• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.61-118
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.58-90
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• 1989

This study was attempted to contribute to the development of school health by providing the basic data about the distribution basis and distribution aspect of teachers holding additional school health that are in charge of school health business in parimary schools, middle schools and high schools without any nurse-teacher. This study analyzed literatures about the history, related laws, organization and professional manpower of school health. The emphasis was set on the distribution basis of theachers holding additional school health. The results of this study are as following: 1. The school health of the world dates to the late 18th century in Europe where was free supplying with food for poor children. The school health of Korea orginated from smallpox vaccination which was executed with appearance of modern schools in the late 19th century. 2. The related laws of school health began as a part of Education Law with was constituted in 1949. By the School Health Law constituted in 1967 and the enforcement ordinance of School Health made firm the legal basis of school health. 3. The administrative organs of school health are the Ministry of Education in center and each Board of Education in cities and provinces. For the first time in 1979, the department of school health was established in the organization of the Ministry of Education. And at about the same time of establishment of the department of school health, health section was established in the department of social physical-training in locality. 4. In the manpower of school health which was presented in the related statute of school health, there are the ward chief of education, the superintendent of educational affair, of cities and districts, the mayors, the governors of provinces, the school managers, the principals, the school doctors, the school pharmacists, and the nurse-teachers, including teachers holding additional school health as the practical manpower of school health. 5. In order to get some information on distribution aspect of teachers additional school health, this study made up a questionnaire from August 3 to August 11, 1988. The subjects of this study were 212 leachers who took part in the yearly training for teachers holding additional school health from Kyunggi province, Chungbuk province and Jeonbuk province. The results of the questionnaire are as following: 1. The distribution percentages of teachers holding additional school health according to each Board of Education wich schools are subject to, are as following:70.1% (Kyunggi), 76.5% (Chungbuk), and 81.4% (Jeonbuk). There was a significant difference. The distribution percentages of teachers holding additional school health according to the school levels of 3 provinces are as following: 74.1% (Primary schools), 77.8% (Middle schools), 76.7% (High schools). There were little significant differences. 2. The distribution according to the general characteristics of the subject schools: There were 64.2 percent of primary schools and 35.8 percent of middle schools among 212 schools. 91. 5 percent of schools were located in districts. Public schools formed 55.7% and then national schools were higher in percentage than private schools. 58.5 percent of schools had 1-9 classes, 64.6 percent of schools had 101-500 students, and 90 percents of schools had 1-20 teachers. In considering student sex, the coed school showed the high distribution percentage (Primary schools : 100%, Middle schools: 81.6%). 3. The distribution according to the characteristics of teachers holding additional school health: 93.3 percent of teachers were female, and more than 60 percent of teachers were 20-29 years old. As the age got higher, the percentage became lower. There were little significant differences by marital status. In considering their educational status, 86.8 percent of teachers in primary schools were from teacher's colleges, and 64.5 percent of teachers in middle schools were from education colleges. In considering teaching career, 46.7 percent of teachers had teaching career of less than 2 years. 73.6 percent of teachers had held additional school health for less than one year. More than 80 percent of teachers had participated in the training one time or twice. More than 70 percent of teachers had 1-2 additional jobs except for the school health business. The motivation to hold additional school health is most caused by mandatory order, which accounts for more than 80.0 percent. In considering interesting degree concerning school health, lukewarm answer is the highest of 62.7 percent, followed by affirmative answer of 23.6 percent. In considering their contentment degree respecting additional school health job, "discontent or very discontent"is the highest of 47.6 percent. As a descontent reason of additional school health job, overwork is the highest factor of 37.9 percent. Among addiitional school health job, the most difficult affair is nursing service to be 34.0 percent, followed by health education of 31.6 percent. It testify the need of professional. The source of knowledge about school health has been acquired from masscommunication or private health experience, which account for as much as 56.1 percent. It shows seriousness of lack of professionalism. With regard to neccessity of school health experts, 95.8 percent represents absolute need. With above consideration of study results, I propose as follows : 1. I propose that the authorities concerned unify and improve statute respecting current school health which has not been steadfastly supporting school health business by ambiguity of expression and dualization. 