• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2013

This case focuses on Shanghai Tang, the first truly Chinese luxury brand that appeals to both Westerners and, more recently, to Chinese consumers worldwide. A visionary and wealthy businessman Sir David Tang created this company from scratch in 1994 in Hong Kong. Its story, spanned over almost two decades, has been fascinating. It went from what best a Chinese brand could be in the eyes of Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a nearly-bankrupted company in 1998, before being acquired by Richemont, the second largest luxury group in the world. Since then, its turnaround has been spectacular with a growing appeal among Chinese luxury consumers who represent the core segment of the luxury industry today. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how Shanghai Tang overcame its downfall and re-emerged as one the very few well- known Chinese luxury brands. More specifically, this case highlights the ways with which Shanghai Tang made a transitional change from a brand for Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a brand for both, Westerners who love the Chinese culture and Chinese who love luxury. A close examination reveals that Shanghai Tang has followed the brand identity concept that consists of two major components: functional and emotional. The functional component for developing a luxury brand concerns all product characteristics that will make a product 'luxurious' in the eyes of the consumer, such as premium quality of cachemire from Mongolia, Chinese silk, lacquer, finest leather, porcelain, and jade in the case of Shanghai Tang. The emotional component consists of non-functional symbolic meanings of a brand. The symbolic meaning marks the major difference between a premium and a luxury brand. In the case of Shanghai Tang, its symbolic meaning refers to the Chinese culture and the brand aims to represent the best of Chinese traditions and establish itself as "the ambassador of modern Chinese style". It touches the Chinese heritage and emotions. Shanghai Tang has reinvented the modern Chinese chic by drawing back to the stylish decadence of Shanghai in the 1930s, which was then called the "Paris of the East", and this is where the brand finds inspiration to create its own myth. Once the functional and emotional components assured, Shanghai Tang has gone through a four-stage development to become the first global Chinese luxury brand: introduction, deepening, expansion, and revitalization. Introduction: David Tang discovered a market gap and had a vision to launch the first Chinese luxury brand to the world. The key success drivers for the introduction and management of a Chinese luxury brand are a solid brand identity and, above all, a creative mind, an inspired person. This was David Tang then, and this is now Raphael Le Masne de Chermont, the current Executive Chairman. Shanghai Tang combines Chinese and Western elements, which it finds to be the most sustainable platform for drawing consumers. Deepening: A major objective of the next phase is to become recognized as a luxury brand and a fashion or design authority. For this purpose, Shanghai Tang has cooperated with other well-regarded luxury and lifestyle brands such as Puma and Swarovski. It also expanded its product lines from high-end custom-made garments to music CDs and restaurant. Expansion: After the opening of his first store in Hong Kong in 1994, David Tang went on to open his second store in New York City three years later. However this New York retail operation was a financial disaster. Barely nineteen months after the opening, the store was shut down and quietly relocated to a cheaper location of Madison Avenue. Despite this failure, Shanghai Tang products found numerous followers especially among Western tourists and became "souvenir-like" must-haves. However, despite its strong brand DNA, the brand did not generate enough repeated sales and over the years the company cumulated heavy debts and became unprofitable. Revitalizing: After its purchase by Richemont in 1998, Le Masne de Chermont was appointed to lead the company, reposition the brand and undertake some major strategic changes such as revising the "Shanghai Tang" designs to appeal not only to Westerners but also to Chinese consumers, and to open new stores around the world. Since then, Shanghai Tang has become synonymous to a modern Chinese luxury lifestyle brand.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.53-76
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• 2005

