• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.87-104
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• 2023

Recently, concerns are growing over small and medium-sized companies holding out on debt as domestic loan interest rates have risen sharply due to the prolonged impact of COVID-19 and soaring raw material prices. In addition, loans from small and medium-sized enterprises, which are difficult in the business environment, are increasingly being rejected due to high loan interest rates and excessive submission documents and financial statements-oriented screening of loans by the financial sector. Therefore, since it is necessary to discuss ways to promote financing and investment by SMEs, this study intends to suggest ways to promote investment through the use of SMEs' ESG systems. The purpose of this study is to suggest that the use of ESG evaluation indicators used as non-financial indicators helps predict the corporate value of SMEs and the importance of SMEs actively participating in ESG information disclosure. This study suggests the necessity of introducing and practicing ESG by SMEs where financing is important, and aims to analyze as an empirical result that the use of non-financial indicators helps predict corporate value. As a result of the study, the ESG performance and corporate value of SMEs showed a positive (+) relationship. It can be seen that both the grades and corporate value of SMEs by ESG sector have a positive (+) influence relationship. The total ESG rating was confirmed to have a positive effect on corporate value, and it was confirmed that SMEs with higher ESG environment, social, and governance ratings were evaluated higher. According to the research results, it is suggested that SMEs also need to use ESG evaluation indicators, and in order to promote the growth of SMEs, it is suggested that research on ways to re-examine the corporate value of SMEs is necessary. Therefore, this study suggests that the use of ESG should be actively recommended and implemented as a way to establish a management strategy for SMEs, and that efforts to disclose ESG information can soon help SMEs solve information asymmetry. In addition, SMEs want to understand the investment mechanism that the introduction and practice of ESG can lead to the improvement of the value of SMEs and suggest the necessity of SME-type ESG policies in the future.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.118-126
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• 2024

Recently, the alternative meat (food) market is growing rapidly due to the increase in meat consumption due to global population growth and income improvement, as well as issues such as equal welfare, carbon neutrality, and sustainability. The government is also developing a green bio convergence new industry development plan to foster alternative foods, but there are difficulties in commercialization due to the lack of technology and insufficient production facilities among domestic small and medium-sized enterprises, so it is necessary to build joint utilization facilities and equipment to resolve the difficulties faced by companies. am. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises are having difficulty developing and commercializing plant-based meat substitutes due to a lack of technical skills, and related equipment is expensive, making it difficult to build equipment on their own. Accordingly, Jeollabuk-do is pursuing a strategy to secure the source technology for development, processing, and industrialization of plant-based substitute meat at the level of developed countries by establishing a plant-based alternative meat industrialization center. In this study, an economic feasibility analysis study was conducted when a plant-based alternative meat industrialization center is built in Jeollabuk-do. As a result of the analysis, B/C=1.32, NPV=374 million won, and IRR=4.8%, showing that there is economic feasibility in establishing an alternative meat industrialization center. In addition, as a result of analyzing the regional economic ripple effect resulting from the establishment of an industrialization center, if 38 billion won is invested in Jeollabuk-do, the nationwide production inducement effect is 74 billion won, the added value inducement effect is 29.8 billion won, and the employment inducement effect is 672 people

• Information Systems Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.143-156
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• 2019