2. I propose that the authorities concerned give the school manager, school staffs and parents of students educational chance with which they can acknowledge the importance of school health and in which they can participate as well as set up alternative policy plan to be albe to vitalize school health committee. 3. I propose that administrative organization practicable to taking totally charge of school health business is established within the Ministry of Education. 4. I propose that the authorities concerned back up and cooperate in an attempt by make school health better and desirable toward development by way of appointing qualitied health teachers on the basis of legally regular teacher staffs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.376-388
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• 1996

The first and the second "Discussion Contest of Scientific Investigation" was evaluated in this study. This contest was a part of 'Korean Youth Science Festival' held in 1993 and 1994. The evaluation was based on the data collected from the middle school students of final teams, their teachers, a large number of middle school students and college students who were audience of the final competition. Questionnaires, interviews, reports of final teams, and video tape of final competition were used to collect data. The study focussed on three research questions. The first was about the preparation and the research process of students of final teams. The second was about the format and the proceeding of the Contest. The third was whether participating the Contest was useful experience for the students and the teachers of the final teams. The first area, the preparation and the research process of students, were investigated in three aspects. One was the level of cooperation, participation, support and the role of teachers. The second was the information search and experiment, and the third was the report writing. The students of the final teams from both years, had positive opinion about the cooperation, students' active involvement, and support from family and school. Students considered their teachers to be a guide or a counsellor, showing their level of active participation. On the other hand, the interview of 1993 participants showed that there were times that teachers took strong leading role. Therefore one can conclude that students took active roles most of the time while the room for improvement still exists. To search the information they need during the period of the preparation, student visited various places such as libraries, bookstores, universities, and research institutes. Their search was not limited to reading the books, although the books were primary source of information. Students also learned how to organize the information they found and considered leaning of organizing skill useful and fun. Variety of experiments was an important part of preparation and students had positive opinion about it. Understanding related theory was considered most difficult and important, while designing and building proper equipments was considered difficult but not important. This reflects the students' school experience where the equipments were all set in advance and students were asked to confirm the theories presented in the previous class hours. About the reports recording the research process, students recognize the importance and the necessity of the report but had difficulty in writing it. Their reports showed tendency to list everything they did without clear connection to the problem to be solved. Most of the reports did not record the references and some of them confused report writing with story telling. Therefore most of them need training in writing the reports. It is also desirable to describe the process of student learning when theory or mathematics that are beyond the level of middle school curriculum were used because it is part of their investigation. The second area of evaluation was about the format and the proceeding of the Contest, the problems given to students, and the process of student discussion. The format of the Contests, which consisted of four parts, presentation, refutation, debate and review, received good evaluation from students because it made students think more and gave more difficult time but was meaningful and helped to remember longer time according to students. On the other hand, students said the time given to each part of the contest was too short. The problems given to students were short and open ended to stimulate students' imagination and to offer various possible routes to the solution. This type of problem was very unfamiliar and gave a lot of difficulty to students. Student had positive opinion about the research process they experienced but did not recognize the fact that such a process was possible because of the oneness of the task. The level of the problems was rated as too difficult by teachers and college students but as appropriate by the middle school students in audience and participating students. This suggests that it is possible for student to convert the problems to be challengeable and intellectually satisfactory appropriate for their level of understanding even when the problems were difficult for middle school students. During the process of student discussion, a few problems were observed. Some problems were related to the technics of the discussion, such as inappropriate behavior for the role he/she