• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2011

Considering a trend of logistics and transport industry in these days, it can be said that international express courier service is one of the most familiar transport type to the general public. Especially in Korea, due to development of electronic commercial transaction and the popularity of television home shopping, it can easily anticipated that express courier business will continuously grown in the future. However, the legal basis for international express courier is not properly set up so far. The only clause about this can be found on Korean Aviation Law said as 'commercial documents delivery business'. The origin of the commercial documents delivery business in Aviation Law is to make exception from public postal services which has been exclusive status as monopoly based on the Korean Postal Law. Basically, according to this regulation, all the private postal delivery is prohibited except some sort of commercial documents such as consignment notes, packing list, invoice etc. Thus, those documents could be delivered not only by public postal services but also by private courier company according to the Korean Postal Law. This waiver has probably come from under developing condition of Korean postal circumstances, however it should be revised according to the modernized business practice. Reflecting these revisions, the articles of Korean Postal Law adopted 'international express courier document' as the exception of postal service. Therefore, Korean Aviation Law also needs to be revised as Postal Law in due course. In addition to revision of Korean Aviation Law, some sort of new legislation is required to govern the private legal aspects such as legal liabilities, duties and rights of each parties on international express courier. This should be governed by 'law' not by 'terms and conditions' provided by business operators. Furthermore, to support and develop the current domestic logistics companies as international express courier company, it is required to regulate with the separate express courier law.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.311-328
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• 2022

Because of the spread of smartphones due to the development of information and communication technology, online shopping mall services can be used on computers and mobile devices. As a result, the number of users using the online shopping mall service increases rapidly, and the types of products traded are also growing. Therefore, to maximize profits, companies need to provide information that may interest users. To this end, the recommendation system presents necessary information or products to the user based on the user's past behavioral data or behavioral purchase records. Representative overseas companies that currently provide recommendation services include Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. These companies support users' purchase decisions by recommending products to users using ratings, purchase records, and clickstream data that users give to the items. In addition, users refer to the ratings left by other users about the product before buying a product. Most users tend to provide ratings only to products they are satisfied with, and the higher the rating, the higher the purchase intention. And recently, e-commerce sites have provided users with the ability to vote on whether product reviews are helpful. Through this, the user makes a purchase decision by referring to reviews and ratings of products judged to be beneficial. Therefore, in this study, the correlation between the product rating and the helpful information of the review is identified. The valuable data of the evaluation is reflected in the recommendation system to check the recommendation performance. In addition, we want to compare the results of skipping all the ratings in the traditional collaborative filtering technique with the recommended performance results that reflect only the 4 and 5 ratings. For this purpose, electronic product data collected from Amazon was used in this study, and the experimental results confirmed a correlation between ratings and review usefulness information. In addition, as a result of comparing the recommendation performance by reflecting all the ratings and only the 4 and 5 points in the recommendation system, the recommendation performance of remembering only the 4 and 5 points in the recommendation system was higher. In addition, as a result of reflecting review usefulness information in the recommendation system, it was confirmed that the more valuable the review, the higher the recommendation performance. Therefore, these experimental results are expected to improve the performance of personalized recommendation services in the future and provide implications for e-commerce sites.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.61-101
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• 2014

