• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.17-39
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• 2011

As recent inflows of foreign immigrants to relatively advanced countries in Northeast Asia have rapidly increased, Japan in particular uses 'multicultural coexistance' as a key concept for developing both discourse and policies on them. This paper is first of all to suggest a new typology of multicultural societies in the world ill order to differentiate the case of Northeast Asian countries from those of Western countries. And this paper is to suggest that foreign immigrants in Japan have different positions in labor markets and living experiences according to historical and social backgrounds as well as their nationality. The transformation process towards multicultural society is not only historical and social but also geographical and spatial, as foreign immigrants have made different spatial distribution and regional segregation in types. In order to control this socio-spatial process towards multicultural society, Japan has developed the concept of 'multicultural coexistence' similar with that of multiculturalism in Western countries. This concept seems to be quite significant as it has been initiated by local communities for symbiotic relationship between foreign immigrants and native Japanese dwellers. But it can be regarded as a strategic ideology to control foreign immigrants as it targets mainly on Nikkeijin, and is usually concerned with the cultural aspect. Seen from a theoretical point of view, this concept can be seen as closed with liberal multiculturalism as opportunity equity, but far from corporative multiculturalism as outcome equity, and it is on the process transferring from the first stage of tolerance to the second stage of legislation of nondiscrimination, while being distant from the third stage of legislation paradigmization of recognition, and hence appears to be easily reverted to assimilationism.

• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.5 s.67
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• pp.335-350
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• 2006

Due to the development in industrial technology, changes in consumer behavior and aggravating competition within the industry, it is growing only harder every day to build up a strong brand power. Besides, a brand is supposed to age as time goes by, following a brand life cycle, as it is not a solid, immutable asset but something of a living creature. Therefore, self-renovation and revitalization efforts are needed, in order to incessantly confirm the self existence through the relationship with the consumer. In sum, revitalization operation is needed to renew a brand that has grown trite in the passage of time or due to the change in market condition, so as to bring it back anew to the consumers. This study did not stop at measuring the effect of a design renewal as a short-term assignment, but focused on the long-term brand management following the brand life cycle and aimed to define the effective timing and method of revitalization by comprehending the analysis results of consumer consciousness by analyzing the successful cases of brand revitalization and selecting the research analysis targets. As a result, this study proved that a properly-timed brand revitalization efforts in order to cope in advance with predictable changes in environment, can significantly prevent any drop of brand equity from occurring and then extend the brand life cycle. Also, this study could find that a brand revitalization is not a mere concept of a strategy for a short-term sales increase, but should be a long-term strategy to manage a brand, which must be practiced continuously in the time when the brand life cycle curve starts to fall. This research could also confirm that a superficial design renewal, which changes only the packaging of a brand, peformed in short-term haste, is not of help at all.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.42
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• pp.33-66
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• 2009

Common law makes a distinction between partial breach and material breach. Attempted definitions of material breach are notoriously unsatisfactory, and the concept of partial breach does not necessarily bear an inverse relationship to substantial performance. This study will review the basic structure of common law contract remedies together with how these remedies are reflected in UCC Article 2 for sale of goods contracts. The matter is complicated because availability of remedy depends on the seriousness of the breach, and the right to cure, and (for sale of goods) these in turn depend on whether the contract is an installment contract or a single performance contract. Common law jurisdictions relegate specific performance of contracts to a last place in the hierarchy of contract remedies. Common law lawyers should recognize that this is the result of historical accident and not the product of some kind of superior intellectual effort. Not only is the attitude of civil law systems toward specific performance quite different, but for international sales contracts in developing nations, a remedy system based on the notion that substitute contracts are readily available(and therefore damage remedies are appropriate) is unrealistic. English common law courts were largely restricted to remedies in the form of monetary damages. For that reason the primary contract remedy at common law has never been specific performance. Rather, common law courts have struggled to develop an appropriate measure of monetary damages for breach of contract. Today, specific performance is viewed as an equitable remedy rather than common law. In the United States the dual court system has been abolished by a merger of law and equity courts into a single court structure. However some historical distinction linger on. The most important is that jury trials are generally not available in actions that seek equitable relief. If a plaintiff seeks in personam relief, such as specific performance of a contract, the action will be viewed as equitable and there will be no entitlement to a jury. Further, equitable relief will be granted only in those situations where the plaintiff pleads and proves that the remedy at law is inadequate. The purpose of this study aims to analyze the remedy system of breach of contract of U.K. and U.S. in the international commercial transactions with criterion of commercial rationality.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.239-261
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• 2017