was taking, mismatching answers to the questions. Some problems were related to thinking. For example, students thinking was off balanced toward deductive reasoning, and reasoning based on experimental data was weak. The last area of evaluation was the effect of the Contest. It was measured through the change of the attitude toward science and science classes, and willingness to attend the next Contest. According to the result of the questionnaire, no meaningful change in attitude was observed. However, through the interview several students were observed to have significant positive change in attitude while no student with negative change was observed. Most of the students participated in Contest said they would participate again or recommend their friend to participate. Most of the teachers agreed that the Contest should continue and they would recommend their colleagues or students to participate. As described above, the "Discussion Contest of Scientific Investigation", which was developed and tried as a new science contest, had positive response from participating students and teachers, and the audience. Two among the list of results especially demonstrated that the goal of the Contest, "active and cooperative science learning experience", was reached. One is the fact that students recognized the experience of cooperation, discussion, information search, variety of experiments to be fun and valuable. The other is the fact that the students recognized the format of the contest consisting of presentation, refutation, discussion and review, required more thinking and was challenging, but was more meaningful. Despite a few problems such as, unfamiliarity with the technics of discussion, weakness in inductive and/or experiment based reasoning, and difficulty in report writing, The Contest demonstrated the possibility of new science learning environment and science contest by offering the chance to challenge open tasks by utilizing student science knowledge and ability to inquire and to discuss rationally and critically with other students.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.188-198
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• 2010

This study attempts to examine the influence that negative WOM (NWOM) has in an online context. It specifically focuses on the impact of the service failure description and the perceived intention of the communication provider on consumer evaluations of firm competence, attitude toward the firm, positive word of mouth and behavioral intentions. Studies of communication persuasiveness focus on "who says what; to whom; in which channel; with what effect (Chiu 2007)." In this research study, we examine electronic web posting, particularly focusing on two aspects of "what": the level of service failure communicated and perceived intention of the individual posting. It stands to reason electronic NWOM that appears to be trying to damage a product’s or firm's reputation will be viewed as more biased and will thus be considered as less credible. According to attribution theory, people search for the causes of events especially those that are negative and unexpected (Weiner 2006). Hennig-Thurau and Walsh (2003) state "since the reader has only limited knowledge and trust of the author of an online articulation the quality of the contribution could be expected to serve as a potent moderator of the articulation-behavior relationship. We therefore posit the following hypotheses: H1. Subjects exposed to electronic NWOM describing a high level of service failure will provide lower scores on measures of (a) firm competence, (b) attitude toward the firm, (c) positive word of mouth, and (d) behavioral intention than will subjects exposed to electronic NWOM describing a low level of service failure. H2. Subjects exposed to electronic NWOM with a warning intent will provide lower scores on measures of (a) firm competence, (b) attitude toward the firm, (c) positive word of mouth, and (d) behavioral intention than will subjects exposed to electronic NWOM with a vengeful intent. H3. Level of service failure in electronic NWOM will interact with the perceived intention of the electronic NWOM, such that there will be a decrease in mean response on measures of (a) firm competence, (b) attitude toward the firm, (c) positive word of mouth, and (d) behavioral intention from electronic NWOM with a warning intent to a vengeful intent. The main study involved a2 (service failure severity) x2 (NWOM with warning versus vengeful intent) factorial experiment. Stimuli were presented to subjects online using a mock online web posting. The scenario described a service failure associated with non-acceptance of a gift card in a brick-and-mortar retail establishment. A national sample was recruited through an online research firm. A total of 113 subjects participated in the study. A total of 104 surveys were analyzed. The scenario was perceived to be realistic with 92.3% giving the scenario a greater than average response. Manipulations were satisfactory. Measures were pre-tested and validated. Items were analyzed and found reliable and valid. MANOVA results found the multivariate interaction was not significant, allowing our interpretation to proceed to the main effects. Significant main effects were found for post intent and service failure severity. The post intent main effect was attributable to attitude toward the firm, positive word of mouth and behavioral intention. The service failure severity main effect was attributable to all four dependent variables: firm competence, attitude toward the firm, positive word of mouth and