• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1-13
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• 2015

There are various performance factors for SMEs in order to survive in the rapid changing market and it is discussing the importance of entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial orientation based on many researches. Thus, it is worth to analyze factors of seize new opportunity and firm's performance to build sustainable competitive advantages, which provide the directions to SMEs. This study investigates through exploratory research that the important factors of entrepreneurial orientation and the influence factors on firm's performance confirmed by empirical study. This study was conducted to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation of SME CEO, learning orientation and corporate performance was verified following section. First, entrepreneurial orientation (pro-activeness, competitive aggressiveness, risk taking, innovativeness) was to examine the effect of learning orientation; Second, entrepreneurial orientation was to examine the impact on firm's performance; and in the last, validated learning orientation affect factors that are mediated between entrepreneurship orientation and firm's performance through empirical research. The results of this study, each SME have shown that they have a different impact on firm's performance based on a variety of entrepreneurial orientation. This result shows that the need for a separate independent study on entrepreneurial orientation of SMEs. In conclusion, this study implicates that entrepreneurial orientation is important role for firm's performance, entrepreneurs of SMEs are innovative rather than competitive aggressive, and risk taking activities positively affect firm's activity. The conclusions of this study would be utilized to develop the entrepreneurial orientation when necessary for entrepreneurs of SMEs.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.223-231
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• 2020

Governments and private companies have established various local entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions in most regions in order to reduce youth unemployment, and boost youth entrepreneurship and regional employment. However, previous studies has been limited to explore the impact of the entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions on the willingness of start-up entrepreneurs. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to fill in the gaps of the research, identify the effect of the entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions on regional employment focusing on the Partner Squares which are entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions in several regions and established by N company, and set a foundation for further research regarding the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions. In order to verify the effectiveness of the Partner Squares on the local employment, we use the raw data of the Economically Active Population Survey (Statistics Korea) and analyze the effectiveness by using the Difference-in-Differences model. The main findings are as follows. While the Partner Square Seoul has not statistically influenced on the employment of local youth workers, the Partner Square Busan has increased about 3% of the average number of employees (575 thousand) from May 2017 to July 2019, increasing the number of local youth workers by 17,000. Also, after the establishment of the Partner Square Gwangju, the institution has increased 4,500 local employees, which is about 1.7% of the average number of employees (267,000) from September 2018 to July 2019. This implies that the Partner Squares provide a variety of effective start-up education programs and networks for pre-starters and founders in the region, thereby helping them to grow and boosting the local employment. An important implication is that by using government statistical data, we find roles of entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions to revitalize local economy and employment. In future studies, studies need to be conducted considering various exogenous variables that can affect local employment, such as the government industrial policies and entrepreneurial infrastructure institutions other than the Partner Squares.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.33-60
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• 2020

Along with the rapid advance in internet technologies, ubiquitous mobile device usage has enabled consumers to access real-time information and increased interaction with others through various social media. Consumers can now get information more easily when making purchase decisions, and these changes are affecting the brand landscape. In a digitally connected world, brand image is not communicated to the consumers one-sidedly. Rather, with consumers' growing influence, it is a result of co-creation where consumers have an active role in building brand image. This explains a reality where people no longer purchase products just because they know the brand or because it is a famous brand. However, there has been little discussion on the matter, and many practitioners still rely on the traditional measures of brand indicators. The goal of this research is to present the limitations of traditional definition and measurement of brand and brand image, and propose a more direct and adequate measure that reflects the nature of a connected world. Inspired by the proverb, "A man is known by the company he keeps," the proposed measurement offers insight to the position of brand (or brand image) through co-purchased product networks. This paper suggests a framework of network analysis that clusters brands of cosmetics by the frequency of other products purchased together. This is done by analyzing product networks of a brand extracted from actual purchase data on Amazon.com. This is a more direct approach, compared to past measures where consumers' intention or cognitive aspects are examined through survey. The practical implication is that our research attempts to close the gap between brand indicators and actual purchase behavior. From a theoretical standpoint, this paper extends the traditional conceptualization of brand image to a network perspective that reflects the nature of a digitally connected society.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.43-65
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• 2010

