• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.199-216
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• 2024

This research examines the factors influencing consumer purchase intentions in e-commerce live streaming, set against the backdrop of the internet celebrity economy. The investigation serves as a pivotal inquiry into the dynamics of this economy, striving to uncover the extent of internet celebrities' influence, particularly in terms of their economic impact. Employing the Emotional Behavioral Cognitive (ABC) attitude theory and the Stimulus Organism Response (S-O-R) theory as foundational frameworks, this study scrutinizes internet celebrity live streaming sales. It incorporates direct observations and leverages existing scholarly work to devise a tailored measurement scale and questionnaire. From this, a research model and hypotheses are developed, leading to the establishment of an empirical model. This empirical model is instrumental in statistically analyzing how e-commerce live streaming, within the internet celebrity economy context, shapes consumer purchase intentions. By integrating theoretical insights and empirical findings, the research elucidates the strategic dimensions and consumer behavior aspects in digital commerce. It enhances understanding of how internet celebrity influence intersects with consumer purchasing processes. Overall, this study contributes to the academic discourse on digital marketing and consumer behavior, providing a nuanced perspective on the mechanisms through which internet celebrities affect e-commerce. It offers valuable implications for marketers, strategists, and policymakers aiming to navigate the complex landscape of the internet celebrity economy.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.25-38
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• 2011

After the financial crisis, what has been the rapidly growth of large supermarkets, stores, and restaurants linked to concerns that have already reached saturation point, but the new opening large supermarkets is expected to continue into the future. The major supermarkets are continue to grow outward but growth slowed. And that is expected to continue differentiation of the product, acceptance the customer needs, acquiring high margin of sales products. Then the ongoing development of PB brand is to be positioned effective marketing strategy for overcoming the period of slow growth. In addition, big three local supermarkets continue to launch a clothing PB brand, expansion and operation strategy for the situation and based on this study and the success of the domestic large-Mart's PB and PB identifying problem and the need for differentiation and profit for the successful strategy is to discuss in this study. This research looks at the concept of major market's private brand, the strategy, the success example and the prospects, and views the globally rapid-growing private brands, not only having the limited role of distributing the products as retailers, but also having a control of the distribution channel as a manufacturing company. World's major advanced distribution companies, to differentiate their companies' products and increase the profitability, are putting a lot of efforts into private brand products, and there are many good examples that are globalizing, externally expanding, and creating high financial results. In this research, we presented three major domestic discount stores as examples to show that there is a need for a differentiated private brand management strategy in the saturated discount store industry in Korea. Also, we aim to provide a new product strategy for the future that has been saturated with discount stores to the limit, by providing suggestions that private brand products can be used as weapons with the strongest competiveness in the retail industry through pursuing store differentiations from thorough market analysis and product researches, meeting the customers' needs, and obtaining high margins. PB products, particularly clothing design, a thorough market analysis and product development trends and customer needs to reflect the acquisition of High margin differentiated powerful products and sustainable growth through the stores, large supermarkets, congested, a new breakthrough that can give a good opportunity to provide implications discount stores, new product strategy based on ways to limit proposed. This study discount the major three companies studied, the less strain is a generalization. In the future, domestic and local discount store brand PB, SPA brand that the multinational comparative analysis of the value of the PB expansion strategy centered on clothing, additional studies will be needed.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.23-45
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• 2020

