• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.177-190
• /
• 2017

This study investigates the effects of franchisors' characteristics including brand reputation, training and product related support, franchisees' characteristics including store location and management on the performance and recontract intention of franchisees in bakery franchise industry. Also, this study examine the moderating effect of CEO experience of franchisees among the franchisors' and franchisees' characteristics, and performance. To empirically test these relationships, data were collected from 386 respondents who are franchisees in the bakery franchise sector. In the verification of hypotheses, the structure equation modeling(SEM) is used. The results of this study are as follows. First, franchisors' brand reputation, training support, and franchisees' locational factor have significant effects on the financial performance of franchisees positively. However, franchisors' product related support and franchisees' management of the store have not significant effects on the performance. Second, the performance of franchisees has positive effect on the recontract intention. Third, the moderating effect of CEO experience is only significant in the relationship between franchisors' training support and the performance. Based on the findings, this study suggest the importance of building a good brand image and superior training system for franchisors to improve mutual ongoing growth. Also, franchisors should determine whether nascent franchisee entrepreneurs have CEO experiences to further improve performance. If they do not have related experiences, both opening and ongoing training supports of franchisors and the efforts of franchisees towards learning are required. Finally, this study suggest that both franchisors and franchisees should accurately analyze the conditions of possible locations and establish strategies to select beneficial location before starting a franchise business.

• Informatization Policy
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.26-42
• /
• 2016

Recently, with the rapid growth of the O2O market, Fintech combining the finance and ICT technology is drawing attention as innovation to lead "O2O of finance", along with Fintech-based payment, authentication, security technology and related services. For new technology industries such as Fintech, technical sources, related systems and regulations are important but previous studies on Fintech lack in-depth research about systems and technological trends of the domestic Fintech industry. Therefore, this study aims to analyze domestic Fintech trends and find the insights for the direction of technology and systems of the future domestic Fintech industry by comparing Kakao Pay and Samsung Pay, the two domestic representative mobile payment services. By conducting a complete enumeration survey about the tweets mentioning Fintech until June 2016, this study visualized topics extraction, sensitivity analysis and keyword analyses. According to the analysis results, it was found that various topics have been created in the technologies and systems between 2014 and 2016 and different keywords and reactions were extracted between topics of Samsung Pay based on "devices" such as Galaxy and Kakao Pay based on "service" such as KakaoTalk. This study contributes to analyzing the unstructured data of social media by period by using social media mining and quantifying the expectations and reactions of consumers to services through the sentiment analysis. It is expected to be the foundation of Fintech industry development by presenting a strategic direction to Fintech related practitioners.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.53-63
• /
• 2016

Purpose - This study examines the effects of the influence strategies on sales representative and headquarter trust, and investigates how sales representative trust plays a mediating role in the relationship between influence strategies and headquarter trust. For these purposes, a structural model which consists of several constructs was developed. In this model, influence strategies that consist of relational influence strategies (information exchange, recommend, promise) and mandatory influence strategies (legal plea, request, threat) were proposed to affect the sales representative trust and in turn, increase the headquarter trust. Thus, this study proposed that sale representative trust plays a core mediating role in the relationship between relational and mandatory influence strategies and headquarter trust in B2B food materials distribution context. Research design, data, and methodology - For these purposes, the authors collected the data from 208 B2B specialized complex agents. We used the 2,200 B2B specialized complex agents which trade with CJ, Ottogi, and Daesang firms and supply food materials to restaurant, school cafeteria, supermarket and traditional market as a sample frame. Once we identified 330 B2B specialized complex agent owners, CEOs, and/or Directors who had agreed to participate in this study, we dropped off a questionnaire at each B2B specialized complex agent and explained the purpose of this study. The survey was conducted from October 1, 2015 to December 15, 2015. A total of 230 questionnaires were collected. Of these collected questionnaires, 28 questionnaires excluded since they had not been fully completed. The data were analyzed using frequency test, reliability test, measurement model analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS and SmartPLS 2. Results - First, information exchange, recommendation, and promise of relational influence strategies had positive effects on sales representative trust. The threat of mandatory influence strategies had a negative effect on sales representative trust, but legal plea and request did not have a significant effect on sales representative trust. Second, information exchange and recommendation of relational influence strategies had positive effects on headquarter trust, but promise did not. Also, legal plea, request, and threat of mandatory influence strategies did not have a significant effect on headquarter trust. Third, this findings show that sales representative trust plays a partial mediator between information exchange and headquarter trust, and threat and headquarter trust, and a full mediator between promise and headquarter trust, and recommendation and headquarter trust. Conclusions - The aim of this study was to examine the effects how diverse dimensions of relational and mandatory influence strategies relate to sales representative trust and headquarter trust. To do so, we integrated the influence strategies and the trust transfer theory to hypothesize that various influence strategies increase sales representative and headquarter trust. The findings of this study suggest that headquarter firms should establish and enforce proper influence strategies guidelines to make clear what proper actions sales representatives should implement in relationship with B2B specialized complex agents. Also, relational and mandatory influence strategies must be regarded as a long-term and ongoing strategy that eventually build a long-term orientation with B2B specialized complex agents and guarantee a company's sustainable growth and success.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.116-123
• /
• 2000