Facing a complex environment driven by a decade, many companies are adopting new strategic frameworks such as Customer Relationship Management system to achieve sustainable profitability as well as overcome serious competition for survival. In many business areas, CRM system advanced a great deal in a matter of continuous compensating the defect and overall integration. However, pharmaceutical companies in Korea were slow to accept them for usesince they still have a tendency of holding fast to traditional way of sales and marketing based on individual networks of sales representatives. In the circumstance, this article tried to empirically address current status of CRM system as well as the effects of the system on the performance of pharmaceutical companies by applying BSC method's four perspectives, from financial, customer, learning and growth and internal process. Survey by e-mail and post to employers and employees who were working in pharma firms were undergone for the purpose. Total 113 cases among collected 140 ones were used for the statistical analysis by SPSS ver. 15 package. Reliability, Factor analysis, regression were done. This study revealed that CRM system had a significant effect on improving financial and non-financial performance of pharmaceutical companies as expected. Proposed regression model fits well and among them, CRM marketing information system shed the light on substantial impact on companies' outcome given profitability, growth and investment. Useful analytical information by CRM marketing information system appears to enable pharmaceutical firms to set up effective marketing and sales strategies, these result in favorable financial performance by enhancing values for stakeholderseventually, not to mention short-term profit and/or mid-term potential to growth. CRM system depicted its influence on not only financial performance, but also non-financial fruit of pharmaceutical companies. Further analysis for each component showed that CRM marketing information system were able to demonstrate statistically significant effect on the performance like the result of financial outcome. CRM system is believed to provide the companies with efficient way of customers managing by valuable standardized business process prompt coping with specific customers' needs. It consequently induces customer satisfaction and retentionto improve performance for long period. That is, there is a virtuous circle for creating value as the cornerstone for sustainable growth. However, the research failed to put forward to evidence to support hypothesis regarding favorable influence of CRM sales representative's records assessment system and CRM customer analysis system on the management performance. The analysis is regarded to reflect the lack of understanding of sales people and respondents between actual work duties and far-sighted goal in strategic analysis framework. Ordinary salesmen seem to dedicate short-term goal for the purpose of meeting sales target, receiving incentive bonus in a manner-of-fact style, as such, they tend to avail themselves of personal network and sales and promotional expense rather than CRM system. The study finding proposed a link between CRM information system and performance. It empirically indicated that pharmaceutical companies had been implementing CRM system as an effective strategic business framework in order for more balanced achievements based on the grounded understanding of both CRM system and integrated performance. It suggests a positive impact of supportive CRM system on firm performance, especially for pharmaceutical industry through the initial empirical evidence. Also, it brings out unmet needs for more practical system design, improvement of employees' awareness, increase of system utilization in the field. On the basis of the insight from this exploratory study, confirmatory research by more appropriate measurement tool and increased sample size should be further examined.

• Proceedings of the Ginseng society Conference
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• 1988.08a
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• pp.92-98
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• 1988