Big data is creating in a wide variety of fields such as medical care, manufacturing, logistics, sales site, SNS, and the dataset characteristics are also diverse. In order to secure the competitiveness of companies, it is necessary to improve decision-making capacity using a classification algorithm. However, most of them do not have sufficient knowledge on what kind of classification algorithm is appropriate for a specific problem area. In other words, determining which classification algorithm is appropriate depending on the characteristics of the dataset was has been a task that required expertise and effort. This is because the relationship between the characteristics of datasets (called meta-features) and the performance of classification algorithms has not been fully understood. Moreover, there has been little research on meta-features reflecting the characteristics of multi-class. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to empirically analyze whether meta-features of multi-class datasets have a significant effect on the performance of classification algorithms. In this study, meta-features of multi-class datasets were identified into two factors, (the data structure and the data complexity,) and seven representative meta-features were selected. Among those, we included the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), originally a market concentration measurement index, in the meta-features to replace IR(Imbalanced Ratio). Also, we developed a new index called Reverse ReLU Silhouette Score into the meta-feature set. Among the UCI Machine Learning Repository data, six representative datasets (Balance Scale, PageBlocks, Car Evaluation, User Knowledge-Modeling, Wine Quality(red), Contraceptive Method Choice) were selected. The class of each dataset was classified by using the classification algorithms (KNN, Logistic Regression, Nave Bayes, Random Forest, and SVM) selected in the study. For each dataset, we applied 10-fold cross validation method. 10% to 100% oversampling method is applied for each fold and meta-features of the dataset is measured. The meta-features selected are HHI, Number of Classes, Number of Features, Entropy, Reverse ReLU Silhouette Score, Nonlinearity of Linear Classifier, Hub Score. F1-score was selected as the dependent variable. As a result, the results of this study showed that the six meta-features including Reverse ReLU Silhouette Score and HHI proposed in this study have a significant effect on the classification performance. (1) The meta-features HHI proposed in this study was significant in the classification performance. (2) The number of variables has a significant effect on the classification performance, unlike the number of classes, but it has a positive effect. (3) The number of classes has a negative effect on the performance of classification. (4) Entropy has a significant effect on the performance of classification. (5) The Reverse ReLU Silhouette Score also significantly affects the classification performance at a significant level of 0.01. (6) The nonlinearity of linear classifiers has a significant negative effect on classification performance. In addition, the results of the analysis by the classification algorithms were also consistent. In the regression analysis by classification algorithm, Naïve Bayes algorithm does not have a significant effect on the number of variables unlike other classification algorithms. This study has two theoretical contributions: (1) two new meta-features (HHI, Reverse ReLU Silhouette score) was proved to be significant. (2) The effects of data characteristics on the performance of classification were investigated using meta-features. The practical contribution points (1) can be utilized in the development of classification algorithm recommendation system according to the characteristics of datasets. (2) Many data scientists are often testing by adjusting the parameters of the algorithm to find the optimal algorithm for the situation because the characteristics of the data are different. In this process, excessive waste of resources occurs due to hardware, cost, time, and manpower. This study is expected to be useful for machine learning, data mining researchers, practitioners, and machine learning-based system developers. The composition of this study consists of introduction, related research, research model, experiment, conclusion and discussion.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.21-32
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• 2017

Motivated by the recent cases of negligent social responsibility as manifested by foreign luxury fashion brands in Korea, this study investigates whether agency costs depend on the sustainability of different types of corporate governance. Agency costs refer either to vertical costs arising from the relationship between stockholders and managers, or to horizontal costs associated with the potential conflicts between majority and minority stockholders. The firms with luxury fashion brand could spend large sums of money on maintenance of magnificent brand image, thereby increasing the agency cost. On the contrary, the firms may hold down wasteful spending to report a gaudily financial achievement. This results in mitigation of the agency cost. Agency costs are measured by the value of the principal component. First, three ratios are constructed: asset turnover, operating expense to sales, and earnings before interest, tax, and depreciation. Then, the scores of each of these ratios for individual firms in the sample are differenced from the ratios for the benchmark firm of S-OIL. S-OIL was designated as the best superior governance model firm for 2013 by CGS. We perform regression analysis of each agency cost index, luxury fashion brand dummy and a set of control variables. The regression results indicate that the agency costs of the firms with luxury fashion brand exceed those of control group in the fashion industry in the part of operating expenses, but the agency cost falls short of those of control group in the part of EBITD, thus the aggregate agency costs are not differential of those of the control group. In sensitivity test, the results are same that the agency cost of the firms are higher than those of the matching control group with PSM(propensity matching method). These results are corroborated by an additional analysis comparing the group of the companies with the best brands with the control group. The results raise doubts about the effectiveness of management of the firms with luxury fashion brand. This study has a limitation that the research has performed only for 2013 and this paper suggests that there is room for improvement in the current research methodology.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.325-344
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• 2014

