• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.67-80
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• 2015

Although recent policies and regulations in Korea strongly advocate and encourage cultivation of venture foundations, studies on venture foundation and success are very limited and often primarily focus on entrepreneurship or individual quality as a venture founder in addition to such studies' validity in question. Therefore, this study primarily focuses on venture preparation process which is subject to venture founder's effort to verify the policy effectiveness in the relationship between venture preparation and business performance. Major goal of this study is to reduce social cost of venture failure by suggesting systematic policy support for venture foundations and analyzing the relationship between following variables: first, venture preparation and financial performance, second, venture preparation and non-financial performance, and third, venture preparation and business performance. 400 initial venture foundations less than 5 years are selected from KISED(Korea Institute Startup & Entrepreneurship Development) trend analysis to carry out statistical analysis using SPSS 18.0. To organize the data features, frequency analysis as well as descriptive statistics are performed to verify the hypothesis. As a result, sub-factors in measurement of venture preparation which are venture education period, venture benefit, and experience of incubating organization are selected as independent variables. Likewise, sub-factors in measurement of business performance which are financial performance and non-financial performance are used as dependent variables. To validate interactive effect, venture preparation period is selected as control variable to perform hierarchical regression analysis. The analysis result verifies that venture benefit has positive influence on financial and non-financial performance while venture education period has positive influence on non-financial influence and experience of incubating organization has negative influence on non-financial performance without influence on financial performance. In addition, interaction of venture preparation period has positive influence solely between venture benefit and non-financial performance. Through this study, appropriate supporting plans depending on the level of venture preparation can be derived to improve business performance of initial venture foundations for policy designer of venture support, and quality rather than quality improvement of venture businesses is possible through investigation of structural issues of individual venture businesses. Ultimately, this study suggests venture founders to determine whether to focus on venture preparation process or to start a venture business.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.161-179
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• 2009

Nowadays an increasing number of Internet users are running individual websites as Blog or Cyworld. As this type of personal media has a great influence on communication among people, business comes to care about Network Effect, Network Software, and Social Network. For instance, Cyworld created the web service called 'Minihompy' for individual web-logs, and acquired 2.4milion users in 2007. Although many people assumed that the popularity of Minihompy, or Blog would be a passing fad, Cyworld has improved its service, and expanded its Network with various contents. This kind of expansion reflects survival efforts from infinite competitions among ISPs (Internet Service Provider) with focus on enhancing usability to users. However, Cyworld's Network Effect is gradually diminished in these days. Both of low production cost of service vendors and the low searching/conversing costs of users combine to make ISPs hard to keep their market share sustainable. To overcome this lackluster trend, Cyworld has adopted new strategies and try to lock their users in their service. Various efforts to improve the continuance and expansion of Network effect remain unclear and uncertain. If we understand beforehand how a service would improve Network effect, and which service could bring more effect, ISPs can get substantial help in launching their new business strategy. Regardless many diverse ideas to increase their user's duration online ISPs cannot guarantee 'how the new service strategies will end up in profitability. Therefore, this research studies about Network effect of Cyworld's 'Minihompy' using System-Dynamics method which could analyze dynamic relation between users and ISPs. Furthermore, the research aims to predict changes of Network Effect based on the strategy of new service. 'Page View' and 'Duration Time' can be enhanced for the short tenn because they enhance the service functionality. However, these services cannot increase the Network in the long-run. Limitations of this research include that we predict the future merely based on the limited data. We also limit the independent variables over Network Effect only to the following two issues: Increasing the number of users and increasing the Service Functionality. Despite of some limitations, this study perhaps gives some insights to the policy makers or others facing the stiff competition in the network business.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.117-137
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• 2009

