• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Purpose - The objective of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationships among Advertising Cost (AD), Newly Registered Users(NRU), and Buying Users(BU) of Social Network Game(SNG). SNG is getting pervasive mainly due to the rapid growth of mobile game and Social Network Service(SNS). It would be helpful for marketing researchers interested in SNG and related practitioners to understand the changes in AD, NRU, and BU with time as well as the effects on one another in mutual and dynamic way. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - Necessary data were collected from Social Network Game(SNG) company. AD, NRU, and BU are endogenous variables, but new event such as launching (event) and holidays(holiday) are exogenous dummy variables. Vector Auto regression (VAR) model is generally used to examine and capture the dynamic relationships among endogenous variables. VAR model can easily capture dynamic and endogenous relationships among time-series variables. Vector Auto regression with Exogenous variables(VARX) is a model in which exogenous variables are added to VAR. To investigate this study, VARX is applied. Result - By estimating the VARX model, the author finds that the past periods' NRU affect negatively and significantly the present AD, and past periods' BU have a positive and significant impact on the increase of AD. In addition, the author shows that the past periods' AD and BU have a positive and significant effect on the increase of NRU, and the past periods' AD affect positively and significantly BU. While the impact of AD on NRU happens after 3 or 4 days (carryover effect), that of AD on BU comes about within just 1 or 2 days (immediate effect). The effect of BU on NRU can be considered as word of mouth (WOM effect). Therefore, SNG companies can obtain not only the growth of revenue but also the increase of NRU by increasing BU. Through those results, the author can also find that there are significant interactions between endogenous variables. Conclusion - This study intends to investigate endogenous and dynamic relationships between AD, NRU, and BU. They also give managerial implications to practitioners for SNS and SNG firms. Through this study, it is found that there exist significant interactions and dynamic relationships between those three endogenous variables. The results of this study can have meaningful implications for practitioners and researchers of SNG. This research is unique in that it deals with "actual" field data and intend to find "actual" relationships among variables unlike other related existing studies which intend to investigate psychological factors affecting the intention of game usage and the intention of purchasing game items. This study is also meaningful by showing that the increase of BU can be a good strategy for "killing birds with one stone" (i.e., revenue growth and NRU increase). Although there are some limitations related with future research topics, this research contributes to the current research on SNG marketing in the above mentioned ways.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2015

Purpose - The ICT market in the EU is lagging behind that of the US; however, algorithm and software development within the EU have grown steadily, and they involve focusing on the creative cultural convergence conceptualized as part of Horizon 2020 and connecting neighboring markets in the EE and the Mediterranean region. It is essential to study the requirements to market the EU's creative ICT development in emerging industrial countries after examining its applicability in these countries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study deals with data pertaining to the EU's creative industry and competitive edge. The global cultural expansion of the EU facilitates a new concept involving not only low-cost IT products to enhance local cultural artifacts through R&D and the construction of efficient infrastructure services, but also information exchange with a realistic commercialization of the technology that can be applied for creative cultural localization. In the European industry, research on algorithms has been applied for the benefit of consumers. We investigated how the process is conducted in the EU. Results - Europe needs to adjust its economic structure to the local culture as part of IT distribution convergence. The convergence has been converted into a production algorithm with IT in the form of low-cost production. This is because there is an attempt to improve the quality of transport infrastructure, workforce availability, and the distribution of the distance to the local industries and consumers, using IT algorithms. Integrated into the manufacturing industry, based on the ICT infrastructure and solutions, smart localized regional clusters are formed with the help of grafting. Europe has own strategy to increase the number of hub-and-spoke cities. Europe is now becoming integrated, with an EPC system for regional cooperation rather than national competition in ICT technology. Europe has also been recognized in this study as changing the step-by-step paradigm for global competitiveness through new creative culture industries. Conclusions - As a result, there are several ways of converging with others through EU R&D intensity; therefore, the EU can be seen as successfully increasing marginal value, which is useful in developing a special industrial cluster or local cultural cities that create converged development by connecting people and objects with IT. In fact, when compared to the US, Europe has a strong culture and the car industries have a tendency to overshadow the IT industries with integration of services in IT distribution. Considering the rapid environmental changes, the convergence of IT services is likely to take place in Europe, similar to the pharmaceutical industry and the automotive industry. This requires a focus on human resources and automated systems management. The trend is to move away from low-wage industries, switched to key personnel centers of the local university-industry. EU emphasizes the creation of IT market demand in Europe involving local cultural convergence for marketing as the second step to strengthen the economic hub-and-spoke areas.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.17-29
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• 2014

