• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1-34
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• 2010

Introduction The purpose of this research is to develop overall model which involves the effect of ongoing support services by franchisor on franchisee's relationship quality(trust, satisfaction, and commitment) and business performance(financial and non-financial performance), and to investigate the relationships among trust, satisfaction, commitment, financial and non-financial performance. This study also suggests franchise business or franchise system should be based on long-term orientation between franchisor and franchisee rather than short-term orientation, or transactional relationship, and proposes the most effective way of providing on-going support services by franchisor with franchisee thru symbiotic relationship among franchisor and franchisee Research Model and Hypothesis The research model as Figure 1 shows the variables on-going support services which affect the relationship quality between franchisor and franchisee such as trust, satisfaction, and commitment, and also analyze the effects of relationship quality on business performance including financial and non-financial performance We established 12 hypotheses to test as follows; Relationship between on-going support services and trust H1: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's trust. Relationship between on-going support services and satisfaction H2: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's satisfaction. Relationship between on-going support services and commitment H3: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's commitment. Relationship among relationship quality: trust, satisfaction, and commitment H4: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's satisfaction. H5: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's commitment. H6: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's commitment. Relationship between relationship quality and business performance H7: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H8: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. H9: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H10: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. H11: Franchisee's commitment has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H12: Franchisee's commitment has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. Method The on-going support services were defined as an organized system of continuous supporting services by franchisor for the purpose of satisfying the expectation of franchisee based on long-term orientation and classified into six constructs such as product category & price, logistics service, promotion, providing information & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support. The six constructs were measured agreement using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree)as follows. The product category & price was measured by four items: menu variety, price of food material provided by franchisor, and support for developing new menu. The logistics service was measured by six items: distribution system of franchisor, return policy for provided food materials, timeliness, inventory control level of franchisor, accuracy of order, and flexibility of emergency order. The promotion was measured by five items: differentiated promotion activities, brand image of franchisor, promotion effect such as customer increase, long-term plan of promotion, and micro-marketing concept in promotion. The providing information & problem solving capability was measured by information providing of new products, information of competitors, information of cost reduction, and efforts for solving problems in franchisee's operations. The supervisor's support was measured by supervisor operations, frequency of visiting franchisee, support by data analysis, processing the suggestions by franchisee, diagnosis and solutions for the franchisee's operations, and support for increasing sales in franchisee. Finally, the of education & training support was measured by recipe training by specialist, service training for store people, systemized training program, and tax & human resources support services. Analysis and results The data were analyzed using Amos. Figure 2 and Table 1 present the result of the structural equation model. Implications The results of this research are as follows: Firstly, the factors of product category, information providing and problem solving capacity influence only franchisee's satisfaction and commitment. Secondly, logistic services and supervising factors influence only trust and satisfaction. Thirdly, continuing education and training factors influence only franchisee's trust and commitment. Fourthly, sales promotion factor influences all the relationship quality representing trust, satisfaction, and commitment. Fifthly, regarding relationship among relationship quality, trust positively influences satisfaction, however, does not directly influence commitment, but satisfaction positively affects commitment. Therefore, satisfaction plays a mediating role between trust and commitment. Sixthly, trust positively influence only financial performance, and satisfaction and commitment influence positively both financial and non-financial performance.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.95-112
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• 2021