This paper analyzes how corporate product innovation affects firms' revenue and financial stability, and thereby draws the implications for the corporate strategy for sustainable growth. Corporate product innovation is defined as the development of new products within the firm, including bought-in products. Corporate revenue is measured by per capita sales and its growth rate, while financial stability is measured by debt-to-equity ratio and liquidity ratio. In the empirical analysis, the two-stage estimation method was used to control for the endogeneity of new product development. The data are drawn from the first (2005) to the sixth (2015) wave of the Human Capital Corporate Panel (HCCP) Survey, which are matched to the data from the Korea Investors Service (KIS). The results of the first-stage estimation indicate that product innovation of the firm is promoted by the firm's knowledge capital stock, human resources investment, and market-leading strategy. The second-stage estimation results indicate a positive relationship between the firm's level of activity in product innovation and short-term revenue (per capita sales and its growth), and financial stability (lower debt-to-equity ratio and higher liquidity ratio). These findings confirm that the firm's investment in technology innovation and subsequent product innovation are important strategies to enhance both short-term corporate revenue and long-term financial stability.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.29-40
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• 2004

Even though rhythm is considered theoretically and practically as a form element influencing consumer's aesthetic response on product design, researches on it relatively less performed than other product aesthetic elements. And also existing researches have only suggested rhythm as one of aesthetic elements in product design but they haven't suggested overall insight on how to apply rhythm into product design. This study tested how rhythm expression in product design affects consumer's aesthetic response according to price level and brand hierarchy. The result shows that rhythm is clearly one of aesthetic elements. And rhythm expression increase consumer's aesthetic response in low priced product condition regardless of brand hierarchy. But in high priced product condition, rhythm expression decreases consumer's aesthetic response because of perceived risk. Only when in high prestige brand condition, consumer's aesthetic response remains high because of trade-off relationship between perceived risk and brand equity. The result of this study enables designers to understand characteristics of rhythm. Also, the result can give companies the useful way on how to use rhythm element as a strategic tool if they consider their brand equity level and product's price level.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.100-116
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• 2019

Urban green spaces, as a means to mitigate social problems and environmental risks, are getting more attention in evaluating urban environment. The inequity of green space distribution is becoming a major issue in urban planning and management. This study investigated the characteristics of green space in 3 districts (Jung-gu, Dongdaemun-gu, Seongdong-gu), that are composed of 46 administrative divisions in central Seoul, to analyze the environmental equity of urban green spaces. The correlations between the amount of green space, including the coverage of street trees, and the socioeconomic status of each administrative division were analyzed. To deduce the effects of plant coverage on the urban temperature regime, the relationship between the normalized difference of vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) was analyzed. The research revealed that the mean NDVI of an administrative division was negatively correlated with the percentage of basic living recipients and disabled people. The LST of a division with low NDVI was higher due to the lack of green coverage. Such environmental inequities were closely related to residential building type, which was strongly affected by the economic status of residents. The LST of an apartment area was $2.0^{\circ}C$ lower than that of single-family houses and multi-housing areas. This is expected as the average NDVI of the apartment area was more than twice as high as the other environments considered in this study. The inequity can be exacerbated without urban planning which is deliberately designed to reduce it.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.67-90
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• 2016

This study examines whether there is any significant relation between executive compensation and future firm performance for the Korean export manufacturing small and medium-sized firms. We sorted the whole sample firms into the sub-groups of 10 deciles by firm size and the KSIC standard. We found the following empirical results. First, Korean export manufacturing small and medium-sized firms typically showed lower or even negative profitability in terms of return on equity and operating profit ratio to sales. Foreign equity ownership is very low with an average of 3.77%. Second, for the firms with higher ratio of excess executive compensation to asset had lower future firm performance. It implies that the typical owner-manager in Korean export manufacturing SMEs earns excess pay, but do not contribute much to firm performance. Third, as for future cumulative abnormal returns for future one- and three-year periods, firms with higher owner-executive pay had lower returns compared with firms with lower pay. So the stock market investors set a lower value on them. Fourth, there is a positive relation between excess executive pay and executive overconfidence, and it implies that owner-CEOs with higher pay may become overconfident, thereby lowering future firm performance somehow.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.111-131
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• 2007