Types of innovation can be categorized into simplification, information, automation, and intelligence. Intelligence is the highest level of innovation, and RPA can be seen as one of intelligence. Robotic Process Automation(RPA), a software robot with artificial intelligence, is an example of intelligence that is suited for simple, repetitive, large-scale transaction processing tasks. The RPA, which is already in operation in many companies in Korea, shows what needs to be done to naturally focus on the core tasks in a situation where the need for a strong organizational culture is increasing and the emphasis is on voluntary leadership, strong teamwork and execution, and a professional working culture. The introduction was considered naturally according to the need to find. Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, is a technology that replaces human tasks with the goal of quickly and efficiently handling structural tasks. RPA is implemented through software robots that mimic humans using software such as ERP systems or productivity tools. RPA robots are software installed on a computer and are called robots by the principle of operation. RPA is integrated throughout the IT system through the front end, unlike traditional software that communicates with other IT systems through the back end. In practice, this means that software robots use IT systems in the same way as humans, repeat the correct steps, and respond to events on the computer screen instead of communicating with the system's application programming interface(API). Designing software that mimics humans to communicate with other software can be less intuitive, but there are many advantages to this approach. First, you can integrate RPA with virtually any software you use, regardless of your openness to third-party applications. Many enterprise IT systems are proprietary because they do not have many common APIs, and their ability to communicate with other systems is severely limited, but RPA solves this problem. Second, RPA can be implemented in a very short time. Traditional software development methods, such as enterprise software integration, are relatively time consuming, but RPAs can be implemented in a relatively short period of two to four weeks. Third, automated processes through software robots can be easily modified by system users. While traditional approaches require advanced coding techniques to drastically modify how they work, RPA can be instructed by modifying relatively simple logical statements, or by modifying screen captures or graphical process charts of human-run processes. This makes RPA very versatile and flexible. This RPA is a good example of the application of digital to intelligence(D2I).

• Information Systems Review
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-19
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• 2017

Original scripts of e-learning lectures for the CEOs of corporation S were analyzed using topic analysis, which is a text mining method. Twenty-two topics were extracted based on the keywords chosen from five-year records that ranged from 2011 to 2015. Research analysis was then conducted on various issues. Promising topics were selected through evaluation and element analysis of the members of each topic. In management and economics, members demonstrated high satisfaction and interest toward topics in marketing strategy, human resource management, and communication. Philosophy, history of war, and history demonstrated high interest and satisfaction in the field of humanities, whereas mind health showed high interest and satisfaction in the field of in lifestyle. Studies were also conducted to identify topics on the proportion of content, but these studies failed to increase member satisfaction. In the field of IT, educational content responds sensitively to change of the times, but it may not increase the interest and satisfaction of members. The present study found that content production for CEOs should draw out deep implications for value innovation through technology application instead of simply ending the technical aspect of information delivery. Previous studies classified contents superficially based on the name of content program when analyzing the status of content operation. However, text mining can derive deep content and subject classification based on the contents of unstructured data script. This approach can examine current shortages and necessary fields if the service contents of the themes are displayed by year. This study was based on data obtained from influential e-learning companies in Korea. Obtaining practical results was difficult because data were not acquired from portal sites or social networking service. The content of e-learning trends of CEOs were analyzed. Data analysis was also conducted on the intellectual interests of CEOs in each field.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.39-62
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• 2018

Thanks to the growth of computing power and the recent development of data analytics, researchers have started to work on the data produced by users through the Internet or social media. This study is in line with these recent research trends and attempts to adopt data analytical techniques. We focus on the impact of "internal marketing" factors on firm performance, which is typically studied through survey methodologies. We looked into the job review platform Jobplanet (www.jobplanet.co.kr), which is a website where employees and former employees anonymously review companies and their management. With web crawling processes, we collected over 40K data points and performed morphological analysis to classify employees' reviews for internal marketing data. We then implemented econometric analysis to see the relationship between internal marketing and market capitalization. Contrary to the findings of extant survey studies, internal marketing is positively related to a firm's market capitalization only within a limited area. In most of the areas, the relationships are negative. Particularly, female-friendly environment and human resource development (HRD) are the areas exhibiting positive relations with market capitalization in the manufacturing industry. In the service industry, most of the areas, such as employ welfare and work-life balance, are negatively related with market capitalization. When firm size is small (or the history is short), female-friendly environment positively affect firm performance. On the contrary, when firm size is big (or the history is long), most of the internal marketing factors are either negative or insignificant. We explain the theoretical contributions and managerial implications with these results.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.44-62
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• 2024

