• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.145-156
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• 2018

Unlike the past, when distributors distributed games through retail stores, they are now selling digital content, which is based on online distribution channels. This study analyzes the effects of eWOM (electronic Word of Mouth) on sales volume of game sold on Steam, an online digital content distribution channel. Recently, data mining techniques based on Big Data have been studied. In this study, emotion index of eWOM is derived by emotional analysis which is a text mining technique that can analyze the emotion of each review among factors of eWOM. Emotional analysis utilizes Naive Bayes and SVM classifier and calculates the emotion index through the SVM classifier with high accuracy. Regression analysis is performed on the dependent variable, sales variation, using the emotion index, the number of reviews of each game, the size of eWOM, and the user score of each game, which is a rating of eWOM. Regression analysis revealed that the size of the independent variable eWOM and the emotion index of the eWOM were influential on the dependent variable, sales variation. This study suggests the factors of eWOM that affect the sales volume when Korean game companies enter overseas markets based on steam.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.59-83
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• 2013

Recently, the importance of the health care industry is increasing due to the rapid changes in the population structure caused by decreasing in fertility rate and aging population. Therefore expansion of government investment in R&D of the health care industry is needed as the demand of health care is increasing. This study attempts to examine the economic impacts of national research and development for the health care industry using an inter-industry analysis. Specifically, the study investigates production-inducing effect, value added inducing effect, and employment-inducing effect of the health care industry based on demand-driven model. These analyses pay particular and close attention to the health care industry by taking it as exogenous rather than endogenous. Here we present results. First, the production-inducing effect and value added inducing effect was high in common real estate and business services and finance and insurance sector. Second, employment-inducing effect of the health care industry showed the highest levels in wholesale and retail sector, followed by the real estate and business services, agriculture sector. Third, the actual 2009 health care industry-related national R&D investment embracing on the production-inducing effect and value added inducing effect. The health care industry R&D induces the production of 4,932 billion won and the value added of 2163 billion won.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.35-43
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• 2015

Purpose - This study aims to seek various plans to maintain the advancement of the overseas and domestic employment scenario through a case analysis of the Japanese industry, which maintains domestic employment while promoting the overseas advancement of companies despite having a similar industrial structure as Korea. The study further intends to derive insightful implications for Japanese manufacturing companies and government policies. Research design, data, and methodology - We selected four companies from the Japanese manufacturing industry. Being companies that were successful in increasing the domestic employment scenario while advancing in overseas markets. We utilized several secondary data sources including Japanese newspapers and report literature. Results - Previous studies have shown a negative relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or offshoring and domestic employment. However, our results showed this relationship with respect to the Japanese manufacturing industry as follows: 1. FDI for developing overseas markets does not decrease domestic production. If Japanese companies change their strategy from exports to overseas production, there will be a consequent decrease in domestic employment of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). However, the local production that plans the sales expansion of a foreign market does not substitute domestic production. 2. Several case studies illustrate that, as the production of final goods is expanded in foreign countries, there is a corresponding increase in the export of intermediary goods from Japan. In this case, if the production process of Japanese companies is promoted in foreign markets, the amount of exported material and parts from Japan will consequently increase. 3. It is difficult to consider that the establishment of subsidiary companies in foreign countries by manufacturing companies for wholesale, retail, and services decreases domestic employment. This is because the international development of these industries needs expatriates, expatriate training organizations, and research and development (R&D) activities. 4. When there is overseas demand, the growth of local management activities is expected to increase the work of the overseas business department in the head office in Japan, if competitiveness can be secured for better localization and management speed. 5. The conversion of the domestic manufacturing industry into high value-added production is necessary. The relocation of domestic production to foreign markets decreases domestic employment. To prevent this, the upgradation of domestic production bases, including high value-added production, and R&D capability need to be strengthened. Technology-based companies must develop new technology, patents, processes, and so forth, which require extensive human resources for R&D. Conclusions - Domestic medium-sized companies that are capable of consistently supplying high value-added products should be actively encouraged to deploy into and develop overseas markets. Further, this paper considers the necessity of a guidance policy that provides suggestions for overseas deployment, by the initiation of the government, to companies that cannot do so due to the lack of foreign experience or decisions by the CEO, despite having the relevant capability and technologies to supply high value-added products.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.107-118
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• 2019

