• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2017

Profitability of farmers has decreased mainly owing to low price while the gross amount of mushroom production has increased continuously in South Korea. In this regard, analyzing patterns of mushroom consumption is believed to be meaningful. We used a panel data set consisting of 667 families, from 2010 to 2015. Based on the panel data, mushroom consumption patterns of people living in city areas were examined. Multiple descriptive analysis methods and frequency analysis approaches were adopted in this study in terms of time and space dimensions, demographic properties, and purchase behaviors. The findings of this studyshow that mushroom purchase is highly dependent on seasonal events, which implies that the product consumption timing is predictable. In addition, yearly purchase amount patterns reflect that superstores have become the major mushroomtrading venues. This directly supports the need to establish supply chain capabilities for mushroom farmers so that they gain more bargaining power against enterprise-type groceries. Finally, functional features of mushroom can be linked with marketing promotion because purchase patterns demonstrate potential needs for healthcare food in mushroom categories. Based on the analyzed patterns, this paper provides insightful implications for policy makers who want to promote mushroom consumption.

• Strategy21
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• s.33
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• pp.65-112
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• 2014

Recent trends show that the PRC has stepped aside its "army-centered approach" and placed greater emphasis on its Navy and Air Force for a wider range of operations, thereby reducing its ground force and harnessing its economic power and military technology into naval development. A quantitative growth of the PLA Navy itself is no surprise as this is not a recent phenomenon. Now is the time to pay closer attention to the level of PRC naval force's performance and the extent of its warfighting capacity in the maritime domain. It is also worth asking what China can do with its widening naval power foundation. In short, it is time to delve into several possible scenarios I which the PRC poses a real threat. With this in mind, in Section Two the paper seeks to observe the construction progress of PRC's naval power and its future prospects up to the year 2020, and categorize time frame according to its major force improvement trends. By analyzing qualitative improvements made over time, such as the scale of investment and the number of ships compared to increase in displacement (tonnage), this paper attempts to identify salient features in the construction of naval power. Chapter Three sets out performance evaluation on each type of PRC naval ships as well as capabilities of the Navy, Air Force, the Second Artillery (i.e., strategic missile forces) and satellites that could support maritime warfare. Finall, the concluding chapter estimates the PRC's maritime warfighting capability as anticipated in respective conflict scenarios, and considers its impact on the Korean Peninsula and proposes the directions ROK should steer in response. First of all, since the 1980s the PRC navy has undergone transitions as the focus of its military strategic outlook shifted from ground warfare to maritime warfare, and within 30 years of its effort to construct naval power while greatly reducing the size of its ground forces, the PRC has succeeded in building its naval power next to the U.S.'s in the world in terms of number, with acquisition of an aircraft carrier, Chinese-version of the Aegis, submarines and so on. The PRC also enjoys great potentials to qualitatively develop its forces such as indigenous aircraft carriers, next-generation strategic submarines, next-generation destroyers and so forth, which is possible because the PRC has accumulated its independent production capabilities in the process of its 30-year-long efforts. Secondly, one could argue that ROK still has its chances of coping with the PRC in naval power since, despite its continuous efforts, many estimate that the PRC naval force is roughly ten or more years behind that of superpowers such as the U.S., on areas including radar detection capability, EW capability, C4I and data-link systems, doctrines on force employment as well as tactics, and such gap cannot be easily overcome. The most probable scenarios involving the PRC in sea areas surrounding the Korean Peninsula are: first, upon the outbreak of war in the peninsula, the PRC may pursue military intervention through sea, thereby undermining efforts of the ROK-U.S. combined operations; second, ROK-PRC or PRC-Japan conflicts over maritime jurisdiction or ownership over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands could inflict damage to ROK territorial sovereignty or economic gains. The PRC would likely attempt to resolve the conflict employing blitzkrieg tactics before U.S. forces arrive on the scene, while at the same time delaying and denying access of the incoming U.S. forces. If this proves unattainable, the PRC could take a course of action adopting "long-term attrition warfare," thus weakening its enemy's sustainability. All in all, thiss paper makes three proposals on how the ROK should respond. First, modern warfare as well as the emergent future warfare demonstrates that the center stage of battle is no longer the domestic territory, but rather further away into the sea and space. In this respect, the ROKN should take advantage of the distinct feature of battle space on the peninsula, which is surrounded by the seas, and obtain capabilities to intercept more than 50 percent of the enemy's ballistic missiles, including those of North Korea. In tandem with this capacity, employment of a large scale of UAV/F Carrier for Kill Chain operations should enhance effectiveness. This is because conditions are more favorable to defend from sea, on matters concerning accuracy rates against enemy targets, minimized threat of friendly damage, and cost effectiveness. Second, to maintain readiness for a North Korean crisis where timely deployment of US forces is not possible, the ROKN ought to obtain capabilities to hold the enemy attack at bay while deterring PRC naval intervention. It is also argued that ROKN should strengthen its power so as to protect national interests in the seas surrounding the peninsula without support from the USN, should ROK-PRC or ROK-Japan conflict arise concerning maritime jurisprudence. Third, the ROK should fortify infrastructures for independent construction of naval power and expand its R&D efforts, and for this purpose, the ROK should make the most of the advantages stemming from the ROK-U.S. alliance inducing active support from the United States. The rationale behind this argument is that while it is strategically effective to rely on alliance or jump on the bandwagon, the ultimate goal is always to acquire an independent response capability as much as possible.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.1323-1329
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• 2020

