This study examines the characteristics of 24 Korean hidden champions such as key success factors, core competences, strategic problems, and desirable future directions. The study categorized them into 8 types with Danny Miller's four trajectories and top manager's decision making style(rationality and passion). Danny Miller argued in his book, Icarus paradox, that outstanding firms will extend their orientations until they reach dangerous extremes and their momentum will result in common trajectories of decline. He suggested four very common success types: Craftsmen, Builders, Pioneers, Salesmen. He also suggested common trajectories of decline:Focusing(from Craftsmen to Tinkers), Venturing(from Builders to Imperialists), Inventing(from Pioneers to Escapists), Decoupling(from Salesmen to Drifts). In Korea, successful startups appear to possess three kinds of drive: Technology-drive, Vision-drive, Market-drive. Successful technology-driven firms tend to grow as craftsmen or pioneers. Successful vision-driven and market-driven ones tend to grow as builders and salesmen respectively. Korean top managers or founders seem to have two kinds of decision making style: Passion-based and Rationality-bases. Passion-based(passionate) entrepreneurs are biased towards action or proactiveness in competing and getting things done. Rationality- based ones tend to emphasis the effort devoted to scanning and analysing information to better understand a company's threats, opportunities and options. Consequently this study suggested 4*2 types of Korean hidden champions: (1) passionate craftsmen, (2) rational craftsmen, (3) passionate builders, (4) rational builders, (5) passionate pioneers, (6) rational pioneers, (7) passionate salesmen, (8) rational salesmen. These 8 type firms showed different success stories and appeared to possess different trajectories of decline. These hidden champions have acquired competitive advantage within domestic or globally niche markets in spite of the weak market power and lack of internal resources. They have maintained their sustainable competitiveness by utilizing three types of growth strategy; (1) penetrating into the global market, (2) exploring new service market, (3) occupying the domestic market. According to the types of growth strategy, these firms showed different financial outcomes and possessed different issues for maintaining their competitiveness. This study found that Korean hidden champions were facing serious challenges from the transforming economic structure these days and possessed the decline potential from their success momentum or self-complacence. It argues that they need to take a new growth engine not to decline in the turbulent environment. It also discusses how firms overcome the economic crisis and find a new business area in promising industries for the future. It summarized the recent policy of Korean government called as "Green Growth" and discussed how small firms utilize such benefits and supports from the government. Other implications for firm strategies and governmental policies were discussed.
Introduction: Sales of private labels(PU have been growing m recent years. Globally, PLs have already achieved 20% share, although between 25 and 50% share in most of the European markets(AC. Nielson, 2005). These products are aimed to have comparable quality and prices as national brand(NB) products and have been continuously eroding manufacturer's national brand market share. Stores have also started introducing premium PLs that are of higher-quality and more reasonably priced compared to NBs. Worldwide, many retailers already have a multiple-tier private label architecture. Consumers as a consequence are now able to have a more diverse brand choice in store than ever before. Since premium PLs are priced higher than regular PLs and even, in some cases, above NBs, stores can expect to generate higher profits. Brand extensions and private label have been extensively studied in the marketing field. However, less attention has been paid to the private label extension. Therefore, this research focuses on private label extension using the Multi-Attribute Attitude Model(Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Especially there are few studies that consider the hierarchical effect of the PL's two parent brands: store brand and the original PL. We assume that the attitude toward each of the two parent brands affects the attitude towards the extended PL. The influence from each parent brand toward extended PL will vary according to the perceived fit between each parent brand and the extended PL. This research focuses on how these two parent brands act as reference points to one another in the consumers' choice consideration. Specifically we seek to understand how store image and attitude towards original PL affect consumer perceptions of extended premium PL. How consumers perceive extended premium PLs could provide strategic suggestions for retailer managers with specific suggestions on whether it is more effective: to position extended premium PL similarly or dissimilarly to original PL especially on the quality dimension and congruency with store image. There is an extensive body of research on branding and brand extensions (e.g. Aaker and Keller, 1990) and more recently on PLs(e.g. Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007). However there are no studies to date that look at the upgrading and influence of original PLs and attitude towards store on the premium PL extension. This research wishes to make a contribution to this gap using the perceived fit difference between parent brands and extended premium PL as the context. In order to meet the above objectives, we investigate which factors heighten consumers' positive attitude toward premium PL extension. Research Model and Hypotheses: When considering the attitude towards the premium PL extension, we expect four factors to have an influence: attitude towards store; attitude towards original PL; perceived congruity between the store image and the premium PL; perceived similarity between the original PL and the premium PL. We expect that all these factors have an influence on consumer attitude towards premium PL extension. Figure 1 gives the research model and hypotheses. Method: Data were collected by an intercept survey conducted on consumers at discount stores. 403 survey responses were attained (total 59.8% female, across all age ranges). Respondents were asked to respond to a series of Questions measured on 7 point likert-type scales. The survey consisted of Questions that measured: the trust towards store and the original PL; the satisfaction towards store and the original PL; the attitudes towards store, the original PL, and the extended premium PL; the perceived similarity of the original PL and the extended premium PL; the perceived congruity between the store image and the extended premium PL. Product images with specific explanations of the features of premium PL, regular PL and NB we reused as the stimuli for the Question response. We developed scales to measure the research constructs. Cronbach's alphaw as measured each construct with the reliability for all constructs exceeding the .70 standard(Nunnally, 1978). Results: To test the hypotheses, path analysis was conducted using LISREL 8.30. The path analysis for verification of the model produced satisfactory results. The validity index shows acceptable results(
