• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.89-97
• /
• 2010

This study researches the effects of common features on a no-choice option with respect to regulatory focus theory. The primary interest is in three factors and their interrelationship: common features, no-choice option, and regulatory focus. Prior studies have compiled vast body of research in these areas. First, the "common features effect" has been observed bymany noted marketing researchers. Tversky (1972) proposed the seminal theory, the EBA model: elimination by aspect. According to this theory, consumers are prone to focus only on unique features during comparison processing, thereby dismissing any common features as redundant information. Recently, however, more provocative ideas have attacked the EBA model by asserting that common features really do affect consumer judgment. Chernev (1997) first reported that adding common features mitigates the choice gap because of the increasing perception of similarity among alternatives. Later, however, Chernev (2001) published a critically developed study against his prior perspective with the proposition that common features may be a cognitive load to consumers, and thus consumers are possible that they are prone to prefer the heuristic processing to the systematic processing. This tends to bring one question to the forefront: Do "common features" affect consumer choice? If so, what are the concrete effects? This study tries to answer the question with respect to the "no-choice" option and regulatory focus. Second, some researchers hold that the no-choice option is another best alternative of consumers, who are likely to avoid having to choose in the context of knotty trade-off settings or mental conflicts. Hope for the future also may increase the no-choice option in the context of optimism or the expectancy of a more satisfactory alternative appearing later. Other issues reported in this domain are time pressure, consumer confidence, and alternative numbers (Dhar and Nowlis 1999; Lin and Wu 2005; Zakay and Tsal 1993). This study casts the no-choice option in yet another perspective: the interactive effects between common features and regulatory focus. Third, "regulatory focus theory" is a very popular theme in recent marketing research. It suggests that consumers have two focal goals facing each other: promotion vs. prevention. A promotion focus deals with the concepts of hope, inspiration, achievement, or gain, whereas prevention focus involves duty, responsibility, safety, or loss-aversion. Thus, while consumers with a promotion focus tend to take risks for gain, the same does not hold true for a prevention focus. Regulatory focus theory predicts consumers' emotions, creativity, attitudes, memory, performance, and judgment, as documented in a vast field of marketing and psychology articles. The perspective of the current study in exploring consumer choice and common features is a somewhat creative viewpoint in the area of regulatory focus. These reviews inspire this study of the interaction possibility between regulatory focus and common features with a no-choice option. Specifically, adding common features rather than omitting them may increase the no-choice option ratio in the choice setting only to prevention-focused consumers, but vice versa to promotion-focused consumers. The reasoning is that when prevention-focused consumers come in contact with common features, they may perceive higher similarity among the alternatives. This conflict among similar options would increase the no-choice ratio. Promotion-focused consumers, however, are possible that they perceive common features as a cue of confirmation bias. And thus their confirmation processing would make their prior preference more robust, then the no-choice ratio may shrink. This logic is verified in two experiments. The first is a $2{\times}2$ between-subject design (whether common features or not X regulatory focus) using a digital cameras as the relevant stimulus-a product very familiar to young subjects. Specifically, the regulatory focus variable is median split through a measure of eleven items. Common features included zoom, weight, memory, and battery, whereas the other two attributes (pixel and price) were unique features. Results supported our hypothesis that adding common features enhanced the no-choice ratio only to prevention-focus consumers, not to those with a promotion focus. These results confirm our hypothesis - the interactive effects between a regulatory focus and the common features. Prior research had suggested that including common features had a effect on consumer choice, but this study shows that common features affect choice by consumer segmentation. The second experiment was used to replicate the results of the first experiment. This experimental study is equal to the prior except only two - priming manipulation and another stimulus. For the promotion focus condition, subjects had to write an essay using words such as profit, inspiration, pleasure, achievement, development, hedonic, change, pursuit, etc. For prevention, however, they had to use the words persistence, safety, protection, aversion, loss, responsibility, stability etc. The room for rent had common features (sunshine, facility, ventilation) and unique features (distance time and building state). These attributes implied various levels and valence for replication of the prior experiment. Our hypothesis was supported repeatedly in the results, and the interaction effects were significant between regulatory focus and common features. Thus, these studies showed the dual effects of common features on consumer choice for a no-choice option. Adding common features may enhance or mitigate no-choice, contradictory as it may sound. Under a prevention focus, adding common features is likely to enhance the no-choice ratio because of increasing mental conflict; under the promotion focus, it is prone to shrink the ratio perhaps because of a "confirmation bias." The research has practical and theoretical implications for marketers, who may need to consider common features carefully in a practical display context according to consumer segmentation (i.e., promotion vs. prevention focus.) Theoretically, the results suggest some meaningful moderator variable between common features and no-choice in that the effect on no-choice option is partly dependent on a regulatory focus. This variable corresponds not only to a chronic perspective but also a situational perspective in our hypothesis domain. Finally, in light of some shortcomings in the research, such as overlooked attribute importance, low ratio of no-choice, or the external validity issue, we hope it influences future studies to explore the little-known world of the "no-choice option."