To characterize the molecular structure of PhE-gal synthesized using Escherichia coli 𝛽-gal, NMR (¹H- and ¹³C-) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry of PhE-gal were conducted. ¹H NMR spectrum of PhE-gal showed multiple peaks corresponding to the galactosyl group, which is an evidence of galactosylation on 2-phenylethanol (PhE). Downfield proton peaks at 𝛿_H 7.30~7.21 ppm showed the presence of aromatic protons of PhE as well as benzyl CH₂ protons at 𝛿_H 2.88 ppm. Up field proton peaks at 𝛿_H 4.31 ppm, 4.07 ppm and multiple peaks from 𝛿_H 3.86~3.38 ppm are indicative of galactocylation on PhE. ¹³C NMR spectrum revealed the presence of 12 carbons suggestive of PhE-gal. Among 12 carbon peaks from PhE-gal, the four peaks at 138.7, 129.0, 128.6 and 126.5 were assigned aromatic carbons in the phenyl ring. Three peaks at 129.0, 128.6 and 126.5 showed high intensities, indicating CH aromatic carbons. ¹³C NMR data of PhE-gal showed 6 monosaccharide peaks from galactose and 2 peaks from aliphatic chain of PhE, indicating that PhE-gal was galactosyl PhE. The mass value (sodium adduct ion of PhE-gal, m/z = 307.1181) from mass spectrometry analysis of PhE-gal, and ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectral data were in good agreement with the expecting structure of PhE-gal. We are expecting that through future study it will eventually be able to develop a new additive with low cytotoxicity.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.123-138
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• 2016

This study investigates intents of acquisitions in information technology industries. Mergers and acquisitions are a strategic decision at corporate-level and have been an important tool for a firm to grow. Plenty of firms in information technology industries have acquired startups to increase production efficiency, expand customer base, or improve quality over the last decades. For example, Google has made about 200 acquisitions since 2001, Cisco has acquired about 210 firms since 1993, Oracle has made about 125 acquisitions since 1994, and Microsoft has acquired about 200 firms since 1987. Although there have been many existing papers that theoretically study intents or motivations of acquisitions, there are limited papers that empirically investigate them mainly because it is challenging to measure and quantify intents of M&As. This study examines the intent of acquisitions by measuring specific intents for M&A transactions. Using our measures of acquisition intents, we compare the intents by four acquisition types: (1) the acquisition where a hardware firm acquires a hardware firm, (2) the acquisition where a hardware firm acquires a software/IT service firm, (3) the acquisition where a software/IT service firm acquires a hardware firm, and (4) the acquisition where a software /IT service firm acquires a software/IT service firm. We presume that there are difference in reasons why a hardware firm acquires another hardware firm, why a hardware firm acquires a software firm, why a software/IT service firm acquires a hardware firm, and why a software/IT service firm acquires another software/IT service firm. Using data of the M&As in US IT industries, we identified major intents of the M&As. The acquisition intents are identified based on the press release of M&A announcements and measured with four categories. First, an acquirer may have intents of cost saving in operations by sharing common resources between the acquirer and the target. The cost saving can accrue from economies of scope and scale. Second, an acquirer may have intents of product enhancement/development. Knowledge and skills transferred from the target may enable the acquirer to enhance the product quality or to expand product lines. Third, an acquirer may have intents of gain additional customer base to expand the market, to penetrate the market, or to enter a foreign market. Fourth, a firm may acquire a target with intents of expanding customer channels. By complementing existing channel to the customer, the firm can increase its revenue. Our results show that acquirers have had intents of cost saving more in acquisitions between hardware companies than in acquisitions between software companies. Hardware firms are more likely to acquire with intents of product enhancement or development than software firms. Overall, the intent of product enhancement/development is the most frequent intent in all of the four acquisition types, and the intent of customer base expansion is the second. We also analyze our data with the classification of production-side intents and customer-side intents, which is based on activities of the value chain of a firm. Intents of cost saving operations and those of product enhancement/development can be viewed as production-side intents and intents of customer base expansion and those of expanding customer channels can be viewed as customer-side intents. Our analysis shows that the ratio between the number of customer-side intents and that of production-side intents is higher in acquisitions where a software firm is an acquirer than in the acquisitions where a hardware firm is an acquirer. This study can contribute to IS literature. First, this study provides insights in understanding M&As in IT industries by answering for question of why an IT firm intends to another IT firm. Second, this study also provides distribution of acquisition intents for acquisition types.

