• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.38
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• pp.7-32
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• 1999

Providing the income support program for people under the poverty level has been regarded as the basic obligational role of modern government. The target population of this program should include all the poor who are unable to maintain the minimum health and decency level with their own income. The minimum living cost, however, varies within a country because there are regional differences in consumer price and the mode of living. The current program does not count for the regional differences, leaving a significant portion of Seoul's poor needy people being ineligible for this public care. Recognizing these regional differences, this paper attempts to estimate the minimum living cost in Seoul area, comparing it to the national one. It employs the data and method that the Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs adopted in its 1994 study, since it has been served as a basis of the current public assistance program. The minimum cost of living in Seoul is estimated to be \887,611 per month for a 4-person household. It is 1.33 times greater than the national monthly minimum of \666,684. Based upon the '94 urban household expenditure survey data, some 5.9 percent of Seoul's population, 636,132 people, are found to be under the Seoul's minimum living level. This number is 5.2 times greater than those 123,304 people who are eligible for the current public assistance program in Seoul.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.641-652
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• 2001

Most of current internet auction systems are single auction server program that partly automates the function of the conventional auction house. So these systems do not provide sufficient independence, distribution and parallelism between the functions of the conventional auction house. In these suction systems, only some of suction management facilities are automated by the server program, but still users need to execute a repetitive task to monitor the dynamic progress of a certain auction, decide the proper bid price, and submit the bid. Another problem is that they support only the single auctions such as English suction and Dutch auction, but they do not support the double auctions that are superior to the single auction in terms of speed, efficiency, and the fair distribution of profit. In this paper, we present are design and implement of an agent-based continuous double auction system, called CoDABot, in order to overcome the limitations of current auction systems. CoDABot supports the continuous double auction, provides various bidding agents for users to select, and has been implemented with a multi-agent system to realize more independent, and parallel subsystems.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.219-230
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• 2010

Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to clarify success factors for desirable relationship between buyer and supplier in elementary school. Therefore, the survey questionnaire consisted of general background, past success, success difference, buyer-supplier relationship characteristics(trust, supporting status, communication behavior, conflict resolution techniques, supplier selection process). The subjects were 66 dieticians of elementary school in Inchon. The statistical analysis of data was completed using SPSS program. The results were summarized as follows : Average total cost/day per one person ￦1,156. The number of suppliers per one school were 6. 92.3% of the subjects were in favor of private contract, regarding contract methods of purchasing food materials. For the past success, degree of satisfaction about past their supplier showed 3.49 score. The present success difference was shown higher than the past success. There was significant correlation between the past success and the present success difference. Trust about suppliers showed 3.40score. Supplying companies hardly support for buying school. Among information quality(timely, accurate, adequate, complete, credible), timely and complete showed lower score than the other kind of elements. Among the buyer-supplier relationship characteristic elements, only trust correlated with satisfaction about suppliers significantly. Among the conflict resolution techniques, joint problem solving and persuasive attempts were often made use of by subjects. The supplier selection criteria were shown quality(7.47), supplier's capabilities(6.46), management plan(6.00), price(5.73), scale(5.48), assets(5.27), considers delivery(4.76) and technology(2.39). As results, trust was needed for the desirable relationship between buyers and suppliers. This study has some limitations. The data in this study were collected from only buyer. It is more desired to acquire data from suppliers also.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2010