The development of online funeral services and social issues of eco-friendly funeral culture have raised awareness of the new need for online funeral culture. There have been several attempts to revitalize online funeral services in domestic institutions and companies, but the effect is weak. The purpose of this study is to propose a design that can improve the accessibility and usability of online memorial services by analyzing the usability problem factors through a First Time User Experience analysis of the online memorial platform. Therefore, in this study, in order to identify the problem factors of the online memorial platform, a literature review on the UX, OOBE, and FTUE theories was conducted. The subject of the study was the app 'Memorial'. Before analyzing the First-Time User-Experience, IA was compared and analyzed with other similar services to understand the characteristics of the UX service of the app 'Memorial', which is the subject of the study. In addition, tasks corresponding to the Unpack-Setup/Configure-First Use stage were performed on 10 subjects who had no experience using the online memorial platform. The experimental process was expressed as the UX Curve to identify factors that caused negative experiences. As a result, the major problem factors included unnecessary UI elements, the need for sensitive personal information at the membership stage, and lack of immersion in the service. The improvements included strengthening community functions to facilitate the sharing of emotions and promote smooth communication between users. We proposed UI/UX service developments that enhanced the app by incorporating these insights. In order to verify the effectiveness, serviceability, and value of the developed prototype, an interview with a expert was conducted. The interviewes consisted of three service design experts. This study was conducted to contribute to the quality improvement and activation of the recently emerging online funeral services. The study is significant as it aims to understand the current status of these services and identify the factors necessary to improve service accessibility and usability. Subsequent studies require in-depth user verification of how much the proposed improvement plan affects the actual user experience.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.183-200
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• 2024

Recently, with the MZ generation's entry into society and the social participation of the female population, conflicts are occurring between workplace groups that value WLB and existing groups that emphasize collaboration due to differences in work orientation. Public institutions and companies that utilize work-life balance support systems show differences in job Commitment depending on the nature of the work and the activation of the support system. Accordingly, it is necessary to verify the effectiveness of the WLB support system actually operated by the company and present universally valid standards. The purpose of this study is, first, to verify the effectiveness of the support system for work-life balance and to find practical consensus amid changes in policies and perceptions of the working environment. Second, the influence of work-life balance level and job immersion according to work characteristics was analyzed to verify the mutual influence in order to establish standards for WLB operation that reflects work characteristics. For the study, a 2X2 matrix model was used to analyze the impact of work-life balance and work characteristics on job commitment, and four hypotheses were established. First, analysis of the job involvement level of conflict-type group members, second, analysis of the job involvement level of leading group members, third, analysis of the job involvement level of agreeable group members, and fourth, analysis of the job involvement level of cooperative group members. To conduct this study, an online survey was conducted targeting employees working in public institutions and large corporations. The survey was conducted for a total of 9 days from October 23 to 31, 2023, and 163 people responded, and the analysis was based on a valid sample of 152 people, excluding 11 copies that were insincere responses or gave up midway. As a result of the study's hypothesis testing, first, the conflict type group was found to have the lowest level of job engagement at 1.43. Second, the proactive group showed the highest level of job engagement at 4.54. Third, the conformity group showed a slightly lower level of job involvement at 2.58. Fourth, the cooperative group showed a slightly higher level of job involvement at 3.80. The academic implications of the study are that it subdivides employees' personalities into factors based on the level of work-life balance and nature of work. The practical implications of the study are that it analyzes the effectiveness of WLB support systems operated by public institutions and large corporations by grouping them.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.111-137
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• 2010

The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-38
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• 1972