Recently, intelligent traffic information systems have enabled people to forecast traffic conditions before hitting the road. These convenient systems operate on the basis of data reflecting current road and traffic conditions as well as distance-based data between locations. Thanks to the rapid development of ubiquitous computing, tremendous context data have become readily available making vehicle route planning easier than ever. Previous research in relation to optimization of vehicle route planning merely focused on finding the optimal distance between locations. Contexts reflecting the road and traffic conditions were then not seriously treated as a way to resolve the optimal routing problems based on distance-based route planning, because this kind of information does not have much significant impact on traffic routing until a a complex traffic situation arises. Further, it was also not easy to take into full account the traffic contexts for resolving optimal routing problems because predicting the dynamic traffic situations was regarded a daunting task. However, with rapid increase in traffic complexity the importance of developing contexts reflecting data related to moving costs has emerged. Hence, this research proposes a framework designed to resolve an optimal route planning problem by taking full account of additional moving cost such as road traffic cost and weather cost, among others. Recent technological development particularly in the ubiquitous computing environment has facilitated the collection of such data. This framework is based on the contexts of time, traffic, and environment, which addresses the following issues. First, we clarify and classify the diverse contexts that affect a vehicle's velocity and estimates the optimization of moving cost based on dynamic programming that accounts for the context cost according to the variance of contexts. Second, the velocity reduction rate is applied to find the optimal route (shortest path) using the context data on the current traffic condition. The velocity reduction rate infers to the degree of possible velocity including moving vehicles' considerable road and traffic contexts, indicating the statistical or experimental data. Knowledge generated in this papercan be referenced by several organizations which deal with road and traffic data. Third, in experimentation, we evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed context-based optimal route (shortest path) between locations by comparing it to the previously used distance-based shortest path. A vehicles' optimal route might change due to its diverse velocity caused by unexpected but potential dynamic situations depending on the road condition. This study includes such context variables as 'road congestion', 'work', 'accident', and 'weather' which can alter the traffic condition. The contexts can affect moving vehicle's velocity on the road. Since these context variables except for 'weather' are related to road conditions, relevant data were provided by the Korea Expressway Corporation. The 'weather'-related data were attained from the Korea Meteorological Administration. The aware contexts are classified contexts causing reduction of vehicles' velocity which determines the velocity reduction rate. To find the optimal route (shortest path), we introduced the velocity reduction rate in the context for calculating a vehicle's velocity reflecting composite contexts when one event synchronizes with another. We then proposed a context-based optimal route (shortest path) algorithm based on the dynamic programming. The algorithm is composed of three steps. In the first initialization step, departure and destination locations are given, and the path step is initialized as 0. In the second step, moving costs including composite contexts into account between locations on path are estimated using the velocity reduction rate by context as increasing path steps. In the third step, the optimal route (shortest path) is retrieved through back-tracking. In the provided research model, we designed a framework to account for context awareness, moving cost estimation (taking both composite and single contexts into account), and optimal route (shortest path) algorithm (based on dynamic programming). Through illustrative experimentation using the Wilcoxon signed rank test, we proved that context-based route planning is much more effective than distance-based route planning., In addition, we found that the optimal solution (shortest paths) through the distance-based route planning might not be optimized in real situation because road condition is very dynamic and unpredictable while affecting most vehicles' moving costs. For further study, while more information is needed for a more accurate estimation of moving vehicles' costs, this study still stands viable in the applications to reduce moving costs by effective route planning. For instance, it could be applied to deliverers' decision making to enhance their decision satisfaction when they meet unpredictable dynamic situations in moving vehicles on the road. Overall, we conclude that taking into account the contexts as a part of costs is a meaningful and sensible approach to in resolving the optimal route problem.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.157-178
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• 2009

Corporate credit rating is a very important factor in the market for corporate debt. Information concerning corporate operations is often disseminated to market participants through the changes in credit ratings that are published by professional rating agencies, such as Standard and Poor's (S&P) and Moody's Investor Service. Since these agencies generally require a large fee for the service, and the periodically provided ratings sometimes do not reflect the default risk of the company at the time, it may be advantageous for bond-market participants to be able to classify credit ratings before the agencies actually publish them. As a result, it is very important for companies (especially, financial companies) to develop a proper model of credit rating. From a technical perspective, the credit rating constitutes a typical, multiclass, classification problem because rating agencies generally have ten or more categories of ratings. For example, S&P's ratings range from AAA for the highest-quality bonds to D for the lowest-quality bonds. The professional rating agencies emphasize the importance of analysts' subjective judgments in the determination of credit ratings. However, in practice, a mathematical model that uses the financial variables of companies plays an important role in determining credit ratings, since it is convenient to apply and cost efficient. These financial variables include the ratios that represent a company's leverage status, liquidity status, and profitability status. Several statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have been applied as tools for predicting credit ratings. Among them, artificial neural networks are most prevalent in the area of finance because of their broad applicability to many business problems and their preeminent ability to adapt. However, artificial neural networks also have many defects, including the difficulty in determining the values of the control parameters and the number of processing elements in the layer as well as the risk of over-fitting. Of late, because of their robustness and high accuracy, support vector machines (SVMs) have become popular as a solution for problems with generating accurate prediction. An SVM's solution may be globally optimal because SVMs seek to minimize structural risk. On the other hand, artificial neural network models may tend to find locally optimal solutions because they seek to minimize empirical risk. In addition, no parameters need to be tuned in SVMs, barring the upper bound for non-separable cases in linear SVMs. Since SVMs were originally devised for binary classification, however they are not intrinsically geared for multiclass classifications as in credit ratings. Thus, researchers have tried to extend the original SVM to multiclass classification. Hitherto, a variety of techniques to extend standard SVMs to multiclass SVMs (MSVMs) has been proposed in the literature Only a few types of MSVM are, however, tested using prior studies that apply MSVMs to credit ratings studies. In this study, we examined six different techniques of MSVMs: (1) One-Against-One, (2) One-Against-AIL (3) DAGSVM, (4) ECOC, (5) Method of Weston and Watkins, and (6) Method of Crammer and Singer. In addition, we examined the prediction accuracy of some modified version of conventional MSVM techniques. To find the most appropriate technique of MSVMs for corporate bond rating, we applied all the techniques of MSVMs to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. The best application is in corporate bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. For our study the research data were collected from National Information and Credit Evaluation, Inc., a major bond-rating company in Korea. The data set is comprised of the bond-ratings for the year 2002 and various financial variables for 1,295 companies from the manufacturing industry in Korea. We compared the results of these techniques with one another, and with those of traditional methods for credit ratings, such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA), multinomial logistic regression (MLOGIT), and artificial neural networks (ANNs). As a result, we found that DAGSVM with an ordered list was the best approach for the prediction of bond rating. In addition, we found that the modified version of ECOC approach can yield higher prediction accuracy for the cases showing clear patterns.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.49-68
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• 2014