The US supports the Information and Communication (IC) industry as a strategic one to wield a complete power over the World Market. However, several other countries are also eager to have the support for the IC industry because the industry produces a high added value and has a significant effect on other industries. Korea is not an exception. Korea recently succeeded in the commercialization of CDMA for the first time in the world, after the successful development of TDX. Hence, it is highly likely to get tracked by the US. Although the IC industry is a specific sector of IT, there is a concern that there might be a trade friction between the US and Korea due to a possible competition. It will be very important to prepare a solution in advance so that Korea could prevent the friction and at the same time increase its share domestically and globally. It will be our important task to solve the problem with the minimum cost if the conflict arises unfortunately in the IT area. The parties that have a strong influence on the US trade policy are the think tank group and the IT-related interest group. Therefore, it would be important to have a close relationship with them. We found some implications by analyzing the case of Japan, which has experienced trade frictions with the US over the long period of time in the high tech industry. In order to get rid of those conflicts with the US, the Japanese did the following things : (1) The Japanese government developed supporting theories and also resorted to international support so that the world could support the Japanese theories. (2) Through continual dialogue with the US business people, the Japanese business people sought after solutions to share profits among the Japanese and the US both in the domestic and in the worldwide markets. They focused on lobbying activities to influence the US public opinion to support the Japanese. The specific implementation plan was first to open culture lobby toward opinion leaders who were leaders about the US opinion. The institution, Japan Society, were formed to deliver a high quality lobbying activities. The second plan is economic lobby. They have established Japanese Economic Institute at Washington. They provide information about Japan regularly or irregularly to the US government, research institution, universities, etc., that are interested in Japan. The main objective behind these activities though is to advertise the validity of Japanese policy. Japanese top executives, practical interest groups on international trade, are trying to justify their position by direct contact with the US policy makers. The third one is political lobby. Japan is very careful about this political lobby. It is doing its best not to give impression that Japan is trying to shape the US policy making. It is collecting a vast amount of information to make a correct judgment on situation. It is not tilted toward one political party or the other, and is rather developing a long-term network of people who understand and support the Japanese policy. The following implications were drawn from the experience of Japan. First, the Korean government should develop a long-term plan and execute it to improve the Korean image perceived by American people. Second, the Korean government should begin public relation activities toward the US elite group. It is inevitable to make an effort to advertise Korea to this elite group because this group leads public opinion in the USA. Third, the Korean government needs the development of a relevant policy to elevate the positive atmosphere for advertising toward the US. For example, we need information about to whom and how to about lobbying activities, personnel network who immediately respond to wrong articles about Korea in the US press, and lastly the most recent data bank of Korean support group inside the USA. Fourth, the Korean government should create an atmosphere to facilitate the advertising toward the US. Examples include provision of incentives in tax on the expenses for the advertising toward the US and provision of rewards to those who significantly contribute to the advertising activities. Fifth, the Korean government should perform the role of a bridge between Korean and the US business people. Sixth, the government should promptly analyze the policy of IT industry, a strategic area, and timely distribute information to industries in Korea. Since the Korean government is the only institution that has formal contact with the US government, it is highly likely to provide information of a high quality. The followings are some implications for business institutions. First, Korean business organization should carefully analyze and observe the business policy and managerial conditions of US companies. It is very important to do so because all the trade frictions arise at the business level. Second, it is also very important that the top management of Korean firms contact the opinion leaders of the US. Third, it is critically needed that Korean business people sent to the USA do their part for PR activities. Fourth, it is very important to advertise to American employees in Korean companies. If we cannot convince our American employees, it would be a lot harder to convince regular American. Therefore, it is very important to make the American employees the support group for Korean ways. Fifth, it should try to get much information as early as possible about the US firms policy in the IT area. It should give an enormous effort on early collection of information because by doing so it has more time to respond. Sixth, it should research on the PR cases of foreign enterprise or non-American companies inside the USA. The research needs to identify the success factors and the failure factors. Finally, the business firm will get more valuable information if it analyzes and responds to, according to each medium.
Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were
Although poultry industry in Japan has been much developed in recent years, it still needs to be developed , compared with developed countries. Since the poultry market in Korea is expected to be opened in the near future it is necessary to maximize the Productivity to reduce the production costs and to develop the scientific, technologies and management organization systems for the improvement of the quality in poultry production. Followings ale the summary of poultry industry in Japan. 1. Poultry industry in Japan is almost specized and commercialized and its management system is ： integrated, cooperative and developed to industrialized intensive style. Therefore, they have competitive power in the international poultry markets. 2. Average egg weight is 48-50g per day (Max. 54g) and feed requirement is 2. 1-2. 3. 3. The management organization system is specialized and farmers in small scale form complex and farmers in large scale are integrated.
In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.