behavioral intention. Specifically, firm competence for electronic NWOM describing high severity of service failure was lower than electronic NWOM describing low severity of service failure. Attitude toward the firm for electronic NWOM describing high severity of service failure was lower than electronic NWOM describing low severity of service failure. Positive word of mouth for electronic NWOM describing high severity of service failure was lower than electronic NWOM describing low severity of service failure. Behavioral intention for electronic NWOM describing high severity of service failure was lower for electronic NWOM describing low severity of service failure. Therefore, H1a, H1b, H1c and H1d were all supported. In addition, attitude toward the firm for electronic NWOM with a warning intent was lower than electronic NWOM with a vengeful intent. Positive word of mouth for electronic NWOM with a warning intent was lower than electronic NWOM with a vengeful intent. Behavioral intention for electronic NWOM with a warning intent was lower than electronic NWOM with a vengeful intent. Thus, H2b, H2c and H2d were supported. However, H2a was not supported though results were in the hypothesized direction. Otherwise, there was no significant multivariate service failure severity by post intent interaction, nor was there a significant univariate service failure severity by post intent interaction for any of the three hypothesized variables. Thus, H3 was not supported for any of the four hypothesized variables. This study has research and managerial implications. The findings of this study support prior research that service failure severity impacts consumer perceptions, attitude, positive word of mouth and behavioral intentions (Weun et al. 2004). Of further relevance, this response is evidenced in the online context, suggesting the need for firms to engage in serious focused service recovery efforts. With respect to perceived intention of electronic NWOM, the findings support prior research suggesting reader's attributions of the intentions of a source influence the strength of its impact on perceptions, attitude, positive word of mouth and behavioral intentions. The implication for managers suggests while consumers do find online communications to be credible and influential, not all communications are weighted the same. A benefit of electronic WOM, even when it may be potentially damaging, is it can be monitored for potential problems and additionally offers the possibility of redress.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.125-148
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• 2009

UGC(User Generated Contents) is emerging as the center of e-business in the web 2.0 era. The trend reflects changing roles of users in production and consumption of contents on websites and helps us to understand new strategies of websites such as web portals and social network websites. Nowadays, we consume contents created by other non-professional users for both utilitarian (e.g., knowledge) and hedonic values (e.g., fun). Also, contents produced by ourselves (e.g., photo, video) are posted on websites so that our friends, family, and even the public can consume those contents. This means that non-professionals, who used to be passive audience in the past, are now creating contents and share their UGCs with others in the Web. Accessible media, tools, and applications have also reduced difficulty and complexity in the process of creating contents. Realizing that users create plenty of materials which are very interesting to other people, media companies (i.e., web portals and social networking websites) are adjusting their strategies and business models accordingly. Increased demand of UGC may lead to website visits which are the source of benefits from advertising. Therefore, they put more efforts into making their websites open platforms where UGCs can be created and shared among users without technical and methodological difficulties. Many websites have increasingly adopted new technologies such as RSS and openAPI. Some have even changed the structure of web pages so that UGC can be seen several times to more visitors. This mainstream of UGCs on websites indicates that acquiring more UGCs and supporting participating users have become important things to media companies. Although those companies need to understand why general users have shown increasing interest in creating and posting contents and what is important to them in the process of productions, few research results exist in this area to address these issues. Also, behavioral process in creating video UGCs has not been explored enough for the public to fully understand it. With a solid theoretical background (i.e., theory of implementation intentions), parts of our proposed research model mirror the process of user behaviors in creating video contents, which consist of intention to upload, intention to edit, edit, and upload. In addition, in order to explain how those behavioral intentions are developed, we investigated influences of antecedents from three motivational perspectives (i.e., intrinsic, editing software-oriented, and website's network effect-oriented). First, from the intrinsic motivation perspective, we studied the roles of self-expression, enjoyment, and social attention in forming intention to edit with preferred editing software or in forming intention to upload video contents to preferred websites. Second, we explored the roles of editing software for non-professionals to edit video contents, in terms of how it makes production process easier and how it is useful