Today, the fashion market challenged by a maturing retail market needs a new paradigm in the "evolution of brand" to improve their comparative advantages. An important issue in fashion marketing is lifestyle brand extension with a specific aim to meet consumers' specific needs for their changing lifestyle. For fashion brand extensions into lifestyle product categories, Gen Y and Baby Boomer are emerging as "prospects"-Baby Boomers who are renovating their lifestyle, and generation Y experiencing changes in their life stage-with demands for buying new products. Therefore, it is imperative that apparel companies pay special attention to the consumer cohort for brand extension to create and manage their brand equity in a new product category. The purposes of this study are to (a) evaluate brand equity between parent and extension brands; (b) identify consumers' perceived marketing elements for brand extension; and (c) estimate a structural equation model for examining causative relationship between marketing elements and brand equity for brand extensions in lifestyle product category including home fashion items for the selected two groups (e.g., Gen Y, and Baby boomer). For theoretical frameworks, this study focused on the traditional marketing 4P's mix to identify what marketing element is more importantly related to brand extension equity for this study. It is assumed that comparable marketing capability can be critical to establish "brand extension equity", leads to successfully entering the new categories. Drawing from the relevant literature, this study developed research hypotheses incorporating brand equity factors and marketing elements by focusing on the selected consumers (e.g., Gen Y, Baby Boomer). In the context of brand extension in the lifestyle products, constructs of brand equity consist of brand awareness/association, brand perceptions (e.g., perceived quality, emotional value) and brand resonance adapted from CBBE factors (Keller, 2001). It is postulated that the marketing elements create brand extension equity in terms of brand awareness/association, brand perceptions by the brand extension into lifestyle products, which in turn influence brand resonance. For data collection, the sample was comprised of Korean female consumers in Gen Y and Baby Boomer consumer categories who have a high demand for lifestyle products due to changing their lifecycles. A total of 651 usable questionnaires were obtained from female consumers of Gen Y (n=326) and Baby Boomer (n=325) in South Korea. Structural and measurement models using a correlation matrix was estimated using LISREL 8.8. Findings indicated that perceived marketing elements for brand extension consisted of three factors: price/store image, product, and advertising. In the model of Gen Y consumers, price/store image had a positive effect on brand equity factors (e.g., brand awareness/association, perceived quality), while product had positive effect on emotional value in the brand extensions; and the brand awareness/association was likely to increase the perceived quality and emotional value, leading to brand resonance for brand extensions in the lifestyle products. In the model of Baby Boomer consumers, price/store image had a positive effect on perceived quality, which created brand resonance of brand extension; and product had a positive effect on perceived quality and emotional value, which leads to brand resonance for brand extension in the lifestyle products. However, advertising was negatively related to brand equity for both groups. This study provides an insight for fashion marketers in developing a successful brand extension strategy, leading to a sustainable competitive advantage. This study complements and extends prior works in the brand extension through critical factors of marketing efforts that affect brand extension success. Findings support a synergy effect on leveraging of fashion brand extensions (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Tauber, 1988; Shine et al., 2007; Pitta and Katsanis, 1995) in conjunction with marketing actions for entering into the new product category. Thus, it is recommended that marketers targeting both Gen Y and Baby Boomer can reduce marketing cost for entering the new product category (e.g., home furnishings) by standardized marketing efforts; fashion marketers can (a) offer extension lines with premium ranges of price; (b) place an emphasis on upscale features of store image positioning by a retail channel (e.g., specialty department store) in Korea, and (c) combine apparel with lifestyle product assortments including innovative style and designer’s limited editions. With respect to brand equity, a key to successful brand extension is consumers’ brand awareness or association that ensures brand identity with new product category. It is imperative for marketers to have knowledge of what contributes to more concrete associations in a market entry into new product categories. For fashion brands, a second key of brand extension can be a "luxury" lifestyle approach into new product categories, in that higher price or store image had impact on perceived quality that established brand resonance. More importantly, this study increases the theoretical understanding of brand extension and suggests directions for marketers as they establish marketing program at Gen Y and Baby Boomers.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.93-107
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• 2005

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the trends of studies on work-related musculoskeletal disorder and to suggest the direction of future research. Method: 144 research thesis for a degree on work-related musculoskeletal disorder were systematic reviewed and published from Jan. 1990 to Mar. 2005. The analyzed using descriptive statistics, an actual number, percentage. Result: As its result the work-related musculoskeletal disorder research which is announced from domestic the doctorate dissertation at the 2004 year 42 the most many 144 dissertation middle most to be 129 in master degree dissertation was 15 in Ph D degree. Dissertation contents character the contents against the result relation that it analyzes especially and a condition and an obstacle was many most at 84. Research plan in most description investigation research 121 the dissertation field to be the especially public health (hygiene, industry and environment) at this 57 most many research object person distribution manufacturing industry in the research object one dissertation was many most at the 40. The tools which are used in each measurement in the question tool which it uses most the question price of land which uses the condition investigation ticket which it made from the NIOSH and the ANSI most many 33, the hazard which analyzes a work attitude in the tool which it uses the RULA was many most at 14. In the stress test tool social psychological healthy measurement PWI (Psychological Wellbeing Index) the dissertation which uses the Job Strain of the Karasek Model to be many most at 19 PWI (Psychological Wellbeing Index) 7 easy use. Work-related musculoskeletal disorder measurement hazard in physiological index and the machinery and tools which it uses there were 9 researches to use an electromyogram most plentifully. With the effect goes to a work-related musculoskeletal disorder they are 33 where the age is many most from general quality. From healthy act with the relation of smoking the year to be many from 16 dissertations. Work of the corpse an attitude (the attitude which is inappropriate) with 5 and the work market the work burglar is many most at 9, the society-support of 36 where the stress is many psychologically most, the stress and service also the most many duty discretion (authority and autonomy) is 6 at the duty demand boat song 9. The service career to be many is 22 of extraordinarily with relation of service. Conclusion: It is recommended the research which it sees being limited in only domestic thesis for a degree the international comparative study to become accomplished. It comes to think with the fact that it will be necessary to make the protocol which it conforms in the civil official guide the test researches for the protocol or arbitration program which is standardized are necessary. Prevention and the civil official of work relation bones and sinews standing total disease hazard scientific base one program is necessary with base.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.