends by topic, 137 papers are related to safety education (29%), 336 papers are related to safety actual condition (71%). Accidents and recognition had a greater percentage in a paper before 2009 (74.4%) and studies are increased after 2009 (from 21 papers to 53 papers) in terms of development or evaluation of safety education program, development of education materials, development of education method etc. Subject area dealt with the most on the research of safety actual condition is regarding safety accidents or effective variables (23.2%). Subject regarding the variables are researches related to factors influencing family violence, internet addiction, spouse violence, willingness to purchase unsafe food, age harassment, or suicidal attempt etc. Next, researches related to safety recognition (13.9%), safety knowledge and attitude (7.4%), safety behaviors (6.3%), safety consciousness (2.3%) show in sequence. Subject area dealt with the most on the researches regarding safety education is development and evaluation of safety education program (11%) and this appears the most in 2015 by year (21.5%). Third, with regards to eight areas of safety education, there are 143 papers regarding public safety (33.8%), 106 papers regarding violence and personal safety (25.1%), 93 papers regarding general subject on safety or whole safety area (22%) and 58 papers regarding drug and internet addiction (13.7%) in sequence. And there is no paper related to first aid and 1 paper is related to occupational safety (0.2%). Occupational safety area is less researched nevertheless its included in home economic curriculum as relative chapter. First aid does not directly correlate with home economics curriculum but should be studied in preparation for accident which could happen in practical class. Forth, with regards to research trends by research method, quantitative research (89.1%) is mostly used and both research study (70.4%) and experimental research (18.7%) are used the most frequently. In particular, researches on the actual condition of safety education and experimental studies for effectiveness verification take most of research method. As qualitative studies, there are phenomenological study (3.1%) and case study (3.1%) related to actual conditions of safety accidents. 10 papers (2.4%) are mixture of quantitative and qualitative research and some research conducted research study and experimental research at the same time (0.9%). With regards to subject of study, human environments (87.5%) are more than physical environments (12.5) and students (48.4%) are more than teachers and school parents (20.6%). As the subject of physical environments, school (6.5%) is the most but home environment is none. As a result of the study, research for the development of evaluation tool for evaluating safety education, occupational safety and lifelong education should be conducted from this time forward. In addition, the object of study shall be expanded to both human environments in terms of entire life and physical environments for home. An in-depth qualitative research should be needed by observing and meeting with each student.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.71-110
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• 2010

1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is