in the process. Finally, from the website characteristic-oriented perspective, we investigated the role of a website's network externality as an antecedent of users' intention to upload to preferred websites. The rationale is that posting UGCs on websites are basically social-oriented behaviors; thus, users prefer a website with the high level of network externality for contents uploading. This study adopted a longitudinal research design; we emailed recipients twice with different questionnaires. Guided by invitation email including a link to web survey page, respondents answered most of questions except edit and upload at the first survey. They were asked to provide information about UGC editing software they mainly used and preferred website to upload edited contents, and then asked to answer related questions. For example, before answering questions regarding network externality, they individually had to declare the name of the website to which they would be willing to upload. At the end of the first survey, we asked if they agreed to participate in the corresponding survey in a month. During twenty days, 333 complete responses were gathered in the first survey. One month later, we emailed those recipients to ask for participation in the second survey. 185 of the 333 recipients (about 56 percentages) answered in the second survey. Personalized questionnaires were provided for them to remind the names of editing software and website that they reported in the first survey. They answered the degree of editing with the software and the degree of uploading video contents to the website for the past one month. To all recipients of the two surveys, exchange tickets for books (about 5,000~10,000 Korean Won) were provided according to the frequency of participations. PLS analysis shows that user behaviors in creating video contents are well explained by the theory of implementation intentions. In fact, intention to upload significantly influences intention to edit in the process of accomplishing the goal behavior, upload. These relationships show the behavioral process that has been unclear in users' creating video contents for uploading and also highlight important roles of editing in the process. Regarding the intrinsic motivations, the results illustrated that users are likely to edit their own video contents in order to express their own intrinsic traits such as thoughts and feelings. Also, their intention to upload contents in preferred website is formed because they want to attract much attention from others through contents reflecting themselves. This result well corresponds to the roles of the website characteristic, namely, network externality. Based on the PLS results, the network effect of a website has significant influence on users' intention to upload to the preferred website. This indicates that users with social attention motivations are likely to upload their video UGCs to a website whose network size is big enough to realize their motivations easily. Finally, regarding editing software characteristic-oriented motivations, making exclusively-provided editing software more user-friendly (i.e., easy of use, usefulness) plays an important role in leading to users' intention to edit. Our research contributes to both academic scholars and professionals. For researchers, our results show that the theory of implementation intentions is well applied to the video UGC context and very useful to explain the relationship between implementation intentions and goal behaviors. With the theory, this study theoretically and empirically confirmed that editing is a different and important behavior from uploading behavior, and we tested the behavioral process of ordinary users in creating video UGCs, focusing on significant motivational factors in each step. In addition, parts of our research model are also rooted in the solid theoretical background such as the technology acceptance model and the theory of network externality to explain the effects of UGC-related motivations. For practitioners, our results suggest that media companies need to restructure their websites so that users' needs for social interaction through UGC (e.g., self-expression, social attention) are well met. Also, we emphasize strategic importance of the network size of websites in leading non-professionals to upload video contents to the websites. Those websites need to find a way to utilize the network effects for acquiring more UGCs. Finally, we suggest that some ways to improve editing software be considered as a way to increase edit behavior which is a very important process leading to UGC uploading.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.19-37
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• 2009

The purpose of this research is to explore differences between small and medium-sized companies and large-sized companies in the impact of human resource innovativeness(HRI), learning orientation(LO), and HRI-LO interaction on innovation effect and business performance. Although learning orientation has long been considered as a key factor influencing good performance of a business, little research was devoted to exploring the effect of HRI-LO interaction on innovation effect and business performance. In this study, it is investigated whether there is a synergy effect between innovative human workforce and learning orientation corporate culture, in addition to each by itself, to generate good business performance as well as a success of new innovations in the market. Research hypotheses were as follows, including H1) human resource innovativeness(HRI), learning