In university education, the choice of major class plays an important role in students' careers. However, in line with the changes in the industry, the fields of major subjects by department are diversifying and increasing in number in university education. As a result, students have difficulty to choose and take classes according to their career paths. In general, students choose classes based on experiences such as choices of peers or advice from seniors. This has the advantage of being able to take into account the general situation, but it does not reflect individual tendencies and considerations of existing courses, and has a problem that leads to information inequality that is shared only among specific students. In addition, as non-face-to-face classes have recently been conducted and exchanges between students have decreased, even experience-based decisions have not been made as well. Therefore, this study proposes a recommendation system model that can recommend college major classes suitable for individual characteristics based on data rather than experience. The recommendation system recommends information and content (music, movies, books, images, etc.) that a specific user may be interested in. It is already widely used in services where it is important to consider individual tendencies such as YouTube and Facebook, and you can experience it familiarly in providing personalized services in content services such as over-the-top media services (OTT). Classes are also a kind of content consumption in terms of selecting classes suitable for individuals from a set content list. However, unlike other content consumption, it is characterized by a large influence of selection results. For example, in the case of music and movies, it is usually consumed once and the time required to consume content is short. Therefore, the importance of each item is relatively low, and there is no deep concern in selecting. Major classes usually have a long consumption time because they have to be taken for one semester, and each item has a high importance and requires greater caution in choice because it affects many things such as career and graduation requirements depending on the composition of the selected classes. Depending on the unique characteristics of these major classes, the recommendation system in the education field supports decision-making that reflects individual characteristics that are meaningful and cannot be reflected in experience-based decision-making, even though it has a relatively small number of item ranges. This study aims to realize personalized education and enhance students' educational satisfaction by presenting a recommendation model for university major class. In the model study, class history data of undergraduate students at University from 2015 to 2017 were used, and students and their major names were used as metadata. The class history data is implicit feedback data that only indicates whether content is consumed, not reflecting preferences for classes. Therefore, when we derive embedding vectors that characterize students and classes, their expressive power is low. With these issues in mind, this study proposes a Net-NeuMF model that generates vectors of students, classes through network analysis and utilizes them as input values of the model. The model was based on the structure of NeuMF using one-hot vectors, a representative model using data with implicit feedback. The input vectors of the model are generated to represent the characteristic of students and classes through network analysis. To generate a vector representing a student, each student is set to a node and the edge is designed to connect with a weight if the two students take the same class. Similarly, to generate a vector representing the class, each class was set as a node, and the edge connected if any students had taken the classes in common. Thus, we utilize Node2Vec, a representation learning methodology that quantifies the characteristics of each node. For the evaluation of the model, we used four indicators that are mainly utilized by recommendation systems, and experiments were conducted on three different dimensions to analyze the impact of embedding dimensions on the model. The results show better performance on evaluation metrics regardless of dimension than when using one-hot vectors in existing NeuMF structures. Thus, this work contributes to a network of students (users) and classes (items) to increase expressiveness over existing one-hot embeddings, to match the characteristics of each structure that constitutes the model, and to show better performance on various kinds of evaluation metrics compared to existing methodologies.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.35
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• pp.61-92
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• 2017

During the Japanese colonial era, traditional music performances were gradually diminishing and weakening in the particular condition of colonization. Meanwhile, from the time of enlightenment, Western genre performances were becoming vitalized with the influence of Western civilization that began to be spread steadily throughout the society. In that situation, traditional music performances tended to be mixed performances accompanied by Western ones, not independent performances. Mostly, they were accompanied by Western music, and also, they were performed along with other genres like plays, lectures, movies, dances, or magic, too. Such form of mixed performances accompanied by Western genres became even more vitalized in the 1920's and came to be positioned as a form of traditional music performances. Therefore, research on the forms of mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music is meaningful in examining the forms of traditional music performances that have not been studied in the history of Korean modern music and understanding the trends of traditional music performances which were generally found in the Japanese colonial era. However, such research has hardly been conducted concretely yet. Accordingly, concerning the forms of mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music in the 1920's, this author considered the background of vitalizing mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music mainly with newspaper articles of the time and their formal characteristics. Regarding the background of vitalizing the forms of mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music, from the 1920's, the forms of mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music became more vitalized than before. The causes of that may include the increase of groups hosting or sponsoring such performances from the 1920's and also the dramatic increase of such performances in general. Moreover, the increased performances were conducted in the forms of mixed performances mainly in order to