With rapid technological and market change, new product development (NPD) complexity is a significant issue that organizations continually face in their development projects. There are numerous factors, which cause development projects to become increasingly costly & complex. A product is more likely to be successfully developed and marketed when the complexity inherent in NPD projects is clearly understood and carefully managed. Based upon the previous studies, this study examines the nature and importance of complexity in developing new products and then identifies several issues in managing complexity. Issues considered include: definition of complexity : consequences of complexity; and methods for managing complexity in NPD projects. To achieve high performance in managing complexity in development projects, these issues need to be addressed, for example: A. Complexity inherent in NPD projects is multi-faceted and multidimensional. What factors need to be considered in defining and/or measuring complexity in a development project? For example, is it sufficient if complexity is defined only from a technological perspective, or is it more desirable to consider the entire array of complexity sources which NPD teams with different functions (e.g., marketing, R&D, manufacturing, etc.) face in the development process? Moreover, is it sufficient if complexity is measured only once during a development project, or is it more effective and useful to trace complexity changes over the entire development life cycle? B. Complexity inherent in a project can have negative as well as positive influences on NPD performance. Thus, which complexity impacts are usually considered negative and which are positive? Project complexity also can affect the entire organization. Any complexity could be better assessed in broader and longer perspective. What are some ways in which the long-term impact of complexity on an organization can be assessed and managed? C. Based upon previous studies, several approaches for managing complexity are derived. What are the weaknesses & strengths of each approach? Is there a desirable hierarchy or order among these approaches when more than one approach is used? Are there differences in the outcomes according to industry and product types (incremental or radical)? Answers to these and other questions can help organizations effectively manage the complexity inherent in most development projects. Complexity is worthy of additional attention from researchers and practitioners alike. Large-scale empirical investigations, jointly conducted by researchers and practitioners, will help gain useful insights into understanding and managing complexity. Those organizations that can accurately identify, assess, and manage the complexity inherent in projects are likely to gain important competitive advantages.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.95-119
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• 2010

Although there have been many studies regarding the inconsistency between consumers' attitudes and behavior, prior research has almost exclusively focused on the relationship between the attitude before behavior and the initial behavior. Relatively little research has been conducted on consumer satisfaction after purchase and post-purchase behavior. This research proposed that the relationship between satisfaction and post-purchase behavior is moderated by consumers' psychological characteristics such as need for cognitive closure(NCC) and temporal self-construal(SC). The need for cognitive closure refers to individuals' desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity. We assumed the need for cognitive closure as a major moderating variable because it is judged that the requirement for cognition clearly varies between when a consumer repurchases the same product and seeks a new alternative. Individuals who tend to end cognition due to time constraints or inappropriate conditions may display considerable cognitive impatience or impulsivity and has a higher probability in repurchasing the same product than a consumer without such limitations. They would avoid further consideration for new alternatives and the likelihood of the repurchase for prior alternative would increase. As hypothesized, significant moderating effect of the NCC was confirmed. This result gives a significant implication for a corporate to establish effective marketing strategies. For a corporate or product brand that has been occupying the market after entering the market earlier, it would be effective to maintain need for cognitive closure high in the existing consumers and thereby preventing the consumers from being interested in the new alternatives. On the other hand, new brands that have just entered the market need to lower the potential consumers' need for cognitive closure so that the consumers can be interested in new alternatives. Along with need for cognitive closure, temporal self-construal also turned out to moderate the satisfaction-repurchase. temporal SC reflects the extent to which individuals view themselves either as an individuated entity or in relation to others. Consumers under a temporarily independent SC would repurchase former alternative again according to their prior satisfaction and evaluation. In contrast, consumers in temporal interdependent SC tended to switch to a new alternative because they value interpersonal relationships above anything else and have a tendency to rely heavily on in-group opinions. When they are confronted with additional opinions, it is highly probable that he/she will choose a new product as an alternative. By proving the impact that temporal self-construal has on repurchasing behavior, this study is providing the marketers with new standards for establishing successful promotional strategies. For example, if the buyer and the user is the same for a product, it would be effective for the seller to convince the consumer to make decision subjectively by encouraging temporal independent self-construal. On the contrary, in the case where the purchase is made by an individual but the product is consumed by a group of people. For example, a housewife is more likely to choose the products or brands that her husband or children prefer rather than the ones that she likes by herself. In that case, emphasizing how the whole family can be satisfied and happy about the product would be effective for promoting repurchase.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-64
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• 2008

