• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.65-93
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• 2011

As relationship between buyer and seller has been brought closer and long-term relationship has been more important in B2B markets, the importance of service and service convenience increases as well as product. In homogeneous markets, where service offerings are similar and therefore not key competitive differentiator, providing greater convenience may enable a competitive advantage. Service convenience, as conceptualized by Berry et al. (2002), is defined as the consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. For this reason, B2B customers are interested in how fast the service is provided and how much save non-monetary cost like time or effort by the service convenience along with service quality. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of service convenience on relationship factors such as relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The purpose of this study is to find out whether service convenience can be a new antecedent of relationship quality and relationship performance. In addition, this study tries to examine how five-dimensional service convenience constructs (decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affect customers' relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The service convenience comprises five fundamental components - decision convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with service purchase or use decisions), access convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with initiating service delivery), transaction convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with finalizing the transaction), benefit convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with experiencing the core benefits of the offering) and post-benefit convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with reestablishing subsequent contact with the firm). Earlier studies of perceived service convenience in the industrial market are none. The conventional studies that have dealt with service convenience have usually been made in the consumer market, or they have dealt with convenience aspects in the service process. This service convenience measure for consumer market can be useful tool to estimate service quality in B2B market. The conceptualization developed by Berry et al. (2002) reflects a multistage, experiential consumption process in which evaluations of convenience vary at each stage. For this reason, the service convenience measure is good for B2B service environment which has complex processes and various types. Especially when categorizing B2B service as sequential stage of service delivery like Kumar and Kumar (2004), the Berry's service convenience measure which reflect sequential flow of service deliveries suitable to establish B2B service convenience. For this study, data were gathered from respondents who often buy business service and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study is 119. Composite reliability values and average variance extracted values were examined for each variable to have reliability. We determine whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity by CFA, and discriminant validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix of the constructs. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the Smart PLS 2.0 and we calculated the PLS path values and followed with a bootstrap re-sampling method to test the hypotheses. Among the five dimensional service convenience constructs, four constructs (decision convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affected customers' positive relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. This result means that service convenience is important cue to improve relationship between buyer and seller. One of the five service convenience dimensions, access convenience, does not affect relationship quality and performance, which implies that the dimension of service convenience is not important factor of cumulative satisfaction. The Cumulative satisfaction can be distinguished from transaction-specific customer satisfaction, which is an immediate post-purchase evaluative judgment or an affective reaction to the most recent transactional experience with the firm. Because access convenience minimizes the physical effort associated with initiating an exchange, the effect on relationship satisfaction similar to cumulative satisfaction may be relatively low in terms of importance than transaction-specific customer satisfaction. Also, B2B firms focus on service quality, price, benefit, follow-up service and so on than convenience of time or place in service because it is relatively difficult to change existing transaction partners in B2B market compared to consumer market. In addition, this study using partial least squares methods reveals that customers' satisfaction and commitment toward relationship has mediating role between the service convenience and relationship performance. The result shows that management and investment to improve service convenience make customers' positive relationship satisfaction, and then the positive relationship satisfaction can enhance the relationship commitment and relationship performance. And to conclude, service convenience management is an important part of successful relationship performance management, and the service convenience is an important antecedent of relationship between buyer and seller such as the relationship commitment and relationship performance. Therefore, it has more important to improve relationship performance that service providers enhance service convenience although competitive service development or service quality improvement is important. Given the pressure to provide increased convenience, it is not surprising that organizations have made significant investments in enhancing the convenience aspect of their product and service offering.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.30-31
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• 2009

