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Latent topics-based product reputation mining (잠재 토픽 기반의 제품 평판 마이닝)

  • Park, Sang-Min;On, Byung-Won
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.39-70
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    • 2017
  • Data-drive analytics techniques have been recently applied to public surveys. Instead of simply gathering survey results or expert opinions to research the preference for a recently launched product, enterprises need a way to collect and analyze various types of online data and then accurately figure out customer preferences. In the main concept of existing data-based survey methods, the sentiment lexicon for a particular domain is first constructed by domain experts who usually judge the positive, neutral, or negative meanings of the frequently used words from the collected text documents. In order to research the preference for a particular product, the existing approach collects (1) review posts, which are related to the product, from several product review web sites; (2) extracts sentences (or phrases) in the collection after the pre-processing step such as stemming and removal of stop words is performed; (3) classifies the polarity (either positive or negative sense) of each sentence (or phrase) based on the sentiment lexicon; and (4) estimates the positive and negative ratios of the product by dividing the total numbers of the positive and negative sentences (or phrases) by the total number of the sentences (or phrases) in the collection. Furthermore, the existing approach automatically finds important sentences (or phrases) including the positive and negative meaning to/against the product. As a motivated example, given a product like Sonata made by Hyundai Motors, customers often want to see the summary note including what positive points are in the 'car design' aspect as well as what negative points are in thesame aspect. They also want to gain more useful information regarding other aspects such as 'car quality', 'car performance', and 'car service.' Such an information will enable customers to make good choice when they attempt to purchase brand-new vehicles. In addition, automobile makers will be able to figure out the preference and positive/negative points for new models on market. In the near future, the weak points of the models will be improved by the sentiment analysis. For this, the existing approach computes the sentiment score of each sentence (or phrase) and then selects top-k sentences (or phrases) with the highest positive and negative scores. However, the existing approach has several shortcomings and is limited to apply to real applications. The main disadvantages of the existing approach is as follows: (1) The main aspects (e.g., car design, quality, performance, and service) to a product (e.g., Hyundai Sonata) are not considered. Through the sentiment analysis without considering aspects, as a result, the summary note including the positive and negative ratios of the product and top-k sentences (or phrases) with the highest sentiment scores in the entire corpus is just reported to customers and car makers. This approach is not enough and main aspects of the target product need to be considered in the sentiment analysis. (2) In general, since the same word has different meanings across different domains, the sentiment lexicon which is proper to each domain needs to be constructed. The efficient way to construct the sentiment lexicon per domain is required because the sentiment lexicon construction is labor intensive and time consuming. To address the above problems, in this article, we propose a novel product reputation mining algorithm that (1) extracts topics hidden in review documents written by customers; (2) mines main aspects based on the extracted topics; (3) measures the positive and negative ratios of the product using the aspects; and (4) presents the digest in which a few important sentences with the positive and negative meanings are listed in each aspect. Unlike the existing approach, using hidden topics makes experts construct the sentimental lexicon easily and quickly. Furthermore, reinforcing topic semantics, we can improve the accuracy of the product reputation mining algorithms more largely than that of the existing approach. In the experiments, we collected large review documents to the domestic vehicles such as K5, SM5, and Avante; measured the positive and negative ratios of the three cars; showed top-k positive and negative summaries per aspect; and conducted statistical analysis. Our experimental results clearly show the effectiveness of the proposed method, compared with the existing method.

The Study of Characteristics of Consumer Purchasing Private Brand Products at Large-Scale Mart (국내 대형마트의 유통업체 브랜드 상품 구매 소비자의 특성 분석에 관한 연구)