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.239-248
• /
• 2010

This paper describes a collaborative project between academia and industry which focused on improving the marketing and product development strategies for two private label apparel brands of a large regional department store chain in the southeastern United States. The goal of the project was to revitalize product lines of the two brands by incorporating student ideas for new solutions, thereby giving the students practical experience with a real-life industry situation. There were a number of key players involved in the project. A privately-owned department store chain based in the southeastern United States which was seeking an academic partner had recognized a need to update two existing private label brands. They targeted middle-aged consumers looking for casual, moderately priced merchandise. The company was seeking to change direction with both packaging and presentation, and possibly product design. The branding and product development divisions of the company contacted professors in an academic department of a large southeastern state university. Two of the professors agreed that the task would be a good fit for their classes - one was a junior-level Intermediate Brand Management class; the other was a senior-level Fashion Product Development class. The professors felt that by working collaboratively on the project, students would be exposed to a real world scenario, within the security of an academic learning environment. Collaboration within an interdisciplinary team has the advantage of providing experiences and resources beyond the capabilities of a single student and adds "brainpower" to problem-solving processes (Lowman 2000). This goal of improving the capabilities of students directed the instructors in each class to form interdisciplinary teams between the Branding and Product Development classes. In addition, many universities are employing industry partnerships in research and teaching, where collaboration within temporal (semester) and physical (classroom/lab) constraints help to increase students' knowledge and experience of a real-world situation. At the University of Tennessee, the Center of Industrial Services and UT-Knoxville's College of Engineering worked with a company to develop design improvements in its U.S. operations. In this study, Because should be lower case b with a private label retail brand, Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst's (1999) revised Retail Apparel Product Development Model was used by the product development and brand management teams. This framework was chosen because it addresses apparel product development from the concept to the retail stage. Two classes were involved in this project: a junior level Brand Management class and a senior level Fashion Product Development class. Seven teams were formed which included four students from Brand Management and two students from Product Development. The classes were taught the same semester, but not at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, each class was introduced to the industry partner and given the problem. Half the teams were assigned to the men's brand and half to the women's brand. The teams were responsible for devising approaches to the problem, formulating a timeline for their work, staying in touch with industry representatives and making sure that each member of the team contributed in a positive way. The objective for the teams was to plan, develop, and present a product line using merchandising processes (following the Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst model) and develop new branding strategies for the proposed lines. The teams performed trend, color, fabrication and target market research; developed sketches for a line; edited the sketches and presented their line plans; wrote specifications; fitted prototypes on fit models, and developed final production samples for presentation to industry. The branding students developed a SWOT analysis, a Brand Measurement report, a mind-map for the brands and a fully integrated Marketing Report which was presented alongside the ideas for the new lines. In future if the opportunity arises to work in this collaborative way with an existing company who wishes to look both at branding and product development strategies, classes will be scheduled at the same time so that students have more time to meet and discuss timelines and assigned tasks. As it was, student groups had to meet outside of each class time and this proved to be a challenging though not uncommon part of teamwork (Pfaff and Huddleston, 2003). Although the logistics of this exercise were time-consuming to set up and administer, professors felt that the benefits to students were multiple. The most important benefit, according to student feedback from both classes, was the opportunity to work with industry professionals, follow their process, and see the results of their work evaluated by the people who made the decisions at the company level. Faculty members were grateful to have a "real-world" case to work with in the classroom to provide focus. Creative ideas and strategies were traded as plans were made, extending and strengthening the departmental links be tween the branding and product development areas. By working not only with students coming from a different knowledge base, but also having to keep in contact with the industry partner and follow the framework and timeline of industry practice, student teams were challenged to produce excellent and innovative work under new circumstances. Working on the product development and branding for "real-life" brands that are struggling gave students an opportunity to see how closely their coursework ties in with the real-world and how creativity, collaboration and flexibility are necessary components of both the design and business aspects of company operations. Industry personnel were impressed by (a) the level and depth of knowledge and execution in the student projects, and (b) the creativity of new ideas for the brands.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.58 no.4
• /
• pp.141-168
• /
• 2006

