• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 2008

This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.67 no.1
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• pp.263-288
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• 2015

This study is to research the mediating effects of optimism and quality of relationship which interpersonal traumatic experience influences posttraumatic growth. It focuss on verifying the impact of interpersonal traumatic experience to optimism and quality of relationship and the influence of optimism and quality of relationship to posttraumatic growth. And also it is to verify dual mediating effect between optimism and quality of relationship. Data for this study were collected through the use of a survey instrument completed by 405 interpersonal traumatic experience, 30-60 age group. Collected data were analysed by AMOS program, Structure Equation Model(SEM) was implemented to verify the mediating effect between optimism and quality of relationship. Finally, Phantom Variable was utilized for verification of indirect influence of a multi mediating effects. The findings of this study were as follows, First, the result shows that the higher level interpersonal traumatic experience, the higher posttraumatic growth they have. Second, it shows that optimism and quality of relationship have partial mediating effect between interpersonal traumatic experience and posttraumatic growth. Third, it was analyzed that optimism and quality of relationship had double mediating effect. Based on these findings, the research discussion reinforced the importance of intervene with its optimism and quality of relationship in the site of those who experience interpersonal trauma. Theological, political and practical implications of this study are as follows. First, it has a series of significance in terms of that this study confirmed its influence considering the quality of relationship from interpersonal experience among relevant factors of traumatic accident, optimism among individual factors, quality of relationship among environmental factors based on 'the crisis of life and the theory of individual growth'. econd, even though optimism and quality of relationship were proved as major predictors for posttraumatic growth of those who experience interpersonal traumatic, psychological support center for traumatic experience is not operated systematically in Korea. Third, this study implies that it should intervene mainly with its optimism and quality of relationship in the site of those who experience interpersonal trauma such as any abuses including sexual abuse, bullying, and divorce.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.131-177
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• 2006

This paper examines a simultaneous determination of corporate control mechanisms, and its effects on firm performance. The corporate control mechanisms considered include the following; insider shareholding, institutional shareholding, the board of directors, dividend policy, and capital structure. This paper applies a simultaneous equation methodology and investigates the interdependence among the corporate control mechanisms. In the first part, the paper finds that firm-level variations of control mechanisms are large across time although average variations are relatively small. These variations are related to one another, which is confirmed by Granger causality test based on dynamic panel autoregression model. More specifically insider shareholding, institutional shareholding and outside director ratio cause each other. With regard to interdependence among the control mechanisms, 2SLS(two stage least squares) regression results show that insider shareholding and institutional shareholding are substitutes while institutional shareholding acts as complements to the ratio of outside members in the board of directors. Then in the second part, the paper examines the relationship between firm performance and corporate governance. Firm performance, measured by Tobin's Q, has a positive association with leverage ratio while that has a negative relation to outside director ratio. This suggests that there may be a room for reforming corporate governance in Korea. Specifically it is necessary to enhance the independence of the outside directors.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.162-172
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• 2016

Since the Northridge earthquake in 1994 and the Kobe earthquake in 1995 occurred, the concept of performance based design has been introduced for designing various kinds of important structures and buildings. Uniform hazard spectra (UHS), with annual exceedance probabilities, corresponding to the performance level of each structure, are required for performance-based design. The probabilistic seismic hazard analysis was performed using spectral ground motion prediction equations, which were developed from both Korean Peninsula and Central and Eastern US region, and several seismotectonic models suggested by 10 expert panel members in seismology and tectonics. The uniform hazard spectra for 5 highly populated cities in Korea, with recurrence period of 500, 1,000, and 2,500 years using the seismic hazard at the frequencies of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0 Hz and Peak ground acceleration (PGA) were analyzed using the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. The sensitivity analysis suggests that spectral ground motion prediction equations impact much more on seismic hazard than what seismotectonic models do. The uniform hazard spectra commonly showed a maximum hazard at the frequency of 10 Hz and also showed the similar shape characteristics to the previous study and related technical guides to nuclear facilities.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.267-277
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• 2018

This study examined the job satisfaction and its association with violence experience, job stress, and burn-out. A total of 1,240 119 rescue workers who worked in 14 fire stations across the country were surveyed. The survey was conducted by self-administered questionnaires from 1 March, to 30 April, 2016. As a result, the score of job satisfaction according to violence experience, job stress, and burn-out were significantly lower in the group with higher scores of violence experience, job stress, and burn-out. Regarding the correlation of job satisfaction with violence experience, job stress, and burn-out, the score of job satisfaction was negatively correlated with the violence experience, job stress, and burn-out. With an analysis of the covariance structure, the job stress was more influential on the job satisfaction than violence experience and burn-out. In addition, a higher violence experience, job stress, and burn-out were found to decrease job satisfaction. On the other hand, a higher the job stress and violence experience resulted in higher burn-out rates. The results suggested that the job satisfaction is influenced more by job stress than by violence experience and burn-out. Therefore, concrete measures will be needed to reduce job stress and promote the job satisfaction of 119 rescue workers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.3685-3695
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• 2014