• Proceedings of the Korean DIstribution Association Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.29-51
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• 2005

Brands are important in the consumer market. They are the interface between consumers and the company, consumers may develop loyalty to brands. also, The late development of industrial marketing explains the near absence of research on Brand Equity in business to business. With recent change, industrial companies have shifted from a production focus to a customer focus. industrial brand is fast developing. The basic purpose of this study is to investigate industrial brand trust and loyalty affecting the Result of business relationship between industrial buyers and suppliers. Factors hypothesized to influence trust in a brand include a number of brand characteristics, company characteristics and consumer-brand characteristics. This research presented a comprehensive constructive model consisting of components of industrial brand trust and loyalty, and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of industrial brand loyalty. Data were gathered from respondents who work in industrial buying center. For this study, Data were analyzed by SPSS 10.0 and AMOS 4.0. The results of this research analysis were as fallow. Industrial brand trust and loyalty were positively related with a number of industrial brand characteristics, supplier characteristics and buyer-brand characteristics. relationship commitment. This research newly proposed the concept of 'industrial brand trust and loyalty affecting the Result of business relationship between industrial buyers and suppliers'

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.219-230
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• 2010

Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.287-316
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• 2023

As global energy crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have emerged as social issues, there is a growing demand for companies to move away from profit-centric business models and embrace sustainable management that balances environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. ESG activities of companies vary across industries, and industry-specific weights are applied in ESG evaluations. Therefore, it is important to develop strategic management approaches that reflect the characteristics of each industry and the importance of each ESG factor. Additionally, with the stance of strengthened focus on ESG disclosures, specific guidelines are needed to identify and report on sustainable management activities of domestic companies. To understand corporate sustainability strategies, analyzing ESG reports and news articles by industry can help identify strategic characteristics in specific industries. However, each company has its own unique strategies and report structures, making it difficult to grasp detailed trends or action items. In our study, we analyzed ESG reports (2019-2021) and news articles (2019-2022) of six companies in the 'Finance,' 'Manufacturing,' and 'IT' sectors to examine the sustainability strategies of leading domestic ESG companies. Text mining techniques such as keyword frequency analysis and topic modeling were applied to identify industry-specific, ESG element-specific management strategies and issues. The analysis revealed that in the 'Finance' sector, customer-centric management strategies and efforts to promote an inclusive culture within and outside the company were prominent. Strategies addressing climate change, such as carbon neutrality and expanding green finance, were also emphasized. In the 'Manufacturing' sector, the focus was on creating sustainable communities through occupational health and safety issues, sustainable supply chain management, low-carbon technology development, and eco-friendly investments to achieve carbon neutrality. In the 'IT' sector, there was a tendency to focus on technological innovation and digital responsibility to enhance social value through technology. Furthermore, the key issues identified in the ESG factors were as follows: under the 'Environmental' element, issues such as greenhouse gas and carbon emission management, industry-specific eco-friendly activities, and green partnerships were identified. Under the 'Social' element, key issues included social contribution activities through stakeholder engagement, supporting the growth and coexistence of members and partner companies, and enhancing customer value through stable service provision. Under the 'Governance' element, key issues were identified as strengthening board independence through the appointment of outside directors, risk management and communication for sustainable growth, and establishing transparent governance structures. The exploration of the relationship between ESG disclosures in reports and ESG issues in news articles revealed that the sustainability strategies disclosed in reports were aligned with the issues related to ESG disclosed in news articles. However, there was a tendency to strengthen ESG activities for prevention and improvement after negative media coverage that could have a negative impact on corporate image. Additionally, environmental issues were mentioned more frequently in news articles compared to ESG reports, with environmental-related keywords being emphasized in the 'Finance' sector in the reports. Thus, ESG reports and news articles shared some similarities in content due to the sharing of information sources. However, the impact of media coverage influenced the emphasis on specific sustainability strategies, and the extent of mentioning environmental issues varied across documents. Based on our study, the following contributions were derived. From a practical perspective, companies need to consider their characteristics and establish sustainability strategies that align with their capabilities and situations. From an academic perspective, unlike previous studies on ESG strategies, we present a subdivided methodology through analysis considering the industry-specific characteristics of companies.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.59-92
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• 2012