Purpose - The present study examines the effect of service employees' experienced customer incivility through their emotional exhaustion. We identified service employees' emotion regulation ability as a boundary condition (i.e., moderating variable) that decreased the positive relationship between service employees' experienced customer incivility and their emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, we also investigated the negative relationship between service employees' experienced customer incivility and their service performance via emotional exhaustion. Research design, data, and methodology - Drawing on AET (affective event theory) and COR (conservation of resources) theory, we developed three research hypotheses (i.e., mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation). Online panel survey data from 552 frontline employees at several service organizations (e.g., department stores, retail stores, hotels, restaurants, airlines, banking, insurance company, and etc) in South Korea were examined. To assess two types of validity (i.e., convergent and discriminant validity) and reliability of measurement model, we employed the CFA (confirmatory factor analysis) using M-plus 8.2 software. Internal consistency also was tested by Cronbach' α. In addition, we employed the SPSS PROCESS MACRO 2.16, which was recommended by Hayes (2013, 2015), to estimate mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation effects. Results - As predicted, the negative relationship between service employees' experienced customer incivility and their service performance was mediated by emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, service employees' emotion regulation ability also played a significant moderating role of the relationship between service employees' experienced customer incivility and emotional exhaustion, such that this relationship was less pronounced when service employees had a high level of their emotion regulation ability than when thir emotion regulation ability was low. Service employees' emotion regulation ability further moderated this mediation effect of service employees' experienced customer incivility on service performance through emotional exhaustion. These findings have theoretical implications for employees' experienced customer incivility and emotion regulation ability research and provide managerial implications for practitioners. Conclusions - This study empirically elaborated the previous model of service employees' experienced customer incivility and personal resource (e.g., emotion regulation ability) literature by presenting the findings that service employees' experienced customer incivility influences their service performance via emotional exhaustion and that emotion regulation ability effectively reduces this negative effect.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.73-83
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• 2015

Purpose - Recently, many large retailers have been frequently purchasing commercial brands. Not only the quality of products purchased but also the brand images are of concern in this process. Based on this rising trend, commercial brands have become an important issue in the retail business world, along with increasing general interest as well. Thus, this study focuses on the factors affecting commercial brand images and clarifies the impact of the resulting factors as well. First, store images and familiarity, price sensitiveness, and knowledge are presented as the effect factors for commercial brands. Second, the study tries to clarify the effect of commercial brand image on the reliability and loyalty of customers. Research design, data, and methodology - To conduct the study methodology, 250 questionnaires were distributed to retailers who have used large discount stores located in Busan to purchase a commercial brand a total of 234 valid questionnaires were used in the final analysis. To verify the hypotheses, a structure equation formula using Amos 20.0 was calculated. First, prior to the verification of hypotheses, the reliability and feasibility of the questions were tested, and as a result, the value of Cronbach's alpha was higher than 0.7, thereby showing reliability. Additionally, for the verification of the feasibility of the questions, a confirmation factor analysis was implemented. Results - First, variances such as store images, familiarity, price sensitivity, and knowledge were presented as the factors of effect on commercial brands. As a result of the hypotheses verification, all the effect factors presented in this study were confirmed as important variables of commercial brand images. The hypotheses were drawn based on the studies relating to existing commercial brands, and thereby, a result similar to previous studies was produced. However, the effect factors of the commercial brand image presented in this study shaped a new study model based on the previous studies. Second, it was found that commercial brand images had positive effects on the reliability and loyalty of customers. This study presented reliability and loyalty as the resulting factors of commercial brand image because they are the most important factors in relation to customer behavior and variables that can suggest marketing points for distribution businesses. Conclusions - This study focused on clarifying the factors that are important effect factors for commercial brand images. As a result, all the hypotheses were confirmed in this study, indicating a meaningful result, and thereby suggesting many points that can be presented to distribution businesses. First, the proper strategies should be developed based on the hypothesis that a store image, the familiarity of customers with brands, and the price sensitiveness and knowledge level of customers have an important effect on the choice of commercial brands. Additionally, the formation of such favorable images will have positive effects not only in terms of customer trust in the commercial brands but also in terms of their loyalty.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.175-193
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• 2010