  • Hwang, Seong-Huyk;Lee, Jung-Hee;Roh, Eun-Jung
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.1-19
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    • 2010
  • As having the movement of developing private brand (PB) goods, domestic big retailers are facing up with new problems. Thus, it is required studies of PB products, and how consumers recognize PB products as a consideration commodity set. Also, it is worthy in order that it gives us the important meaning on the marketing strategy with focusing on evaluating the differences between customers buying PB grocery goods with respect to demographic characteristics and purchasing behaviors. PB has some advantages for customers and retailers. However, according to AC Nielson's report (2005), Asian and emerging market has 1/5 sales relatively to Western countries. But we can assume that the emerging market has the most potential growth through this result. As a result from several other studies, it becomes necessary to not only increase the rate of selling composition of PB product temporarily, but also analyze the characteristics of customers using big retailers and segmenting customer groups to make PB product as a consideration commodity set for them. In addition, it is needed to have a variety of acts of marketing. From studies related to PB, there is a prejudice - cheap products have low quality - but, evaluation by customers who have used those products shows neutral stand, and there is a study representing that it is the most important to accumulate the belief between the retailers selling PB products and consumers using those for the accurate evaluation and intention on purchasing. Also, by the result from analyzing the characteristics of customers buying PB products, we could assume that higher income and higher education level, more preference on PB products. Especially, according to TNS's research, the primary targets of PB product are 30's who seeks value for money and planned spending habits, and 40's who have teenager children, and are interested in encouraging themselves. This paper used Probit model to analyze the characteristics of consumers. This model helps us to analyze with the variables representing the demographic characteristics of consumers (gender, age, educational level, occupation, income level, living area), and variables related to purchasing behavior (visiting frequency on big retailers, the average amount that they pay for goods in there, and check-up which brand made those goods). The method we used in this study is by man to man interview and survey on-line with the rate of 89% and 11% in Seoul and Gyunggi Province, respectively, for about one month from the beginning of February, 2008. As a result of this, under the assumption that people buy PB products more as long as they go shopping more, it was not meaningful for target groups which we pointed out as frequently visiting customers to be. Although, we have expected women buy more PB products than men do, gender doesn't mean anything for the result. And, it has inferred that married people buy more PB goods than singles do. It was also meaningless with variables related to occupation. Because housewives are often exposed to any kind of supermarket than workers are, we could not get any relatives. Moreover, we couldn't proof that younger generation prefer big retailers more than older people who 50~60's. Education levels doesn't affect on the purchase of PB product as well. Related to living area, the result is statistically not similar as we expected whether living in Seoul or not. It shows there is no relationship with the preference on retail brands and PB products, and it is similar with the study researched by TNS(2008) that customers tend to buy PB product impulsively no matter which brand it is and where they are even though their shopping place is the big market where customers are often using. Variables on which we had meaningful results are income level and living place. That is, customers who have 3,000,000~6,000,000 WON every month on average are more willing to buy PB products than other customers whose income is over 6,000,000 WON, and residents not living in Seoul prefer PB goods than those who are living in Seoul. To explain more about what we got, if there is only one condition about customer's visiting frequency on big retails, we could come up with this result that more exposed to PB products, more purchasing frequency. Consequently, it brings the important insight that large retailers have to prepare something to make customers visit them often to increase selling rate of PB products. To demonstrate the result of analyzing more, what is more efficient variables are demographically including marital status, income level, and residential area to buy items that affect the PB products and could include the frequency of visiting large markets by the purchase habits. Specifically, then, married couples rather than singles, middle-income customers than high-income customers, and local residents not living in Seoul than customers in Seoul are more likely to purchase PB goods. In addition, as long as a customer visits two times more, then the purchasing rate of PB products is to increase over 5.3%. Therefore, it seems that retailers are better to make a shopping place as fun and comfortable places. With overwhelming the idea that PB products are just cheap, one-time purchase goods, it is needed to increase the loyalty on those goods like NB products, try to make PB products as a consideration products set, and occur to sustainable sales. Especially, as suggested by this paper, it seems like it strongly needs to identify the characteristics of customers who prefer PB, to segment those customers, and to select the main target, and to do positioning with well-planned marketing strategies. Then, it is able to give us a meaningful point on marketing strategy by developing the field of PB study, identifying the difference of life style and shopping habits of customers.

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A Study on Interactions of Competitive Promotions Between the New and Used Cars (신차와 중고차간 프로모션의 상호작용에 대한 연구)

  • Chang, Kwangpil
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.83-98
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    • 2012
  • In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.