A numerical model of three-dimensional soil water distribution for drip irrigation management under cropped conditions was developed using Richards equation in Cartesian coordinates. The model accounts for both seasonal and diurnal changes in evaporation and transpiration, and the growth of plant root and the shape of root zone. Solutions were numerically approximated using the Crank-Nicolson implicit finite difference technique on the block-centered grid system and the Gauss-Seidel elimination in tandem. The model was tested under several conditions to allow the flow rates and configurations of drip emitters vary. In general, simulation results agreed well with experimental results and were as follows. The velocity of soil-water flow decreased drastically with distance from the drip source, and the rate of expansion of the wetted zone decreased rapidly during irrigation. The wetting front of wetted zone from a surface drip emitter traveled farther in vertical direction than in horizontal direction. Under this experimental weather condition, water use efficiency of a drip-irrigated apple field was greatest for 4-drip-emitter system buried at 25 cm, resulting from 10% increase in transpiration but 20% reduction in soil evaporation compared to those for surface 1-drip emitter system. Soil moisture retention curve obtained using disk tension infiltrometer showed significant difference from the curve obtained with pressure plate extractor.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.313-323
• /
• 2016

Water temperature affects physical and biological processes in ecologies on river system and is important conditions for growth rate and spawning of fish species. The objective of this study is to compare models for water temperature during the summer season for the Fourchue River (St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada). For this, three different models, which are CEQUEAU, Auto-regressive Moving Average with eXogenous input and Nonlinear Autoregressive with eXogenous input, were applied and compared. Also, future water temperature in the Fourchue river were simulated and analyzed its result based on the CMIP5 climate models, RCP 2.6, 4.5, 8.5 climate change scenarios. As the result of the study, the water temperature in the Fourchue river are actually changed and median water temperature will increase $0.2{\sim}0.7^{\circ}C$ in June and could decrease by $0.2{\sim}1.1^{\circ}C$ in September. Also, the UILT ($24.9^{\circ}C$) for brook trout are also likely to occurred for several days.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.183-196
• /
• 2010

Increasing human activity due to rapid economic growth and land use change alters the patterns of the Asian monsoon, which is key to crop yields in Asia. In this study, we tested the performance of regional climate model (RegCM3) by simulating important components of Indian summer monsoon, including land-ocean contrast, low level jet (LLJ), Tibetan high and upper level Easterly Jet. Three contrasting rain years (1994: excess year, 2001: normal year, 2002: deficient year) were selected and RegCM3 was integrated at 60 km horizontal resolution from April 1 to October 1 each year. The simulated fields of circulations and precipitation were validated against the observation from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis products and Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC), respectively. The important results of RegCM3 simulations are (a) LLJ was slightly stronger and split into two branches during excess rain year over the Arabian Sea while there was no splitting during normal and deficient rain years, (b) huge anticyclone with single cell was noted during excess rain year while weak and broken into two cells in deficient rain year, (c) the simulated spatial distribution of precipitation was comparable to the corresponding observed precipitation of GPCC over large parts of India, and (d) the sensitivity experiment using NIMBUS-7 SMMR snow data indicated that precipitation was reduced mainly over the northeast and south Peninsular India with the introduction of 0.1 m of snow over the Tibetan region in April.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.267-278
• /
• 2018

With climate change and population growth, there are significant increases in water scarcity. There have been water security assessments to abate the gap between water demand and availability to support water resource management. However, most of the assessments are focusing on the water that flows through either on or below the land surface, failing to consider water that infiltrates and can be used by vegetation. This study presents water scarcity assessment accounting for Blue and Green water concept, and applied the method to Boryung region. Monthly streamflow, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture were estimated by SWAT modeling, and each of them was used to analyze Blue and Green water scarcity. Blue and Green water scarcity had different aspect, and the result indicated the time when water scarcity is more likely to happen. The water scarcity assessment framework presented in this paper provides novel assessment method integrating hydrologic and ecosystem aspects, thereby improving the understanding of how water resources should be managed.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.122-131
• /
• 2010