The present study explored and compared the risk factors of two subtypes of maritally violent men with those of a nonviolent comparison group. One type of batterers consisted of a community sample, and the other was sought from the criminal justice system. The identities of the male community batterers were not exposed to the society since their victims did not contact any of the social service agents related to domestic violence. To identify the different characteristics associated with two subtypes of woman abusers, a total of 152 nonviolent men, 82 male community batterers, and 336 offenders in a criminal justice system were considered. The results of the descriptive analysis showed that the level of physical violence of the community batterers was two times lower than that of the batterers who received legal punishments. The results of the multinominal logistic regression were as follows: (1) The variables that distinguished the male community batterers from the nonviolent men were the use of physical violence towards children, marital decision power, and income. (2) Four factors had been found to distinguish batterers in the criminal justice system from nonbatterers, namely: attitudes towards woman battering, education, violence towards children, and level of jealousy. (3) The community batterers showed a higher level of education and of stress as well as a longer period of marital relationship compared to the batterers in the criminal justice system. On the other hand, the batterers who received legal punishments had more severe alcohol problems and had an accepting attitude towards the use of violence. This study also investigated psychopathology among batterers using MCMI-III, based on 333 subjects. In terms of the mean scores, there were no subscales associated with personality pathology in all the male groups. Based on the logit model, the community batterers showed a stronger tendency towards having a passive-aggressive personality than did their counterparts, and they recorded a higher level of narcissism compared to the court-referred battering men. Post-traumatic stress was the only symptom that distinguished the batterers who received legal punishments from the other groups. The theoretical and practical implications of these results were pointed out and discussed in the paper.

• Applied Microscopy
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2005

Synapses are contact points where one neuron communicates with another. The morphological change of synapses under various physiological or pathological conditions has long been hypothesized to modify their functional properties. 3-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of synapses with serial ultrathin sections has contributed to the understanding of ultrastructural dimensions and compositions of synapses. The 3-D reconstruction procedures, however, require a great amount of expertise as well as include prohibitively timeconsuming processes. Here, we introduce efficient 3-D reconstruction technique using high-voltage electron microscopy (HVEM). Primarily, we established an optimal section thickness and staining condition to observe synaptic structures in detail under HVEM. The result showed that synaptic profiles were preserved at the section thickness of 250 nm without the overlapping of synaptic ultrastructures. An increase in the reaction time of en bloc staining was most efficient to enhance contrast than the extension of postembedding staining or the addition of uranyl acetate during dehydration. Then, 3-D reconstruction of parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapses in the rat cerebellum was carried out with serial HVEM images and reconstruction software. The images were aligned and the contours of synapses were outlined on each section. 3-D synapses were finally extracted from the section files by grouping all the synaptic contours. The reconstructed synapse model clearly demonstrated the configuration of pre and postsynaptic components. These results suggest that 3-D reconstruction of synapses using HVEM is much efficient and suitable for massive quantitative studies on synaptic connectivity than conventional TEM approach using numerous ultrathin sections.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.37-47
• /
• 2010

