Xylanase supplementation in energy-deficient corn-based diets: impact on broiler growth, nutrient digestibility, chyme viscosity and carcass proximates
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- Animal Bioscience
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- v.37 no.7
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- pp.1246-1254
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- 2024
Objective: The goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of various concentrations of xylanase in energy-deficient corn-based diets on the growth performance, carcass characteristics, nutrient digestibility, and digesta viscosity in broilers from 7 to 35 days of age. Methods: A total of 280 seven-day-old Ross 308 broilers were randomly allocated to one of the five dietary treatments following a completely randomized design with 8 replicates and 7 birds per cage. The treatments were: i) positive control (PC, without xylanase); ii) NC-1 (80 kcal/kg ME reduced from PC); iii) NC-2 (100 kcal/kg ME reduced from PC); iv) NCX-1 (NC-1 + 2,000 U/kg xylanase); and v) NCX-2 (NC-2 + 3,000 U/kg xylanase). Body weight, weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio were determined weekly to evaluate growth performance. One bird per pen was sacrificed for ileal digesta collection to determine the viscosity and digestibility of energy, dry matter, crude protein on days 24 and 35, however breast and leg meat samples were obtained for proximate analysis (moisture, crude protein, fat, and ash) on day 35. Results: Birds fed diets supplemented with xylanase regardless of the amount had higher (p<0.05) body weights, daily gains, and improved feed efficiency compared to NC diets all throughout the experimental period. Feed intake was not affected (p>0.05) by the addition of xylanase. Moreover, lowered (p<0.05) viscosity of the ileal digesta were observed upon xylanase inclusion in the diets compared to the birds fed NC diets on day 24. Ileal nutrient digestibility and meat proximate composition were not affected (p>0.05) by xylanase. Conclusion: The present study indicated that the xylanase at 2,000 U/kg and 3,000 U/kg levels compensates for the 80 kcal/kg and 100 kcal/kg dietary energy levels, respectively, without having adverse effects on the growth performance, carcass characteristics, nutrient digestibility, and digesta viscosity of broilers.
The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.
Today, IT organizations perform projects with vision related to marketing and financial profit. The objective of realizing the vision is to improve the project performing ability in terms of QCD. Organizations have made a lot of efforts to achieve this objective through process improvement. Large companies such as IBM, Ford, and GE have made over
Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.
Recentry the structure of the retail trade have been chanaed with its environmantal changes. Some studies may be necessary on the changing process of environment and fundamental structure analyses of the retail trade. This study analyzes the location of retail trades, inhabitants' behavior in retail tredes and their desirable utilization scheme of them in Kwangju-si. Some study methods, contents and coming-out results are as follows: 1. Retail trades can be classified into independent stores, chain-stores (supermarket, voluntary chain and frenchiise system and convenience store), department stores, cooperative associations, traditional, markets mail-order marketing, automatic vending and others by service levels, selling-items, prices, managements, methods of retailing and store or nonstore type. 2. In Kwangju, the environment of retail trades is related to the consumers of population structure: chanes in consumers pattern, trends toward agings and nuclear family, increase of leisur: time and female advances to society. Rapid structural shift in retail trade has also been occurred due to these social changes. Traditionl and premodern markets until 1970s altere to supermarkets or department stores in 1980s, and various types, large enterprises and foreign capitals came into being in 1990s. 3. The locational characteristics of retail trades are resulted from the spatial analysis of the total population distribution, and from the calculation of segregation index in the light of potential demand. The densely-populated areas occurs in newly-built apartment housing complex which is distributed with a ring-shaped pattern around the old urban core. The numbers and rates of the aged over sixty in Kwangsan-gu and the circumference area of Mt.Moodeung, are larger and higher where rural elements are remarkable. A relation between population distribution and retail trade are analysed by the index of population per shop. The index of the population number per shop is lower in urban center, as a whole, being more convenient for consumers. In newly-formed apartment complex areas, on the other, the index more than 1,000 per shop, meeting not the demands for consumers. Because both the younger and the aged are numerous in these areas, the retail trade pattern pertinent to both are needed. Urban fringes including Kwangsan-gu and the vicinity of Mt.Moodeung have some problems owing to the most of population number per shop (more than 1, 500) and the most extensive as well. 4. The regional characteristic of retail trade is analyzed through the location quotient of shops by locational patterns and centerality index. Chungkum-dong is the highest-order central place in CBD. It is the core of retail trades, which has higher-ordered specialty store including three big department stores, supermarkets and large stores. Taegum-dong, Chungsu-dong, Taeui-dong, and