Purpose - The use of corporate social activities to implement the concept of corporate social responsibility enhances brand equity and attitude, and strengthens economic competitiveness. In areas such as mobile communications, companies take the responsibility of protecting customers and enhance the quality of the mobile communication service, helping to make an effort to obey the regulations of the public trade order and fair trade agreement, enabling a healthy society through communication with elderly living alone or youths without parents, and enhancing marketing strategies. Research design, data, and methodology - To test the hypothesis, a survey was conducted. The surveyed population includes people who use the big three mobile communication services. The survey was conducted from October 4th to October 14th, 2013. A total of 500 survey questionnaires were circulated and 483 were collected; out of these, 32 were excluded due to missing or incomprehensible information. The data was analyzed with SPSS 18.0 via frequency analysis, trust analysis, search factor analysis, relationship analysis, confirmation factor analysis using AMOS 18.0, and structural equation model analysis. Results - Research on corporate social responsibility has been frequently conducted recently. Companies are perceived as social constituents satisfying the social desires of people in addition to customer needs. Further, companies are returning profits to society to satisfy community needs, because there is greater emphasis on the social responsibilities of companies. Companies' social responsibilities should include marketing strategies and the identification of customer needs. This study shows that social service activities influence brand value, which influences customer attitudes; therefore, social service activities indirectly influence customer attitudes. In order to increase customers' purchasing intention, it is essential to improve brand image via social services and provide a distinctive quality of service. Conclusions - This research has used the purposive selection method in the empirical analysis to identify the effect of social services on brand value and customer attitude. Therefore, this study revealed that businesses, whose ultimate objective is to improve customers' purchasing intention, should promote their brand equity through corporate social responsibility activities and offer a distinct service quality. Limitations in the progress of research were found and future indications to overcome these limitations are suggested as follows. First, survey responders had a limited understanding of social responsibilities; therefore, this concept needs to be explained to people first. Second, the research was done on people who live in Daejeon; thus, it is not representative of the entire country. The research has to be repeated with people in other cities. Third, there is a limitation in the study because the purposive selection method was used on Daejeon customers. In the future, a more precise selection of the population is needed. Fourth, Daejeon has unique geographical and size characteristics. Thus, customers in Seoul and other areas may display different characteristics and research on them may reveal different findings. Therefore, again, this study has to be repeated in other areas.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.49-58
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• 2019

Purpose - As the growth potential of the cultural contents industry steadily grows, the cinemas industry is growing fast especially due to popularity and commerciality. The recent in the cinemas industry is evolving on multiplex cinemas that combine cultural facilities such as theaters, restaurants, and shopping centers. Due to the rapid growth of multiplex cinemas, many researchers have studied the characteristics of visiting customers in Korea. Among them, selection attribute of multiplex cinemas, including the service quality and physical environment, is important because it may examines the cause of customer 's behavior. Thus, this research focuses on the effects of the selection attributes of the multiplex cinemas on customer satisfaction and their loyalty. This research suggests the guidelines for how cinemas should manage their customers and build their customers satisfaction and loyalty that improve business performance. Research design, data, and methodology - This study tests the structural relationship between selection attributes of multiplex cinemas, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. selection attributes of multiplex cinemas divide into five sub-dimensions such as movies facility quality, services, cleanliness, accessibility, and snack bars quality. In order to examine the purposes of this research, research model and hypotheses were developed. All constructs were measured with multiple items developed and tested in the previous studies. The data were collected from 100 students in their 10-20s and were analyzed using SPSS 22.0, SmartPLS 3.0 and fsQCA program. Result - The findings of this research are as follows. First, all selection attributes except cleanliness have significant positive impacts on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Second, customer satisfaction has significant positive impact on loyalty. Third, as a result of fsQCA, high satisfaction and high accessibility were the necessary conditions on loyalty. Fourth, the necessary conditions for male and female groups were different. Conclusions - The implications of this study are as follows. Overall, multiplex cinemas should manage selection attributes basically regardless of the type of theater. Especially, cleanliness was not significant, but the customer probably consider it an essential and basic factors. Also, they are able to manage the selection attributes differently depending on the type of gender. For the male customers, it is effective that centralized strategy and for female customers, it is effective that emphasized the multiplex cinemas image.

