• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.227-239
• /
• 2023

Online marketing is a rapidly growing industry that heavily depends on digital technologies and data analysis to effectively reach and engage consumers. For that, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a crucial tool for online marketers, enabling marketers to analyze extensive consumer data and automate decision-making processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ethical implications of using AI in online marketing, focusing on its impact on consumer privacy and decision-making. AI has created new possibilities for personalized marketing but raises concerns about the collection and use of consumer data, transparency and accountability of decision-making, and the impact on consumer autonomy and privacy. In this study, we reviewed the relevant literature and case studies to assess the potential risks and make recommendations for improving consumer protection. The findings provide insights into ethical considerations and offer a roadmap for balancing the advantages of AI in online marketing with the protection of consumer rights. Companies should consider these ethical issues when implementing AI in their marketing strategies. In this study, we explored the concerns and provided insights into the challenges posed by AI in online marketing, such as the collection and use of consumer data, transparency, and accountability of decision-making, and the impact on consumer autonomy and privacy.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.53-77
• /
• 2013

As advertising and promotions are categorized as operating expenses, managers tend to reduce marketing budget to improve their short term profitability. Gauging the value and accountability of marketing spending is therefore considered as a major research priority in marketing. To respond this call, recent studies have documented that financial market reacts positively to a firm's marketing activity or marketing related outcomes such as brand equity and customer satisfaction. However, prior studies focus on the relation of marketing variable and financial market variables. This study suggests a channel about how marketing activity increases firm valuation. Specifically, we propose that a firm's marketing activity increases the level of the firm's product market information and thereby the dispersion in financial analysts' earnings forecasts decreases. With less uncertainty about the firm's future prospect, the firm's managers and shareholders have less information asymmetry, which reduces the firm's cost of capital and thereby increases the valuation of the firm. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine how informational benefits can mediate the effect of marketing activity on firm value. To test whether marketing activity contributes to increase in firm value by mitigating information asymmetry, this study employs a longitudinal data which contains 12,824 firm-year observations with 2,337 distinct firms from 1981 to 2006. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q and one-year-ahead buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR). Following prior literature, dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts is used as a proxy for the information gap between management and shareholders. For model specification, to identify mediating effect, the three-step regression approach is adopted. All models are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to test the statistical significance of the mediating effect. The analysis shows that marketing intensity has a significant negative relationship with dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts. After including the mediator variable about analyst dispersion, the effect of marketing intensity on firm value drops from 1.199 (p < .01) to 1.130 (p < .01) in Tobin's Q model and the same effect drops from .192 (p < .01) to .188 (p < .01) in BHAR model. The results suggest that analysts' forecast dispersion partially accounts for the positive effect of marketing on firm valuation. Additionally, the same analysis was conducted with an alternative dependent variable (forecast accuracy) and a marketing metric (advertising intensity). The analysis supports the robustness of the main results. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence that marketing activity can increase shareholder value by mitigating problem of information asymmetry in the capital market. The findings have important implications for managers. First, managers should be cognizant of the role of marketing activity in providing information to the financial market as well as to the consumer market. Thus, managers should take into account investors' reaction when they design marketing communication messages for reducing the cost of capital. Second, this study shows a channel on how marketing creates shareholder value and highlights the accountability of marketing. In addition to the direct impact of marketing on firm value, an indirect channel by reducing information asymmetry should be considered. Potentially, marketing managers can justify their spending from the perspective of increasing long-term shareholder value.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.39-72
• /
• 2009

With the growing importance of accountability, it is getting necessary to test the impact of marketing expenditure on marketing performance. Including recent ROM, we can find a few researches about marketing accountability. But there are a few problems about definitions and metric of marketing expenditure and marketing performance. Therefore, by defining and analyzing the impact of marketing expenditure on marketing performance, we are going to set the classification scheme of marketing expenditure and marketing performance. Based on research findings, new definitions and metrics are proposed as follows. First, we suggest the classification scheme of marketing expenditure. Marketing expenditure is defined as expense accounts in the balance sheet for doing marketing tasks. Marketing expenditures includes many accounts, for example, marketing research, advertising, sales promotion, foreign market development, physical distribution, after services. Among these marketing investment, advertising expenses have a positive effect on marketing performance. Second, we suggest the classification scheme of marketing performance. Already, marketing performance has been defined as financial metrics, customer metrics, market metrics, and corporate social responsibility. But, in this study, we find that the process model is not relevant for explaining association between the performance metrics. The process model is a virtuous cycle: "customer metrics→market metrics→financial metrics→firm valuation metrics." But, in this study, it is not supported or a little significant association between these metrics. Based on these results, we suggest the balance model or flower model as the classification scheme of marketing performance.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.9-18
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study examines some successful and failed cases of Korean private universities' profitable business and explores the desirable economic value and direction of their profitable business business operations with a view to shedding light on some clues conducive to their financial health and quality education. Research design, data and methodology: This study reviews news articles, reports and literature to find out Korean universities' financial condition and examines some successful and failed examples of their corporations' profit-making business operations to suggest a direction. Results: Private universities suffer declining enrollments and/or tuition freeze but they lack in making efforts to secure financial health. The reviewed examples of private universities' profit-making business operations suggest both universities and their corporations should first assume the public accountability prior to engaging in diverse business activities. Conclusions: First, to remain financially healthy, university corporations should exert themselves to transform their low-profit-margin lands and buildings into high-profit-margin businesses and to credit the realized income to their school-expense accounts. And, the ultimate purpose of universities' profit-making business operations is to realize a decent income without prejudice to their public accountability for the country and community, while forging a virtuous cycle by investing the income for the betterment of their educational quality and competitiveness.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.141-157
• /
• 2013