Numun-dong that are neiahbored to Chungkum-dong fall on the second group. They have a central commercial section where large chain stores, specialty shopping streets, narrow-line retailing shops (furniture, amusement service, and gallary), supermarkets and daily markets are located. The third group is formed on the axis of state roads linking to Naju-kun, Changseong-kun, Tamyang-kun, Hwasun-kun and forme-Songjeong-eup. It is related to newly, rising apartment housing complex along a trunk road, and characterized by markets and specialty stores. The fourth group has neibourhood-shopping centers including older residential area and Songjeong-eup area with independent stores and supermarkets as main retailing functions. The last group contains inner residential area and outer part of a city including Songjeong-eup. Outer part of miscellaneous shops being occasionally found is rural rather than urban (Fig. 7). 5. The residents' behaviors using retail trade are analyzed by factors of goods and facilities. Department stores are very high level in preference for higher-order shopping-goods such as clothes for full dress in view of both diversity and quality of goods(28.9%). But they have severe traffic congestions, and high competitions for market ranges caused by their sma . 64.0% of respondents make combined purpose trips together with banking and shopping. 6. For more efficiency of retail-trading, it is necessary to induce spatial distribution policy with regard to opportunity frequency of goods selection by central place, frontier regions and age groups. Also we must consider to analyze competition among different types of retail trade and analyze the consumption behaviors of working females and younger-aged groups, in aspects of time and space. Service improvement and the rationalization of management should be accomplished in such as cooperative location (situation) must be under consideration in relations to other functions such as finance, leisure & sports, and culture centers. Various service systems such as installment, credit card and peremium ticket, new used by enterprises, must also be carried service improvement. The rationalization and professionalization in for the commercial goods are bsically requested.
In franchise business, exclusive sales territory (sometimes EST in table) protection is a very important issue from an economic, social and political point of view. It affects the growth and survival of both franchisor and franchisee and often raises issues of social and political conflicts. When franchisee is not familiar with related laws and regulations, franchisor has high chance to utilize it. Exclusive sales territory protection by the manufacturer and distributors (wholesalers or retailers) means sales area restriction by which only certain distributors have right to sell products or services. The distributor, who has been granted exclusive sales territories, can protect its own territory, whereas he may be prohibited from entering in other regions. Even though exclusive sales territory is a quite critical problem in franchise business, there is not much rigorous research about the reason, results, evaluation, and future direction based on empirical data. This paper tries to address this problem not only from logical and nomological validity, but from empirical validation. While we purse an empirical analysis, we take into account the difficulties of real data collection and statistical analysis techniques. We use a set of disclosure document data collected by Korea Fair Trade Commission, instead of conventional survey method which is usually criticized for its measurement error. Existing theories about exclusive sales territory can be summarized into two groups as shown in the table below. The first one is about the effectiveness of exclusive sales territory from both franchisor and franchisee point of view. In fact, output of exclusive sales territory can be positive for franchisors but negative for franchisees. Also, it can be positive in terms of sales but negative in terms of profit. Therefore, variables and viewpoints should be set properly. The other one is about the motive or reason why exclusive sales territory is protected. The reasons can be classified into four groups - industry characteristics, franchise systems characteristics, capability to maintain exclusive sales territory, and strategic decision. Within four groups of reasons, there are more specific variables and theories as below. Based on these theories, we develop nine hypotheses which are briefly shown in the last table below with the results. In order to validate the hypothesis, data is collected from government (FTC) homepage which is open source. The sample consists of 1,896 franchisors and it contains about three year operation data, from 2006 to 2008. Within the samples, 627 have exclusive sales territory protection policy and the one with exclusive sales territory policy is not evenly distributed over 19 representative industries. Additional data are also collected from another government agency homepage, like Statistics Korea. Also, we combine data from various secondary sources to create meaningful variables as shown in the table below. All variables are dichotomized by mean or median split if they are not inherently dichotomized by its definition, since each hypothesis is composed by multiple variables and there is no solid statistical technique to incorporate all these conditions to test the hypotheses. This paper uses a simple chi-square test because hypotheses and theories are built upon quite specific conditions such as industry type, economic condition, company history and various strategic purposes. It is almost impossible to find all those