The present study was performed to find the effects of ginseng and its saponins. which is written in Chung Yao Ta Tsu Tien as anti-amnesia in its chief indication. on experimental amnesia in mice. In the step through test. ginsenoside $Rb_1\;(GRb_1)\;and\;GRg_1$ facilitated the registration of memory and antagonized the electroconvulsive shock (ECS)-induced inhibition of the retention of memory. Moreover. $GRg_1$ antagonized the EtOH-induced inhibition of the retrieval of memory. In the step down test. $GRb_1\;GRb_2\;and\;GRg_1$ antagonized the ECS-induced inhibition of the retention of memory. Moreover. $GRg_1$ antagonized the EtOH-induced inhibition of the retrieval of memory and facilitated the acquisition of short term memory. In the shuttle hox and lever press tests. they have no effects on acquisition and retrieval of memory. except $GRb_1\;GRb_1$ depressed the retrieval of conditioned avoidance response in the shuttle box test. After the end of four tests. the effects of these orally administered drugs on sedative. analgesic. antipyretic and anticonvulsant actions. and on spontaneous and exploratory movements were tested in doses of less than 500mg/kg. but they had none of these effects. Present study may indicate that $GRg_1$ had effects on the retrieval of memory and on the acquisition process of learning response. The recent research on the role of NGF for the survival. regeneration and regulation of brain in adult animals. indicated the importance of NGF on dementia and amnesia. During our research on the specificity of the neurite out growth induced by NGF. we found that the effect of NGF was potentiated by $GRb_1$ in organ cultures of chick embryonic dorsal root ganglia. Then. the effect of $GRb_1$ on neuronal cell survivalin cell culture system was studied. $GRb_1$ potentiated the NGF-mediated increase of neurofilaments in cell cultures of chick embryonic sensory and sympathetic neurons. NGF with $GRb_1$ also showed a tendency to increase the number of surviving neurons of rat embryonic cerebral cortex. NGF increased choline acetyl transferase activity in cell cultures of rat embryonic septum area neurons. but $GRb_1$ did not potentiate NGF activity in cell cultures of rat embryonic septum area neurons. Present study may indicate that $GRb_1$ plays an important role for the survival or regeneration of neurons in the brain.

• 대한공업교육학회지
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.189-208
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• 2014

The purpose of this research was to investigate the critical issues and practical strategies that Korean technology teachers perceived. To accomplish the purpose of this study, a qualitative study was conducted to identify critical issues and practical strategies of Korean technology education targeted on Korean technology teachers. A purposeful sampling for choosing technology teachers was used for this study with three selection conditions: 1) 'Excellent Korean technology teacher' award winning teachers, or 2) technology teachers actively involved in both on-line and off-line teachers' association, and 3) leaders in local technology teachers' association. This study conducted exploratory in-depth interviews with selective 15 technology teachers regarding critical issues and practical strategies of Korean technology teachers. The interpretation of the interview content was conducted by two researchers using the thematic analysis which analyzed the frequency of concepts, words, and meanings held from collected data. In the conclusion, critical issues researchers identified were 1) curriculum problems, 2) education environment and facilities problems, 3) teachers' problems, 4) students' problems, 5) related research institution and college problems, 6) social problems. Secondly, Korean technology teachers agreed with following practical strategies 1) separating technology education from home economic education, 2) sharing practices on managing and improving educational environment and laboratory for technology education, 3) actively involving in technology teachers' group, 4) motivating students using hands-on activity 5) improving the quality and the quantity on technology teachers preparatory institution, 6) advertising the values of technology education to the public. Lastly, the positive factors to succeed technology education were 1) technology education satisfying social needs and 2) technology teachers' will or passion toward improving their technology classrooms. The negative factors to hinder technology education were 1) low self-respect of Korean technology teachers and 2) rejection or retarded acceptance toward social transition. Several recommendations based the conclusion were suggested as 1) implementing supplementary study toward selected critical issues and 2) conducting exemplary case studies regarding concrete practical strategies for improving challenges of Korean technology education.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.51-78
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• 2021