Third-Party awards are growing in popularity. They are the hit product of the year chosen by The Korea Economic Daily, the best 10 products of the year chosen by Sports paper, the best hit product chosen by consulting firm and the best venture company of the year chosen by Information and Communication Ministry. Then these questions may be followed. Why industry likes this type of advertisement? Does this type of advertisement influences consumers' purchase intention? And if it does, how? Many researchers have been interested in external cue of product quality by focusing research effort on brand, price, producer, warranty etc. However, important but under-explored area is the role of third-party reference for signaling product quality. This paper comes from the idea that the third-party reference may signal consumers like manufacturer brand, product brand, product price, and shop brand. We develop a related theories to address research questions and drive some research hypotheses based on the previous studies probing source credibility, attribution, and signal theory. We put more emphasis on source credibility. We conducted the research based on 3x2x2x2 between group factorial design to explore causal relationship between the third party award winning advertising(real, fictional, no) and the purchase intention of consumers exposed to other information simultaneously such as product type(experience, search), distribution channel(direct, indirect) and perceived price(high, low). Since subjects are divided into 2 groups based on the means of response without extra experimental stimulus in case of perceived price. 12 different advertisements are used for conducting this study. The results are followings. First, the source credibility of the third party goes up, consumers' purchase intention would go up. It seems that consumers think the credibility of the third-party most when they are exposed to the third party award winning advertisement. Second, the product type does moderate the relationship between the third-party award winning advertisement and purchase intention. And the type of the distribution channel also moderates this relationship. The consumers' purchase intention goes up higher when they buy experience good and there is significant difference of purchase intention when consumers are exposed to direct channel treatment condition. But, perceived price has nothing to do with the third-party winning advertisement context for raising consumer intention to buy advertised product.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-29
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• 2008

The objective of our study is to provide an exploratory model for forecasting sales take-off timing of a product in the context of multi-national markets. We evaluated the usefulness of key predictors such as multiple market information, product attributes, price, and sales for the forecasting of sales take-off timing by applying the suggested model to monthly sales data for PDP and LCD TV provided by a Korean electronics manufacturer. We have found some important results for global companies from the empirical analysis. Firstly, innovation coefficients obtained from sales data of a particular product in other markets can provide the most useful information on sales take-off timing of the product in a target market. However, imitation coefficients obtained from the sales data of a particular product in the target market and other markets are not useful for sales take-off timing of the product in the target market. Secondly, price and product attributes significantly influence on take-off timing. It is noteworthy that the ratio of the price of the target product to the average price of the market is more important than the price ofthe target product itself. Lastly, the cumulative sales of the product are still useful for the prediction of sales take-off timing. Our model outperformed the average model in terms of hit-rate.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.57-72
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• 2018

In order to extract meaningful information from the excellent farming settlement cases of young farmers published by KNCAF, we studied the key words with text mining and created a word cloud for visualization. First, in the text mining results for the entire sample, the words 'CEO', 'corporate executive', 'think', 'self', 'start', 'mind', and 'effort' are the words with high frequency among the top 50 core words. Their ability to think, judge and push ahead with themselves is a result of showing that they have ability of to be managers or managers. And it is a expression of how they manages to achieve their dream without giving up their dream. The high frequency of words such as "father" and "parent" is due to the high ratio of parents' cooperation and succession. Also 'KNCAF', 'university', 'graduation' and 'study' are the results of their high educational awareness, and 'organic farming' and 'eco-friendly' are the result of the interest in eco-friendly agriculture. In addition, words related to the 6th industry such as 'sales' and 'experience' represent their efforts to revitalize farming and fishing villages. Meanwhile, 'internet', 'blog', 'online', 'SNS', 'ICT', 'composite' and 'smart' were not included in the top 50. However, the fact that these words were extracted without omission shows that young farmers are increasingly interested in the scientificization and high-tech of agriculture and fisheries Next, as a result of grouping the top 50 key words by crop, the words 'facilities' in livestock, vegetables and aquatic crops, the words 'equipment' and 'machine' in food crops were extracted as main words. 'Eco-friendly' and 'organic' appeared in vegetable crops and food crops, and 'organic' appeared in fruit crops. The 'worm' of eco-friendly farming method appeared in the food crops, and the 'certification', which means excellent agricultural and marine products, appeared only in the fishery crops. 'Production', which is related to '6th industry', appeared in all crops, 'processing' and 'distribution' appeared in the fruit crops, and 'experience' appeared in the vegetable crops, food crops and fruit crops. To visualize the extracted words by text mining, we created a word cloud with the entire samples and each crop sample. As a result, we were able to judge the meaning of excellent practices, which are unstructured text, by character size.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.346-358
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• 2023