1. Objective of the Study The objective of the study was to make fundamental suggestions for drawing a forest insurance system applicable in Korea by investigating forest insurance systems undertaken in foreign countries, analyzing the forest hazards occurred in entire forests of Korea in the past, and hearing the opinions of people engaged in forestry. 2. Methods of the Study First, reference studies on insurance at large as well as on forest insurance were intensively made to draw the characteristics of forest insurance practiced in main forestry countries, Second, the investigations of forest hazards in Korea for the past ten years were made with the help of the Office of Forestry. Third, the questionnaires concerning forest insurance were prepared and delivered at random to 533 personnel who are working at different administrative offices of forestry, forest stations, forest cooperatives, colleges and universities, research institutes, and fire insurance companies. Fourth, fifty three representative forest owners in the area of three forest types (coniferous, hardwood, and mixed forest), a representative region in Kyonggi Province out of fourteen collective forest development programs in Korea, were directly interviewed with the writer. 3. Results of the Study The rate of response to the questionnaire was 74.40% as shown in the table 3, and the results of the questionaire were as follows: (% in the parenthes shows the rates of response; shortages in amount to 100% were due to the facts of excluding the rates of response of minor respondents). 1) Necessity of forest insurance The respondents expressed their opinions that forest insurance must be undertaken to assure forest financing (5.65%); for receiving the reimbursement of replanting costs in case of damages done (35.87%); and to protect silvicultural investments (46.74%). 2) Law of forest insurance Few respondents showed their views in favor of applying the general insurance regulations to forest insurance practice (9.35%), but the majority of respondents were in favor of passing a special forest insurance law in the light of forest characteristics (88.26%). 3) Sorts of institutes to undertake forest insurance A few respondents believed that insurance companies at large could take care of forest insurance (17.42%); forest owner's mutual associations would manage the forest insurance more effectively (23.53%); but the more than half of the respondents were in favor of establishing public or national forest insurance institutes (56.18%). 4) Kinds of risks to be undertaken in forest insurance It would be desirable that the risks to be undertaken in forest insurance be limited: To forest fire hazards only (23.38%); to forest fire hazards plus damages made by weather (14.32%); to forest fire hazards, weather damages, and insect damages (60.68%). 5) Objectives to be insured It was responded that the objectives to be included in forest insurance should be limited: (1) To artificial coniferous forest only (13.47%); (2) to both coniferous and broad-leaved artificial forests (23.74%); (3) but the more than half of the respondents showed their desire that all the forests regardless of species and the methods of establishment should be insured (61.64%). 6) Range of risks in age of trees to be included in forest insurance The opinions of the respondents showed that it might be enough to insure the trees less than ten years of age (15.23%); but it would be more desirous of taking up forest trees under twenty years of age (32.95%); nevertheless, a large number of respondents were in favor of underwriting all the forest trees less than fourty years of age (46.37%). 7) Term of a forest insurance contract Quite a few respondents favored a contract made on one year basis (31.74%), but the more than half of the respondents favored the contract made on five year bases (58.68%). 8) Limitation in a forest insurance contract The respondents indicated that it would be desirable in a forest insurance contract to exclude forests less than five hectars (20.78%), but more than half of the respondents expressed their opinions that forests above a minimum volume or number of trees per unit area should be included in a forest insurance contract regardless of the area of forest lands (63.77%). 9) Methods of contract Some responded that it would be good to let the forest owners choose their forests in making a forest insurance contract (32.13%); others inclined to think that it would be desirable to include all the forests that owners hold whenerver they decide to make a forest insurance contract (33.48%); the rest responded in favor of forcing the owners to buy insurance policy if they own the forests that were established with subsidy or own highly vauable growing stock (31.92%) 10) Rate of premium The responses were divided into three categories: (1) The rate of primium is to be decided according to the regional degree of risks(27.72%); (2) to be decided by taking consideration both regional degree of risks and insurable values(31.59%); (3) and to be decided according to the rate of risks for the entire country and the insurable values (39.55%). 11) Payment of Premium Although a few respondents wished to make a payment of premium at once for a short term forest insurance contract, and an annual payment for a long term contract (13.80%); the majority of the respondents wished to pay the premium annually regardless of the term of contract, by employing a high rate of premium on a short term contract, but a low rate on a long term contract (83.71%). 