Early detection of schedule delay in field construction activities is vital to project management. It provides the opportunity to initiate remedial actions and increases the chance of controlling such overruns or minimizing their impacts. This entails project managers to design, implement, and maintain a systematic approach for progress monitoring to promptly identify, process and communicate discrepancies between actual and as-planned performances as early as possible. Despite importance, systematic implementation of progress monitoring is challenging: (1) Current progress monitoring is time-consuming as it needs extensive as-planned and as-built data collection; (2) The excessive amount of work required to be performed may cause human-errors and reduce the quality of manually collected data and since only an approximate visual inspection is usually performed, makes the collected data subjective; (3) Existing methods of progress monitoring are also non-systematic and may also create a time-lag between the time progress is reported and the time progress is actually accomplished; (4) Progress reports are visually complex, and do not reflect spatial aspects of construction; and (5) Current reporting methods increase the time required to describe and explain progress in coordination meetings and in turn could delay the decision making process. In summary, with current methods, it may be not be easy to understand the progress situation clearly and quickly. To overcome such inefficiencies, this research focuses on exploring application of unsorted daily progress photograph logs - available on any construction site - as well as IFC-based 4D models for progress monitoring. Our approach is based on computing, from the images themselves, the photographer's locations and orientations, along with a sparse 3D geometric representation of the as-built scene using daily progress photographs and superimposition of the reconstructed scene over the as-planned 4D model. Within such an environment, progress photographs are registered in the virtual as-planned environment, allowing a large unstructured collection of daily construction images to be interactively explored. In addition, sparse reconstructed scenes superimposed over 4D models allow site images to be geo-registered with the as-planned components and consequently, a location-based image processing technique to be implemented and progress data to be extracted automatically. The result of progress comparison study between as-planned and as-built performances can subsequently be visualized in the D4AR - 4D Augmented Reality - environment using a traffic light metaphor. In such an environment, project participants would be able to: 1) use the 4D as-planned model as a baseline for progress monitoring, compare it to daily construction photographs and study workspace logistics; 2) interactively and remotely explore registered construction photographs in a 3D environment; 3) analyze registered images and quantify as-built progress; 4) measure discrepancies between as-planned and as-built performances; and 5) visually represent progress discrepancies through superimposition of 4D as-planned models over progress photographs, make control decisions and effectively communicate those with project participants. We present our preliminary results on two ongoing construction projects and discuss implementation, perceived benefits and future potential enhancement of this new technology in construction, in all fronts of automatic data collection, processing and communication.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.29-62
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• 2012

As distribution environment is changing rapidly and competition is more intensive in the channel of distribution, the importance of retailer image and retailer equity is increasing as a different competitive advantages. Also, consumers are not functionally oriented and that their behavior is significantly affected by the symbols such as retailer image which identify retailer in the market place. That is, consumers do not choose products or retailers for their material utilities but consume the symbolic meaning of those products or retailers as expressed in their self images. The concept of self-image congruence has been utilized by marketers and researchers as an aid in better understanding how consumers identify themselves with the brands they buy and the retailer they patronize. Although self-image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories, the theory has not been tested extensively in the retailing. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of self image congruence between retailer image and self image of consumer on retailer equity such as retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out whether retailer-self image congruence can be a new antecedent of retailer equity. In addition, this study tries to examine how four-dimensional retailer equity constructs (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) affect customers' repatronage intention. For this study, data were gathered by survey and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study was 254. The reliability of the all seven dimensions was estimated with Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability values and average variance extracted values. We determined whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity and discriminant validity by Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted values exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the AMOS 18.0. As expected, the image congruence hypotheses were supported. The greater the degree of congruence between retailer image and self-image, the more favorable were consumers' retailer evaluations. The all two retailer-self image congruence (actual self-image congruence and ideal self-image congruence) affected customer based retailer equity. This result means that retailer-self image congruence is important cue for customers to estimate retailer equity. In other words, consumers are often more likely to prefer products and retail stores that have images similar to their own self-image. Especially, it appeared that effect for the ideal self-image congruence was consistently larger than the actual self-image congruence on the retailer equity. The results mean that consumers prefer or search for stores that have images compatible with consumer's perception of ideal-self. In addition, this study revealed that customers' estimations toward customer based retailer equity affected the repatronage intention. The results showed that all four dimensions (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) had positive effect on the repatronage intention. That is, management and investment to improve image congruence between retailer and consumers' self make customers' positive evaluation of retailer equity, and then the positive customer based retailer equity can enhance the repatonage intention. And to conclude, retailer's image management is an important part of successful retailer performance management, and the retailer-self image congruence is an important antecedent of retailer equity. Therefore, it is more important to develop and improve retailer's image similar to consumers' image. Given the pressure to provide increased image congruence, it is not surprising that retailers have made significant investments in enhancing the fit between retailer image and self image of consumer. The enhancing such self-image congruence may allow marketers to target customers who may be influenced by image appeals in advertising.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.585-592
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• 2016