Due to the acceleration of climate change or global warming, it is important to predict rice productivity in the future and investigate physiological changes in rice plants. The research aimed to explore how rice adapts to climate change by examining the response of nitrogen absorption and nitrogen use efficiency in rice under elevated levels of carbon dioxide and temperature, utilizing the SPAR system for analysis. The temperature increased by +4.7 ℃ in comparison to the period from 2001 to 2010, while the carbon dioxide concentration was held steady at 800 ppm, aligning with South Korea's late 21st-century RCP8.5 scenario. Nitrogen was applied as fertilizer at rates of 0, 9, and 18 kg 10a^-1, respectively. Under conditions of climate change, there was an 81% increase in the number of panicles compared to the present situation. However, grain weight decreased by 38% as a result of reduction in the grain filling rate. BNUE, indicative of the nitrogen use efficiency in plant biomass, exhibited a high value under climate change conditions. However, both NUEg and ANUE, associated with grain production, experienced a notable and significant decrease. In comparison to the current conditions, nitrogen uptake in leaves and stems increased by 100% and 151%, respectively. However, there was a 25% decrease in nitrogen uptake in the panicle. Likewise, the nitrogen content and NDFF (Nitrogen Derived from Fertilizer) in the sink organs, namely leaves and roots, were elevated in comparison to current levels. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure resources by mitigating the decrease in ripening rates under climate change conditions. Moreover, there seems to be a requirement for follow-up research to enhance the flow of photosynthetic products under climate change conditions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.781-797
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• 2023

Recently, there has been a rapid response from mineral-demanding countries for securing critical minerals in a high tech industries. Graphite, while overwhelmingly dominated by China in production, is changing in global supply due to the exponential growth in EV battery sector, with active exploration in East Africa. Rare earth elements are essential raw materials widely used in advanced industries. Globally, there are ongoing developments in the production of REEs from three main deposit types: carbonatite, laterite, and ion-adsorption clay types. While China's production has decreased somewhat, it still maintains overwhelming dominance in this sector. Recent changes over the past few years include the rapid emergence of Myanmar and increased production in Vietnam. Nickel has been used in various chemical and metal industries for a long time, but recently, its significance in the market has been increasing, particularly in the battery sector. Worldwide, nickel deposits can be broadly classified into two types: laterite-type, which are derived from ultramafic rocks, and ultramafic hosted sulfide-type. It is predicted that the development of sulfide-type, primarily in Australia, will continue to grow, while the development of laterite-type is expected to be promoted in Indonesia. This is largely driven by the growing demand for nickel in response to the demand for lithium-ion batteries. The global lithium ores are produced in three main types: brine lake (78%), rock/mineral (19%), and clay types (3%). Rock/mineral type has a slightly higher grade compared to brine lake type, but they are less abundant. Chile, Argentina, and the United States primarily produce lithium from brine lake deposits, while Australia and China extract lithium from both brine lake and rock/mineral sources. Canada, on the other hand, exclusively produces lithium from rock/mineral type. Vanadium has traditionally been used in steel alloys, accounting for approximately 90% of its usage. However, there is a growing trend in the use for vanadium redox flow batteries, particularly for large-scale energy storage applications. The global sources of vanadium can be broadly categorized into two main types: vanadium contained in iron ore (81%) produced from mines and vanadium recovered from by-products (secondary sources, 18%). The primary source, accounting for 81%, is vanadium-iron ores, with 70% derived from vanadium slag in the steel making process and 30% from ore mined in primary sources. Intermediate vanadium oxides are manufactured from these sources. Vanadium deposits are classified into four types: vanadiferous titanomagnetite (VTM), sandstone-hosted, shale-hosted, and vanadate types. Currently, only the VTM-type ore is being produced.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.899-909
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• 2023

