• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.57-68
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• 2007

Benchmarking is more than just a comparison of measures about different company's performance in a wider sense. It is a methodology of learning-comparing-learning, at least within small and medium sized enterprises. This learning is not just limited to learn by copying successful concepts from other enterprises or competitors. It starts in learning more about the own company, about its structure and processes causing its own success or its failure. This kind of learning is necessary before the enterprise starts watching for a suitable Benchmarking partner. Learning from each other's strengths and weaknesses is the main goal of the European research project Quality beyond Borders! By using the Benchmarking methodology, small and medium sized enterprises get the opportunity to take part in a Benchmarking study and can learn more about the different strengths and weaknesses of other enterprises on both sides of the border. The results of such a Benchmarking can help to identify potentials for future cooperations among German and Polish enterprises in the same market or business. These potentials can lie in different ways of realising the same success or top-position. The Benchmarking study is not focused on an special business or region. That helps to find out trends for different kinds of top-positions, which can be claimed in all markets within a country. Every trend is characterised by different success factors which are responsible for the success in this top-position. In a first overview, the results of the Benchmarking study show 5 different groups of top-positions within a market which all have different profiles regarding to the importance of their success factors. By the end of the Benchmarking study it will be possible, to give answer about the special reasons for different kind of successes of these groups. These answers can be related to a special region within a country, a special business or of course related to possible differences in the expression of the group success factors in comparison of both countries.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.95-111
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• 2019

This study aims to measure effects of cause-related marketing by using consumer's preference of cause-related marketing product as a dependent variable. One of main factors influence on preference of cause-related marketing product is a product type. Previous research has shown that hedonic product is more effective for cause-related marketing than utilitarian product. The result was largely explained by the logic of guilt. However, there were conflicting results. In addition, the level of guilt may vary depending on the consumer characteristics or the market environment. Therefore, this study focuses on the impact of product type on the effect of cause-related marketing. For the Korean and Chinese markets, this study examines the effect of interactions between countries and product type. The result was significant. Specifically, there was a difference in preference of cause-related marketing product between Korean and Chinese consumers by product type. Based on the findings, implications and limitations of this study and future research directions were presented.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.469-479
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• 2016

Kimchi cabbage is one of the most important vegetables in Korea and a target crop for market stabilization as well. In particular Kimchi cabbages in a highland area are very sensitive to the fluctuations in supply and demand. Yield variability due to growth conditions dictates the market fluctuations of Kimchi cabbage price. This study was carried out to understand the distribution of the highland Kimchi cabbage growth status in Anbandeok. Anbandeok area in Gangneung, Gangwon-do, Korea is one of the main producing districts of highland Kimchi cabbage. The highland Kimchi cabbage status map of each growth factor was obtained from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery and field survey data. Six status maps include UAVRGB image map, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) distribution/anomaly map, Crop distribution map, Planting/Harvest distribution map, Growth parameter map and Growth disorder map. As a result, the highland Kimchi cabbage status maps from May 31 to Sep. 6 in 2016 were presented to show spatial variability in the field. The benefits of the highland Kimchi cabbage status map can be summarized as follows: crop growth monitoring, reference for field observations and survey, the relative comparison of the growth condition in field scale, evaluation of growth in comparison of average year, change detection of annual crops or planting areas, abandoned fields monitoring, prediction of harvest season etc.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.284-293
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to identify men's beauty service markets based on socio-cultural appearance attitude and to compare their satisfaction and intention to revisit beauty service. The study was done by survey method. Data of three hundred men aged from 20's to 40's were collected by on-line survey. Descriptive analyses, factor analyses, cluster analyses, Duncan tests, multiple regressions, and path analyses were applied. The results are as follows: First, five factors were found for men's socio-cultural attitude for their appearance. They were high involvement in appearance, social appearance, appearance satisfaction, appearance comparison and low involvement in appearance. Second, cluster analysis based on socio-cultural attitude produced three customer groups such as high involvement, social concern & satisfaction, and low involvement. Third, customer groups showed significant differences in some demographics and some items of service dimensions, which resulted in significant differences in satisfaction, and intention to revisit beauty shop services. A high involvement group was composed of young and unmarried men with more frequent visit to beauty shop service. In general, both the high involvement and the social concern & satisfaction groups showed higher evaluations than the low concern group in some of service items, level of satisfaction, and intention to revisit. In conclusion, attitude on their appearance could be useful factors in segmenting men's beauty service market. Levels and types of beauty shop service should be differentiated among consumer markets.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.20-37
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• 2019