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A Study of the Images of General Supers and a Department Store in a Local City (지방도시에 입점하고 있는 종합슈퍼와 백화점에 대한 점포이미지 비교 분석)

  • Kim, Chang-Gon
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.10 no.6
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2012
  • Suncheon is a city comprising a rural and urban area, where there are four types of large stores. Studies have shown that there are too many large stores serving the local population of just 300,000. However, geographically, Suncheon is located at a transportation hub that borders the cities of Gwangyang and Yeosu as well as the local counties of Boseong and Gurae. Residents of these areas can reach these shopping stores within an hour's drive. Thus, the managers of these four stores regard residents in these areas as their valued customers and endeavor to create a differentiated image among them. In this study, 13 different images were used to determine the public's opinions and feelings towards these stores and the differences were analyzed. The store images measured overall store impression, diversity of the product, the quality of products displayed at the store, accessibility, the atmosphere, service to the customers, and so on. These images are evaluated subjectively by each customer and are major factors in them deciding to revisit the stores. The 13 images are classified into five main categories and further classified into 13 sub-categories. Three kinds of factor images were extracted from the store images in the five main categories by factor analysis using SPSS Ver. 19. The first factor image was extracted from the images of convenience, atmosphere, and service in the main categories and is called a sub-service factor for the store in this study. Accessibility to the store was classified as a convenience image in the main category and was extracted as a common factor along with diversity and the price of goods. These differences are expected according to the store location, that is, the difference between stores located in a large city and those in a small local city, and depending on the nature of survey respondents. The result shows that there is a significant difference between the stores' images with regard to accessibility, the price of products, brand image, and lighting/sound image. This study has the following limitations. First, the survey sample was restricted to residents of a small local city that includes rural and urban populations. The differences between the store images regarding traffic and accessibility are factored by store location, whether they are located within a large or a small city as well as the economic situation of these cities. Second, only the customers of large-scale stores were included in the survey as respondents. Relatively large traditional markets are held every five days in local cities and there is competition between large-scale stores and traditional markets with regard to diversity and the price of goods. It could be expected that customers in large-scale stores and customers in traditional markets would hold different store images. In future studies, images of stores in large cities should be compared with the images of stores located in small local cities. In addition, customer behavior when buying goods in large-scale stores should be compared with their behavior when buying goods in traditional markets.

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Exploring Sport Consumption Style of Generation Z that the 4th Industrial revolution paid attention to: Applying Decision Tree Analysis based on Data Mining (4차 산업혁명이 주목한 Z세대의 스포츠 소비 스타일 탐색: 데이터마이닝 기반 의사결정 나무 분석 적용)

  • Shin, Jin-Ho;Lim, Young-Sam;Kim, Ji-Sun
    • Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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    • v.37 no.5
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    • pp.1208-1221
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    • 2020
  • The purpose of this study was to provide basic data for predicting the sports consumption market that Generation Z will lead by applying data mining based decision tree analysis to explore Generation Z sports consumption style. Therefore, the survey was conducted by selecting males and females aged 19 or older as a sample among Generation Z, and data of 429 people were used for the final analysis. For data processing, frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, retest and reliability analysis, and decision tree analysis were performed using the SPSS statistics (ver. 21.0) program. The main results of this study are as follows. First, if the rational efficiency index is high and the aesthetic consumption index is low, the probability of being classified as a group of female was 96.8%. On the other hand, if the rational efficiency and perception of price index were low, the probability of being classified as a male group was 100%. Second, if the brand orientation, perception of price, and rational efficiency index were high, the probability of being classified as a capital area group was 97.3%. Contrary to the results presented above, the probability of being classified as a other area group was 82.1% when the brand orientation, commemoration rites, and status symbol index were low. Third, the status symbol and trend oriented index were high, and if the functionality index was low, the probability of being classified into daily life and fashion groups was 77.6%. On the contrary, if the status symbol index is low, the retention of membership and enjoy consumption index is high, the probability of being classified into exercise and competition groups was 81.0%.

Trend and Further Research of Rice Quality Evaluation (쌀의 품질평가 현황과 금후 연구방향)

