• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.165-175
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• 2013

Though the number of food franchises has been increased these days, there has not been less success for food franchise than failure. One of the several failures is the distrust between franchisor and franchisee factors because the franchisee thought its franchisor does not make its accounts and operations transparent. In order to resolve it, the large business food franchise has used the ERP system, however, small business franchise has run a very simple information system, which is linked to POS system and consists of simple functions to insert or inquire the result of data on sales and order etc to identify the status of both franchisor and franchisee because of financial difficulties and manpower shortage. Thus, small business franchise needs the cost management between them with low cost for efficient business administration. In this study, we suggest the data reference model (DRM) which covers the cost management system and is able to be linked to any POS system. The DRM is a framework whose primary purpose is to enable information linking and reuse across the any POS-based information systems via the classification, structure, model, exchange and management of data.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.55-78
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to devise successful strategies for launching of new brands in franchise companies based on cases of 'Gamarogangjung' of Masedarin Inc. The results of case analysis shaw following successful strategies. First, Masedarin Inc. has used its core competence; Masedarin Inc., which managed chicken franchises for many years, launched the new brand, 'Gamarogangjung' based on its differentiated technologies and infrastructure. Second, the brand, 'Gamarogangjung' has used market oriented strategy actively; the brand has reflected customers' needs to its adminstration immediately by understanding and sharing of customers' needs at the corporate level. Third, Masedarin Inc. has differentiated a business model from other companies; by using 'take out' purchasing system instead of 'delivery to doors' or 'purchasing by visiting', the company has saved huge management cost. Fourth, Masedarin Inc. developed a new kind of business which is differentiated from existing chicken franchise brands or take-out restaurants. Fifth, Masedarin Inc. has appealed its sincerity to franchisees; its business information session, which explains about the business openly without exaggeration, has drawn a high rate of franchise agreement. Sixth, Masedarin Inc. changed its way of thinking about conditions of a location for member stores. The company has selected 'A' level locations for their member stores which enables 'quick sales at small profits' while other take-out stores are usually located at 'B' level location. Lastly, Masedarin Inc. has given thorough instructions to the staff of member stores. And immediately after opening of the stores, franchisees were able to operate the stores comfortably because the company educated the staff repeatedly over a long period to make them master skills before the opening of the store.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

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 $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.124-141
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• 2011

The domestic food culture in Korea has gone through great changes, among which dining out is considered most prominent. These changes are caused by a number of factors: development of several related industries, increase in dining out chances, diversification of consumer needs, change in consumption awareness and quality, increase in disposable income, women's advance into the society, etc. Under these circumstances, the fast food industry has been experiencing slow growth, whereas family restaurants and take out coffee franchises are consistently increasing the number of restaurants and shops as a part of aggressive management to increase sales. This study aims, first, to examine the effects of consumer's brand individuality and satisfaction on brand trust, brand emotion, brand identification, and brand loyalty of specialty coffee shops. Subsequently, this study observes how consumer's brand individuality and satisfaction affect the formation of brand trust, brand emotion, brand identification, and brand loyalty in accordance with preferred type of specialty coffee shops, frequency of experience, and life style in order to establish relevant strategies. The results of this study are as follows. First, brand individuality had a positive effect on customer satisfaction. Second, customer satisfaction had a positive effect on brand trust. Third, customer satisfaction had a positive effect on brand loyalty. Fourth, customer satisfaction had a positive effect on brand emotion. Fifth, brand trust had a positive effect on brand loyalty. Sixth, brand emotion had a positive effect on brand loyalty. These results have the following implications. First, the dimensions of brand individuality are presented as a means to form brand loyalty, thereby demonstrating the significance of the effect. Accordingly, developing a proper brand individuality in forming brand loyalty is imperative. Second, consumers using specialty coffee shops had the greatest effect on the relation between dimensions of brand individuality and customer satisfaction in this study, while the interrelation between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty was not concretely supported in the preceding studies.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1-23
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• 2012

