• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.37-48
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• 2009

The standardization of marketing has been one of the most focused research topics in international marketing. The term "global marketing" was often used to mean an internationally standardized marketing strategy based on similarities between foreign markets. Marketing standardization was discussed only within the context of traditional physical marketplaces. Since then, the digital "marketspace" of the Internet had emerged in the 90's, and it became one of the most important drivers of the globalization process opening new opportunities for the standardization of global marketing activities. On the other hand, the opinion that a greater adoption of the Internet by customers may lead to a higher degree of customization and differentiation of products rather than standardization is also quite popular. Considering this disagreement, it is notable that comprehensive studies which focus upon the marketing standardization especially in the context of global e-commerce are missing to a high degree. On this background, the two basic research questions being addressed in this study are: (1) To what extent do companies standardize their marketing in international e-commerce? (2) Is there an impact of marketing standardization on the performance (or success) of these companies? Following research hypotheses were generated based upon literature review: H 1: Internationally engaged e-commerce firms show a growing readiness for marketing standardization. H 2: Marketing standardization exerts positive effects on the success of companies in international e-commerce. H 3: In international e-commerce, marketing mix standardization exerts a stronger positive effect on the economic as well as the non-economic success of companies than marketing process standardization. H 4: The higher the non-economic success in international e-commerce firms, the higher the economic success. The data for this research were obtained from a questionnaire survey conducted from February to April 2005. The international e-commerce companies of various industries in Germany and all subsidiaries or headquarters of foreign e-commerce companies based in Germany were included in the survey. 118 out of 801 companies responded to the questionnaire. For structural equation modelling (SEM), the Partial-Least. Squares (PLS) approach in the version PLS-Graph 3.0 was applied (Chin 1998a; 2001). All of four research hypotheses were supported by result of data analysis. The results show that companies engaged in international e-commerce standardize in particular brand name, web page design, product positioning, and the product program to a high degree. The companies intend to intensify their efforts for marketing mix standardization in the future. In addition they want to standardize their marketing processes also to a higher degree, especially within the range of information systems, corporate language and online marketing control procedures. In this study, marketing standardization exerts a positive overall impact on company performance in international e-commerce. Standardization of marketing mix exerts a stronger positive impact on the non-economic success than standardization of marketing processes, which in turn contributes slightly stronger to the economic success. Furthermore, our findings give clear support to the assumption that the non-economic success is highly relevant to the economic success of the firm in international e-commerce. The empirical findings indicate that marketing standardization is relevant to the companies' success in international e-commerce. But marketing mix and marketing process standardization contribute to the firms' economic and non-economic success in different ways. The findings indicate that companies do standardize numerous elements of their marketing mix on the Internet. This practice is in part contrary to the popular concept of a "differentiated standardization" which argues that some elements of the marketing mix should be adapted locally and others should be standardized internationally. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the overall standardization of marketing -rather than the standardization of one particular marketing mix element - is what brings about a positive overall impact on success.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.130-142
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• 2007

This study was to examine impacts of turbid water on fish community in the downstream of Yongdam Dam during the period from June to October 2006. For the research, we selected six sampling sites in the field: two sites were controls with no influences of turbid water from the dam and other remaining four sites were the stations for an assessment of potential turbid effects. We evaluated integrative health conditions throughout applications of various models such as necropsy-based fish health assessment model (FHA), Index of Biological Integrity (IBI) using fish assemblages, and Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI). Laboratory tests on fish exposure under 400 NTU were performed to find out impact of turbid water using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Results showed that fine solid particles were clogging in the gill in the treatments, while particles were not found in the control. This results indicate that when inorganic turbidity increases abruptedly, fish may have a mechanical abrasion or respiratory blocking. The stream health condition, based on the IBI values, ranged between 38 and 48 (average: 42), indicating a "excellent" or "good" condition after the criteria of US EPA (1993). In the mean time, physical habitat condition, based on the QHEI, ranged 97 to 187 (average 154), indicating a "suboptimal condition". These biological outcomes were compared with chemical dataset: IBI values were more correlated (r=0.526, p<0.05, n=18) with QHEI rather than chemical water quality, based on turbidity (r=0.260, p>0.05, n=18). Analysis of the FHA showed that the individual health indicated "excellent condition", while QHEI showed no habitat disturbances (especially bottom substrate and embeddeness), food-web, and spawning place. Consequently, we concluded that the ecological health in downstream of Yongdam Dam was not impacted by the turbid water.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.1 s.112
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• pp.106-120
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• 2006