satisfy the people's needs becoming diversified with the distribution of Western civilization. Concerning the formal characteristics of mixed performances between Western genres and traditional music, this researcher classified western genres performed with traditional music and examined what characteristics were found in such mixed performances of tradition music by the types of Western genres respectively. First, in the mixed performances type of western-type genre and traditional music, the number of programs for the western music had significant portion in general, and there were certain ensemble of the western music and traditional musical instrument that was rare at this period of time, and it also had the characteristics of classifying two genres to perform for each title or date. Second, in the mixed performances type of the drama and traditional music, the traditional music is directly participated in the drama with the similar type to the theater, or performed independently from the drama with the role of interlude performance for the stage conversion of the drama to have the characteristics of performing in audience publicity or entertainment. Third, in the mixed performances type of the lecture and traditional music, the traditional music is played before or after the lecture to play the role to set the atmosphere and entertainment for the lecture as displaying the feature to perform for the audience attraction. And, fourth, in the mixed performances type of the movie and traditional music, the traditional music sometimes directly participated in the movie or had the features of independent performance, and there was a characteristic to perform for the entertainment after showing a movie.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.69
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• pp.349-371
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• 2017

"Hajaeilgi(荷齋日記)" was written by Ji Gyu-sik, a gongin of Saongwon(司饔院)'s branch, almost everyday for 20 years and 7 months from January 1st, 1891 until the leap month of June 29th, 1911. It deals with many different areas including domestic and foreign circumstances, custom, rituals, all the affairs related to the branch, and also everyday life events he did see or hear about. Particularly, Ji Gyu-sik did not belong to the yangban class, and we can hardly find diaries written by such class' people. Here, what this author pays attention to among the things written in "Hajaeilgi" is the contents about folklore. Ji Gyu-sik wrote in his "Hajaeilgi" about things related to folklore, for example, seasonal customs, folk plays, rituals, or folk beliefs that were actually practiced then as a person not belonging to the yangban class. Such diaries are rare, and its value is highly appreciated as a material, and it is meaningful in the aspects of folklore as well. Therefore, as part of the work to look into folklore found in "Hajaeilgi", this author focuses on national rituals and folk beliefs in it. The things that have been discussed earlier can be summed up as follows: About national rituals, it is sorry that it only deals with the emperor's enthronement and emperor and crown prince's birthday in garye(嘉禮); however, it is meaningful to know that the people faithfully carried out national ceremonies and celebrations then. Particularly, it is noteworthy that during the national ceremonies or celebrations, students were asked to sing the national anthem. About hyungrye(凶禮), only it deals with the court funeral rite. Aside from Minbi's funeral rite, the court funeral rite was performed properly at the right time according to the procedure like before, and also, it seems that the people fulfilled it faithfully by order of the government. Also, it can be learned from it that Japanese killed Minbi, burned the body with oil, and left the ashes behind. About folk beliefs, the branch held a memorial service at the shrine of the town regularly. The town, too, performed Gocheongsinsa each year. The money needed for the memorial service was collected from the town people differently according to their financial situations, and they prepared for jesu for the ancestral rite altogether. The memorial service was carried out in Sansindang or Bugeundang, too, and it was common that they summoned a shaman to perform a gut. The diary is valuable as material. After being a Christian, Ji Gyu-sik once tried to abolish sinsa jesa held in hoesa and get rid of saesin(賽神), that is, a gut or pudakgeori, but he had no choice but to follow the precedent. Meanwhile, it is also noteworthy that when the town suffered from floor and infectious disease, Ji Gyu-sik installed an altar in front of his house for the town's wellbeing and health, prepared for jesu including offerings and drinks, and held a memorial service to Hwangcheonhuto(皇天后土; the gods of heaven and earth) accompanied with the town people. Also, when he had any hardships in his family, Ji Gyu-sik summoned a shaman for a gut or offered a devout prayer to the mountainous god. Such shamanism or the things like worshiping Gwanseongjegun(關聖帝君) mostly in the beginning of January and telling fortunes about the year were all folk beliefs. This was very popular among the people, and it seems that it was deeply rooted in his life as well. Also, Ji Gyu-sik supported Fengshui beliefs, and it seems that it is not different from the people's general tendencies, either. As described above, "Hajaeilgi" dealing with national rituals and folk beliefs in it is valuable as material and is meaningful for research on forklore, and moreover, it is also significant in the aspects of forklore as well.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.191-207
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• 2021