As a brand becomes a core asset in creating a corporation's value, brand marketing has become one of core strategies that corporations pursue. Recently, for customer relationship management, possession and consumption of goods were centered on brand for the management. Thus, management related to this matter was developed. The main reason of the increased interest on the relationship between the brand and the consumer is due to acquisition of individual consumers and development of relationship with those consumers. Along with the development of relationship, a corporation is able to establish long-term relationships. This has become a competitive advantage for the corporation. All of these processes became the strategic assets of corporations. The importance and the increase of interest of a brand have also become a big issue academically. Brand equity, brand extension, brand identity, brand relationship, and brand community are the results derived from the interest of a brand. More specifically, in marketing, the study of brands has been led to the study of factors related to building of powerful brands and the process of building the brand. Recently, studies concentrated primarily on the consumer-brand relationship. The reason is that brand loyalty can not explain the dynamic quality aspects of loyalty, the consumer-brand relationship building process, and especially interactions between the brands and the consumers. In the studies of consumer-brand relationship, a brand is not just limited to possession or consumption objectives, but rather conceptualized as partners. Most of the studies from the past concentrated on the results of qualitative analysis of consumer-brand relationship to show the depth and width of the performance of consumer-brand relationship. Studies in Korea have been the same. Recently, studies of consumer-brand relationship started to concentrate on quantitative analysis rather than qualitative analysis or even go further with quantitative analysis to show effecting factors of consumer-brand relationship. Studies of new quantitative approaches show the possibilities of using the results as a new concept of viewing consumer-brand relationship and possibilities of applying these new concepts on marketing. Studies of consumer-brand relationship with quantitative approach already exist, but none of them include sub-dimensions of consumer-brand relationship, which presents theoretical proofs for measurement. In other words, most studies add up or average out the sub-dimensions of consumer-brand relationship. However, to do these kind of studies, precondition of sub-dimensions being in identical constructs is necessary. Therefore, most of the studies from the past do not meet conditions of sub-dimensions being as one dimension construct. From this, we question the validity of past studies and their limits. The main purpose of this paper is to overcome the limits shown from the past studies by practical use of previous studies on sub-dimensions in a one-dimensional construct (Naver & Slater, 1990; Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Chang & Chen, 1998). In this study, two arbitrary groups were classified to evaluate reliability of the measurements and reliability analyses were pursued on each group. For convergent validity, correlations, Cronbach's, one-factor solution exploratory analysis were used. For discriminant validity correlation of consumer-brand relationship was compared with that of an involvement, which is a similar concept with consumer-based relationship. It also indicated dependent correlations by Cohen and Cohen (1975, p.35) and results showed that it was different constructs from 6 sub-dimensions of consumer-brand relationship. Through the results of studies mentioned above, we were able to finalize that sub-dimensions of consumer-brand relationship can viewed from one-dimensional constructs. This means that the one-dimensional construct of consumer-brand relationship can be viewed with reliability and validity. The result of this research is theoretically meaningful in that it assumes consumer-brand relationship in a one-dimensional construct and provides the basis of methodologies which are previously preformed. It is thought that this research also provides the possibility of new research on consumer-brand relationship in that it gives root to the fact that it is possible to manipulate one-dimensional constructs consisting of consumer-brand relationship. In the case of previous research on consumer-brand relationship, consumer-brand relationship is classified into several types on the basis of components consisting of consumer-brand relationship and a number of studies have been performed with priority given to the types. However, as we can possibly manipulate a one-dimensional construct through this research, it is expected that various studies which make the level or strength of consumer-brand relationship practical application of construct will be performed, and not research focused on separate types of consumer-brand relationship. Additionally, we have the theoretical basis of probability in which to manipulate the consumer-brand relationship with one-dimensional constructs. It is anticipated that studies using this construct, which is consumer-brand relationship, practical use of dependent variables, parameters, mediators, and so on, will be performed.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 2012