samples to satisfy them and it can't be manipulated in experimental settings. However, more advanced statistical techniques are very good on clean data without exogenous variables, but not good with real complex data. The chi-square test is applied in a way that samples are grouped into four with two criteria, whether they use exclusive sales territory protection or not, and whether they satisfy conditions of each hypothesis. So the proportion of sample franchisors which satisfy conditions and protect exclusive sales territory, does significantly exceed the proportion of samples that satisfy condition and do not protect. In fact, chi-square test is equivalent with the Poisson regression which allows more flexible application. As results, only three hypotheses are accepted. When attitude toward the risk is high so loyalty fee is determined according to sales performance, EST protection makes poor results as expected. And when franchisor protects EST in order to recruit franchisee easily, EST protection makes better results. Also, when EST protection is to improve the efficiency of franchise system as a whole, it shows better performances. High efficiency is achieved as EST prohibits the free riding of franchisee who exploits other's marketing efforts, and it encourages proper investments and distributes franchisee into multiple regions evenly. Other hypotheses are not supported in the results of significance testing. Exclusive sales territory should be protected from proper motives and administered for mutual benefits. Legal restrictions driven by the government agency like FTC could be misused and cause mis-understandings. So there need more careful monitoring on real practices and more rigorous studies by both academicians and practitioners.
Advances in Internet technologies and the proliferation of mobile devices enabled consumers to approach a wide range of goods and services, while causing an adverse effect that they have hard time reaching their congenial items even if they devote much time to searching for them. Accordingly, businesses are using the recommender systems to provide tools for consumers to find the desired items more easily. Association Rule Mining (ARM) technology is advantageous to recommender systems in that ARM provides intuitive form of a rule with interestingness measures (support, confidence, and lift) describing the relationship between items. Given an item, its relevant items can be distinguished with the help of the measures that show the strength of relationship between items. Based on the strength, the most pertinent items can be chosen among other items and exposed to a given item's web page. However, the diversity of the measures may confuse which items are more recommendable. Given two rules, for example, one rule's support and confidence may not be concurrently superior to the other rule's. Such discrepancy of the measures in distinguishing one rule's superiority from other rules may cause difficulty in selecting proper items for recommendation. In addition, in an online environment where a web page or mobile screen can provide a limited number of recommendations that attract consumer interest, the prudent selection of items to be included in the list of recommendations is very important. The exposure of items of little interest may lead consumers to ignore the recommendations. Then, such consumers will possibly not pay attention to other forms of marketing activities. Therefore, the measures should be aligned with the probability of consumer's acceptance of recommendations. For this reason, this study proposes a model-based approach to combine those measures into one unified measure that can consistently determine the ranking of recommended items. A regression model was designed to describe how well the measures (independent variables; i.e., support, confidence, and lift) explain consumer's acceptance of recommendations (dependent variables, hit rate of recommended items). The model is intuitive to understand and easy to use in that the equation consists of the commonly used measures for ARM and can be used in the estimation of hit rates. The experiment using transaction data from one of the Korea's largest online shopping malls was conducted to show that the proposed model can improve the hit rates of recommendations. From the top of the list to 13th place, recommended items in the higher rakings from the proposed model show the higher hit rates than those from the competitive model's. The result shows that the proposed model's performance is superior to the competitive model's in online recommendation environment. In a web page, consumers are provided around ten recommendations with which the proposed model outperforms. Moreover, a mobile device cannot expose many items simultaneously due to its limited screen size. Therefore, the result shows that the newly devised recommendation technique is suitable for the mobile recommender systems. While this study has been conducted to cover the cross-selling in online shopping malls that handle merchandise, the proposed method can be expected to be applied in various situations under which association rules apply. For example, this model can be applied to medical diagnostic systems that predict candidate diseases from a patient's symptoms. To increase the efficiency of the model, additional variables will need to be considered for the elaboration of the model in future studies. For example, price can be a good candidate for an explanatory variable because it has a major impact on consumer purchase decisions. If the prices of recommended items are much higher than the items in which a consumer is interested, the consumer may hesitate to accept the recommendations.