orientation(LO), and interactions of HRI and LO(HRI-LO interaction) positively affect innovation effect, H2) there is a difference of the effect of HRI, LO, and HRI-LO interaction on innovation effect between large-sized and small-sized companies, H3) HRI, LO, HRI-LO interaction, innovation effect positively affect business performance, and H4) there is a difference of the effect of HRI, LO, HRI-LO interaction, and innovation effect on business performance between large-sized and small-sized companies. Data were obtained from 479 practitioners through a web survey since the web survey is an efficient method to collect a national data at a variety of fields. A single respondent from a company was allowed to participate in the study after checking whether they have more than 5-year work experiences in the company. To check whether a common source bias is existed in the sample, additional data from a convenient sample of 97 companies were gathered through the traditional survey method, and were used to confirm correlations between research variables of the original sample and the additional sample. Data were divided into two groups according to company size, such as 352 small and medium-sized companies with less than 300 employees and 127 large-sized companies with 300 or more employees. Data were analyzed through t-test and regression analyses. HRI which is the innovativeness of human resources in the company was measured with 9 items assessing the innovativenss of practitioners in staff, manager, and executive-level positions. LO is the company's effort to encourage employees' development, sharing, and utilizing of knowledge through consistent learning. LO was measured by 18 items assessing commitment to learning, vision sharing, and open-mindedness. Innovation effect which assesses a success of new products/services in the market, was measured with 3 items. Business performance was measured by respondents' evaluations on profitability, sales increase, market share, and general business performance, compared to other companies in the same field. All items were measured by using 6-point Likert scales. Means of multiple items measuring a construct were used as variables based on acceptable reliability and validity. To reduce multi-collinearity problems generated on the regression analysis of interaction terms, centered data were used for HRI, LO, and Innovation effect on regression analyses. In group comparison, large-sized companies were superior on annual sales, annual net profit, the number of new products/services in the last 3 years, the number of new processes advanced in the last 3 years, and the number of R&D personnel, compared to small and medium-sized companies. Also, large-sized companies indicated a higher level of HRI, LO, HRI-LO interaction, innovation effect and business performance than did small and medium-sized companies. The results indicate that large-sized companies tend to have more innovative human resources and invest more on learning orientation than did small-sized companies, therefore, large-sized companies tend to have more success of a new product/service in the market, generating better business performance. In order to test research hypotheses, a series of multiple-regression analysis was conducted. In the regression analysis examining the impact on innovation effect, important results were generated as : 1) HRI, LO, and HRI-LO affected innovation effect, and 2) company size indicated a moderating effect. Based on the result, the impact of HRI on innovation effect would be greater in small and medium-sized companies than in large-sized companies whereas the impact of LO on innovation effect would be greater in large-sized companies than in small and medium-sized companies. In other words, innovative workforce would be more important in making new products/services that would be successful in the market for small and medium-sized companies than for large-sized companies. Otherwise, learning orientation culture would be more effective in making successful products/services for large-sized companies than for small and medium-sized companies. Based on these results, research hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported. In the analysis of a regression examining the impact on business performance, important results were generated as : 1) innovation effect, LO, and HRI-LO affected business performance, 2) HRI by itself did not have a direct effect on business performance regardless of company size, and 3) company size indicated a moderating effect. Specifically, an effect of the HRI-LO interaction on business performance was stronger in large-sized companies than in small and medium-sized companies. It means that the synergy effect of innovative human resources and learning orientation culture tends to be stronger as company is larger. Referring to these result, research hypothesis 3 was partially supported whereas hypothesis 4 was supported. Based on research results, implications for companies were generated. Regardless of company size, companies need to develop the learning orientation corporate culture as well as human resources' innovativeness together in order to achieve successful development of innovative products and services as well as to improve sales and profits. However, the effectiveness of the HRI-LO interaction would be varied by company size. Specifically, the synergy effect of HRI-LO was stronger to make a success of new products/services in small and medium-sized companies than in large-sized companies. However, the synergy effect of HRI-LO was more effective to increase business performance