This study was conducted to analyze the gap between importance and satisfaction of university foodservice attributes as well as to assess customer satisfaction with university foodservice establishments. All statistical analyses were conducted using the SPSS package program (ver. 20.0) for t-test, ANOVA, and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). A total of 619 valid responses were used for the data analysis. The results of this study are as follows: the composition of respondents was 53.5% males and 46.5% females. Exactly 85.5% of respondents ate lunch at least five times a week at the on-campus foodservice. The favorite lunch menus of Chinese university students were Chinese food (91.8%), followed by Western food (3.5%), Korean food (2.2%), and Japanese food (1.5%). According to the results of IPA, foodservice selection attributes that were priorities for improvement were food taste, food freshness, menu variety, waiting time for meal, and toilet cleanliness. In addition, five satisfaction factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis. According to the results of one-way ANOVA, 'physical environment' and 'service quality' factors showed significant differences according to the students' grades and the frequency of eating lunch at on-campus foodservice. On the other hand, 'food quality and menu' and 'convenience and price' factors showed significant differences according to meal cost. In conclusion, in order to enhance customer satisfaction of on-campus foodservice, foodservice managers should offer a varied menu at reasonable prices and improve food quality.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.153-169
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• 2012

Exhibitions have played a key role of effective marketing activity which directly informs services and products to current and potential customers. Through participating in exhibitions, exhibitors have got the opportunity to make face-to-face contact so that they can secure the market share and improve their corporate images. According to this economic importance of exhibitions, show organizers try to adopt a new IT technology for improving their performance, and researchers have also studied services which can improve the satisfaction of visitors through analyzing visit patterns of visitors. Especially, as smart technologies make them monitor activities of visitors in real-time, they have considered booth recommender systems which infer preference of visitors and recommender proper service to them like on-line environment. However, while there are many studies which can improve their performance in the side of new technological development, they have not considered the choice factor of visitors for booth recommender systems. That is, studies for factors which can influence the development direction and effective diffusion of these systems are insufficient. Most of prior studies for the acceptance of new technologies and the continuous intention of use have adopted Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Extended Technology Acceptance Model (ETAM). Booth recommender systems may not be new technology because they are similar with commercial recommender systems such as book recommender systems, in the smart exhibition environment, they can be considered new technology. However, for considering the smart exhibition environment beyond TAM, measurements for the intention of reuse should focus on how booth recommender systems can provide correct information to visitors. In this study, through literature reviews, we draw factors which can influence the satisfaction and reuse intention of visitors for booth recommender systems, and design a model to forecast adaptation of visitors for booth recommendation in the exhibition environment. For these purposes, we conduct a survey for visitors who attended DMC Culture Open in November 2011 and experienced booth recommender systems using own smart phone, and examine hypothesis by regression analysis. As a result, factors which can influence the satisfaction of visitors for booth recommender systems are the effectiveness, perceived ease of use, argument quality, serendipity, and so on. Moreover, the satisfaction for booth recommender systems has a positive relationship with the development of reuse intention. For these results, we have some insights for booth recommender systems in the smart exhibition environment. First, this study gives shape to important factors which are considered when they establish strategies which induce visitors to consistently use booth recommender systems. Recently, although show organizers try to improve their performances using new IT technologies, their visitors have not felt the satisfaction from these efforts. At this point, this study can help them to provide services which can improve the satisfaction of visitors and make them last relationship with visitors. On the other hands, this study suggests that they managers along the using time of booth recommender systems. For example, in the early stage of the adoption, they should focus on the argument quality, perceived ease of use, and serendipity, so that improve the acceptance of booth recommender systems. After these stages, they should bridge the differences between expectation and perception for booth recommender systems, and lead continuous uses of visitors. However, this study has some limitations. We only use four factors which can influence the satisfaction of visitors. Therefore, we should development our model to consider important additional factors. And the exhibition in our experiments has small number of booths so that visitors may not need to booth recommender systems. In the future study, we will conduct experiments in the exhibition environment which has a larger scale.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.89-211
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• 1993