Managing customers based on customer equity (CE) has emerged as the most effective way of doing business because of its ability to foster profitable customer relationship management (CRM) through appropriate marketing activities. Most research studies provide conceptual and empirical evidence of the positive link between CE and firm performance. However, regarding this possibility, it has been suggested by some researchers that this link may not hold true for other firms with different firmographic factors, such as firm growth rate, size, and resources. As previous research emphasizes that marketing managers should implement a strategy based on their unique business environment, our study addresses this issue by extending the framework to a different industry setting to investigate the impact of CE on firm performance. We develop a model for examining the relationship between the firm's estimated CE and firm performance by each time period using a distributed lagged model. Then, we investigate the effect of CE on the firm's profitability using a regression analysis. Finally, even though CRM is in increasing demand and firms are focusing on the customer as an asset, we conclude that there is a limited condition for this positive effect of CE. When the life cycle was divided by growth rate, CE was shown to have a distinctive effect on profit. In the case of a high-growth stage, the effect of CE on profit is positive because of its potential customer base, whereas the effect is not significant in a low-growth stage. That is, when the business environment is saturated and the firms are no longer competing in the market, CRM may not be effective. In other words, a long-term performance orientation may not be as effective as previously believed. This research contributes to the previous literature, providing a counterintuitive suggestion that firm managers should be cautious about implementing a CRM strategy and should allocate resources properly in terms of their resource capabilities and ability depending on their situation.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.17-26
• /
• 2022

Purpose: This study analyzes advanced cases of overseas smart cities and examines policy implications related to the creation of smart cities in Korea. Research design, data, and methodology: Analysis standards were established through the analysis of best practices. Analysis criteria include Technology, Privacy, Security, and Governance. Results: In terms of technology, U-City construction experience and communication infrastructure are strengths. Korea's ICT technology is inferior to major countries. On the other hand, mobile communication, IoT, Internet, and public data are at the highest level. The privacy section created six principles: legality, purpose limitation, transparency, safety, control, and accountability. Security issues enable urban crime, disaster and catastrophe prediction and security through the establishment of an integrated platform. Governance issues are handled by the Smart Special Committee, which serves as policy advisory to the central government for legal system, standardization, and external cooperation in the district. Conclusions: Private technology improvement and participation are necessary for privacy and urban security. Citizens should participate in smart city governance.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.1-28
• /
• 2012

The Extension Program accountability will continue to be an influential force to develop agriculture and rural area. As we incorporate new approaches into our service program and respond to new domains of knowledge, we must also consider how our assessment strategies may need to change in order to meet local and other external standards. The main purpose of the study was to be what the best way of Extension Service is set farmers' educational needs met and to be what kind of methodologies and role of Extension system should provide for their faced problem solving effectively. The major results of the study on Farmers' needs toward Korean Extension Services are summarized as follows. First, it is observed that, when the farmers' perceptions were analyzed, the most ranked by the farmers' needs was "having nice extension workers to get advice and solve their problems on the farm in all at once." Farmers had especially more positive attitudes in the categories of interest and careers in ag-technology. To do services level up, the headquarter of Rural Development of Administration must be work with local branches to effectively deliver their missions and educational objectives to target crops and farmers group. And farmers were strongly needed "a specialized service team will be organized" to work closely with operating services for ag-products processing, packing and marketing. The recommendations were made by: farmers' needs should be identified and announced by computer networking development to solve their problems faster. Also, provincial and county level service members should have a chance to working at research institute or related work places with their incentives, which system will be easer to meet farmers' needs and deal with their problems so that the systematic approaches should be managed and recorded their educational attendings, education contents and even their farming corporations. Finally, Agricultural Extension Service should be met to general ag-technology literacy and be balanced with knowledge of other industries and be competitive service with better values in non-agricultural sectors.