Up to this day, mobile communications have evolved rapidly over the decades, mainly focusing on speed-up to meet the growing data demands of 2G to 5G. And with the start of the 5G era, efforts are being made to provide such various services to customers, as IoT, V2X, robots, artificial intelligence, augmented virtual reality, and smart cities, which are expected to change the environment of our lives and industries as a whole. In a bid to provide those services, on top of high speed data, reduced latency and reliability are critical for real-time services. Thus, 5G has paved the way for service delivery through maximum speed of 20Gbps, a delay of 1ms, and a connecting device of 106/㎢ In particular, in intelligent traffic control systems and services using various vehicle-based Vehicle to X (V2X), such as traffic control, in addition to high-speed data speed, reduction of delay and reliability for real-time services are very important. 5G communication uses high frequencies of 3.5Ghz and 28Ghz. These high-frequency waves can go with high-speed thanks to their straightness while their short wavelength and small diffraction angle limit their reach to distance and prevent them from penetrating walls, causing restrictions on their use indoors. Therefore, under existing networks it's difficult to overcome these constraints. The underlying centralized SDN also has a limited capability in offering delay-sensitive services because communication with many nodes creates overload in its processing. Basically, SDN, which means a structure that separates signals from the control plane from packets in the data plane, requires control of the delay-related tree structure available in the event of an emergency during autonomous driving. In these scenarios, the network architecture that handles in-vehicle information is a major variable of delay. Since SDNs in general centralized structures are difficult to meet the desired delay level, studies on the optimal size of SDNs for information processing should be conducted. Thus, SDNs need to be separated on a certain scale and construct a new type of network, which can efficiently respond to dynamically changing traffic and provide high-quality, flexible services. Moreover, the structure of these networks is closely related to ultra-low latency, high confidence, and hyper-connectivity and should be based on a new form of split SDN rather than an existing centralized SDN structure, even in the case of the worst condition. And in these SDN structural networks, where automobiles pass through small 5G cells very quickly, the information change cycle, round trip delay (RTD), and the data processing time of SDN are highly correlated with the delay. Of these, RDT is not a significant factor because it has sufficient speed and less than 1 ms of delay, but the information change cycle and data processing time of SDN are factors that greatly affect the delay. Especially, in an emergency of self-driving environment linked to an ITS(Intelligent Traffic System) that requires low latency and high reliability, information should be transmitted and processed very quickly. That is a case in point where delay plays a very sensitive role. In this paper, we study the SDN architecture in emergencies during autonomous driving and conduct analysis through simulation of the correlation with the cell layer in which the vehicle should request relevant information according to the information flow. For simulation: As the Data Rate of 5G is high enough, we can assume the information for neighbor vehicle support to the car without errors. Furthermore, we assumed 5G small cells within 50 ~ 250 m in cell radius, and the maximum speed of the vehicle was considered as a 30km ~ 200 km/hour in order to examine the network architecture to minimize the delay.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.155-175
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• 2010

Most of the service industries including finance and telecommunications have become matured and saturated. The competitions have become severe while the differences among brands become smaller. Therefore maintaining good relationships with customers has been critical for the service providers. In case of credit card and debit card, the similar patterns are shown. It is important for them to maintain good relationships with customers, and therefore, they have used marketing program which provides customized services to customers and utilizes the membership programs. Not only do they build and maintain good relationships, but also highlight their brands from the emotional aspects. For example, KB Card or Hyundai Card uses well-known designers' works for their credit card design. As well, they differentiate the designs of credit cards to stress on their brand personalities. BC Card introduced the credit card with perfume that a customer would like. Even though the credit card is small and not shown to public easily, it becomes more important for those companies to touch the customers' feelings with the brand personalities and their images. This is partly because of changes in consumers' lifestyles. Y-generations becomes highly likely to express themselves in many different ways and more emotional than X-generations. For the Y-generations, therefore, even credit cards in the wallet should be personalized and well-designed. In line with it, credit cards with good design can be seen as an example of brand identity, where different design for each customer can be used to recognize the membership groups that customers want to belong. On the other hand, these credit card companies offer the special treatment benefits for those customers who are heavy users for the cards. For example, those customers who love sports will receive some special discounts when they use their credit cards for sports related products. Therefore this study attempted to explore the relationships between relational benefits, brand identification and loyalty. It has been well known that relational benefits and brand identification lead to loyalty independently from many other studies, but there has been few study to review all the three variables all together in a research model. Furthermore, as reviewed above, in the card industry, many companies attempt to associate the brand image with their products to fit their customers' lifestyles while relational benefits are still playing an important role for their business. Therefore in our research model, relational benefits, brand identification, and loyalty are all included. We focus on the mediating effect of brand identification. From