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trade structure and competitiveness of China's information technology (IT) industry in comparison to that of Korea and the United States, particularly in terms of quality. Design/methodology/approach - Indices such as trade specialization index (TSI), Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), and Market Comparative Advantage (MCA) are used. Further, an Intra-industry Trade (IIT) index is used to analyze qualitative changes in horizontal intra-industry trade and intra-industry trade of high- and low-quality goods. Findings - China's IT industry has a comparative competitive advantage over that of Korea and the United States, and mainly exports goods of inferior quality and imports goods of superior quality. Further, China's horizontal intra-industry trade has been decreasing, while its vertical intra-industry trade has been increasing and vertical trade of inferior quality goods outweighs that of superior quality goods. This shows that China is rapidly catching up with Korea and the United States, even though its qualitative competitiveness has not significantly improved. Research limitations/implication - This study has academic and political implications, as it analyzes changes in China's IT trade competitiveness. However, it is somewhat limited as factors determining qualitative aspects has not been considered. Originality/value - Most studies aggregate analyses of export competitiveness using methodologies such as TSI, RCA, and market share. However, the focus of these methods is price competitiveness. Hence, an examination of the objective and qualitative trade competitiveness of China's IT industry is necessary. this study the trade structure and quantitative competitiveness of the industry by analyzing intra-industry trade focusing on the quality of competitiveness. Therefore, the changes in China's IT industry in the USA and Korea and in foreign trade competitiveness and quality competitiveness are clarified. The results show that the academic and policy implications of these changes in the IT industry will be a useful resource. This is the first study in Korea to attempt such an analysis. This is the first study in Korea to attempt such an analysis.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.178-185
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• 2023

Objective: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic, recurrent inflammatory skin disease. Both tralokinumab and dupilumab have been recommended in the European Guideline for the treatment of adult patients with severe AD. In Korea, dupilumab has been approved for patients with moderate to severe AD, and reimbursed for those with severe AD. Since there is no clinical trial directly comparing tralokinumab and dupilumab, we conducted indirect comparison to assess the clinical usefulness in patients with AD. Methods: We selected clinical trials for indirect comparison through a systematic literature review. Individual patient data were available for the tralokinumab clinical trial, and aggregated data were available for the dupilumab clinical trial. Therefore, we employed the Matching-Adjusted Indirect Comparison (MAIC) method. The treatment efficacy was assessed based on whether patients achieved a 75% reduction on the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI 75) after drug administration. Results: The difference in the proportion of patients achieving EASI 75 between tralokinumab and dupilumab was 4.7% (95% CI: -7.9 to 17.3). Considering the non-inferiority margin for the EASI 75 achievement rate is -10%, tralokinumab is deemed non-inferior to dupilumab as the lower bound of the CI for the difference in the EASI 75 achievement rate between tralokinumab and dupilumab was within -10%. Conclusion: We conducted a MAIC analysis comparing tralokinumab and dupilumab based on EASI 75 achievement. The findings of this study show that tralokinumab is non-inferior to dupilumab and can be implemented in Korean clinical settings with a therapeutic position comparable to dupilumab.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.43-50
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• 2011

Concerning the risk factors of the outbreak of a fire in a traditional market, most of those markets are located in downtown areas or residential areas; thus, although their location may be favorable in terms of marketability, they face a potential risk in that a fire may develop into a large blaze owing to poor environment or the absence of facilities prepared for disaster during a fire. Moreover, as many people are densely poised in the markets, it is very probable that a fire may occur owing to the excessive use of heaters in the winter as well as the reckless use of electric and gas facilities. It seems that traditional markets encounter difficulty being insured against fire, because of their vulnerability and that the vast majority of small-scale sellers are likely to suffer mental anguish and tremendous physical injury in case of a fire. However, most of those sellers in the traditional markets are hand-to-mouth sellers, and they lack awareness of safety concerns and have insufficient experience in safe facility management. As small-scale sellers constitute the majority in the traditional market, the subscription rate of fire insurance in most of the traditional markets is low for the reasons of their needy circumstances and their financial burden. Statistically, the subscription by street vendors is non-existent; therefore, these vendors have a fairly limited access to indemnification after fire damage. Because of these problems, this study's purpose is to identify the current level of insurance subscription by these markets, which are exposed to poor facilities and vulnerability to fire. In order to fix this, it appears that shop owners and consumers will have to band together. For this study, we executed a fire policyholder fact-finding mission at traditional markets with approximately 108 and 981 stores. The research method was executed by an investigation using one-on-one individual interviews using a questionnaire. The contents investigated current insurance subscriptions. The method of analysis looked at the difference of insured amount according to volume size through cross-tabulation of the difference of insured amount by possession form, difference of insured amount by market form, difference of insured amount by category of business, difference of insured amount by market size, etc. Furthermore, the study should be used to propose solutions for problems through theoretical review with the use of a literature research, because the field case study was through interviews with the persons concerned, and the survey of the current insurance subscriptions by traditional market shopkeepers. The traditional market would generally have difficulty affording fire insurance. Fire insurance subscription rates of most of the market proved to be inactive, because of the economic burden of payment. Lack of funds is thought to be the main factor that causes a lack of realization about the necessity of fire insurance. In addition to expensive insurance premiums, sometimes, the companies' valuation of the businesses is lower than their actual valuations, and they do not pay out enough during a claim. The research presents an improvement plan that, when presented at the traditional markets, may strengthen their ability to procure fire insurance through the help of the central government. Researchers connected with the traditional market mainly accomplish the initial research. However, although this research has its limitations, it offers considerable benefits. For future researchers, I would suggest looking at several regions for comparison.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.79-111
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• 2011