With accumulated research evidence, there is little doubt that leadership behavior is related to a wide variety of positive individual and organizational outcomes. Indeed, leadership behavior has been empirically linked to increased employee satisfaction, organizational commitment, extra effort, turnover intention, organizational citizenship behavior, and overall employee performance. Although leadership behavior has been linked to a number of positive organizational outcomes, research regarding the antecedents of such behavior is limited. Especially there is little research dealing with the antecedents of inter-organizational leadership behavior. This study interests in inter-organizational ethical leadership among marketing channel members. In both the mass media and the academic association, there has been a surge in interest in the ethical and unethical behavior of leaders. Although the corporate scandals in recent years may explain much of the mass media and popular focus, academics' interest has been limited by evidence that ethical leadership behavior is associated with both positive and negative inter-organizational processes and performances. This study tried to contribute to this body of knowledge by examining antecedents of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is defined "the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making." Ethical leaders not only inform individuals of the behefits of ethical behavior and the cost of inappropriate behavior, such leaders also set clear standards and use rewards and fair and balanced punishment to hold followers accountable for their ethical conduct. Despite the assume importance and prominence of ethical leadership among organizations, there are still many questions relating to its antecedents and consequences. One is whether the likelihood of an leading organization being perceived as an ethical leader among other following organizations in marketing channels can be predicted using its characteristics and inter-organizational relationship maintenance skills. Identifying trait and skill antecedents will aid in the development of strategies for selecting and developing ethical leaders and determining the best means to reinforce ethical behaviors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of three categorized variables on ethical leadership of channel leader. To be concrete, this study develops a model of the antecedents of three conceptually distinct forms of channel leader characteristics, such as organizational traits, inter-organizational relationship maintenance strategies, and supplier management strategies, and tests the hypothesized differential effects on ethical leadership of marketing channel leaders. The reason why this study deals with discount store channel is that there is very strong inter-dependence between a discount store and its suppliers. Their strong inter-dependence makes their relationship as the relationship between a leader and suppliers and creates an atmosphere that leadership occur without difficulty. The research model is as follows. For the purpose of empirical testing, 295 respondents of suppliers of discount store channel in Korea were surveyed. The procedures included scale reliability, and discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than .70. This study conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. All items loaded significantly on their respective constructs(with the lowest t-value being 15.2), providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted(AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than .70. The AVE of each construct was greater than .50. This study tested research model using Partial Least Square(PLS). The estimation of the structural equation model revealed an acceptable fit of the model to the data($r^2$=.851). Thus, This study concluded that the model fit was considered acceptable. The results of PLS are as follows. The results indicated that conscientiousness, openness, conflict management, social networks, training, fair reward had positive effects on ethical leadership of channel leaders. On the other hand, emotional insecure had negative effect and agreeableness, assurance, and inter-organizational communication had no significant effect on supply chain leadership.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.693-704
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• 2021