The relationship between buyers and sellers is changing into a long-term relationship. A number of distribution channel researchers have determined that the behavior of distribution channel members can be characterized by relational exchanges. The members of relational distribution channels may be perceived as strategic partners; however, even within these arrangements, member asymmetries may exist, which can create unequal distributions of power and dependence. Thus, as all distribution channel members may not be equal in power, it is possible that a less-dependent channel leader may emerge. Therefore, leadership in distribution channels is a very important variable. Distribution channel leadership can be defined as the activities undertaken by the distribution channel leader to influence the marketing programs and strategies of channel members. A distribution channel's performance is influenced by the leadership style of the channel leader. Although research on channel leadership styles can be broadly categorized, many researchers have dealt with analyzing distribution channel leadership by using the power-influence approach, which includes looking at variables, such as power, power base, and influence strategies. Moreover, they have examined the direct relationship between leadership styles and performance. Many distribution channel scholars have attempted to justify the application of leadership styles identified in alternative leadership theories to the inter-organizational context of distribution channels. They have made suggestions regarding how great the usefulness of leadership style as a strategy is to secure the compliance of distribution channel members and have conceptually and empirically linked it to channel-related phenomena, such as manifest conflict, cooperation, channel efficiency, and effectiveness. However, as few empirical studies have examined the antecedents and consequences of leadership styles, research on leadership style can be considered nascent. Thus, it is required to investigate the antecedents and consequences of the leadership style of a distribution channel leader. This study aims to empirically identify whether there are influences of the antecedents of leadership on two different leadership styles, and to reveal whether these leadership styles induce any consequences. The research subjects were 220 franchisees. Research findings are as follows: First, the results show a positive effect of technological capability on transformational relationships. However, it does not have a significant effect on transactional leadership. Second, innovation-oriented organizational culture has negatively influenced both leaderships. However, task-oriented organizational culture positively and significantly influenced both forms of leadership. Third, the ethics of leaders has influenced both leadership styles positively and significantly. Fourth, regarding consequences, transformational leadership strengthens financial performances, whereas it weakens relational citizenship behaviors. However, transactional leadership positively influences relational citizenship behavior whilst negatively affecting financial performance.
The 'hands-on' craftsmanship of the 20th century has came and gone. Today, we are dealing with whole new, 'cerebral approach,' to concept and design with this new approach, design and function are very much dependant upon planning, sales, promotion, and the formative technique of the design industry. The innovative process of design constantly change as it reflects the needs and wants of society. It is and industry that constantly change as it reflects the needs and wants of society. It is and industry that constantly remakes and reshapes itself to suit current trend and outlook. The current idea being that consumers are looking for quality over quantity. Due to the 20th centuries dominant philosophy of functionalism, production intended to standardize the individual's purchasing choice. Aesthetic, or philosophic qualities played a second fiddle to the functional bias of a product, With production, Marketing, and research and development are integrated into the management process. This translates as good which include efficiency, quality, durability, and credibility an trademark and style. There is a definite 'post-modernist' movement and style in 21st century. Every possibility is available as the old boundaries of the 20th century are laid aside. There is a new, transformative quality to the current paradigm of design. The old "should" and "should not" of design no longerapplies. The integrated rative of design solves the usual disparity between aesthetic qualities and production. Design and profirability need not be stranger to one another. It can differentiate the image perceived of both enterprises and consumers by making use of integrated goods services. With an integrated system. both producers and designers win. While design gets full access to design in turn. All consumers make decisions based upon the evaluation of quality, service, and image ; even though it may not be a conscious decision to do so. Consumers are fully integrated human beings ; therefore producers who apply the new, integrated paradigmatic approach to concept, design, and production will reap the harvest of making a true relationship with individual buyer.