This paper introduces the concept of a virtual ecosystem and reports the following three mathematical approaches that could be widely used to construct such an ecosystem, along with examples: (1) a molecular dynamics simulation approach for animal flocking behavior, (2) a stochastic lattice model approach for termite colony behavior, and (3) a rule-based cellular automata approach for biofilm growth. The ecosystem considered in this study consists of artificial organisms and their environment. Each organism in the ecosystem is an agent that interacts autonomously with the dynamic environment, including the other organisms within it. The three types of model were successful to account for each corresponding ecosystem. In order to accurately mimic a natural ecosystem, a virtual ecosystem needs to take many ecological variables into account. However, doing so is likely to introduce excess complexity and nonlinearity in the analysis of the virtual ecosystem's dynamics. Nonetheless, the development of a virtual ecosystem is important, because it can provide possible explanations for various phenomena such as environmental disturbances and disasters, and can also give insights into ecological functions from an individual to a community level from a synthetic viewpoint. As an example of how lower and higher levels in an ecosystem can be connected, this paper also briefly discusses the application of the second model to the simulation of a termite ecosystem and the influence of climate change on the termite ecosystem.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.9
• /
• pp.85-94
• /
• 2016

Purpose - Recently, Mobile technologies and devices including smart phones and tablets have increased the possibility of communicating with other people and sharing personal information without time and space restriction. In order to realize the market potential related to mobile technologies, a large number of internet services have been incorporated into mobile platforms. Especially, The number of MIM(Mobile Instant Messenger) users has been increasing dramatically and services using MIM platform also have diversified. In spite of drastic growth in markets related to MIM, there is little empirical research on MIM and users' behaviors. This study designed to examine the structural relationships among belongingness, loneliness, self-disclosure intention, system quality, and self-disclosure behavior in context of MIM. Research design, data, and methodology - Three hypotheses were about the relationship among belongingness, loneliness and self-disclosure intention. The other two hypotheses were about the moderating effect of system quality in the causal relationship between self-disclosure intention and self-disclosure behavior. The data was analyzed by structural equation modeling. Research data were obtained from 330 undergraduate students who were KakaoTalk users and total 314 valid questionnaires were used in the final analysis. Results - The results from this study are as follow. First, the belongingness and the loneliness had a significant impact on self-disclosure intention in MIM. Second, the self-disclosure intention in MIM also had a positive impact on the self-disclosure behavior. Lastly, there is a moderating effect of the system quality in the relationship between the self-disclosure intention and self-disclosure behavior in MIM. Specifically, the higher system quality level was perceived, the positive effect of the self-disclosure intention in MIM on the self-disclosure behavior was greater. Conclusions - Based on the results from this study, academic and practical implications can be drawn. First, the study extends the scope of research about SNS through focusing on MIM to be classified by closed type SNS and identifies the relationship between emotion, behavioral intention and behaviors in MIM. Second, this study provides strategic guidelines to increase the efficiency for promotion activity. Limitations for the study also should be discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2014

Purpose - Environmental issues, climatic changes, and greenhouse gases are problems to be solved at a global level. With an increased emphasis on the environmental and social responsibility of the management of companies, the manner in which companies approach quality-oriented culture and their individual sustainability management are being discussed as truly important issues to help them secure their competitiveness and growth strategies. This study proposes strategic directions to help manufacturers not only in expanding their competitive quality-oriented company culture but also in strengthening their sustainability management abilities. This study conducts a literature review and empirical research to examine how significantly the variables of a quality-oriented company culture, customer-centered management, and process-centered and supply chain management-centered cooperation affect sustainability management performance in relation to economic profitability, environmental integrity, and social responsibility. Research design, data, and methodology - To verify research models and hypotheses, the study examined 170 companies using a questionnaire survey conducted over six weeks, and involved the performance of data analysis on 146 samples. Questionnaire responses were calibrated based on a Likert scale. The study used the Smart PLS 2.0 program designed for PLS (partial least squares), an analysis instrument of SEM (structural equation modeling). The study then verified empirical research hypotheses working on reliability analysis, validity analysis, factorial analysis, and path analysis. Results - Among the nine hypotheses, four are accepted and the rest are rejected. A quality-oriented company culture focusing on customer-centered management significantly influenced the maintainability management performance of environmental integrity and social responsibility, while economic profitability was dismissed. A process-focused quality-oriented company culture was significantly concerned with economic profitability but not with environmental integrity or social responsibility. A supply-chain cooperative company culture had a significant effect on economic profitability but not on environmental integrity or social responsibility. Conclusion - This study proposes strategic directions to help manufacturers expand their competitive quality-oriented company culture as well as strengthen abilities with sustainability management. It conducts a literature review and empirical research to examine how significantly the variables of quality-oriented company culture, customer-centered management, and process-centered and supply chain management-centered cooperation affect sustainability management performance in relation to economic profitability, environmental integrity, and social responsibility. There are two main conclusions. First, companies should consider the need for social responsibility management and environmental transparent management-focused maintainability management as avenues to create new markets and business, thereby helping the companies secure a reputation for having a customer and process-centered quality-oriented company culture by creating shared values between supply chains and enabling win-win situations through cooperation. Second, we are marching towards a creative win-win era from a society of conflicts and ruptures. Companies should understand that social responsibility management and supply chain management (SCM)-focused cooperation are the foundations of sustainable development, as they try to improve their culture while pursuing both win-win relationships with interested parties and equity in various conflictive relations.