Followed by 'start-up', the theme of 'scale-up' has been considered as an important agenda in both corporate and policy spheres. In particular, although it is a term commonly used in industry and policy fields, even a conceptual definition has not been achieved from the academic perspective. "Corporate Growth" in the academic aspect and "Business Growth" in the practical management field have different understandings (Achtenhagen et al., 2010). Previous research on corporate growth has not departed from Penrose(1959)'s "Firm as a bundle of resources" and "the role of managers". Based on the theory and background of economics, existing research has mainly examined factors that contribute to firms' growth and their growth patterns. Comparatively, we lack knowledge on the firms' growth with a focus on 'annual revenue growth rate'. In the early stage of the firms, they tend to exhibit a high growth rate as it started with a lower level of annual revenue. However, when the firms reach annual revenue of more than 100 billion KRW, a threshold to be classified as a 'middle-standing enterprise' by Korean standards, they are unlikely to reach a high level of revenue growth rate. In our study, we used our sample of 333 companies (6.7% out of 5,000 'fastest-growing' companies) which reached 15% of the compound annual growth rate in the last three years with more than USD 100 million. It shows that sustaining 'high-growth' above a certain firm size is difficult. The study focuses on firms with annual revenue of more than $100 billion (approximately 120 billion KRW) from the 'Inc. 2020 fast-growing companies 5,000' list. The companies have been categorized into 1) Fast-growing companies (revenue CAGR 15%~40% between 2016 and 2019), 2) Hyper-growing companies (40%~99.9%), and 3) Super-growing (100% or more) with in-depth analysis of each group's characteristics. Also, the relationship between the revenue growth rate, individual company's strategy choice (market orientation, generic strategy, growth strategy, pioneer strategy), industry/market environment, and firm age is investigated with a quantitative approach. Through conducting the study, it aims to provide a reference to the 'Hyper-Growing Model' that combines the paths and factors of growth strategies. For policymakers, our study intends to provide a reference to which factors or environmental variables should be considered for 'optimal effective combinations' to promote firms' growth.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.17-29
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• 2021

Recently, as social distancing have been raised due to the re-spread of COVID-19, the number of serial entrepreneurs who are closing their business is rapidly increasing. Learning from failure is a source of success, but business failure can result in psychological and economic losses and negative emotions of the serial entrepreneur. At this point, it is very important to find a way to recover the negative emotions caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. Recently, a strategic model has emerged to deal with the negative emotions of grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs. This study identified the recovery factors from the grief of business failures of serial entrepreneurs and analyzed Shepherd's(2003) three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. To this end, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 small business serial entrepreneurs who challenged re-startup to identify the attributes of recovery factors that were not identified with quantitative data. As a result of the study, first, recovery factors were investigated in three areas: individual orientation, family orientation, and network orientation. It was found to help improve recovery in nine categories: self-esteem, persistence, personal competence, hobbies, self-confidence, family support, networks, religion, and social support. Second, recovery obstacle factors were investigated in three areas: psychological, economic, and environmental factors. Nine categories including family, health, social network, business partner, competitor, partner, fund, external environment, and government policy were found to persist negative emotions. Third, the emotional processing process for grief was investigated in three areas: loss orientation, restoration orientation, and dual process. Ten categories such as family, partner support, social member support, government support, hobbies, networks, change of business field, moving, third-party perspective, and meditation were confirmed to enhance rapid recovery in the emotional processing process for grief. The implications of this study are as follows. The process of recovering from the grief caused by business failures of serial entrepreneurs was attempted by a qualitative study. By extending the theory of Shepherd(2003), This study can be applied to help with recovery research. In addition, conceptual models and propositions for future empirical research were presented, which can be discussed in carious academic ways.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2022