  • Son, Jong-Rok;Kim, Jae-Hyun;Lee, Jung-Il;Youn, Young-Hwan;Kim, Jae-Kyu;Hwang, Hung-Goo;Moon, Hun-Pal
    • KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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    • v.47
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    • pp.33-54
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    • 2002
  • Rice quality is much dependent on the pre-and post harvest management. There are many parameters which influence rice or cooked rice qualitys such as cultivars, climate, soil, harvest time, drying, milling, storage, safety, nutritive value, taste, marketing, eating, cooking conditions, and each nations' food culture. Thus, vice evaluation might not be carried out by only some parameters. Physicochemical evaluation of rice deals with amy-lose content, gelatinizing property, and its relation with taste. The amylose content of good vice in Korea is defined at 17 to 20%. Other parameters considered are as follows; ratio of protein body-1 per total protein amount in relation to taste, and oleic/linoleic acid ratio in relation to storage safety. The rice higher Mg/K ratio is considered as high quality. The optimum value is over 1.5 to 1.6. It was reported that the contents of oligosaccharide, glutamic acid or its derivatives and its proportionalities have high corelation with the taste of rice. Major aromatic compounds in rice have been known as hexanal, acetone, pentanal, butanal, octanal, and heptanal. Recently, it was found that muco-polysaccharides are solubilized during cooking. Cooked rice surface is coated by the muco-polysaccharide. The muco-polysaccharide aye contributing to the consistency and collecting free amino acids and vitamins. Thus, these parameters might be regarded as important items for quality and taste evaluation of rice. Ingredients of rice related with the taste are not confined to the total rice grain. In the internal kernel, starch is main component but nitrogen and mineral compounds are localized at the external kernel. The ingredients related with taste are contained in 91 to 86% part of the outside kernel. For safety that is considered an important evaluation item of rice quality, each residual tolerance limit for agricultural chemicals must be adopted in our country. During drying, rice quality can decline by the reasons of high drying temperature, overdrying, and rapid drying. These result in cracked grain or decolored kernel. Intrinsic enzymes react partially during the rice storage. Because of these enzymes, starch, lipid, or protein can be slowly degraded, resulting in the decline of appearance quality, occurrence of aging aroma, and increased hardness of cooked rice. Milling conditions concerned with quality are paddy quality, milling method, and milling machines. To produce high quality rice, head rice must contain over three fourths of the normal rice kernels, and broken, damaged, colored, and immature kernels must be eliminated. In addition to milling equipment, color sorter and length grader must be installed for the production of such rice. Head rice was examined using the 45 brand rices circulating in Korea, Japan, America, Australia, and China. It was found that the head rice rate of brand rice in our country was approximately 57.4% and 80-86% in foreign countries. In order to develop a rice quality evaluation system, evaluation of technics must be further developed : more detailed measure of qualities, search for taste-related components, creation and grade classification of quality evaluation factors at each management stage of treatment after harvest, evaluation of rice as food material as well as for rice cooking, and method development for simple evaluation and establishment of equation for palatability. On policy concerns, the following must be conducted : development of price discrimination in conformity to rice cultivar and grade under the basis of quality evaluation method, fixation of head rice branding, and introduction of low temperature circulation.

A Study on the Attraction Factors of Eco-city using Importance-Satisfaction Analysis - The Case of Suncheon City - (중요도-만족도(ISA) 분석을 활용한 생태도시 매력요인에 관한 연구 - 전남 순천시를 대상으로 -)

  • Lee, Jeong;Kim, Sa-Rang
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.42 no.2
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    • pp.52-64
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    • 2014
  • I the recent years, Seoul, Daejeon, Changwon, and Suncheon have started to strengthen P.R. efforts on eco-brands produced by the city and to publicize as a specialized tourist city in an attempt to change their identity and image. However, there is actually a question whether the efforts of the local governments have any direct impact on satisfaction with urban living environments and the attractions of the city. The purpose of this study was to examine the awareness of residents and visitors about the attractions of Suncheon City as an eco-city and to discuss the planning criteria for the eco-city brand building and its management. The research data was collected in Suncheon City and main results of this study are as follows. The residents and the visitors investigated were satisfied with the environmental friendliness of this city and regarded it as an eco-city. As a result of asking them why they viewed the city as an eco-city, many of the residents cited diverse green tracts of land as the reason, whereas the visitors replied they were satisfied with the state of marshy areas preserved by the city. The psychological factors related to the satisfaction of the eco-city by the residents were composed of four factors, 'cultural factor', 'urban infrastructure factor', 'ecological factor' and 'scenery factor'. The visitors were composed of five factors, 'cultural factor', 'urban infrastructure factor', 'ecological factor', 'scenery factor' and 'amenity factor'. Out of the factors, the cultural factor and the urban infrastructure factor were found to exert the largest influence on the overall satisfaction of the residents and the visitors. The ISA(Importance-Satisfaction Analysis) was made, the residents and the visitors gave top priority to 'diversity of natural attractions', 'pleasant season and weather', 'beautiful scenery', 'diversity of rare animals and plants', 'diversity of parks', 'green areas and streets', 'broad ecological area' and 'the preservation of marshy areas' among the attractions of the eco-city. They placed importance on the activation of green traffic and walking environments as well, but they weren't satisfied with the state of the two in the city. Therefore there was much room for improvement in that regard.