the relational benefits perspective, only special treatment benefit and confidence benefit are included. Social benefit is not applicable for this credit card industry because not many cases of face-to-face interaction can be found. From the brand identification perspective, personal brand identity and social brand identity are reviewed and included in the model. Overall, the research model emphasizes that the relationships between relational benefits and loyalty will be mediated by the effect of brand identification. The effects of relational benefits which are confidence benefit and special treatment benefits on loyalty will be realized when they fit to the personal brand identity and social brand identity. In the research model, therefore, the relationships between confidence benefit and social brand identity, and between confidence benefit and personal identity are hypothesized while the effects of special treatment benefit on social brand identity and personal brand identity are hypothesized. Loyalty, then, is hypothesized to have positive relationships with personal brand identity and social brand identity. In addition, confidence benefit among the relational benefits is expected to have a direct, positive relationship with loyalty because confidence benefit has been recognized as a critical factor for good relationships and satisfaction. Data were collected from college students who have been using either credit cards or debit cards. College students were regarded good subjects because they are in Y-generation cohorts and have tendency to express themselves more. Total sample size was two hundred three at the beginning, but after deleting those data with many missing values, one hundred ninety-seven data points were remained and used for the model testing. Measurement items were brought from the previous literatures and modified for this research. To test the reliability, using SPSS 14, chronbach's α was examined and all the values were from .874 to .928 exceeding over .7. Using AMOS 7.0, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the measurement model. The measurement model was found good fit with χ²(67)=188.388 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=.821, CFI=.941, RMSEA=.096. Using AMOS 7.0, structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. Overall, the research model fit were χ²(68)=188.670 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=,824 CFI=.942, RMSEA=.095 indicating good fit. In details, all the paths hypothesized in the research model were found significant except for the path from social brand identity to loyalty. Personal brand identity leads to loyalty while both confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive relationships with personal and social identities. As well, confidence benefit has a direct positive effect on loyalty. The results indicates the followings. First, personal brand identity plays an important role for credit/debit card usage. Therefore even for the products which are not shown to public easy, design and emotional aspect can be important to fit the customers' lifestyles. Second, confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive effects on personal brand identity. Therefore it will be needed for marketers to associate the special treatment and trust and confidence benefits with personal image, personality and personal identity. Third, this study found again the importance of confidence and trust. However interestingly enough, social brand identity was not found to be significantly related to loyalty. It can be explained that the main sample of this study consists of college students. Those strategies to facilitate social brand identity are focused on high social status groups while college students have not been established their status yet.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.107-122
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• 2017

Volatility in the stock market returns is a measure of investment risk. It plays a central role in portfolio optimization, asset pricing and risk management as well as most theoretical financial models. Engle(1982) presented a pioneering paper on the stock market volatility that explains the time-variant characteristics embedded in the stock market return volatility. His model, Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH), was generalized by Bollerslev(1986) as GARCH models. Empirical studies have shown that GARCH models describes well the fat-tailed return distributions and volatility clustering phenomenon appearing in stock prices. The parameters of the GARCH models are generally estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) based on the standard normal density. But, since 1987 Black Monday, the stock market prices have become very complex and shown a lot of noisy terms. Recent studies start to apply artificial intelligent approach in estimating the GARCH parameters as a substitute for the MLE. The paper presents SVR-based GARCH process and compares with MLE-based GARCH process to estimate the parameters of GARCH models which are known to well forecast stock market volatility. Kernel functions used in SVR estimation process are linear, polynomial and radial. We analyzed the suggested models with KOSPI 200 Index. This index is constituted by 200 blue chip stocks listed in the Korea Exchange. We sampled KOSPI 200 daily closing values from 2010 to 2015. Sample observations are 1487 days. We used 1187 days to train the suggested GARCH models and the remaining 300 days were used as testing data. First, symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models are estimated by MLE. We forecasted KOSPI 200 Index return volatility and the statistical metric MSE shows better results for the asymmetric GARCH models such as E-GARCH or GJR-GARCH. This is consistent with the documented non-normal return distribution characteristics with fat-tail and leptokurtosis. Compared with MLE estimation process, SVR-based GARCH models outperform the MLE methodology in KOSPI 200 Index return volatility forecasting. Polynomial kernel function shows exceptionally lower forecasting accuracy. We suggested Intelligent Volatility