This study was performed to determine the suicide ideation and its association with hopelessness, psychosocial stress and depression among some middle school students. The survey was administered to 975 middle school students in Gyeongin area during the period, May $1^{st}$ to June $30^{th}$, 2013. Structured self-administered questionnaires were delivered and collected without the respondents' personal information. As a result, concerning the correlation of depression with various factors, the level of suicide ideation was positively correlated with hopelessness, psychosocial stress and depression. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the factors influencing the suicide ideation included sex distinction, experience of alcohol drinking, hobbies and leisure life, subjective health status, grade, school violence experience, hopelessness, psychosocial stress and depression. An analysis of the covariance structure, hopelessness (BHOP) was more influential on the suicide ideation than psychosocial stress (PWI) and depression (CES-D). The study found that higher hopelessness, severe distress and higher depression tends to increase the suicide ideation.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.97-109
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• 2017

Purpose - This study aimed to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial temperament (ET) such as innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness in entrepreneur's lifetime before start-up and the effect of social capital (SC) such as network ties and trustworthiness on entrepreneurial intention. Research design, data, and methodology - We examined the components of ET (innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness) and components of SC (network ties and trustworthiness) through existing prior research and investigated the factors that affected entrepreneurial intention. The first hypothesis of this study was that entrepreneurial temperament will have a significant impact on network ties of social capital, and the second hypothesis assumed that entrepreneurial temperament will have a significant effect on the trustworthiness of social capital. Finally, the second hypothesis assumed that social capital will have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions. We collected 175 data using questionnaires for people who have not yet started a start-up. And we used the Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) to evaluate the collected data and to test the research model by the two step research procedure. Results - As a result, the innovativeness and proactiveness of ET have a significant effect on network ties and trustworthiness of SC, but the effect of risk-taking on risk-taking of SC is not significant. On the other hand, network ties and network ties of SC was revealed a significant effect on the EI. Conclusions - The implications of this article could be observed as mentioned in this paper. First, we found that entrepreneurial innovativeness and proactiveness are helpful in constructing SCs, but not risk-taking. These results demonstrated that ET of entrepreneurs is important factor in the formation of social capital. Second, the SC that an entrepreneur built before the start-up has a meaning for EI. In conclusion, ET was affected partially to EI mediated SC. It is academic in that ET and SC are independent from each other and have a mediating role between ET and EI, unlike those directly affecting EI. Although some important implications were found in this study, this study had some limitations and we hope that future research will be complemented.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.51
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• pp.5-25
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• 2010

The purpose of this research examined the relationship between the level of news usage on Influenza A(H1N1) and media users' behavioral intention toward health protection. Specifically, the study investigated causal relationships among exposure of media information on Influenza A(H1N1) as an independent variable, psychological protection motivation factors such as perceived severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, & self-efficacy as mediated variables and behavioral intention on personal and public health protection as dependent variables using structure equation model analysis. Self-reported questionnaires were administrated to 460 college students. The result indicated the followings. First, the level of news usage on Influenza A(H1N1) was not statistically significant on influencing behavioral intention toward personal and public health protection. Second, perceived severity, vulnerability, and self-efficacy were significant variables on behavioral intention toward personal health protection whereas perceived vulnerability and response efficacy were significant on public health protection. The function among factors in protection motivation theory is dependent upon whom protected from illness.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.275-291
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• 2014

The focus of this study was to investigate the relationships of blog's reliability, perceived benefit, perceived risk and words of mouth by online readers. Data were collected by a total of 228 persons reading actively gourmet blogs. The survey was carried out from August 1 to 15, 2014. Total 228 questionnaires were used for final analysis. Frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and reliability analysis were conducted through SPSS 18.0 for final analysis, and regression analysis was conducted through AMOS 18.0 for verification of hypothesis. The hypothesized relationships among the models were tested simultaneously by using a structure equation model(SEM). The study results are like below. First, The reliability of the Gourmet blog could be confirmed again very important variable in the fields of food industry like the previous studies. Second, The reliability of the Gourmet blogs affected on the positive (+)relationship to the perceived benefits, and the negative (-)relationship to the perceived risk. Third, Reliability and perceived benefits in relation to the impact on the online word-of-mouth was positive(+). However, perceived risk was found not to affect on it. Finally, perceived benefits for the reliability of the blog have been identified as the key parameters on the online word-of-mouth. The theoretical contributions of this study and the practical implications are discussed and future research directions are detailed.