This paper has two objectives. One is to understand status of the distribution industry in Korea and compare it with industrialized countries. The other is an attempt to apply input-output(I-O) analysis to investigate the economic impacts of the distribution industry in the national economy for the year 2008. In the economy as a whole, the distribution industry represented about around 15 per cent employment and accounted for near 8 percent in GDP. The employment portion of the distribution in overall industry is almost same that of US, UK, and Japan, but shared portion in GDP is at least 3 per cent below these countries. Next, a static I-O framework is employed, focusing on two topics in its application. First, the impacts of the product or investment in the distribution industry on the product, value-added, and employment of other sectors are explored by using demand-driven model. Second, the national economic impacts of the distribution industry in Korea are looked into by using open model and inter-industry analysis. It can be summarized that the distribution industry has a high production-inducing effect, more worker and employment-inducing effect, a high forward and a low backward linkage effect. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.101-106
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• 2014

Purpose - This study reviews the achievements of a pilot project for the revitalization of a commercial district performed for three years after its establishment in 2011. The project for the revitalization of the commercial district was performed to create a new local community space in connection with the traditional market and nearby districts. Although it was a pilot project, the project for the revitalization of the commercial district has been performed for almost three years. Therefore, this seems a proper time to conduct an interim evaluation of the project. This study aims to review and evaluate how the government support policy is influential for the revitalization of the commercial district. In other words, this research aims to identify what projects positively affected consumers' intention to revisit the downtown commercial area among the commercial district revitalization projects-promotion events, promotion activities, education, merchants cooperation system, IT projects, cultural events, and residents' communication. Research design, data, and methodology - This study designated seven management improvement projects affecting commercial district revitalization based on preceding studies. The survey of the degree of satisfaction on seven management improvement projects was executed targeting consumers who visited the commercial areas. Additionally, visitors' revisit intentions regarding currently visited commercial areas were also investigated. Therefore, revisit intention was set as a dependent variable and the satisfaction degrees of the respective management improvement projects were set as the independent variables. A total of 1,209 consumers were examined in six districts in the country. Result - Multiple regression analysis results showed that cultural events, education, the merchants' cooperation system, and IT projects brought statistically significant effects to the revisit intentions of consumers. In contrast, promotion events, resident communication projects, and promotion activities did not affect the revisit intentions of consumers. Particularly, the residents' communication project did not show significant influence because of consumers' recognition that it is similar to a cultural event. Conclusion - The following implications for the revitalization of business districts in the urban central area are drawn. From a general perspective, the businesses of culture, education, and cooperative system among seven businesses play positive roles regarding the intention to revisit so that the project is required to be promoted periodically through unique performances differentiated for each district, the merchant training reinforced for professionalism, and the expansion of joint events of merchants. Moreover, the sales promotion project and public relations activity are shown to be not influential to the intention to revisit. Therefore, while short-term sales promotion such as one-time gift events are required, sales promotion and public relation activities to induce revisits by mileage savings and accumulated gift presentation to attract long-term customers are required. The IT business is positively influential to the intention of revisit. Therefore, detailed information on the revitalized commercial district should be provided and additional functions such as discount coupons for continuous utilization should be included in the mobile app and the website.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.51-68
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• 2017