These days, consumers have increasingly preferred to digital real-time streamlining and downloading to listen to music because this is convenient and affordable for the consumers. Accordingly, sales of music in compact disk formats have steadily declined. In this regards, online digital music has become a new communication channel to listen musics, where digital files can be delivered over various online networks to people's computing devices. The majority of online digital music distributors has Music Recommender Systems for sales of digital music on their websites. Music Recommender Systems are parts of information filtering systems that provide the ratings or preferences that users give to music. Korean online digital music distributors have Music Recommender Systems. But those online music distributors didn't provide any rules or clear procedures that recommend music. Therefore, we raise important questions as follows: "Is Music Recommender Systems Fair?", "What is the impact of Music Recommender Systems on online music rankings and sales?" While previous studies have focused on usefulness of Music Recommender Systems, this study investigates not only fairness of Current Music Recommender Systems but also Relationship between Music Recommender Systems and online Music Charts. This study examines these issues based on Bandwagon effect, ranking effect, Slot effect theories. For our empirical analysis, we selected the most famous five online digital music distributors in terms of market shares. We found that all recommended music is exposed to the top of 'daily music charts' in online digital music distributors' websites. We collected music ranking data and recommended music data from 'daily music chart' during a one month. The result shows that online music recommender systems are not fair, since they mainly recommend particular music that supported by a specific music production company. In addition, the recommended music are always exposed to the top of music ranking charts. We also find that recommended music usually appear at the top 20 ranking charts within one or two days. Also, the most music in the top 50 or 100 ranks are the recommended music. Moreover, recommended music usually remain the ranking charts more than one month while non-recommended music often disappear at the ranking charts within two week. Our study provides an important implication to online music industry. Because music recommender systems and music ranking charts are closely related, music distributors may improperly use their recommender systems to boost the sales of music that related to their own companies. Therefore, online digital music distributor must clearly announce the rules and procedures about music recommender systems for the better music industry.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.303-313
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• 2014

Purpose : In-vivo conductivity reconstruction using transmit field ($B_1{^+}$) information of MRI was proposed. We assessed the accuracy of conductivity reconstruction in the presence of statistical noise in complex $B_1{^+}$ map and provided a parametric model of the conductivity-to-noise ratio value. Materials and Methods: The $B_1{^+}$ distribution was simulated for a cylindrical phantom model. By adding complex Gaussian noise to the simulated $B_1{^+}$ map, quantitative conductivity estimation error was evaluated. The quantitative evaluation process was repeated over several different parameters such as Larmor frequency, object radius and SNR of $B_1{^+}$ map. A parametric model for the conductivity-to-noise ratio was developed according to these various parameters. Results: According to the simulation results, conductivity estimation is more sensitive to statistical noise in $B_1{^+}$ phase than to noise in $B_1{^+}$ magnitude. The conductivity estimate of the object of interest does not depend on the external object surrounding it. The conductivity-to-noise ratio is proportional to the signal-to-noise ratio of the $B_1{^+}$ map, Larmor frequency, the conductivity value itself and the number of averaged pixels. To estimate accurate conductivity value of the targeted tissue, SNR of $B_1{^+}$ map and adequate filtering size have to be taken into account for conductivity reconstruction process. In addition, the simulation result was verified at 3T conventional MRI scanner. Conclusion: Through all these relationships, quantitative conductivity estimation error due to statistical noise in $B_1{^+}$ map is modeled. By using this model, further issues regarding filtering and reconstruction algorithms can be investigated for MREPT.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.53-83
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• 2012