Trading System (IVTS) that utilizes the forecasted volatility results. IVTS entry rules are as follows. If forecasted tomorrow volatility will increase then buy volatility today. If forecasted tomorrow volatility will decrease then sell volatility today. If forecasted volatility direction does not change we hold the existing buy or sell positions. IVTS is assumed to buy and sell historical volatility values. This is somewhat unreal because we cannot trade historical volatility values themselves. But our simulation results are meaningful since the Korea Exchange introduced volatility futures contract that traders can trade since November 2014. The trading systems with SVR-based GARCH models show higher returns than MLE-based GARCH in the testing period. And trading profitable percentages of MLE-based GARCH IVTS models range from 47.5% to 50.0%, trading profitable percentages of SVR-based GARCH IVTS models range from 51.8% to 59.7%. MLE-based symmetric S-GARCH shows +150.2% return and SVR-based symmetric S-GARCH shows +526.4% return. MLE-based asymmetric E-GARCH shows -72% return and SVR-based asymmetric E-GARCH shows +245.6% return. MLE-based asymmetric GJR-GARCH shows -98.7% return and SVR-based asymmetric GJR-GARCH shows +126.3% return. Linear kernel function shows higher trading returns than radial kernel function. Best performance of SVR-based IVTS is +526.4% and that of MLE-based IVTS is +150.2%. SVR-based GARCH IVTS shows higher trading frequency. This study has some limitations. Our models are solely based on SVR. Other artificial intelligence models are needed to search for better performance. We do not consider costs incurred in the trading process including brokerage commissions and slippage costs. IVTS trading performance is unreal since we use historical volatility values as trading objects. The exact forecasting of stock market volatility is essential in the real trading as well as asset pricing models. Further studies on other machine learning-based GARCH models can give better information for the stock market investors.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.67-88
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• 2018

Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.9-33
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• 2007

In the field of dentistry, there existed relatively few emergency patients or patients who need intensive care and thus had low medical dispute rates. However, these days, there is a general tendency of increased medical disputes. Although many medical disputes are caused by medical accidents of the dentists, because dental assistants are also lawfully involved in practicing dentistry, there is a possibility of medical disputes or medical accidents caused by dental assistants. Therefore, the role of the dental assistants cannot be ignored. This study consists of a survey given to dental hygienists currently working in general hospitals, dental hospitals and private dental clinics. Following is the results of the analysis of 275 respondents' backgrounds, medical disputes rates including patients' complaints, their understanding of medical regulations and their general understanding of overall dental practice and medical disputes. 1. 251 of 274(91.6%) respondents doubted the risk of medical accident and dispute. 2. 81(29.5%) dental hygienist experienced complaint from patients. They have been working in the private dental clinic, the rate of this experience was high. 3. 349 case of 1805(19.3%) the complaints by patients, highest percentage among its category, were those regarding dental fees and poor service. 4. 129 case of 1805(7.1%) patients' complaints, highest percentage among it's subcategory, were those regarding the absence of explanations of precautions or request of agreements before dental treatment. 5. 252 of 267 (94.4%) dental hygienists chart after a scaling treatment. However, only 55(20.7%) dental hygienists chart the fact of explaining the precautions. 6. 6(2.2%) dental hygienists do not inspect patients' medical history, if patients don't mention it. 7. 104 of 274(38.0%) dental hygienists responded to be capable of administering first aid treatment. 8. 115(41.8%) dental hygienists have a first aid kit and equipment. 9. In case of medical dispute, 268(97.8%) dental hygienists respond that, charting plays a big role in resolving the dispute. 10. In case of medical dispute, 272(93.3%) dental hygienists respond that, explanation and agreement before treatment have an important role in settlement of dispute 11. Only 160(58.4%) dental hygienists responded correct answer that the duration of keeping medical records is 10 years. 12. 124(45.3%) respondents thought that it is legal for a dental hygienist to take a panoramic dental X-ray, 71(25.9%) respondents thought that it is legal practice cervical resin treatment by dental hygienist, and 37(13.5%) respondents thought that it is legal extract primary teeth by dental hygienist. 13. 24(18.76%) respondents thought that it doesn't matter to tell patient's state to others 14. 272(99.27%) responded that receiving education for the prevention of medical disputes was needed and of them, 61.0% thought it was urgent. 15. 186(64.2%) has never had classes regarding the prevention of medical disputes while in school and 212(77.4%) has not had the same type of classes after graduating from school. 16. 256(93.4%) responded that there will be even more of an increased number of medical disputes. Among them, 83.3% of respondents though that due to the increased opportunity of acquiring information through the internet and mass media. The study shows that 29.5 percentage of dental hygienists have experienced the medical disputes and complaints and they are lack of recognition of medical regulations and dental hygienist's official duty. So, there is a big potential of the percentage to increase. Therefore, the correct understanding of explaining precautions and requesting agreement before dental treatments and performing them are mandatory. Moreover, classes regarding the prevention and counterplans of medical disputes need to be widely offered.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.