The conflict between major corporations and small and medium-sized businesses is being aggravated, the trickle down effect is not working properly, and, as the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the business limiting system continues to swirl, the plan proposed to protect the business domain of small and medium-sized businesses, resolve polarization between these businesses and large corporations, and protect small family run stores is the suitable business type designation system for small and medium-sized businesses. The current status of carrying out this system of selecting suitable business types among small and medium-sized businesses involves receiving applications for 234 items among the suitable business types and items from small and medium-sized businesses in manufacturing, and then selecting the items of the consultative group by analyzing and investigating the actual conditions. Suitable business type designation in the service industry will involve designation with priority on business types that are experiencing social conflict. Three major classifications of the service industry, related to the livelihood of small and medium-sized businesses, will be first designated, and subsequently this will be expanded sequentially. However, there is the concern that when designated as a suitable business type or item, this will hinder the growth motive for small to medium-sized businesses, and designation all cause decrease in consumer welfare. Also it is highly likely that it will operate as a prior regulation, cause side-effects by limiting competition systematically, and also be in violation against the main regulations of the FTA system. Moreover, it is pointed out that the system does not sufficiently reflect reverse discrimination factor against large corporations. Because conflict between small to medium sized businesses and large corporations results from the expansion of corporations to the service industry, which is unrelated to their key industry, it is necessary to introduce an advanced contract method like a master franchise or local franchise system and to develop local small to medium sized businesses through a franchise system to protect these businesses and dealers. However, this method may have an effect that contributes to stronger competitiveness of small to medium sized franchise businesses by advancing their competitiveness and operational methods a step further, but also has many negative aspects. First, as revealed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the franchise industry is contributing to the strengthening of competitiveness through the economy of scale by organizing existing individual proprietors and increasing the success rate of new businesses. It is also revealed to be a response measure by the government to stabilize the economy of ordinary people and is emphasized as a 'useful way' to revitalize the service industry and improve the competitiveness of individual proprietors, and has been involved in contributions to creating jobs and expanding the domestic market by providing various services to consumers. From this viewpoint, franchises fit the purpose of the suitable business type system and is not something that is against it. Second, designation as a suitable business type may decrease investment for overseas expansion, R&D, and food safety, as well negatively affect the expansion of overseas corporations that have entered the domestic market, due to the contraction and low morale of large domestic franchise corporations that have competitiveness internationally. Also because domestic franchise businesses are hard pressed to secure competitiveness with multinational overseas franchise corporations that are operating in Korea, the system may cause difficulty for domestic franchise businesses in securing international competitiveness and also may result in reverse discrimination against these overseas franchise corporations. Third, the designation of suitable business type and item can limit the opportunity of selection for consumers who have up to now used those products and can cause a negative effect that reduces consumer welfare. Also, because there is the possibility that the range of consumer selection may be reduced when a few small to medium size businesses monopolize the market, by causing reverse discrimination between these businesses, the role of determining the utility of products must be left ot the consumer not the government. Lastly, it is desirable that this is carried out with the supplementation of deficient parts in the future, because fair trade is already secured with the enforcement of the franchise trade law and the best trade standard of the Fair Trade Commission. Overlapping regulations by the suitable business type designation is an excessive restriction in the franchise industry. Now, it is necessary to establish in the domestic franchise industry an environment where a global franchise corporation, which spreads Korean culture around the world, is capable of growing, and the active support by the government is needed. Therefore, systems that do not consider the process or background of the growth of franchise businesses and harm these businesses for the sole reason of them being large corporations must be removed. The inhibition of growth to franchise enterprises may decrease the sales of franchise stores, in some cases even bankrupt them, as well as cause other problems. Therefore the suitable business type system should not hinder large corporations, and as both small dealers and small to medium size businesses both aim at improving competitiveness and combined growth, large corporations, small dealers and small to medium sized businesses, based on their mutual cooperation, should not include franchise corporations that continue business relations with them in this system.