Digital economy has grown rapidly so that the new business area called 'Internet business' has been dramatically extended as time goes on. However, in the case of Internet business, market shares of individual companies seem to fluctuate very extremely. Thus marketing managers who operate the Internet sites have seriously observed the competition structure of the Internet business market and carefully analyzed the competitors' behavior in order to achieve their own business goals in the market. The newly created Internet business might differ from the offline ones in management styles, because it has totally different business circumstances when compared with the existing offline businesses. Thus, there should be a lot of researches for finding the solutions about what the features of Internet business are and how the management style of those Internet business companies should be changed. Most marketing literatures related to the Internet business have focused on individual business markets. Specifically, many researchers have studied the Internet portal sites and the Internet shopping mall sites, which are the most general forms of Internet business. On the other hand, this study focuses on the entire Internet business industry to understand the competitive circumstance of online market. This approach makes it possible not only to have a broader view to comprehend overall e-business industry, but also to understand the differences in competition structures among Internet business markets. We used time-series data of Internet connection rates by consumers as the basic data to figure out the competition patterns in the Internet business markets. Specifically, the data for this research was obtained from one of Internet ranking sites, 'Fian'. The Internet business ranking data is obtained based on web surfing record of some pre-selected sample group where the possibility of double-count for page-views is controlled by method of same IP check. The ranking site offers several data which are very useful for comparison and analysis of competitive sites. The Fian site divides the Internet business areas into 34 area and offers market shares of big 5 sites which are on high rank in each category daily. We collected the daily market share data about Internet sites on each area from April 22, 2008 to August 5, 2008, where some errors of data was found and 30 business area data were finally used for our research after the data purification. This study performed several empirical analyses in focusing on market shares of each site to understand the competition among sites in Internet business of Korea. We tried to perform more statistically precise analysis for looking into business fields with similar competitive structures by applying the cluster analysis to the data. The research results are as follows. First, the leading sites in each area were classified into three groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The first group includes the sites with the lowest market shares, which give more increased convenience to consumers by offering the Internet sites as complimentary services for existing offline services. The second group includes sites with medium level of market shares, where the site users are limited to specific small group. The third group includes sites with the highest market shares, which usually require online registration in advance and have difficulty in switching to another site. Second, we analyzed the second place sites in each business area because it may help us understand the competitive power of the strongest competitor against the leading site. The second place sites in each business area were classified into four groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The four groups are the sites showing consistent inferiority compared to the leading sites, the sites with relatively high volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and high level of shares whose gaps are not big compared to the leading sites. Except 'web agency' area, these second place sites show relatively stable shares below 0.1 point of standard deviation. Third, we also classified the types of relative strength between leading sites and the second place sites by applying the cluster analysis to the gap values of market shares between two sites. They were also classified into four groups, the sites with the relatively lowest gaps even though the values of standard deviation are various, the sites with under the average level of gaps, the sites with over the average level of gaps, the sites with the relatively higher gaps and lower volatility. Then we also found that while the areas with relatively bigger gap values usually have smaller standard deviation values, the areas with very small differences between the first and the second sites have a wider range of standard deviation values. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are as follows. First, the result of this study might provide the current market participants with the useful information to understand the competitive circumstance of the market and build the effective new business strategy for the market success. Also it might be useful to help new potential companies find a new business area and set up successful competitive strategies. Second, it might help Internet marketing researchers take a macro view of the overall Internet market so that make possible to begin the new studies on overall Internet market beyond individual Internet market studies.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.17-35
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• 2015