12) Institutes in charge of forest insurance business A few respondents showed their desire that forest insurance be taken care of at the government forest administrative offices (18.75%); others at insurance companies (35.76%); but the rest, the largest number of the respondents, favored forest associations in the county. They also wanted to pay a certain rate of premium to the forest associations that issue the insurance (44.22%). 13) Limitation on indemnity for damages done In limitation on indemnity for damages done, the respondents showed a quite different views. Some desired compesation to cover replanting costs when young stands suffered damages and to be paid at the rate of eighty percent to the losses received when matured timber stands suffered damages(29.70%); others desired to receive compensation of the actual total loss valued at present market prices (31.07%); but the rest responded in favor of compensation at the present value figured out by applying a certain rate of prolongation factors to the establishment costs(36.99%). 14) Raising of funds for forest insurance A few respondents hoped to raise the fund for forest insurance by setting aside certain amount of money from the indemnity paid (15.65%); others wished to raise the fund by levying new forest land taxes(33.79%); but the rest expressed their hope to raise the fund by reserving certain amount of money from the surplus money that was saved due to the non-risks (44.81%). 15) Causes of fires The main causes of forest fires 6gured out by the respondents experience turned out to be (1) an accidental fire, (2) cigarettes, (3) shifting cultivation. The reponses were coincided with the forest fire analysis made by the Office of Forestry. 16) Fire prevention The respondents suggested that the most important and practical three kinds of forest fire prevention measures would be (1) providing a fire-break, (2) keeping passers-by out during the drought seasons, (3) enlightenment through mass communication systems. 4. Suggestions The writer wishes to present some suggestions that seemed helpful in drawing up a forest insurance system by reviewing the findings in the questionaire analysis and the results of investigations on forest insurance undertaken in foreign countries. 1) A forest insurance system designed to compensate the loss figured out on the basis of replanting cost when young forest stands suffered damages, and to strengthen credit rating by relieving of risks of damages, must be put in practice as soon as possible with the enactment of a specifically drawn forest insurance law. And the committee of forest insurance should be organized to make a full study of forest insurance system. 2) Two kinds of forest insurance organizations furnishing forest insurance, publicly-owned insurance organizations and privately-owned, are desirable in order to handle forest risks properly. The privately-owned forest insurance organizations should take up forest fire insurance only, and the publicly-owned ought to write insurance for forest fires and insect damages. 3) The privately-owned organizations furnishing forest insurance are desired to take up all the forest stands older than twenty years; whereas, the publicly-owned should sell forest insurance on artificially planted stands younger than twenty years with emphasis on compensating replanting costs of forest stands when they suffer damages. 4) Small forest stands, less than one hectare holding volume or stocked at smaller than standard per unit area are not to be included in a forest insurance writing, and the minimum term of insuring should not be longer than one year in the privately-owned forest insurance organizations although insuring period could be extended more than one year; whereas, consecutive five year term of insurance periods should be set as a mimimum period of insuring forest in the publicly-owned forest insurance organizations. 5) The forest owners should be free in selecting their forests in insuring; whereas, forest owners of the stands that were established with subsidy should be required to insure their forests at publicly-owned forest insurance organizations. 6) Annual insurance premiums for both publicly-owned and privately-owned forest insurance organizations ought to be figured out in proportion to the amount of insurance in accordance with the degree of risks which are grouped into three categories on the basis of the rate of risks throughout the country. 7) Annual premium should be paid at the beginning of forest insurance contract, but reduction must be made if the insuring periods extend longer than a minimum period of forest insurance set by the law. 8) The compensation for damages, the reimbursement, should be figured out on the basis of the ratio between the amount of insurance and insurable value. In the publicly-owned forest insurance system, the standard amount of insurance should be set on the basis of establishment costs in order to prevent over-compensation. 9) Forest insurance business is to be taken care of at the window of insurance com pnies when forest owners buy the privately-owned forest insurance, but the business of writing the publicly-owned forest insurance should be done through the forest cooperatives and certain portions of the premium be reimbursed to the forest cooperatives. 10) Forest insurance funds ought to be reserved by levying a property tax on forest lands. 11) In order to prevent forest damages, the forest owners should be required to report forest hazards immediately to the forest insurance organizations and the latter should bear the responsibility of taking preventive measures.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.123-145
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• 2008