The Korean government embarked upon ambitious economic development plans in the 1960's the goals of development policy at that time were the elimination of absolute poverty and the alleviation of unemployment. With scant natural resources, the government had to push for industrialization based upon borrowed foreign raw materials with surplus local labor. Preoccupation with the economic goals of industrialization and export expansion left little room for considering environmental protection. It is evident that Korea's exported industrialization strategy of the past three decades has been a success in terms of income, production, and other macroeconomic indicators, but it cannot be denied that a host of undesirable side-effects have been created. These include environmental problems. congestion in several large cities, poor wealth distribution, and regional disparities. The environmental problems were recognized even in the early stage of development, but preoccupation with the pending economic goals of industrialization and export expansion left little room for considering environment protection. The perceived and actual seriousness of the problems, however, has reached such a level that further negligence may imperil political stability and developmental problems facing the world arise from a world economic order characterized by ever expanding consumption and production, which exhausts and contaminates natural resources and creates and perpetuates gross inequalities between and within nations. It will be necessary to develop new culture and ethical values, transform economic structures, and reorient, our lifestyles. Changing lifestyles can not be promoted by government policy initiative alone but through self=generated educational efforts and mutual training by people themselves. The citizens group for environment (NGOs) should assume these educational and training responsibilities starting from grass-root level of people. It must be reawakened to the reality that the environmental preservation for better quality of life is based on the development of human relationships, creativity, spirituality, reverance for the natural world and celebration of life, and is not dependent upon increased consumption of non-basic material goods. To carry on such environment education social movements and NGOs should (1) provides educational methodologies, which focus on values clarification and moving beyond clarification and moving beyond blame to constructive action. (2) provide training for leaders of business and industry, government, union and others on consumption and production. (3) initiate and support the training and work of environmental counselor who encourage responsible consumption. (4) cooperative with media to initiate and strengthen educational programs on the social environmental programs on the social environmental impacts of consumption and production and to build awareness of consumer responsibility and potential. Economic and social development can be compatible with environment protection : both can be achieved simultaneously. Effective environmental management depends on the various factors : political will, institutional arrangements, appropriate legislation, and availability of the requistite financial and technological resources, which is possible with a strong public awareness of the importance of environmental preservation.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.250-266
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• 2015

This study concentrated on the dining out consumption behaviors, dining out selection attributes, and changes in eating habits of silver generation. Total 216 residents in metropolitan area were employed for statistical analysing. The results are as follows. First, as the result of t-test and ANOVA showed that female and higher academic background tended to regularly take high level of fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish eating habits. These results identified that dining out culture and dietary lifestyle are closely linked. Second, as the result of difference in dining out consumption attitudes on eating habit of silver generation, consumers who have better eating behaviors tended to consider the physical environment, variety of menu, and service quality when they choose a restaurant. Third, as the result of analysis on changes in dining out consumption behavior based on eating behavior of silver consumers, groups differences were found from only the source for information on dining out business and standard variable in selection of dining out business. Fourth, physical environment, variety of menu, business quality, and service were indicated as significant selection attributes of dining out among silver peoples. Fifth, dining out consumption behaviors of silver consumers were developed through newspapers, magazines, and previous visiting experiences. In conclusion, the results of present study showed that silver consumers tend to select a restaurant based on word-of-mouth and various factors related to experiences. Hence, various promotional activities are necessary for the business succession.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.207-215
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• 2011