In this study, the material scientific characteristics of Hobun pigments used as white inorganic pigment for traditional cultural heritage were identified according to the type of shell and calcination and evaluated the stability of the preservation environment. For the purpose of this, we collected 2 different types of Hobun pigments made by oyster and clam shell and its calcined products(at 1,150℃). Hobun pigments before calcined identified calcium carbonate such as calcite, aragonite but calcination derived changing main composition to portlandite and calcite. Results of FE-SEM showed characteristics microstructure for each shell but pigments after calcined observed porous structure. Porous granule highly caused oil adsorption according to increase specific surface area of pigments. In addition, the whiteness improved after calcined pigments compared to non-calcined pigments, and the color improvement rate of Hobun pigment (CS) which made of clam shell was higher. As a result of the accelerated weathering test, the Hobun pigment-colored specimen had a color difference value of less than 2 after the test, which was difficult to recognize with the naked eye. In particular, the color stability has improved as the color difference value of the Hobun pigment is smaller after calcined compared to before non-calcined pigment. However, it was confirmed that the stability of the painting layer was lower in the specimen after calcined pigment. For antifungal activity test, Aspergillus niger, Tyromyces palustris and Trametes versicolor were used as test fungi, and all pigments were found to have preventive and protective effects against fungi. Especially, the antifungal effect of the calcined pigment was excellent, which is due to the stronger basicity of the pigment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.923-935
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• 2023

Rubus crataegifolius (RC), Ulmus macrocarpa (UM), and Gardenia jasminoides (GJ) are well-known folk medicines in Asia used to treat various gastrointestinal disturbances. The present study evaluated the gastroprotective effect of LS-RUG-com, a mixture of commercially prepared powders of RC, UM, and GJ with a ratio of 3:1:2(w/w/w) against HCl/ethanol-induced gastritis, indomethacin-induced ulcers, and esophageal reflux-induced esophageal mucosal damage and Helicobacter pylori infections. In addition, TNF-α and IL-1β expressions were also determined and measured in esophageal tissue. As to HCl/ethanol-induced gastritis, the LS-RUG-com treatment at a dose of 150 mg/kg showed a remarkable anti-gastritis effect. Regarding indomethacin-induced gastric ulcers, the LS-RUG-com treatment had a significant anti-gastric ulcer effect. Furthermore, in the gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) model experiment, the LS-RUG-com treatment resulted in the histological recovery of stomach damage and mucosal injuries. Furthermore, the LS-RUG-com treatment led to an increase in gastric content pH, an increase in mucus protection, and a decrease in gastric pepsin output with a significant decrease in TNF-α and IL-1β. As to the Helicobacter pylori infected animal model, LS-RUG-com had a notable inhibitory effect on Helicobacter growth. The use of RC, UM, or GJ in isolation or the LS-RUG-com treatment as whole had good effects in terms of anti-oxidation, anti-neutralization, gastric acid secretion inhibition, and anti-lipid peroxidation, which supported the use of natural products as systemic gastric protective agents. Our results suggest that the LS-RUG-com might be a significant systemic gastroprotective agent that could be utilized for the treatment and/or protection from gastric disturbances and related damage.