This thesis is a study of artistic measures and climate refugees, based on Hack's World Climate Refugee Camp project. According to Hack, climate refugees appeared with the process of globalization. Hack claimed that the people who put climate refugees in danger are the industrialized nations, and therefore, their rejection of refugees is nonsense. He also stated that the fundamental solution would be the active participation of such nations. Thus, he travels around the world, encouraging participants and globalizing his project. Interestingly, the practical participation method of his climate calamity project is divided into four methods, which are all related to realizing the danger and presenting various solutions. First, the aesthetic of survival: the reason Hack focused on the warming trend and claimed that we have to accept the climate refugees as refugees comes from the thought that we are all potential refugees, and the anxiety that climate refugees may cause war in the end. The solution Hack found for surviving in such a world is to create "refugee camps" to notify people about the seriousness of climate change, and to put the "aesthetic for survival" in action. Second, a relation-oriented relationship: communication between Hack and the participants was done in various ways. They are experiencing a bond and emotions of an interrelationship through their actions in the experimental field, experiencing a new form of art, which they were not able to experience in a museum. Third, a utopian measure: Hack's utopian measure started from the fear of dystopia but Hack still believes that it is not only a dream, but that it can be realized. He claims that even though the start may be feeble, it is possible to rescue children from starvation and to treat climate refugees as proper human in the end, when communication and cooperation is done the right way and properly. Fourth, the aesthetic of global relation, the internet: the new solution Hack is trying on the internet is to make more people participate in his project. It is fate that "human are the wrongdoer and the victim at the same time", but according to Hack's opinion, social disaster can be avoided through effort and it is optimistic that we can give form to the culture revolution we are experiencing now. Hack's project illustrated the importance of daily life, compared to art inside a museum, through active participation of the people and opened up a new method of art through realistic responses to disasters. This is distinctive from the past exhibitions, where artists gave shape and form to ideals and an imaginary world, in that it shows that the artist and audience aim for creating a community-like structure, just like Bourriaud's art method. Hack's project of climate calamity illustrates that installation and action art is not only an art genre which shows installation and activities, but that it can include social and political issues and that it can be completed with the help of participants, consequently becoming a genre of modern art. Hack raises a question about art's identity through various descriptions. Artists as planners, who base their artworks on their subjectivity or the characteristics of a specific period, the people as participants, the duet of art work and play, human and human, and further, human and nature. The practical participation method, as a measure for "disaster", reveals the new art of the 21st century within Hack's artworks. Even though there are several problems with Hack's usage of art as a measure for disaster, it will actively open up a new page for the 21st century's art with the theme of disaster.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.125-158
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• 2012

After liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, there was the three-year period of United States Army Military Government in Korea. In 1948, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and Republic of Korea were established in the north and south of the Korean Peninsula. The Republic of Korea is now a modern state set in the southern part of the Korean. We usually refer to Koreans as people who belong to the Republic of Korea. Can we say that is true exactly? Why make of this an obsolete question? The period from 1945 when Korea was emancipated from Japanese colonial rule to 1948 when the Republic of Korea was established has not been a focus of modern Korean history. This three years remains empty in Korean history and makes the concept of 'Korean' we usually consider ambiguous, and prompts careful attention to the silence of 'some Koreans' forced to live against their will in the blurred boundaries between nation and people. This dissertation regards 'Koreans' who came to live in the border of nations, especially 'Korean-Japanese third generation women artists'who are marginalized both Japan and Korea. It questions the category of 'Korean women's art' that has so far been considered, based on the concept of territory, and presents a new perspective for viewing 'Korean women's art'. Almost no study on Korean-Japanese women's art has been conducted, based on research on Korean diaspora, and no systematic historical records exist. Even data-collection is limited due to the political situation of South and North in confrontation. Representation of the Mother Country on the Artworks by First and Second-Generation Korean-Japanese(Zainich) Women Artists after Liberation since 1945 was published in 2011 is the only dissertation in which Korean-Japanese women artists, and early artistic activities. That research is based on press releases and interviews obtained through Japan. This thesis concentrates on the world of Korean-Japanese third generation women artists such as Kim Jung-sook, Kim Ae-soon, and Han Sung-nam, permanent residents in Japan who still have Korean nationality. The three Korean-Japanese third generation women artists whose art world is reviewed in this thesis would like to reveal their voices as minorities in Japan and Korea, resisting power and the universal concepts of nation, people and identity. Questioning the general notions of 'Korean women' and 'Korean women's art'considered within the Korean Peninsula, they explore their identity as Korean women outside the Korean territory from a post-territorial perspective and have a new understanding of the minority's diversity and difference through their eyes as marginal women living outside the mainstream of Korean and Japanese society. This is associated with recent post-colonial critical viewpoints reconsidering myths of universalism and transcendental aesthetic measures. In the 1980s and 1990s art museums and galleries in New York tried a critical shift in aesthetic discourse on contemporary art history, analyzed how power relationships among such elements as gender, sexuality, race, nationalism. Ghost of Ethnicity: Rethinking Art Discourses of the 1940s and 1980s by Lisa Bloom is an obvious presentation about the post-colonial discourse. Lisa Bloom rethinks the diversity of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender each artist and critic has, she began a new discussion on artists who were anti-establishment artists alienated by mainstream society. As migration rapidly increased through globalism lead by the United States the aspects of diaspora experience emerges as critical issues in interpreting contemporary culture. As a new concept of art with hybrid cultural backgrounds exists, each artist's cultural identity and specificity should be viewed and interpreted in a sociopolitical context. A criticism started considering the distinct characteristics of each individual's historical experience and cultural identity, and paying attention to experience of the third world artist, especially women artists, confronting the power of modernist discourses from a perspective of the white male subject. Considering recent international contemporary art, the Korean-Japanese third generation women artists who clarify their cultural identity as minority living in the border between Korea and Japan may present a new direction for contemporary Korean art. Their art world derives from their diaspora experience on colonial trauma historically. Their works made us to see that it is also associated with postcolonial critical perspective in the recent contemporary art stream. And it reminds us of rethinking the diversity of the minority living outside mainstream society. Thus, this should be considered as one of the features in the context of Korean women's art.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.193-209
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• 2011

The fast expansion of super supermarket(SSM) in Korean retail industries has attracted serious social attentions and some types of regulations to slow down its growth are prepared. However, the regulations are hardly justified because they attempt to establish entry barriers which are not recommendable economic policy. Accordingly, the regulations should be justified at least on the basis of social and political causes. The study interprets the social and political causes as the effects of entry of SSM on trading ares where SSM is located. The study is distinguished from the past studies which focused only on intertype and intratype competition between retailers Another goal of the study is to complement the weakness of past studies and provide additional information to settle the issues. More closely, the study investigates the relationships between the changes in sales of convenience stores, which may be a surrogate measure of the viability of a local economy, and the changes in the composition of business types within 500m radius of a SSM. Further, the study investigates the effects of the establishment of SSM and the retail sales index on the sales of convenience stores. The study analyzed the panel data and adopts Swamy's random coefficient models. The results show that the effects of the establishment of SSM on the sales of convenience stores are not statistically significant. The relationship between the change in the portion of restaurants among the local business and the change in the sales of convenience stores is positive. On the other hand the relationship between the change in the portion of retailers in the composition of local businesses and the change in the sales of convenience stores is negative. In conclusion, even though any negative effects of the establishments of SSM on local economies are expected, as long as other types business especially restaurant businesses fill the space left by retailers, the net effect on the local economy may not be signification or even positive.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.25-47
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• 2010

CS is one of the major concerns of managers in the world because it is well known to be a key medium construct for firms' superior outcome. One of the major agents for CS management is retailers. Firms try to manage not only employees but also retailers to promote CS behaviors. And so diverse incentives are used to promote their CS behaviors under diverse channel setting such as multi-channel. However in spite of the rising needs there has been scarce studies on the optimal incentive structure for a manufacturer to offer competing retailers at the multi-channel. In this paper, we try to find better way for a manufacturer to promote the competing retailers' CS behaviors. We investigated how to promote the retailers' CS behavior via game-theoretic modeling. Especially, we focus on the possible incentive, CS bonus type reward introduced in the studies of Hauser, Simester, and Wernerfelt(1994) and Chu and Desai(1995). We build up a multi stage complete information game and derive a subgame perfect equilibrium using backward induction. Stages of the game are as following. (Stage 1) Manufacturer sets wholesale price(w) and CS bonus($\eta$). (Stage 2) Both retailers in competition set CS effort level($e_i$) and retail price($p_i$) simultaneously. (Stage 3) Consumers make purchasing decisions based on the manufacturer's initial reputation and retailers' CS efforts.