Convergent Studies of Utilization Plan and Brand Suggestion for Abandoned Passenger Ferry Terminal in Jangseungpo to Improve Local Community Value (지역 가치 증진을 위한 장승포 폐 여객선 터미널의 활용 방안 및 브랜드 제안에 관한 융합 연구)

  • Lee, Ha Na;Oh, Kwang Myung;Paik, Jin Kyung
    • Korea Science and Art Forum
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.239-250
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    • 2019
  • Along with changes in the industrial structure, revitalizing decrepit or abandoned industrial-age infrastructures are actively under way on a global scale. This study was motivated by an interest in investigating currently idle industrial infrastructures and revitalizing the abandoned passenger ferry terminal in Geoje's Jangseungpo and surrounding areas. The main aims of this study were to examine regional features for the purpose of establishing urban renewal plans and field opinions of the local residents on how to proceed with the restoration of the passenger ferry terminal. To this end, this paper looked into previous case studies of converting decrepit industrial infrastructures into new cultural venues, depending on each region's special circumstances. This paper's findings are as follows: First, as a result of this investigation, the author found that in all cases in Korea and elsewhere revitalization focused on creating modern cultural spaces appropriate for the region while retaining its traditional value. At the same time, they sought sustainable cultural and economic revival. Second, as a result of the investigation on Geoje City's local characteristics, the author found that the surrounding areas' commercial districts were depressed after the terminal's closure. At the time of the investigation, the city government was trying to reopen the terminal as a major port offering multiple international ferry destinations while attracting tourists. Third, as a result of the surveys on the local residents, it was found that more than half of the residents were in agreement with the city government's plan to reopen the terminal and expressed their wishes that they want the terminal to have other uses such as cultural venues. Based on these research results, the author makes proposals, including expanding the passenger ferry terminal and offering cultural spaces within and near the terminal, based on the local residents' opinions and in reflection of local circumstances. As part of this effort, the author also recommends a new brand name and design plan for the new passenger ferry terminal so that Geoje City can improve its local community value.

A study on Analyzing Domestic Cargo Transportation Platform Service Using the IPA Technique (IPA 기법을 활용한 국내 화물 운송중개 플랫폼의 실증분석)

  • Ho-Yeon Yoon;Hyang-Sook Lee
    • Korea Trade Review
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.243-261
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    • 2023
  • This study was conducted with the goal of analyzing the needs of Truckers, who are the main users of the cargo transportation platform, to find a development direction for the improvement and activation of the cargo transportation platform service. For this purpose, this study conducted an empirical analysis through IPA analysis targeting Truckers using domestic cargo transportation platforms. As a result of the IPA analysis, in the case of importance, fair fare presentation, unfair trade prevention measures, transportation payment deadline accuracy, transportation section information provision accuracy, quick interaction, application system quality, ease of use, user-customized service, settlement service support function, Variety of transportation sections, brand image, and additional services were shown in order. In the case of satisfaction, ease of use, settlement service support function, transport section information provision accuracy, application system quality, brand image, additional services, user-customized service, transport section diversity, quick interaction, transport payment deadline accuracy, unfair transaction prevention Measures and fair fares were presented in that order. The analysis results show high satisfaction with the ease of use related to the platform quality and the function to support the settlement work. These results can be seen as the result of a significant investment in system quality improvement for the convenience of users by suppliers in the domestic cargo transportation platform industry, where competition has become fierce. As the factors most urgently needed for improvement, 'observance of payment deadlines', 'prevention of unfair trade', and 'provision of fair fares' were selected, and these are related to chronic problems in the domestic freight transportation industry.

Research Framework for International Franchising (국제프랜차이징 연구요소 및 연구방향)

  • Kim, Ju-Young;Lim, Young-Kyun;Shim, Jae-Duck
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-118
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    • 2008
  • The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

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