• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2024

Purpose: Through an ethical supply chain, brands not only catch the eye but win over a fan base of consumers who prize credibility and consistency in what they purchase. Currently, the ethical supply chain is no longer just a manufacturing process; it has become a compelling story. It draws people's attention and wins their loyalty. This research study will examine the benefits of an ethical supply chain in attracting consumer attention and building brand loyalty. Research design, data and methodology: For this research study, A detailed method was used to search and analyze relevant articles. Initial searches used set terms in certain databases. Screening criteria were the thorough scrutiny of titles and abstracts to decide their relevance to the study at hand. Thus, to enhance the quality of data, duplicate entries were deleted. Results: Based on the analysis of the prior literature, the results highlight the power of ethical saliency, showing that consumers themselves are looking for and rewarding products that meet their ethical standards. This attention to ethically transparent brands, in turn, encourages more interest and interaction with them. Conclusions: Therefore, practitioners must transmit the firm's ethical standards through all channels of communication-investor relations materials and financial reports alike.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.109-116
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• 2011

As urbanization has evolved, a number of cities have been engaged in building creative power through branding. Cities contain much creative space and creative space within cities develops them. Cities are connected with space, which have a great influence each other, in particular, in cities of culture and art. Space contents in cities have various forms and types and work as important factors for branding of cities. In this high-touch generation, cities of culture and art have special meaning in that design of emotional generation, and cultural meaning of tangible and intangible assets in cities are their competitive power and sources of high added value. The cities of culture and art are oriented toward creative future globally and nationally. In cities of culture which seek for urban development by excavating artistic meaning and value through artistic and cultural development, their cultural meaning itself can become a brand, which effectively leads to building creative cities and marketing of urban brands. This study aims to analyse cases of cities developed through discovering or reactivating art and cultural meaning and value of urban space based on urban space contents. Then it analyses through what urban image, brands and marketing space contents were developed and suggests necessity of space contents development in small and middle sized cities. Therefore, based on the cases of art and cultural cities developed depending on space contents, it analyses and differentiate their various types and contents, aiming to show that any cities can be based on art and culture and creativity depending on creation, regeneration and development of space contents.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.41-67
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• 2005

At this paper, we investigate two factors of market aspects, such as market power perspective and market efficiency perspective, as influential factors on size of slotting allowances of new products. Also, our research might examine the effects of slotting allowances of new products on both performance of new products and consumer prices. For the empirical research, we analysis 128 domestic manufacturers. In result, there is a positive relationship between retailers' brand equity and the size of slotting allowances. However, there is a negative relationship between retailer replaceability and the size of slotting allowances. Also, the effect of transaction period is negative direction and the effect of the environment uncertainty is positive direction. And the effect of the scale of the slotting allowance of new products is positive direction on the performance of the manufacturers and the price of new products. And, the theoretical and practical implications of this result and future research were suggested.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2011

The brand-new small output radio equipment which is over than 800MHz has an all-in-one interior antenna. We suggested new measuring method and developed related equipment because all-in-one radio equipment's performance evaluation requests old way, which is measuring transmitter output and antenna capacity separately, to be changed. That is, origin of small radio equipments with the 360 degree field measured by measuring the TRP, and also 360 degree opposite reception level measured at the radio equipment by measuring the TIS to make a quantitative evaluation was to be. Furthermore, we made managing frequencies, all-in-one radio equipment's best design and capacity management efficiently by measuring the gain of an antenna mounted on a PCB, the circuit around the genetic material, conductive material on the effects of radiation or the reception level.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.181-186
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• 2022

The world's electric automobile sector has shifted beyond technological environmental changes to a stage that has an impact on the market environment. And automakers are shifting from the existing strategy of "technological advantage → brand enhancement → sales expansion of existing internal combustion engine vehicles" to the expansion of the electric automobile market itself, which is to enhance market competitiveness. In addition, competition in the electric automotive parts market is expected to intensify due to the expansion of the business areas of existing parts makers and the entry of new companies, and development cooperation is expected to actively proceed to improve the efficiency of major eco-friendly parts. Along with this prospect, electric vehicles are expected to change the overall structure of the automobile industry, the overall growth of the electric vehicle value chain such as batteries, power trains (motors, power management and control systems), electric vehicle production, and charging infrastructure Is expected. Therefore, in this thesis, in order to cultivate a variety of high-quality human resources that companies want to keep pace with the changing automobile industry, we study a professional manpower training program that leads the growth engine of the electric automobile industry.