This study was focused to the effects of cancer patient's perceived quality of medical service upon satisfaction as a customer who have been stressed to face the death. we established research model between medical service quality and customer satisfaction, and build up 4 hypotheses between tangibility, expertise, credibility, responsiveness and customer satisfaction. 220 responses were used to analyzed with multiple regression analysis by SPSS for Windows 14.0K. All 4 hypotheses were accepted. Among 4 independent variables tangibility was most effective to customer satisfaction as coefficient-0.298, and next expertise was as coefficient 0.237. From the results we suggested the implications as follows; first, the medical institute have to develop medical service based on tangibility, expertise, credibility, responsiveness. Second, such services might bring higher customer satisfaction. Third, the patient satisfaction may lead to extend its own life. Fourth, the hospital also may survive long against the competitive environment with such services.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.41-50
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• 2013

Purpose - Inducing consumers' behavioral intent to use an outlet shopping center is a critical issue for managers since it can be used as a guide for developing marketing strategies. Low prices could lead to a growth in retail purchases, but there might also be a positive relationship between prices and customer perceptions of product quality. The extent to which consumers use price as a predictor of quality may differ according to the availability of important alternative cues such as brand, store name, and identity salience triggered by the store. Consumers can obtain non-economic benefits from marketing exchanges that go beyond basic economic achievement. We argue that identity salience can play a crucial mediating role when consumers, acting as exchange partners, seek to obtain social benefits. This study shows that identity salience could mediate the relationship between identity salience-inducing factors such as multi-finality, prestige and role performance, and consumers' behavioral intent to use an outlet shopping center. Research design, data and methodology - The survey was conducted on college students enrolled in marketing classes. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed, of which only 194 were returned. After five incomplete questionnaires were excluded, a final sample of 189 was used for empirical analysis. Using a covariance structural analysis in Amos17, we confirmed the fit of the research model and estimated its parameters by using the maximum likelihood method. Results - The results of the hypotheses testing are as follows. First, both identity salience and economic benefits have positive effects on the behavioral intent to use an outlet shopping center. Second, role performance, prestige, and multi-finality have positive effects on identity salience. Finally, the additive analysis of the direct effects of identity salience-inducing factors shows that the role performance, prestige, and multi-finality factors have no direct effects on the behavioral intent to use an outlet shopping center, suggesting that identity salience plays a positive mediating role. Conclusions - This study informs marketers that not only price but shoppers' identity salience directly affects their intent to visit an outlet shopping center. To strengthen shoppers' identity salience, marketers should find ways to help shoppers fulfill their multiple social roles, realize their multiple goals, and achieve prestige. In other words, outlet shopping centers must improve their personal service environment in order to enhance their employees' service quality and assist the execution of multi-finality by minimizing the perceived costs (e.g., travel time, effort) associated with shopping trips, thus making it easier for consumers to combine visits to multiple stores in outlet shopping centers and buy the items required for their consumption goals. Outlet shopping centers must also offer assortments with both breadth and depth in order to help consumers play the social roles their social networks have given them.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.149-162
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• 2020

This paper applied components of experience-based communication in terms of experience theory of Burnd H. Schmitt and context-based communication in the messenger platform environment through the scenario-based survey method, in order to study the influence of individual experiences, shared experiences, ubiquitous connectivity, and contextual usefulness on the perceived value and use intention of chatbot. Through this, the study is to provide companies in various service industries with practical approaches to further promote the use of chatbot. The implications of this study are as follows. First, as most chatbots still do not exceed the human planning level of designing them, it is necessary to consider how to design individual experience elements functionally according to the customer's intention to speak when developing the chatbot. Second, the chatbot should be designed not only from the perspective of completing specific tasks at any real time in anywhere, but also from the overall perspective of enhancing the quality of interaction, including the situation to which the customer belongs. Third, since the chatbot is likely to be anthropomorphized by users, it is important to be cautious about determining the chatbot's 'persona' and 'tone and manner' when developing the chatbot. Customer satisfaction is the most important criterion for the success of chatbot development. In other words, the quality of planning and data rather than the quality of artificial intelligence algorithms determines the utilization of chatbot. This is why companies are trying to make interactions with chatbot as close as possible to human interactions.