One of the characteristics of South Korea's economic structure is that it is highly dependent on exports. Thus, many businesses are closely related to the global economy and diplomatic situation. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) specialized in exporting are struggling due to the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a model to forecast exports for next year to support SMEs' export strategy and decision making. Also, this study proposed a strategy to recommend promising export countries of each item based on the forecasting model. We analyzed important variables used in previous studies such as country-specific, item-specific, and macro-economic variables and collected those variables to train our prediction model. Next, through the exploratory data analysis(EDA) it was found that exports, which is a target variable, have a highly skewed distribution. To deal with this issue and improve predictive performance, we suggest a separated learning method. In a separated learning method, the whole dataset is divided into homogeneous subgroups and a prediction algorithm is applied to each group. Thus, characteristics of each group can be more precisely trained using different input variables and algorithms. In this study, we divided the dataset into five subgroups based on the exports to decrease skewness of the target variable. After the separation, we found that each group has different characteristics in countries and goods. For example, In Group 1, most of the exporting countries are developing countries and the majority of exporting goods are low value products such as glass and prints. On the other hand, major exporting countries of South Korea such as China, USA, and Vietnam are included in Group 4 and Group 5 and most exporting goods in these groups are high value products. Then we used LightGBM(LGBM) and Exponential Moving Average(EMA) for prediction. Considering the characteristics of each group, models were built using LGBM for Group 1 to 4 and EMA for Group 5. To evaluate the performance of the model, we compare different model structures and algorithms. As a result, it was found that the separated learning model had best performance compared to other models. After the model was built, we also provided variable importance of each group using SHAP-value to add explainability of our model. Based on the prediction model, we proposed a second-stage recommendation strategy for potential export countries. In the first phase, BCG matrix was used to find Star and Question Mark markets that are expected to grow rapidly. In the second phase, we calculated scores for each country and recommendations were made according to ranking. Using this recommendation framework, potential export countries were selected and information about those countries for each item was presented. There are several implications of this study. First of all, most of the preceding studies have conducted research on the specific situation or country. However, this study use various variables and develops a machine learning model for a wide range of countries and items. Second, as to our knowledge, it is the first attempt to adopt a separated learning method for exports prediction. By separating the dataset into 5 homogeneous subgroups, we could enhance the predictive performance of the model. Also, more detailed explanation of models by group is provided using SHAP values. Lastly, this study has several practical implications. There are some platforms which serve trade information including KOTRA, but most of them are based on past data. Therefore, it is not easy for companies to predict future trends. By utilizing the model and recommendation strategy in this research, trade related services in each platform can be improved so that companies including SMEs can fully utilize the service when making strategies and decisions for exports.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2010

Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty in the service industry is service quality. However, on the subject of whether service quality has a direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty, scholars' views apparently vary. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai and Liu, 2002). However, others have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, it also has an indirect impact on customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Currently, there are few domestic articles that specifically address the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry. Moreover, research has studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, rather than breaking it down further into multiple dimensions. Based on this analysis, this paper summarizes previous study results, establishes an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry, and presents a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data from Heilongjiang Mobile Company. It provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample comprised mobile users in Harbin city, and the survey was taken by random sampling. Out of a total of 300 questionnaires, 276 (92.9%) were recovered. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 remained, for an effective rate of 82.6 percent for the study. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was adapted to assess the scale reliability, and validity testing was conducted on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity. and convergent validity. The study tested for goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. From the hypothesis testing results, overall, four assumptions have not been supported. The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is demonstrated in Figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of the communication industry not only has a direct positive significant effect on customer loyalty, it also has an indirect positive significant effect on customer loyalty through service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different, and are influenced by each dimension of service quality. This study used the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad and tested them in empirical research, with all questions adapted to seven-point Likert scales. With the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), or PZB, as a reference point, service quality was divided into five dimensions-tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy-and the questions were simplified down to nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction was based mainly on Fornell (1992) and Wang and Han (2003), ending up with four questions. Based on the study’s three indicators of price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction were used to measure attitudinal loyalty, while repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation measured behavioral loyalty. The collection and collation of literature data produced a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in mobile communications, and China Mobile in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province was used for conducting an empirical test of the model and obtaining some useful conclusions. First, service quality in mobile communication is formed by the five factors mentioned earlier: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. On the basis of PZB SERVQUAL, the study designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained these five factors through exploratory factor analysis. The factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for the mobile communications industry. Second, service quality in mobile communications has both direct and indirect positive effects on attitudinal loyalty, with the indirect effect being produced through the intermediary variable, customer satisfaction. There are also both direct and indirect positive effects on behavioral loyalty, with the indirect effect produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality and higher customer satisfaction will activate the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, indicating that improving service quality can boost customer satisfaction and make it easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers. Moreover, attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty, indicating that only attitudinally and behaviorally loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusions have some indications for Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. Two limitations to the study are also mentioned. First, all data were collected in the Heilongjiang area, so there might be a common method bias that skews the results. Second, the discussion addresses the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, setting customer satisfaction as mediator, but does not consider other factors, like customer value and consumer features, This research will be continued in the future.