of large-sized companies than that of small and medium-sized companies. In the case of small and medium-sized companies, business performance was achieved more through the success of new products/services than much directly affected by HRI-LO. The most meaningful result of this study is that the effect of HRI-LO interaction on innovation effect and business performance was confirmed. It was often ignored in the previous research. Also, it was found that the innovativeness of human workforce would not directly influence in generating good business performance, however, innovative human resources would indirectly affect making good business performance by contributing to achieving the development of new products/services that would be successful in the market. These findings would provide valuable managerial implications specifically in regard to the development of corporate culture and education program of small and medium-sized as well as large-sized companies in a variety of fields.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.205-225
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• 2018

Convolutional Neural Network (ConvNet) is one class of the powerful Deep Neural Network that can analyze and learn hierarchies of visual features. Originally, first neural network (Neocognitron) was introduced in the 80s. At that time, the neural network was not broadly used in both industry and academic field by cause of large-scale dataset shortage and low computational power. However, after a few decades later in 2012, Krizhevsky made a breakthrough on ILSVRC-12 visual recognition competition using Convolutional Neural Network. That breakthrough revived people interest in the neural network. The success of Convolutional Neural Network is achieved with two main factors. First of them is the emergence of advanced hardware (GPUs) for sufficient parallel computation. Second is the availability of large-scale datasets such as ImageNet (ILSVRC) dataset for training. Unfortunately, many new domains are bottlenecked by these factors. For most domains, it is difficult and requires lots of effort to gather large-scale dataset to train a ConvNet. Moreover, even if we have a large-scale dataset, training ConvNet from scratch is required expensive resource and time-consuming. These two obstacles can be solved by using transfer learning. Transfer learning is a method for transferring the knowledge from a source domain to new domain. There are two major Transfer learning cases. First one is ConvNet as fixed feature extractor, and the second one is Fine-tune the ConvNet on a new dataset. In the first case, using pre-trained ConvNet (such as on ImageNet) to compute feed-forward activations of the image into the ConvNet and extract activation features from specific layers. In the second case, replacing and retraining the ConvNet classifier on the new dataset, then fine-tune the weights of the pre-trained network with the backpropagation. In this paper, we focus on using multiple ConvNet layers as a fixed feature extractor only. However, applying features with high dimensional complexity that is directly extracted from multiple ConvNet layers is still a challenging problem. We observe that features extracted from multiple ConvNet layers address the different characteristics of the image which means better representation could be obtained by finding the optimal combination of multiple ConvNet layers. Based on that observation, we propose to employ multiple ConvNet layer representations for transfer learning instead of a single ConvNet layer representation. Overall, our primary pipeline has three steps. Firstly, images from target task are given as input to ConvNet, then that image will be feed-forwarded into pre-trained AlexNet, and the activation features from three fully connected convolutional layers are extracted. Secondly, activation features of three ConvNet layers are concatenated to obtain multiple ConvNet layers representation because it will gain more information about an image. When three fully connected layer features concatenated, the occurring image representation would have 9192 (4096+4096+1000) dimension features. However, features extracted from multiple ConvNet layers are redundant and noisy since they are extracted from the same ConvNet. Thus, a third step, we will use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to select salient features before the training phase. When salient features are obtained, the classifier can classify image more accurately, and the performance of transfer learning can be improved. To evaluate proposed method, experiments are conducted in three standard datasets (Caltech-256, VOC07, and SUN397) to compare multiple ConvNet layer representations against single ConvNet layer representation by using PCA for feature selection and dimension reduction. Our experiments demonstrated the importance of feature selection for multiple ConvNet layer representation. Moreover, our proposed approach achieved 75.6% accuracy compared to 73.9% accuracy achieved by FC7 layer on the Caltech-256 dataset, 73.1% accuracy compared to 69.2% accuracy achieved by FC8 layer on the VOC07 dataset, 52.2% accuracy compared to 48.7% accuracy achieved by FC7 layer on the SUN397 dataset. We also showed that our proposed approach achieved superior performance, 2.8%, 2.1% and 3.1% accuracy improvement on Caltech-256, VOC07, and SUN397 dataset respectively compare to existing work.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.32-43
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• 2009

Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.