Financial technology (FinTech) is an emerging financial service sector include innovations in financial literacy and investment, retail banking, education, and crypto-currencies like bitcoin. One of the crucial branch of financial technology-third-party payment (TPP) is undergoing rapid growth, with online/mobile systems replacing offline financial systems. System quality and user attitudes are key perceptions driving third-party payment usage, the importance of these perceptions, however, may be different with countries as users' thinking varies from country to country. Thus, the purpose of this study is to elaborate how factors differ from China to Korea by drawing on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2). Additionally, this study also aims to propose a multi-attribute evaluation of the third-party online payment system based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP), fuzzy sets and technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), to examine the relative importance of the perceptions influencing new technology adoption intention. The results showed that the price value has the most significant influence on Chinese perceptions, while the perceived credibility has the most significant effect on Korean perceptions. Sub-criteria also performs different results to Chinese and Korean third-party online payment system.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.1-25
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• 2008

This study, from a temporal standpoint, seeks to validate the relationship between prior shopping experience, a pre-experiential construct, and impulsive/planned purchase intentions, a post-experience construct, based on strategic experiential module advocated by Schmitt (1999) by focusing on three key variables--prior shopping experience, on-site experiences, and emotional response to store atmosphere. Also, from a spatial standpoint, the study aims to valiadate the relationship between emotional response to store atmosphere and impulsive purchase intentions across three retail store types--department store, discount store, and internet store. Specific research purposes and findings are as follows. First, it was found that regardless of the degree of prior shopping, discount store and internet shoppers preferred cognitive shopping experience to emotional experience. Second, emotional shopping experience significantly influenced impulsive purchase intention, whereas cognitive shopping experience influenced planned purchase intention. Third, for discount store shoppers only did the interior colour serve as a positive moderator between emotional shopping experience and impulsive buying intention, while merchandise display served as a negative moderator.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.5-15
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• 2014

Purpose - The method of TV home shopping is a kind of retail method that provides the viewer with information about products and, further, sells the products to consumers through the media of television. The domestic home-shopping industry has been expanding since 1995, and there are six companies in this arena as of 2012. In this study, we evaluate the management efficiency of TV home-shopping companies and provide suggestions for improving efficiency, using the DEA (data envelopment analysis) model. Hence, we expect to contribute to the progress of the companies' efficiency and the development of the TV home-shopping industry, where deepening competition is inevitable because it is experiencing the maturing market stage in its life cycle. Research design, data, and methodology - Efficiency is the ratio of the quantity of input to the quantity of output of a product or service. It is necessary to estimate aggregate inputs and aggregate outputs, which are calculated by applying a weighting to a number of input and output factors, to measure the efficiency. The DEA model is divided into the CCR model and the BCC model. The CCR model is a basic model that assumed constant returns to scale (CRS), and the BCC model extends the CCR model to accommodate technologies exhibiting variable returns to scale (VRS), and concerns only the technical efficiency without considering the efficiency of returns to scale. In this study, we consider six companies each year from 2008 to 2012 as a DMU (Decision Making Unit) and analyze the differences in efficiency for each company in each year. Furthermore, we evaluate the operating characteristics of TV home-shopping companies, using three models, in accordance with the overall performance, profitability, and marketability of the business. Results - The result of the analysis, using DEA models, shows that Hyundai Home Shopping (2009, 2010, 2011), GS Home Shopping (2011), NS Home Shopping (2011) and CJ O Shopping (2012) possess MPSS (most productive scale size), with a score 1.0 in CCR, BCC, and scale efficiency. Particularly, Hyundai Home Shopping is shown to be the most efficient in terms of overall business performance, marketability, and profitability. The overall efficiency of the home shopping industry has displayed an increasing trend since 2008, even though it decreased marginally in 2012; further, we can observe that home shopping companies operate with increasing efficiency with the passage of time. Conclusions - Home shopping companies have focused on market expansion rather than profits, as they displayed better efficiency in marketability than increase in profitability during the period 2008-2012. In addition, the main reason for the increased efficiency in the home shopping industry is the market expansion through the revenue increase of each home shopping company. This study can be used as a reference when home shopping companies attempt to devise future strategies, as it suggests efficiency benchmarks and development levels for each home shopping company.