Natural or man-made disaster has been expected to be one of the potential themes that can integrate human geography and physical geography. Typhoons like Rusa and Maemi caused great loss to insurance companies as well as public sectors. We have implemented a natural disaster management system for a private insurance company to produce better estimation of hazards from high wind as well as calculate vulnerability of damage. Climatic gauge sites and addresses of contract's objects were geo-coded and the pressure values along all the typhoon tracks were vectorized into line objects. National GIS topog raphic maps with scale of 1: 5,000 were updated into base maps and digital elevation model with 30 meter space and land cover maps were used for reflecting roughness of land to wind velocity. All the data are converted to grid coverage with $1km{\times}1km$. Vulnerability curve of Munich Re was ad opted, and preprocessor and postprocessor of wind velocity model was implemented. Overlapping the location of contracts on the grid value coverage can show the relative risk, with given scenario. The wind velocities calculated by the model were compared with observed value (average $R^2=0.68$). The calibration of wind speed models was done by dropping two climatic gauge data, which enhanced $R^2$ values. The comparison of calculated loss with actual historical loss of the insurance company showed both underestimation and overestimation. This system enables the company to have quantitative data for optimizing the re-insurance ratio, to have a plan to allocate enterprise resources and to upgrade the international creditability of the company. A flood model, storm surge model and flash flood model are being added, at last, combined disaster vulnerability will be calculated for a total disaster management system.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2012

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the perception regarding palliative care among Korean doctors and referral barriers toward palliative care for terminal cancer patients. Methods: Between May and June 2010, 477 specialists mainly caring cancer patients using a web-based, self-administered questionnaire. Results: A total of 128 doctors (26.8%) responded. All respondents (100%) deemed palliative care a necessary service for terminal cancer patients. More than 80% of the respondents agreed to each of the following statements: all cancer centers should provide palliative care service (80.5%); all terminal cancer patients should receive concurrent palliative care along with anti-cancer therapies (89.1%) and caring for terminal cancer patients requires interdisciplinary approach (96.9). While more than 58% of the respondents were satisfied with their performance of physical and psychological symptoms management and emotional support provided by patient's family members, 64% of the responded answered that their general management of the end-of-life care was less than satisfactory. Doctors without prior experience in referring their patients to palliative care specialists accounted for 26.6% of the respondents. The most common barrier to hospice referral, cited by 47.7% of the respondents, was "refusal of patient or family member", followed by "lack of available palliative care resources" (46.1%). Conclusion: Although most doctors do recognize the importance of palliative care for advanced cancer patients, comprehensive and sufficient palliative medicine, including interdisciplinary cooperation and end-of-life care, has not been put into practice. Thus, more active palliative consultation or referral is needed for effective care of terminal cancer patients.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.185-197
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• 2019

Purpose: Hospice volunteers are serving an invisible yet pivotal role in the hospice and palliative care team. This study investigated how effectively a continuing education program could enhance hospice volunteers' competency. Methods: A total of 20 hours (four hours per week) of training was provided to 30 hospice volunteers who participated in the continuing education for hospice volunteers. Efficiency of the education was analyzed with an exploratory mixed-methods design. For quantitative analysis, the volunteers were asked, before and after the training, about their attitudes towards hospice care, what makes a meaningful life, self-efficacy and satisfaction with their volunteer service. Descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were performed using SPSS Window 20.0. For qualitative research, participants were placed in three groups for a focus group interview, and data were analyzed by content analysis. Results: A quantitative study result shows that this training can significantly affect hospice volunteers' attitudes and improve their self-efficacy. A qualitative study result shows that participants wanted to receive continuous education from the physical/psychosocial/spiritual aspects to better serve end-of-life patients and their family members even though they have to spare significant time for the volunteer service. They wanted to know how to take good care of patients without getting themselves injured and how to provide spiritual care. Conclusion: The continuing education program reflecting volunteers' requests is strongly needed to improve their competency. An effective continuing education requires continuous training and support in areas where hospice volunteers are interested in. A good alternative is to combine web-based and hands-on training, thereby allowing hospice volunteers freely take training that suits their interest.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.17-28
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• 2005