CRM refers to the operating activities that always maintain and promote good relationship with customers to ultimately maximize the company's profits by understanding the value of customers to meet their demands, establishing a strategy which may maximize the Life Time Value and successfully operating the business by integrating the customer management processes. In our country, many big businesses are introducing CRM initiatively to use it in marketing strategy however, most medium and small sized companies do not understand CRM clearly or they feel difficult to introduce it due to huge investment needed. This study is intended to present CRM promotion strategy and activities plan fit for the medium and small sized companies by analyzing the success factors of the leading companies those have already executed CRM by surveying the precedents to make the distributors out of the industries have close relation with consumers to overcome their weakness in scale and strengthen their competitiveness in such a rapidly changing and fiercely competing market. There are 5 stages to build CRM such as the recognition of the needs of CRM establishment, the establishment of CRM integrated database, the establishment of customer analysis and marketing strategy through data mining, the practical use of customer analysis through data mining and the implementation of response analysis and close loop process. Through the case study of leading companies, CRM is needed in types of businesses where the companies constantly contact their customers. To meet their needs, they assertively analyze their customer information. Through this, they develop their own CRM programs personalized for their customers to provide high quality service products. For customers helping them make profits, the VIP marketing strategy is conducted to keep the customers from breaking their relationships with the companies. Through continuous management, CRM should be executed. In other words, through customer segmentation, the profitability for the customers should be maximized. The maximization of the profitability for the customers is the key to CRM. These are the success factors of the CRM of the distributors in Korea. Firstly, the top management's will power for CS management is needed. Secondly, the culture across the company should be made to respect the customers. Thirdly, specialized customer management and CRM workers should be trained. Fourthly, CRM behaviors should be developed for the whole staff members. Fifthly, CRM should be carried out through systematic cooperation between related departments. To make use of the case study for CRM, the company should understand the customer and establish customer management programs to set the optimal CRM strategy and continuously pursue it according to a long-term plan. For this, according to collected information and customer data, customers should be segmented and the responsive customer system should be designed according to the differentiated strategy according to the class of the customers. In terms of the future CRM, integrated CRM is essential where the customer information gathers together in one place. As the degree of customers' expectation increases a lot, the effective way to meet the customers' expectation should be pursued. As the IT technology improved rapidly, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) appears. On a real-time basis, information about products and customers is obtained massively in a very short time. A strategy for successful CRM promotion should be improving the organizations in charge of contacting customers, re-planning the customer management processes and establishing the integrated system with the marketing strategy to keep good relation with the customers according to a long-term plan and a proper method suitable to the market conditions and run a company-wide program. In addition, a CRM program should be continuously improved and complemented to meet the company's characteristics. Especially, a strategy for successful CRM for the medium and small sized distributors should be as follows. First, they should change their existing recognition in CRM and keep in-depth care for the customers. Second, they should benchmark the techniques of CRM from the leading companies and find out success points to use. Third, they should seek some methods best suited for their particular conditions by achieving the ideas combining their own strong points with marketing. Fourth, a CRM model should be developed that will promote relationship with individual customers just like the precedents of small sized businesses in Switzerland through small but noticeable events.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2000.10a
• /
• pp.278-283
• /
• 2000

As information communication technology developed we could check our blood pressure, pulsation electrocardiogram, SpO2 and blood test easily at home. To check our health at ordinary times is able though interlocking the house medical instrument with the wireless public data network This service will help the inconvenience to visit the hospital everytime and will save the individual's time and cost. In each house an organism data which is detected from the human body will be transmitted to the distance hospital and will be essentially applied through wireless public data network The medical information transmit system is utilized by wireless close range network It would transmit the obtained organism signal wirelessly from the personal device to the main center system in the hospital. Remote telemetry system is embodied by utilizing wireless media access protocol. The protocol is embodied by grafting CSMA/CA(Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) protocol falling mode which is standards from IEEE 802.11. Among the house care telemetry system which could measure blood pressure, pulsation, electrocardiogram, SpO2 the study embodies the ECC(electrocardiograph) measure part. It within the ECC function into the movable device and add 900㎒ band wireless public data interface. Then the aged, the patients even anyone in the house could obtain ECG and keep, record the data. It would be essential to control those who had a health-examination heart diseases or more complicated heart diseases and to observe the latent heart disease patient continuously. To embody the medical information transmit system which is based on wireless network. It would transmit the ECG data among the organism signal data which would be utilized by wireless network modem and NCL(Native Control Language) protocol to contact through wireless network Through the SCR(Standard Context Routing) protocol in the network it will be connected to the wired host computer. The computer will check the recorded individual information and the obtained ECC data then send the correspond examination to the movable device. The study suggests the medical transmit system model utilized by the wireless public data network.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
• /
• v.1 no.1 s.1
• /
• pp.139-155
• /
• 2001