• (The)Korea Educational Review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.183-204
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• 2017

Since the development of Smart technology and the advent of various Smart media, a learning environment for individual learners and the school has been changing. In the stream of changing learning environments, in 2011, the government announced SMART education strategies, introducing the term officially, "SMART education." With the governments' efforts to develop and implement SMART education in school, many policies has been enacted and many research has been conducted and increased gradually. However, as policies of SMART education have initiated in situation where there is no clear understanding in regard of SMART education, many researchers and teachers confused of SMART education and its identity and attributes, even though it has been 6 years since the concept was introduced. Unfortunately, SMART education has been implemented as one type of instructional methodology as utilizing Smart technology. Thus, in this research, we tried to build theoretical foundation of SMART education through analyzing former research on SMART education to define the attributes of SMART education. To examine how SMART education has been implemented in terms of its attributes, also, we analyzed research that conducted instructional design and implementation on SMART education in actual learning environments. As the results of former research analysis, the attributes of SMART education include Information and Communication Technology, open learning environment, self-directed learning, customized learning, and social learning. In majority of research, SMART education focused on utilizing Smart technology and media in teaching and learning environments but self-directed, and customized learning were less adapted in SMART learning environments. In the following research, how to improve educational benefits of SMART education through adapting original attributes of SMART education need to be examined.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.21-42
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• 2023

Purpose - This paper investigates the trade effect of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (KCFTA) which coincides with political conflicts between the two countries due to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in Korea. The two events occurred in the same year and both are likely to affect trade between two countries but in opposite directions. Therefore, it is crucial to distinguish between the trade effects from the KCFTA event and those from the THAAD event to evaluate the true FTA effects. However, this would be difficult when using only annual data. Accordingly, ex post studies to examine the trade effects of KCFTA are lacking in trustworthiness while many ex ante studies that conjecture the positive trade effects neglect the THAAD deployment impact. This paper aims to fill that gap. Design/methodology - Given that the KCFTA and THAAD events occurred in the same year but in different months, we use the monthly data from 2000 to 2019 of Korea's exports to bracket this period. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) method within a gravity equation specification that uses hi-dimensional fixed effects to address various endogeneity issues and seasonal effects. We identify the net impact of KCFTA ratification from these two near-simultaneous events to quantify the effects of trade liberalization between these two countries. Findings - After isolating the THAAD effects on trade, the analysis creates a positive and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. In contrast, failing to isolate the THAAD effect produced a negative and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. Our results indicate that KCFTA independently increased Korea's exports to China by 10.2%, but that this increase was fully mitigated by the THAAD event. Further, our results verify that unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance are technically difficult to account for in those estimations as that rely solely upon annual data, as this type of data are inadequate to control for the potential for endogeneity. Originality/value - This paper is one of the first studies to carefully evaluate the net trade effects of the KCFTA on Korea's largest trading partner while isolating the impact of simultaneously occurred political events that may influence trade in opposing directions. Our findings indicate that the lack of prior evidence of positive trade effects of the KCFTA when using annual data may be attributed to a failure to identify the impact of each event separately. This analysis supports using the correct modeling specification to avoid misleading conclusions when evaluating any important international trade policy.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.45-55
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• 2018

Purpose - Non-verbal Communication with customers in restaurant business can play an important role because it affects customer behavior and attitudes as a means to develop and maintain long-term relationships with customers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of non-verbal communication with customers and the effect of the influence on customer satisfaction, trust, and revisit intention. Research design, data, methodology - In order to verify the research models and hypotheses of this study, questions were prepared for each variable and data were collected through questionnaires. The questionnaire survey was conducted from March 27, 2018 to April 17, 2018, for those who agreed with the citizens of the Jeju area who visited the restaurant recently. 50 out of 100 were conducted by internet survey and 50 were surveyed. Thus, a total of 100 responses were used using structural equation modeling with Smartpls 3.0. Results - The results of the study are as follows. First, non-verbal communication has a significant impact on customer emotion. Second customer emotion have a significant impact on customer trust and satisfaction. Third, Customer satisfaction had positive a significant effect on revisit intention. Fourth, Customer trust had positive a significant effect on revisit intention. Conclusions - The implications of this study are following as: The food service company should continuously provide non-verbal communication training to employees so that they can respond to customers with the right attitude and bright smile. In particular, in the case of restaurant franchises, customer response manuals should be created and distributed to the franchisees, and a regular training program for the franchisees should be implemented to provide the same service to the customer. Second, CEOs should have to worry about what kind of experience he or she has left since leaving the store. It is also necessary to constantly look at what customers experience in their stores or in their brands, and what emotions they form through their experiences. Third, the more satisfied or trusted customers are formed through the service of the employee, the more loyal the restaurant business will be, and the more likely it is to make continuous revisit and positive word-of-mouth activities..