This study investigates when and how disagreements in online customer ratings prompt more favorable product evaluations. Among the three metrics of volume, valence, and variance that feature in the research on online customer ratings, volume and valence have exhibited consistently positive patterns in their effects on product sales or evaluations (e.g., Dellarocas, Zhang, and Awad 2007; Liu 2006). Ratings variance, or the degree of disagreement among reviewers, however, has shown rather mixed results, with some studies reporting positive effects on product sales (e.g., Clement, Proppe, and Rott 2007) while others finding negative effects on product evaluations (e.g., Zhu and Zhang 2010). This study aims to resolve these contradictory findings by introducing preference heterogeneity as a possible moderator and causal attribution as a mediator to account for the moderating effect. The main proposition of this study is that when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high, a disagreement in ratings is attributed more to reviewers' different preferences than to unreliable product quality, which in turn prompts better quality evaluations of a product. Because disagreements mostly result from differences in reviewers' tastes or the low reliability of a product's quality (Mizerski 1982; Sen and Lerman 2007), a greater level of attribution to reviewer tastes can mitigate the negative effect of disagreement on product evaluations. Specifically, if consumers infer that reviewers' heterogeneous preferences result in subjectively different experiences and thereby highly diverse ratings, they would not disregard the overall quality of a product. However, if consumers infer that reviewers' preferences are quite homogeneous and thus the low reliability of the product quality contributes to such disagreements, they would discount the overall product quality. Therefore, consumers would respond more favorably to disagreements in ratings when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high rather than low. This study furthermore extends this prediction to the various levels of average ratings. The heuristicsystematic processing model so far indicates that the engagement in effortful systematic processing occurs only when sufficient motivation is present (Hann et al. 2007; Maheswaran and Chaiken 1991; Martin and Davies 1998). One of the key factors affecting this motivation is the aspiration level of the decision maker. Only under conditions that meet or exceed his aspiration level does he tend to engage in systematic processing (Patzelt and Shepherd 2008; Stephanous and Sage 1987). Therefore, systematic causal attribution processing regarding ratings variance is likely more activated when the average rating is high enough to meet the aspiration level than when it is too low to meet it. Considering that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity occurs through the mediation of causal attribution, this greater activation of causal attribution in high versus low average ratings would lead to more pronounced interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity in high versus low average ratings. Overall, this study proposes that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high as compared to when it is low. Two laboratory studies lend support to these predictions. Study 1 reveals that participants exposed to a high-preference heterogeneity book title (i.e., a novel) attributed disagreement in ratings more to reviewers' tastes, and thereby more favorably evaluated books with such ratings, compared to those exposed to a low-preference heterogeneity title (i.e., an English listening practice book). Study 2 then extended these findings to the various levels of average ratings and found that this greater preference for disagreement options under high preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high compared to when it is low. This study makes an important theoretical contribution to the online customer ratings literature by showing that preference heterogeneity serves as a key moderator of the effect of ratings variance on product evaluations and that causal attribution acts as a mediator of this moderation effect. A more comprehensive picture of the interplay among ratings variance, preference heterogeneity, and average ratings is also provided by revealing that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity varies as a function of the average rating. In addition, this work provides some significant managerial implications for marketers in terms of how they manage word of mouth. Because a lack of consensus creates some uncertainty and anxiety over the given information, consumers experience a psychological burden regarding their choice of a product when ratings show disagreement. The results of this study offer a way to address this problem. By explicitly clarifying that there are many more differences in tastes among reviewers than expected, marketers can allow consumers to speculate that differing tastes of reviewers rather than an uncertain or poor product quality contribute to such conflicts in ratings. Thus, when fierce disagreements are observed in the WOM arena, marketers are advised to communicate to consumers that diverse, rather than uniform, tastes govern reviews and evaluations of products.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.349-356
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• 2006

We have investigated adsorption and desorption properties of CO adsorption on silica supported Ru/Ni alloys at various Ru/Ni mole content ratio as well as CO partial pressures using Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR). For Ru-$SiO_{2}$ sample, four bands were observed at $2080.0cm^{-1}$, $2021.0{\sim}2030.7cm^{-1}$, $1778.9{\sim}1799.3cm^{-1}$, $1623.8cm^{-1}$ on adsorption and three bands were observed at $2138.7cm^{-1}$, $2069.3cm^{-1}$, $1988.3{\sim}2030.7cm^{-1}$ on vacumn desorption. For Ni-$SiO_{2}$ sample, four bands were observed at $2057.7cm^{-1}$, $2019.1{\sim}2040.3cm^{-1}$, $1862.9{\sim}1868.7cm^{-1}$, $1625.7cm^{-1}$ on adsorption and two bands were observed at $2009.5{\sim}2040.3cm^{-1}$, $1828.4{\sim}1868.7cm^{-1}$ on vacumn desorption. These absorption bands correspond with those of the previous reports approximately. For Ru/Ni(9/1, 8/2, 7/3, 6/4, 5/5; mole content ratio)-$SiO_{2}$ samples, three bands were observed at $2001.8{\sim}2057.7cm^{-1}$, $1812.8{\sim}1926.5cm^{-1}$, $1623.8{\sim}1625.7cm^{-1}$ on adsorption and three bands were observed at $2140.6cm^{-1}$, $2073.1cm^{-1}$, $1969.0{\sim}2057.7cm^{-1}$ on vacumn desorption. The spectrum pattern observed for Ru/Ni-$SiO_{2}$ sample at 9/1 Ru/Ni mole content ratio on CO adsorption and on vacumn desorption is almost like the spectrum pattern observed for Ru-$SiO_{2}$ sample. But the spectrum patterns observed for Ru/Ni-$SiO_{2}$ samples under 8/2 Ru/Ni mole content ratio on CO adsorption and vacumn desorption are almost like the pattern observed for $Ni-SiO_{2}$ sample. It may be suggested surfaces of alloy clusters on the Ru/Ni-$SiO_{2}$ samples contain more Ni components than the mole content ratio of the sample considering the above phenomena. With Ru/Ni-$SiO_{2}$ samples the absorption band shifts may be ascribed to variations of surface concentration, strain variation due to atomic size difference, variation of bonding energy and electronic densities, and changes of surface geometries according to surface concentration variation. Studies for CO adsorption on Ru/Ni alloy cluster surface by LEED and Auger spectroscopy, interation between Ru/Ni alloy cluster and $SiO_{2}$, and MO calculation for the system would be needed to look into the phenomena.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-102
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• 2009

With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.