• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.133-141
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• 2016

Although construction of any new nuclear power projects had not been launched since mid-1970s until recently in the USA, many new nuclear power plants have been constructed in many countries with the support of their governments mainly as part of their national energy security and electric source diversification policies. For many reasons, the nuclear power industry seemed to reclaim their renaissance from the beginning of this century and the investment in the nuclear power projects draw positive concern from the private financial sector. But the global financial crisis in 2008 and subsequent economic slow-down together with tighter bank credit regulations caused commercial banks, the main source of financing, to lose appetite for investing in new nuclear power projects. But the nuclear power economics shows that the nuclear power is viable in terms of the environmental benefit and long-term average cost compared to other power generation sources. Also doubt about nuclear power safety was much mitigated due to technology development and reinforced safety-related tests and monitoring. Therefore, the prospect for nuclear power market expansion remains positive although there are comparatively big differences among different scenarios. After Korea Electric Power Corp. won the UAE nuclear power project in December of 2009, the competition in nuclear power markets is undergoing huge changes. Competitors backed by the support of their own governments are now entering the market with many aggressive and innovative financing packages to win bids of new nuclear power projects. This report analyzed the nuclear power market prospects, competitive edges of nuclear power, risk management measures, and financing challenges and recommends alternative solutions to promote competitive edges in winning bids of new nuclear power projects.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.427-435
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• 2017

Korea's overseas construction awards reached US $750 bn for more than 50 years since it first entered the market in 1966. In particular, the company won US $540 bn over 10 years from 2007, achieving 72% of the total contracts. However, in recent two years, awarded amounts have decreased by 40% each year. The most significant decline is due to the impact of international oil prices, which have plummeted since end of 2014, as oil-producing nations, which are Korea's major target countries, are struggling to cancel or postpone infrastructure orders. In order to lessen the impact of raw material price fluctuations, the recent trend is that even countries with relatively loose government financing conditions are rapidly changing their ordering methods to investment development forms such as PPP. The Korean government and companies have been already preparing for this for several years, but they are still not doing so well. The main reason is the lack of understanding about the investment development type project, especially financing methods and the aggravated fear of exposing it to various risks due to the characteristics of the development project, which takes a long time to collect the investment. In this paper, I propose a more systematic solution to financial process and risk management, which is recognized as a obstructive factor for Korean companies, in line with the recent government-led establishment of overseas infrastructure development support organizations. I would like to serve as a investment guide.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.9-21
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to identify the current situation and actual condition of the video security industry, The research method was based on interviews with twelve specialists, and examined the market trends, the problems of the video security industry, the improvement plan and the government promotion strategy. The problem with the domestic video security industry is that there are the decline in overseas exports and the slowdown in exports to China, insufficient measures to overcome certification barriers due to the strengthening of national certification system, domestic demand growth slowed, expansion of domestic market share of Chinese products, lack of high-tech development of domestic products, lack of expertise in technology development and operation and inadequate legislation for revitalizing the video security industry. The improvement plan is as follows. Need to implement export expansion support policy, need to build tailored response system for each country, need improvement of security related demand creation system, take measures such as domestic industrial protection policy, certification barriers and tariff barriers, induce future core technology to create high added value. The government also needs to actively support human resources development, and induce stabilization of relevant laws and institutions. This study will contribute to the development of related industries by suggesting the development direction of the video security industry.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-17
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• 2015

Due to the constant expansion of overseas public IT market, exportation market mainly based on e-government is expanding and platform needs to be introduced urgently to systematically support it. Thus, this study was carried on to draw evaluation items and weighted value of tools to support decision-making out of services of public IT platform. In this study, the tools supporting decision-making were defined as concept that draws exportation customers by wholly considering 2 aspects of enterprise capabilities and national environment. To develop tools supporting decision-making, the items to evaluate the aspect of enterprise capabilities and national environment were drawn through study on literature and open question and evaluation items were eliminated and AHP analysis was done through question given to experts. As a result, the significance was found in the order of Export Competitive Advantage > Export Marketing Strategy > Export Human Resources > Export-Related Organizational Resources > Export-Related Organizational Capabilities in the aspect of enterprise capabilities. The significance of evaluation was found in the order of Service Market Efficiency > Technical innovation and Maturity > Institutions > Market Efficiency > Macroeconomic Environment > Infrastructure in the aspect of national environment.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.183-193
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• 2020