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.97-113
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• 2023

Objectives This study examined the trends in domestic and international research on the treatment of sarcopenia and analyzed the effectiveness of the treatment. Based on the results, we suggest directions for future Korean medicine research on sarcopenia. Methods The study was conducted using Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology. It included three international databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library) and five domestic databases (Korean studies Information Service System, Korean Medical database, Oriental Medicine Advanced Search Integrated System, Research Information Sharing Service, ScienceON) were used. Literatures published until April 30, 2023, including the contents of 'sarcopenia' and Korean Medicine treatment', were searched. Results A total of 45 studies were included in the analysis. The number of studies on Korean medicine treatments for sarcopenia is steadily increasing, with the majority of studies coming from Asian countries. Of the 45 studies, 30 were conducted in the field of medicine, and the study design was analyzed into 10 clinical studies and 35 non-clinical studies. Among the 10 clinical studies, the most common treatment interventions were herbs (n=4), followed by Daoist exercises (n=3). The most common diagnostic criteria used in clinical studies were those published by the Asian working group for sarcopenia, and various physical examinations and laboratory tests were used as outcome measures. Conclusions The future direction of Korean medicine research on sarcopenia should be to expand the number of clinical studies applying Korean medicine treatment interventions.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.4
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• pp.544-553
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to reveal the thermal comfort and physiological and psychological effects of spending time in broad-leaved forests in suumer. Thirty-one university students (with an average age of 21.4 ± 2.1 years) participated in the study, and a within-subjects experimental design methodology was used. The participants moved to an experimental site (with a crown closure of 76.6%) or a control site (25.9%), sat on a chair to eliminate the impact of movement, and rested for 5 minutes with closed eyes. At this time, thermal comfort, heart rate variability, heart rate, and forehead temperature were continuously measured. After that, blood pressure and pulse rate were measured, and a subjective evaluation was conducted. As a result, spending time at an experimental site showed a statistically significant decrease in the predicted mean vote and the percentage of dissatisfied values, enhancement of parasympathetic nerve activity, decrease of forehead temperature, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, pulse rate, and improvement of personal thermal sensation (thermal sensation vote and comfort sensation vote). In conclusion, it was found that a forest with high crown closure reduces thermal stress and induces physiological and psychological relaxation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.11-22
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• 2014

Purpose - The domestic franchise industry has made significant contributions to industry such as investment, employment, and community economy development, facilitating growth potential. The franchise industry provides management knowhow transfer between parent companies and franchisees as per contracts addressing use of business signs, franchisees' independent position, franchisor support, and royalties to be paid to the franchisors. However, many franchisors lack management knowhow and provide insufficient support because of poor control of franchisees and not having a systematic approach to support. This results in dissatisfied franchisees and failure to establish long-term relationships. Few studies have examined relational commitment and/or re-contract intention by support resources between franchisors and franchisees, despite a considerable output of theories and studies of the growth of the franchise industry. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the effects of the ability to provide resources on relational commitments and re-contract intention, and to suggest causal relationships and implications. Research design, data, and methodology - The subject was domestic franchisors registered with the Association of Franchise with more than 50 franchisees. Franchisees under contract for 2 years and considering re-contract of their franchise 2 years later were used. The subjects totaled 300 franchisees in Seoul. A questionnaire survey was used to investigate the subject of franchisees' concessions during the 10 days from November 21, 2013 to November 30, 2013. After excluding 16 surveys with poor answers, 284 responses were finally used. Four areas and 44 questions were used. A nominal scale was used for four common characteristics questions including gender, ages, educational background, and franchise managing time. Questions regarding ability, relational commitment, and re-contract intention made use of a Likert 5-point scale. Data coding and data cleaning were used. SPSS 18.0 was used as follows. First, frequency analysis was done to investigate demographic characteristics. Second, exploratory factor analysis was done to verify validity of testing tools, and Cronbach's α coefficient was used to verify reliability. Third, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were done. An exploratory factor analysis was done to verify validity of concepts. A correlation analysis was done to test relationships between the variables, and multiple regression analysis was done to verify franchisor's ability, franchisees' relational commitment, and re-contract intention. Results - The following were the outcomes. First, store operation management, finance operation management, and human resource management affected the calculated bond. Second, store operation management and finance operation management affected the emotional bond. Third, store operation management, finance operation management, human resource management, and marketing management affected the prescriptive bond. Fourth, calculated bond and prescriptive bond had an effect on re-contract intention. Conclusions - As stated above, in franchise management, parent companies' offer and instruction of core competence to their franchisees as an information resource could improve the relational bond by helping them grow together through the resource sharing. Consequently, core competence factors were promoting factors that could improve franchisees' re-contract intention for a long time.