Nowadays, customer satisfaction has been one of company's major objectives, and the index to measure and communicate customer satisfaction has been generally accepted among business practices. The major issues of CSI(customer satisfaction index) are three questions, as follows: (a)what level of customer satisfaction is tolerable, (b)whether customer satisfaction and company performance has positive causality, and (c)what to do to improve customer satisfaction. Among these, the second issue is recently attracting academic research in several perspectives. On this study, the second issue will be addressed. Many researchers including Anderson have regarded customer satisfaction as core competencies, such as brand equity, customer equity. They want to verify following causality "customer satisfaction → market performance(market share, sales growth rate) → financial performance(operating margin, profitability) → corporate value performance(stock price, credit ratings)" based on the process model of marketing performance. On the other hand, Insoo Jeon and Aeju Jeong(2009) verified sequential causality based on the process model by the domestic data. According to the rejection of several hypotheses, they suggested the balance model of marketing performance as an alternative. The objective of this study, based on the existing process model, is to examine the causal relationship between customer satisfaction and corporate value performance. Anderson and Mansi(2009) proved the relationship between ACSI(American Customer Satisfaction Index) and credit ratings using 2,574 samples from 1994 to 2004 on the assumption that credit rating could be an indicator of a corporate value performance. The similar study(Sangwoon Yoon, 2010) was processed in Korean data, but it didn't confirm the relationship between KCSI(Korean CSI) and credit ratings, unlike the results of Anderson and Mansi(2009). The summary of these studies is in the Table 1. Two studies analyzing the relationship between customer satisfaction and credit ratings weren't consistent results. So, in this study we are to test the conflicting results of the relationship between customer satisfaction and credit ratings based on the research model considering Korean credit ratings. To prove the hypothesis, we suggest the research model as follows. Two important features of this model are the inclusion of important variables in the existing Korean credit rating system and government support. To control their influences on credit ratings, we included three important variables of Korean credit rating system and government support, in case of financial institutions including banks. ROA, ER, TA, these three variables are chosen among various kinds of financial indicators since they are the most frequent variables in many previous studies. The results of the research model are relatively favorable : R², F-value and p-value is .631, 233.15 and .000 respectively. Thus, the explanatory power of the research model as a whole is good and the model is statistically significant. The research model has good explanatory power, the regression coefficients of the KCSI is .096 as positive(+) and t-value and p-value is 2.220 and .0135 respectively. As a results, we can say the hypothesis is supported. Meanwhile, all other explanatory variables including ROA, ER, log(TA), GS_DV are identified as significant and each variables has a positive(+) relationship with CRS. In particular, the t-value of log(TA) is 23.557 and log(TA) as an explanatory variables of the corporate credit ratings shows very high level of statistical significance. Considering interrelationship between financial indicators such as ROA, ER which include total asset in their formula, we can expect multicollinearity problem. But indicators like VIF and tolerance limits that shows whether multicollinearity exists or not, say that there is no statistically significant multicollinearity in all the explanatory variables. KCSI, the main subject of this study, is a statistically significant level even though the standardized regression coefficients and t-value of KCSI is .055 and 2.220 respectively and a relatively low level among explanatory variables. Considering that we chose other explanatory variables based on the level of explanatory power out of many indicators in the previous studies, KCSI is validated as one of the most significant explanatory variables for credit rating score. And this result can provide new insights on the determinants of credit ratings. However, KCSI has relatively lower impact than main financial indicators like log(TA), ER. Therefore, KCSI is one of the determinants of credit ratings, but don't have an exceedingly significant influence. In addition, this study found that customer satisfaction had more meaningful impact on corporations of small asset size than those of big asset size, and on service companies than manufacturers. The findings of this study is consistent with Anderson and Mansi(2009), but different from Sangwoon Yoon(2010). Although research model of this study is a bit different from Anderson and Mansi(2009), we can conclude that customer satisfaction has a significant influence on company's credit ratings either Korea or the United State. In addition, this paper found that customer satisfaction had more meaningful impact on corporations of small asset size than those of big asset size and on service companies than manufacturers. Until now there are a few of researches about the relationship between customer satisfaction and various business performance, some of which were supported, some weren't. The contribution of this study is that credit rating is applied as a corporate value performance in addition to stock price. It is somewhat important, because credit ratings determine the cost of debt. But so far it doesn't get attention of marketing researches. Based on this study, we can say that customer satisfaction is partially related to all indicators of corporate business performances. Practical meanings for customer satisfaction department are that it needs to actively invest in the customer satisfaction, because active investment also contributes to higher credit ratings and other business performances. A suggestion for credit evaluators is that they need to design new credit rating model which reflect qualitative customer satisfaction as well as existing variables like ROA, ER, TA.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.171-184
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• 2014

This paper investigate the impact of external financing constraints(EFC) on the dividend policy(cash dividend ratio) and the impact of interaction of ownership structure((1)the percentage of shares held by external blockholder who owns at least 5% of equity(5% BHR), (2) the percentage of shares held by foreign investors(Foreign), (3) the percentage of shares by insider shareholders(Insider)) and external financing constraints on the dividend policy. The purpose mentioned above are empirically tested using 370 firm-year data listed on the Korean Exchange(KRX) with multiple regression method. Summarizing the results of analysis as following; Firstly, we find that EFC has negative relationship with cash dividend ratio. Secondly, interaction of 5% BHR and EFC has positive relationship with cash dividend ratio. Also, interaction of Foreign and EFC has positive relationship with cash dividend ratio. But, Insider and EFC has negative relationship with cash dividend ratio. This study contributes to research related to dividend policy by recognizing that ownership structure influences the dividend policy.