This study attempts to interpret the causes of offshoring and reshoring, find out facilitating factors and the areas where these happen mainly. In viewpoint of self-organization phenomena, the theory of prospect, quantitative analysis is performed by utilizing actual data of American Reshoring Association. This study shows that offshoring to the U.S. is positively correlated with market power in the U.S. and innovation of investment countries, while reshoring to U.S. is positively correlated with market power in the U.S. not with technology innovation. The reshoring of U.S. companies is influencing offshoring to U.S, emerging countries such as Asia tends to focus offshoring in short catch up cycle area like IT. This study is expected to contribute to investment support policy and decision for optimal production site. Further study will complete the economic benefit assessment model by reinforcing the impact factors of reshoring and offshoring.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.181-199
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine whether or not the volatility of the 1997~1998 Asian crisis still affects the monthly stock returns of Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and China from 1980 to 2018. This study investigated whether the volatility has already fallen to pre-crisis levels. To illustrate the possible structural changes in the unconditioned variance due to the Asian financial crisis, we use the MRS-GARCH model, which is a regime switching model. The main results of this study were as follows: First, the stock return of each country was weak in the high volatility regime except Japan resulted by the Asian financial crisis from 1997 to 1998 until March 2018, and the Asian stock market has not yet calmed down except for the global financial crisis period of 2007 and 2008. Second, the conditional volatility has been significantly and persistently decreased and eliminated after the Asian financial crisis. Thus, we could be judged that the Asian stock market was not fully recovered(stable) due to the Asian crisis including the capital liberalization high inflation, worsening current account deficit, overseas low interest rates and expansion of credit growth in 1997 and 1998, but the Asian stock market was largely settled down, except for the 2007 and 2008 in Global financial crises. Considering the similarity between the Asian stock markets and the similar correlation of the regime switching, it may be worthwhile to analyze the MRS-GARCH model.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.169-188
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• 2013

Established in 2006 as the forward integration effort by Taesung Industry, the major cosmetic packaging company, TONYMOLY has phenomenally grown to one of the major cosmetic brand companies in the submarket called, 'one brand-shop' of cosmetic market since 2008, after overcoming the crisis of 'going out of business' in a couple of early years. Within a relatively short period of time, TONYMOLY's performances have dramatically improved in terms of metrics such as growth in sales revenue, the number of stores, the average sales per store, transaction value per customer, the number of monthly transactions, the number of membership-based customers, and overseas sales. In this case study, we have examined TONYMOLY's recent marketing activities which may explain the plausible reasons behind the substantial growth of a small but smart cosmetic company. Above all, the first key success factor of TONYMOLY would be found in its adherence to the clear philosophy of the customer value proposition and/or the differentiated position of TONYMOLY as a brand of providing value. Second, this brand concept of value was first penetrated and welcomed among the foothold customer target group of mid and late teens with appropriate products, while the target groups were later expanded into the age group of twenties along with expansion of relevant products. Third, its differentiation efforts have been concrete and meaningful by utilizing unique ingredients in its product development and marketing efforts, unique fun packaging, and continuously introducing new hit-selling products as well as managing steady-selling products. Fourth, TONYMOLY has been smart enough to use its limited marketing money efficiently and effectively in its marketing communication activities. Viral marketing, PPL, and concentrated media planning and execution turned out to produce effective and efficient market-based performances such as awareness, word-of-mouth, and sales. Lastly, the marketing leadership of CEO and top management, emphasizing communications and interactions, was confirmed in the relationship quality with and trust level of its franchisees and internal employees. These key success factors may explain the recent phenomenal market performances of TONYMOLY. Despite recent successes, the major issues are presented for TONYMOLY to consider for maintaining its sustainable advantages and growth. The first issue concerns TONYMOLY's choice of growth philosophy between product/brand-centric marketing and customer-centric marketing. The second challenging issue relates to how TONYMOLY can cope with 'growing pains' plausibly accompanied with the rapid growth.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.129-154
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• 2006

Last year, over 800 Australian live cattle were imported, underwent quarantine procedure for one month in the port of Incheon and Busan and distributed to general farm house holds in Gyeongju city, Gyeongbuk province, and Gimhae city, Namhae county, Gyeongnam province. But Hanwoo association took violent actions to prevent from entering the country for fear that the imported live cattle would destroy the 'Hanwoo industry', and in turn leads to the collapse of the industry. In Australia, national animal protection body 'Animals Australia' investigated the level of cruelty involved in this trade and made a report 'The death file'. Australia governments drive to expand Its market for 'live animal exports' and it has resulted in a corresponding increase In casualties associated with the long-haul overseas trade in live livestock animals over the past years. After the stress of transportation, all the surviving cattle and sheep face death on foreign soil, many into countries which have no animal welfare laws or, at best, inadequate laws. They will usually be killed without pre-stunning and often even without adequate restraint facilities. The result is inherent and persistent suffering. West Australian(WA) Police acting on behalf of the West Australian Government and the Office of the WA State Solicitor have laid animal cruelty charges against a leading WA live export company for breaching the WA Animal Welfare Act. With the aim of eventually substituting it for the live sheep trade, the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare (SCCAW) recommended that the Federal Government 'promote and encourage the expansion of the refrigerated sheep meat trade to the Middle East and other countries'. Animal welfare standards have been improved time after time, there is another incident, another public outcry, another inquiry and more assurances.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.9
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• pp.159-165
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• 2018

In this research, the researcher is seeking how to develop growing O2O food delivery platform service. The food delivery platform is newly creating the profit system which wasn't exist before by adding up IT and new technologies, and young generations who are used to mobile environment have became main consumers. For the methodology of research, internal and external delivery platform cases research is used to suggest the development idea. Food delivery platform market is showing an active development like business expansion by M&A of IT, distribution, manufacturing, circulation and it still has to attract the constant use of consumer through zero commission, discount events. Further research is required for various delivery platform channel and consumer's value of overall experience, above hereafter food delivery platform based on this research.