With the advent of computer technology, the fundamental nature of products has shaped from physical forms towards product interactivity, The focus is now on usability of the product with ease and efficiency rather than conversing with just the looks of the product. However, most definitions of usability and contemporary usability-related researches, have focused on the performance-oriented functional aspects of usability (i.e., how well users perform tasks using a product). Today, user expectations are higher; products that bring not only functional benefits but also emotional satisfaction. So far, there have been many studies on human emotions and the emotional side of products in the field of emotional engineering. Contemporary emotion-related researches have focused mainly on the relationship between product aesthetics and the emotional responses elicited by the products, but little is known about emotions elicited from using the products. The main objective of our research is analyzing user's emotional changes while using a product, to reveal the influence of usability on human emotions. In this research, we suggested conceptual framework for the study on the relationship between usability of products, and human emotions with emphasis on mobile phones. We also extracted emotional words for measuring user's emotions expressed not from looking at the product's appearance, but from using the product. First, we assembled a set of emotions that is sufficiently extensive to represent a general overview of the full repertoire of Korean emotions from the literature study. Secondly, we found emotional words in the after note by the users on the websites. Finally, verbal protocols in which the user says out loud what he/she ks feeling while he/she ks carrying out a task were collected. And then, the appropriateness of extracted emotional words was verified by the members of the consumer panel of a company through web survey. It is expected that emotional words extracted in this research will be used to measure user's emotional changes while using a product. Based on the conceptual framework suggested in this research, basic guidelines on interface design methods that reflect user's emotions will be illustrated.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.27-42
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• 2020

Traditional companies with offline stores were unable to secure large display space due to the problems of cost. This limitation inevitably allowed limited kinds of products to be displayed on the shelves, which resulted in consumers being deprived of the opportunity to experience various items. Taking advantage of the virtual space called the Internet, online shopping goes beyond the limits of limitations in physical space of offline shopping and is now able to display numerous products on web pages that can satisfy consumers with a variety of needs. Paradoxically, however, this can also cause consumers to experience the difficulty of comparing and evaluating too many alternatives in their purchase decision-making process. As an effort to address this side effect, various kinds of consumer's purchase decision support systems have been studied, such as keyword-based item search service and recommender systems. These systems can reduce search time for items, prevent consumer from leaving while browsing, and contribute to the seller's increased sales. Among those systems, recommender systems based on association rule mining techniques can effectively detect interrelated products from transaction data such as orders. The association between products obtained by statistical analysis provides clues to predicting how interested consumers will be in another product. However, since its algorithm is based on the number of transactions, products not sold enough so far in the early days of launch may not be included in the list of recommendations even though they are highly likely to be sold. Such missing items may not have sufficient opportunities to be exposed to consumers to record sufficient sales, and then fall into a vicious cycle of a vicious cycle of declining sales and omission in the recommendation list. This situation is an inevitable outcome in situations in which recommendations are made based on past transaction histories, rather than on determining potential future sales possibilities. This study started with the idea that reflecting the means by which this potential possibility can be identified indirectly would help to select highly recommended products. In the light of the fact that the attributes of a product affect the consumer's purchasing decisions, this study was conducted to reflect them in the recommender systems. In other words, consumers who visit a product page have shown interest in the attributes of the product and would be also interested in other products with the same attributes. On such assumption, based on these attributes, the recommender system can select recommended products that can show a higher acceptance rate. Given that a category is one of the main attributes of a product, it can be a good indicator of not only direct associations between two items but also potential associations that have yet to be revealed. Based on this idea, the study devised a recommender system that reflects not only associations between products but also categories. Through regression analysis, two kinds of associations were combined to form a model that could predict the hit rate of recommendation. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, another regression model was also developed based only on associations between products. Comparative experiments were designed to be similar to the environment in which products are actually recommended in online shopping malls. First, the association rules for all possible combinations of antecedent and consequent items were generated from the order data. Then, hit rates for each of the associated rules were predicted from the support and confidence that are calculated by each of the models. The comparative experiments using order data collected from an online shopping mall show that the recommendation accuracy can be improved by further reflecting not only the association between products but also categories in the recommendation of related products. The proposed model showed a 2 to 3 percent improvement in hit rates compared to the existing model. From a practical point of view, it is expected to have a positive effect on improving consumers' purchasing satisfaction and increasing sellers' sales.