• 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 Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.455-462
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• 2015

Purpose: To develop more accurate wet measuring system combining the wet cell, automatic lensmeter and the related software for hydrophilic contact lenses and to verify the accuracy of those measuring holder system already available in the market. Methods: Refractive power measurement were done in both a conventional method which has been commonly used in optical shops and a new method which is recently developed in korea. Hydrophilic contact lens of korean brand was chosen as a test material and was tested by water content ratio and by spherical refractive power. Results: When spherical power of -3.00 D contact lens is measured in the newly developed wet cell measurement holder with automatic lensmeter, it reads -3.01 D at water content ratio of 38%. -3.00 D at 45% and -2.98 D at 58%. The same experiment with the Poster soft contact lens wet cell measurement holder maintaining other conditions same resulted in -3.60 D at the water content ratio of 38%, -3.06 D at 45% and -2.46 D at 58%. Conclusions: At the higher water content, the refractive power values measured by both of the wet cell measuring holders are shown lower, and additionally, the new method using the wet cell holder and new software program in a automatic lensmeter showed more accurate readings than conventional Poster soft contact lens wet cell measuring system.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.93-111
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• 2013

As Internet and information technology (IT) continues to develop and evolve, the issue of big data has emerged at the foreground of scholarly and industrial attention. Big data is generally defined as data that exceed the range that can be collected, stored, managed and analyzed by existing conventional information systems and it also refers to the new technologies designed to effectively extract values from such data. With the widespread dissemination of IT systems, continual efforts have been made in various fields of industry such as R&D, manufacturing, and finance to collect and analyze immense quantities of data in order to extract meaningful information and to use this information to solve various problems. Since IT has converged with various industries in many aspects, digital data are now being generated at a remarkably accelerating rate while developments in state-of-the-art technology have led to continual enhancements in system performance. The types of big data that are currently receiving the most attention include information available within companies, such as information on consumer characteristics, information on purchase records, logistics information and log information indicating the usage of products and services by consumers, as well as information accumulated outside companies, such as information on the web search traffic of online users, social network information, and patent information. Among these various types of big data, web searches performed by online users constitute one of the most effective and important sources of information for marketing purposes because consumers search for information on the internet in order to make efficient and rational choices. Recently, Google has provided public access to its information on the web search traffic of online users through a service named Google Trends. Research that uses this web search traffic information to analyze the information search behavior of online users is now receiving much attention in academia and in fields of industry. Studies using web search traffic information can be broadly classified into two fields. The first field consists of empirical demonstrations that show how web search information can be used to forecast social phenomena, the purchasing power of consumers, the outcomes of political elections, etc. The other field focuses on using web search traffic information to observe consumer behavior, identifying the attributes of a product that consumers regard as important or tracking changes on consumers' expectations, for example, but relatively less research has been completed in this field. In particular, to the extent of our knowledge, hardly any studies related to brands have yet attempted to use web search traffic information to analyze the factors that influence consumers' purchasing activities. This study aims to demonstrate that consumers' web search traffic information can be used to derive the relations among brands and the relations between an individual brand and product attributes. When consumers input their search words on the web, they may use a single keyword for the search, but they also often input multiple keywords to seek related information (this is referred to as simultaneous searching). A consumer performs a simultaneous search either to simultaneously compare two product brands to obtain information on their similarities and differences, or to acquire more in-depth information about a specific attribute in a specific brand. Web search traffic information shows that the quantity of simultaneous searches using certain keywords increases when the relation is closer in the consumer's mind and it will be possible to derive the relations between each of the keywords by collecting this relational data and subjecting it to network analysis. Accordingly, this study proposes a method of analyzing how brands are positioned by consumers and what relationships exist between product attributes and an individual brand, using simultaneous search traffic information. It also presents case studies demonstrating the actual application of this method, with a focus on tablets, belonging to innovative product groups.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.35-49
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• 2014

In cases of fashion businesses operating by consignment, base estimate on quantity of sales is the most essential part of merchandising. This study classified factors influential to sales into factors with systematic influence and factors with unsystematic influence. In order to find out influence of each factor on sales, non-linear regression was used with SPSS package on the basis of actual data on sales for 5 years for sport shoes brand. Major findings of this study are as follows. First, price level had significant negative(-) influence on sales. Second, price expectation effects had significant negative(-) influence on sales. Third, competitor's price effect showed significant negative(-) value. Fourth, day-of-the-week effect showed significant positive(+) effect. The theoretical marketing implications of this study are as follows. First, study on price leads to expansion of the researches from apparels to sport shoes. Field of study on price was enlarged through expansion of variable of study from price level and price expectation effect to promotion, day-of-the-week effect and rainfall effect. Second, quantitative scale of day-of-the-week effect was found and it could be confirmed that there was seasonal differences with day-of-the-week effect. Implications of above findings on marketing managers are as follows. First, it was found that an increase in competitiveness of brand power and a decline in absolute value of competitor's price effect can be realized when new product groups are developed to meet the unsatisfied needs in the market. Second, it was possible to find out the parameters scales of the price response function, making it possible to estimate sales for the next season, and in turn realize increase in rate of sales and profit rate. This research is based on the dynamic price response function, which is rare to find in the apparel business and it academic significance due to its expanding response model which was focused on price in conventional researches to non-systematic variables.