It seems high time to increase productivity by adopting e-business to overcome challenges posed by both external factors including the appreciation of Korean won, oil hikes and fierce global competition and domestic issues represented by disparities between large corporations and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Seoul metropolitan and local cities, and export and domestic demand all of which weaken future growth engines in the Korean economy. The demands of the globalization era are for innovative changes in businessprocess and industrial structure aiming for creating new values. To this end, e-business is expected to play a core role in the sophistication of the Korean economy through new values and innovation. In order to examine business performance in e-business-adopting industries, this study analyzed the home shopping industry by closely looking into the financial ratios including the ratio of net profit to sales, the ratio of operation income to sales, the ratio of gross cost to sales cost, the ratio of gross cost to selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense, and return of investment (ROI). This study, for best outcome, referred to corporate financial statements as a main resource to calculate financial ratios by utilizing Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART) of the Financial Supervisory Service, one of the Korea's financial supervisory authorities. First of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of net profit to sales is as following. CJ Home Shopping has registered a remarkable increase in its ratio of net profit rate to sales since 2002 while its competitors find it hard to catch up with CJ's stunning performances. This is partly due to the efficient management compared to CJ's value of capital. Such significance, if the current trend continues, will make the front-runner assume the largest market share. On the other hand, GS Home Shopping, despite its best organized system and largest value of capital among others, lacks efficiency in management. Second of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of operation income to sales is as following. Both CJ Home Shopping and GS Home Shopping have, until 2004, recorded similar growth trend. However, while CJ Home Shopping's operating income continued to increase in 2005, GS Home Shopping observed its operating income declining which resulted in the increasing income gap with CJ Home Shopping. While CJ Home Shopping with the largest market share in home shopping industryis engaged in aggressive marketing, GS Home Shopping due to its stability-driven management strategies falls behind CJ again in the ratio of operation income to sales in spite of its favorable management environment including its large capital. Companies in the Group B were established in the same year of 2001. NS Home Shopping was the first in the Group B to shift its loss to profit. Woori Home Shopping has continued to post operating loss for three consecutive years and finally was sold to Lotte Group in 2007, but since then, has registered a continuing increase in net income on sales. Third of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of gross cost to sales cost is as following. Since home shopping falls into sales business, its cost of sales is much lower than that of other types of business such as manufacturing industry. Since 2002 in gross costs including cost of sales, SG&A expense, and non-operating expense, cost of sales turned out to have remarkably decreased. Group B has also posted a notable decline in the same sector since 2002. Fourth of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of gross cost to SG&A expense is as following. Due to its unique characteristics, the home shopping industry usually posts ahigh ratio of SG&A expense. However, more than 80% of SG&A expense means the result of lax management and at the same time, a sharp lower net income on sales than other industries. Last but not least, the result of the trend analysis on ROI is as following. As for CJ Home Shopping, the curve of ROI looks similar to that of its investment on fixed assets. As it turned out, the company's ratio of fixed assets to operating income skyrocketed in 2004 and 2005. As far as GS Home Shopping is concerned, its fixed assets are not as much as that of CJ Home Shopping. Consequently, competition in the home shopping industry, at the moment, is among CJ, GS, Hyundai, NS and Woori Home Shoppings, and all of them need to more thoroughly manage their costs. In order for the late-comers of Group B and other home shopping companies to advance further, the current lax management should be reformed particularly on their SG&A expense sector. Provided that the total sales volume in the Internet shopping sector is projected to grow over 20 trillion won by the year 2010, it is concluded that all the participants in the home shopping industry should put strategies on efficient management on costs and expenses as their top priority rather than increase revenues, if they hope to grow even further after 2007.