This study empirically verified the effect of strategic orientation on information technology(IT) competency and corporate performance for organizational members engaged in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In the research model proposed in this study, strategic orientation affects corporate performance, and IT competency is used as a mediating variable in this process. For this study, a survey was conducted on organizational members working in small and medium-sized manufacturers located in Ulsan Metropolitan City. A total of 320 questionnaires were distributed, and 277 copies were used in this study. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 24.0. The research results are as follows: First, customer orientation, market orientation, and technology orientation of strategic orientation were found to have a positive (+) effect on both information technology knowledge and information technology operation of IT competency. And it was found that both customer orientation and technology orientation of strategic orientation only affects the information technology infrastructure of IT competency. Second, it was found that customer orientation and technology orientation of strategic orientation had a positive (+) effect on corporate performance, but market orientation had no effect on corporate performance. Third, it was found that information technology knowledge, information technology operation, and information technology infrastructure of IT competency had a positive (+) effect on corporate performance. Fourth, as a result of examining the mediating effect of information technology competency between strategic orientation and corporate performance, information technology knowledge, information technology operation, and information technology infrastructure of IT capability were found to have a partial mediating effect between customer orientation and technology orientation of strategic orientation and corporate performance. These research results suggest that in today's fourth industrial revolution era, customer-oriented and technology-oriented management strategies should be established to improve the competitive advantage and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) in the supply chain with large enterprises, and at the same time information technology capabilities such as information technology knowledge, information technology operation, and information technology infrastructure should be strengthened.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.257-267
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• 2017

Background: Heat-processed ginseng, sun ginseng (SG), has been reported to have improved therapeutic properties compared with raw forms, such as increased antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, and antihyperglycemic effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the antiobesity effects of SG through the suppression of cell differentiation and proliferation of mouse 3T3-L1 preadipocyte cells and the lipid accumulation in Caenorhabditis elegans. Methods: To investigate the effect of SG on adipocyte differentiation, levels of stained intracellular lipid droplets were quantified by measuring the oil red O signal in the lipid extracts of cells on differentiation Day 7. To study the effect of SG on fat accumulation in C. elegans, L4 stage worms were cultured on an Escherichia coli OP50 diet supplemented with $10{\mu}g/mL$ of SG, followed by Nile red staining. To determine the effect of SG on gene expression of lipid and glucose metabolism-regulation molecules, messenger RNA (mRNA) levels of genes were analyzed by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis. In addition, the phosphorylation of Akt was examined by Western blotting. Results: SG suppressed the differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells stimulated by a mixture of 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine, dexamethasone, and insulin (MDI), and inhibited the proliferation of adipocytes during differentiation. Treatment of C. elegans with SG showed reductions in lipid accumulation by Nile red staining, thus directly demonstrating an antiobesity effect for SG. Furthermore, SG treatment down-regulated mRNA and protein expression levels of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor subtype ${\gamma}$ ($PPAR{\gamma}$) and CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-alpha ($C/EBP{\alpha}$) and decreased the mRNA level of sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c in MDI-treated adipocytes in a dose-dependent manner. In differentiated 3T3-L1 cells, mRNA expression levels of lipid metabolism-regulating factors, such as amplifying mouse fatty acid-binding protein 2, leptin, lipoprotein lipase, fatty acid transporter protein 1, fatty acid synthase, and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, were increased, whereas that of the lipolytic enzyme carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 was decreased. Our data demonstrate that SG inversely regulated the expression of these genes in differentiated adipocytes. SG induced increases in the mRNA expression of glycolytic enzymes such as glucokinase and pyruvate kinase, and a decrease in the mRNA level of the glycogenic enzyme phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase. In addition, mRNA levels of the glucose transporters GLUT1, GLUT4, and insulin receptor substrate-1 were elevated by MDI stimulation, whereas SG dose-dependently inhibited the expression of these genes in differentiated adipocytes. SG also inhibited the phosphorylation of Akt (Ser473) at an early phase of MDI stimulation. Intracellular nitric oxide (NO) production and endothelial nitric oxide synthase mRNA levels were markedly decreased by MDI stimulation and recovered by SG treatment of adipocytes. Conclusion: Our results suggest that SG effectively inhibits adipocyte proliferation and differentiation through the downregulation of $PPAR{\gamma}$ and $C/EBP{\alpha}$, by suppressing Akt (Ser473) phosphorylation and enhancing NO production. These results provide strong evidence to support the development of SG for antiobesity treatment.