Recently, as the information communication technology develops, the discussion regarding the ubiquitous environment is occurring in diverse perspectives. Ubiquitous environment is an environment that could transfer data through networks regardless of the physical space, virtual space, time or location. In order to realize the ubiquitous environment, the Pervasive Sensing technology that enables the recognition of users' data without the border between physical and virtual space is required. In addition, the latest and diversified technologies such as Context-Awareness technology are necessary to construct the context around the user by sharing the data accessed through the Pervasive Sensing technology and linkage technology that is to prevent information loss through the wired, wireless networking and database. Especially, Pervasive Sensing technology is taken as an essential technology that enables user oriented services by recognizing the needs of the users even before the users inquire. There are lots of characteristics of ubiquitous environment through the technologies mentioned above such as ubiquity, abundance of data, mutuality, high information density, individualization and customization. Among them, information density directs the accessible amount and quality of the information and it is stored in bulk with ensured quality through Pervasive Sensing technology. Using this, in the companies, the personalized contents(or information) providing became possible for a target customer. Most of all, there are an increasing number of researches with respect to recommender systems that provide what customers need even when the customers do not explicitly ask something for their needs. Recommender systems are well renowned for its affirmative effect that enlarges the selling opportunities and reduces the searching cost of customers since it finds and provides information according to the customers' traits and preference in advance, in a commerce environment. Recommender systems have proved its usability through several methodologies and experiments conducted upon many different fields from the mid-1990s. Most of the researches related with the recommender systems until now take the products or information of internet or mobile context as its object, but there is not enough research concerned with recommending adequate store to customers in a ubiquitous environment. It is possible to track customers' behaviors in a ubiquitous environment, the same way it is implemented in an online market space even when customers are purchasing in an offline marketplace. Unlike existing internet space, in ubiquitous environment, the interest toward the stores is increasing that provides information according to the traffic line of the customers. In other words, the same product can be purchased in several different stores and the preferred store can be different from the customers by personal preference such as traffic line between stores, location, atmosphere, quality, and price. Krulwich(1997) has developed Lifestyle Finder which recommends a product and a store by using the demographical information and purchasing information generated in the internet commerce. Also, Fano(1998) has created a Shopper's Eye which is an information proving system. The information regarding the closest store from the customers' present location is shown when the customer has sent a to-buy list, Sadeh(2003) developed MyCampus that recommends appropriate information and a store in accordance with the schedule saved in a customers' mobile. Moreover, Keegan and O'Hare(2004) came up with EasiShop that provides the suitable tore information including price, after service, and accessibility after analyzing the to-buy list and the current location of customers. However, Krulwich(1997) does not indicate the characteristics of physical space based on the online commerce context and Keegan and O'Hare(2004) only provides information about store related to a product, while Fano(1998) does not fully consider the relationship between the preference toward the stores and the store itself. The most recent research by Sedah(2003), experimented on campus by suggesting recommender systems that reflect situation and preference information besides the characteristics of the physical space. Yet, there is a potential problem since the researches are based on location and preference information of customers which is connected to the invasion of privacy. The primary beginning point of controversy is an invasion of privacy and individual information in a ubiquitous environment according to researches conducted by Al-Muhtadi(2002), Beresford and Stajano(2003), and Ren(2006). Additionally, individuals want to be left anonymous to protect their own personal information, mentioned in Srivastava(2000). Therefore, in this paper, we suggest a methodology to recommend stores in U-market on the basis of ubiquitous environment not using personal information in order to protect individual information and privacy. The main idea behind our suggested methodology is based on Feature Matrices model (FM model, Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003) that uses clusters of customers' similar transaction data, which is similar to the Collaborative Filtering. However unlike Collaborative Filtering, this methodology overcomes the problems of personal information and privacy since it is not aware of the customer, exactly who they are, The methodology is compared with single trait model(vector model) such as visitor logs, while looking at the actual improvements of the recommendation when the context information is used. It is not easy to find real U-market data, so we experimented with factual data from a real department store with context information. The recommendation procedure of U-market proposed in this paper is divided into four major phases. First phase is collecting and preprocessing data for analysis of shopping patterns of customers. The traits of shopping patterns are expressed as feature matrices of N dimension. On second phase, the similar shopping patterns are grouped into clusters and the representative pattern of each cluster is derived. The distance between shopping patterns is calculated by Projected Pure Euclidean Distance (Shahabi and Banaei-Kashani, 2003). Third phase finds a representative pattern that is similar to a target customer, and at the same time, the shopping information of the customer is traced and saved dynamically. Fourth, the next store is recommended based on the physical distance between stores of representative patterns and the present location of target customer. In this research, we have evaluated the accuracy of recommendation method based on a factual data derived from a department store. There are technological difficulties of tracking on a real-time basis so we extracted purchasing related information and we added on context information on each transaction. As a result, recommendation based on FM model that applies purchasing and context information is more stable and accurate compared to that of vector model. Additionally, we could find more precise recommendation result as more shopping information is accumulated. Realistically, because of the limitation of ubiquitous environment realization, we were not able to reflect on all different kinds of context but more explicit analysis is expected to be attainable in the future after practical system is embodied.