We investigate the vertical velocity models beneath the newly installed broadband seismic network of KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration) by using receiver function inversion technique. The seismic phases are primarily P-to-S conversions and reverberations generated at the two highest impedance interfaces like the Moho (crust-mantle boundary) and the sediment-basement contact. We obtained the teleseismic P-wave receiver functions, which were derived from teleseismic records of Seoul (SEO), Inchon (INCN), Tejeon (TEJ) , Sosan (SOS/SES), Kangnung (KAN), Ulchin (ULC/ULJ), Taegu (TAG), Pusan (PUS), and Ullung-do (ULL) stations. For Kwangju (KWA/KWJ) and Chunchon (CHU) stations, the Moho conversion Ps arrivals and waveforms of radial receiver functions are azimuthally inconsistent and unclear. From the receiver function inversion result, we found that crustal thickness is 29 km at INCN, SEO, and SOS (SES) stations, 28 km at KAN station in the Kyonggi Massif, 32 km at TEJ station in Okchon Folded Belt, 34 km at TAG, 33 km at PUS station in the Kyongsang Basin, 32 km at KWJ station (readjusted station by prior KWA station) included in the Youngdong-Kwangju Depression Zone, 28 km at ULC station in the eastern margin of the Ryongnam Massif, and 17 km at ULL station in the Ullung Island of the East Sea, respectively. The Moho configuration of INCN, SOS, KWJ, and KAN stations show a laminated smooth transition zone with a 3-5 km thick. The upper crusts(${\sim}5km$) of KAN, ULC, and PUS stations show complex structures with a high velocity. The unusually thick crusts are found at the TAG and PUS stations in the Kyongsang Basin compared to the thin (29-32 km) crust of the western part (INCN, SEO, SOS, TEJ, and KWA stations) The crustal thickness beneath Ullung Island (ULL station) shows the suboceanic crust with about 17 km thickness and complex with a high velocity layer of the upper crust, and the amplitudes of Incoming Ps waves from the western direction are relatively large compared to those from othor directions.

• Korean Security Journal
• /
• no.39
• /
• pp.161-183
• /
• 2014

The job burnout of the private security guards who provide services through contact with customers can affect the overall the private security industry. So the managers need to make efforts to diagnose and evaluate the job burnout and provide continuous provision for the repatriation effect. However, up to the present, the job burnout measure for the private security guards has not been provided, so the objectivity of the information is questionable. For this reason, in order to establish the goodness of fit of the job burnout scale for private security guards based on the contents of the job burnout scale that was being provided to other service employees, this research aims to provide the scale to provide objective information compared with that of the past by applying the Rasch model of the item response theory. To achieve this purpose, the data on 379 private security guards working for the private security guard companies in the Gyeonggi region were collected, and the data were processed to suit the research purpose using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0, Winsteps programs. Through these research procedures, the following conclusion was obtained. With regard to the private security guards' measure of job burnout, as a result of factor analysis through the collected data, 4 questions were deleted, and as a result of the analysis of the goodness of the fit based on 18 questions, 4 questions were found to be inappropriate questions that did not satisfy the standard value, and the scope of the difficulty level of the questions from - 98 to 1.30 and the response reaction of a 5-point scale were found to suit the final private security guards' job burnout scale. In other words, the conclusion that it is appropriate to measure the private security guards job burnout scale with 3 factors and 13 questions was obtained. So if private security guards companies collect systematic data using the scale established in this research, and practice refresher training accordingly, they can reduce the private security guards' job burnout.