Demand forecasting is the activity of estimating the quantity of a product or service that consumers will purchase for a certain period of time. Developing precise forecasting models are considered important since corporates can make strategic decisions on new markets based on future demand estimated by the models. Many studies have developed market growth curve models, such as Bass, Logistic, Gompertz models, which estimate future demand when a market is in its early stage. Among the models, Bass model, which explains the demand from two types of adopters, innovators and imitators, has been widely used in forecasting. Such models require sufficient demand observations to ensure qualified results. In the beginning of a new market, however, observations are not sufficient for the models to precisely estimate the market's future demand. For this reason, as an alternative, demands guessed from those of most adjacent markets are often used as references in such cases. Reference markets can be those whose products are developed with the same categorical technologies. A market's demand may be expected to have the similar pattern with that of a reference market in case the adoption pattern of a product in the market is determined mainly by the technology related to the product. However, such processes may not always ensure pleasing results because the similarity between markets depends on intuition and/or experience. There are two major drawbacks that human experts cannot effectively handle in this approach. One is the abundance of candidate reference markets to consider, and the other is the difficulty in calculating the similarity between markets. First, there can be too many markets to consider in selecting reference markets. Mostly, markets in the same category in an industrial hierarchy can be reference markets because they are usually based on the similar technologies. However, markets can be classified into different categories even if they are based on the same generic technologies. Therefore, markets in other categories also need to be considered as potential candidates. Next, even domain experts cannot consistently calculate the similarity between markets with their own qualitative standards. The inconsistency implies missing adjacent reference markets, which may lead to the imprecise estimation of future demand. Even though there are no missing reference markets, the new market's parameters can be hardly estimated from the reference markets without quantitative standards. For this reason, this study proposes a case-based expert system that helps experts overcome the drawbacks in discovering referential markets. First, this study proposes the use of Euclidean distance measure to calculate the similarity between markets. Based on their similarities, markets are grouped into clusters. Then, missing markets with the characteristics of the cluster are searched for. Potential candidate reference markets are extracted and recommended to users. After the iteration of these steps, definite reference markets are determined according to the user's selection among those candidates. Then, finally, the new market's parameters are estimated from the reference markets. For this procedure, two techniques are used in the model. One is clustering data mining technique, and the other content-based filtering of recommender systems. The proposed system implemented with those techniques can determine the most adjacent markets based on whether a user accepts candidate markets. Experiments were conducted to validate the usefulness of the system with five ICT experts involved. In the experiments, the experts were given the list of 16 ICT markets whose parameters to be estimated. For each of the markets, the experts estimated its parameters of growth curve models with intuition at first, and then with the system. The comparison of the experiments results show that the estimated parameters are closer when they use the system in comparison with the results when they guessed them without the system.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.107-117
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• 2008

In this study, surveys and interviews are used to evaluate technological competitiveness of each product with respect to that of foreign leading firms, for seven leading domestic construction products which have been determined to have competitive edge in offshore markets, Such evaluation provides a more in depth study than previously conducted research, and is meaningful in that corporate level, rather than industry level, perspective is projected. Major findings of such evaluations are the following. First, as expected, it has been evaluated that domestic technological competitiveness in desalination plant and power plant has reached the point where it can compete with foreign leading firms. Moreover, a noteworthy result of the evaluation is that development program sector, including urban development of satellite cities, has reached considerable level of competitiveness in offshore market. In the case of the development market, domestic firms have accumulated sufficient experience in domestic market and engineering technology is not a decisive factor as in plant sector, and these factors lead to such an evaluation. Second, in the cases of gas, oil refinery and petro-chemical plants, domestic products' technological competitiveness that can contest in offshore market is still centered around production and construction. On the other hand, there are still weaknesses in license technology and basic design capabilities, which constitute the "value added" area. Third, skyscrapers, a promising product in offshore construction market and a product group which domestic firms have much performance record and projects in progress both in domestic and offshore markets, are considered. While direct comparison between skyscrapers and plant sector is not feasible, with the exception of production and construction, overall domestic capability in this sector has been assessed to be the lowest amongst those products that were surveyed. Fourth, it has been indicated that competitiveness is relatively higher in common technology than in key technology. In project management capability, it has been assessed that there are weaknesses in procedure document area. Also, a characteristic is the point that low overall assessments have been given across all product groups for corporate and management areas, not technological areas. Especially, financing, contracting/claim, risk management and investment on research and development received low evaluations. Fifth, it has been assessed that overall corporate and governmental supports are weak. This result is especially evident for corporate management and support areas across all product groups surveyed.