Technical support of Window XP ended in March, 8, 2014, and it makes OS(Operating System) users fall in a state of confusion. Sudden decision making of OS upgrade and replacement is not a simple problem. Firms need to change the long term capacity plan in enterprise IS management, but they are pressed for time and cost to complete it. Individuals can not help selecting the second best plan, because the following OSs of Window XP are below expectations in performances, new PC sales as the opportunities of OS upgrade decrease, and the potential risk of OS technical support ending had not announced to OS users at the point of purchase. Microsoft as the OS vendors had not presented precaution or remedy for this confusion. Rather, Microsoft announced that the technical support of the other following OSs of Wndow XP such as Window 7 would ended in two years. This conflict between OS vendor and OS users could not happen in one time, but could recur in recent future. Although studies on the ways of OS user protection policy would be needed to escape from this conflict, few prior studies had conducted this issue. This study had challenge to cautiously investigate in such OS user's reactions as the confirmation with OS user's expectation in the point of purchase, three types of justice perception on the treatment of OS vendor, psychological contract violation, satisfaction and the other betrayal behavioral intention in the case of Window XP technical support ending. By adopting the justice perception on this research, and by empirically validating the impact on OS user's reactions, I could suggest the direction of establishing OS user protection policy of OS vendor. Based on the expectation-confirmation theory, the theory of justice, literatures about psychological contract violation, and studies about consumer betrayal behaviors in the perspective of Herzberg(1968)'s dual factor theory, I developed the research model and hypothesis. Expectation-confirmation theory explain that consumers had expectation on the performance of product in the point of sale, and they could satisfied with their purchase behaviors, when the expectation could have confirmed in the point of consumption. The theory of justice in social exchange argues that treatee could be willing to accept the treatment by treater when the three types of justice as distributive, procedural, and interactional justice could be established in treatment. Literatures about psychological contract violation in human behaviors explains that contracter in a side could have the implied contract (also called 'psychological contract') which the contracter in the other side would sincerely execute the contract, and that they are willing to do vengeance behaviors when their contract had unfairly been broken. When the psychological contract of consumers had been broken, consumers feel distrust with the vendors and are willing to decrease such beneficial attitude and behavior as satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention. At the same time, consumers feel betrayal and are willing to increase such retributive attitude and behavior as negative word-of-mouth, complain to the vendors, complain to the third parties for consumer protection. We conducted a scenario survey in order to validate our research model at March, 2013, when is the point of news released firstly and when is the point of one year before the acture Window XP technical support ending. We collected the valid data from 238 voluntary participants who are the OS users but had not yet exposed the news of Window OSs technical support ending schedule. The subject had been allocated into two groups and one of two groups had been exposed this news. The data had been analyzed by the MANOVA and PLS. MANOVA results indicate that the OSs technical support ending could significantly decrease all three types of justice perception. PLS results indicated that it could significantly increase psychological contract violation and that this increased psychological contract violation could significantly reduce the trust and increase the perceived betrayal. Then, it could significantly reduce satisfaction, loyalty, and repurchase intention, and it also could significantly increase negative word-of-month intention, complain to the vendor intention, and complain to the third party intention. All hypothesis had been significantly approved. Consequently, OS users feel that the OSs technical support ending is not natural value added service ending, but the violation of the core OS purchase contract, that it could be the posteriori prohibition of OS user's OS usage right, and that it could induce the psychological contract violation of OS users. This study would contributions to introduce the psychological contract violation of the OS users from the OSs technical support ending in IS field, to introduce three types of justice as the antecedents of psychological contract violation, and to empirically validate the impact of psychological contract violation both on the beneficial and retributive behavioral intentions of OS users. For practice, the results of this study could contribute to make more comprehensive OS user protection policy and consumer relationship management practices of OS vendor.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.33-60
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• 2007

This study alms to analyze the entrepreneur characteristics of founder on enterprise performance from the strategic viewpoint as well as features of founder of small firms such as background feature of founder, psychological features and management skill. As considered by Background features of founder include educational background of founder, his experience in business creation, consultation or course related to business creation. This study verified the effects of factor which business performance (financial, non financial) on small firms. Also, this study considered psychological features of founder include achievement desire, risk-free propensity, level of patience on vagueness and control position. And it analyzed that between such factors and performance of small firms were examined in related. In the mean time, management ability of founder, entrepreneur ability, technical and function ability were considered for management skill of founder and alalyzed effect of the factors on performance of small firm were examined. Effects of strategic intention of founder of small firm were analyzed by the strategic viewpoint. At this time, strategy of small firm was divided into product-service reform differentiation strategy, marketing differentiation strategy and cost leadership strategy. This study distributed questionnaire on CEO of small firms in Daejeon and Chungnam area for accomplish the study objective and it collected a total of 145 copies of questionnaires. As a result of analyzing collected questionnaire, this study deduced the following study results and suggestions. First, results different from those of existing studies were found Since sales, net income and profit rate of small firm were not high cause economic depression on the whole. Second, entrepreneur ability was found to be required for success of business creation. Entrepreneur ability of founder was the factor that affects both financial and non - financial performance of small firm. As such, entrepreneur ability can be regarded as the most important factor for success in business creation of small firm. Accordingly, entrepreneur ability is the most important source for success in business creation of small firm. Third, strategy of small firm was found to be the important factor that affects the non-financial performance even if it could not give significant effects on financial performance. Thus, product service reform differentiation strategy, marketing differentiation strategy and cost leadership strategy have significant effects on non - financial performance of small firm. Accordingly, it is required to operate small firm with strategic mind - set for small firm to achieve success. This study analyzed the effects of feature of founder and strategy of small firm on business performance of small firm through practical analysis on small firms in Daejeon and Chungnam area, and deduced meaningful results. However, Since this study collected data on small firms in Daejeon and Chungnam only, there is a limit in generalizing the results of this study to all small firms in Korea. Companies answering to this questionnaire process were mainly wholesale and retail service companies. In addition, there is a limit in that it failed to analyze feature of representative type of industry due to limit in number of sample, it is required to divide representative type of industry and to compare and analyze types of industry in future studies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1-14
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• 2017

New business management methods different from the past are necessary because of the rapid changes of the corporates' environment. KOSDAQ(Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotation) companies should be expected the more affirmative business performance of companies by listing, but it is a well-known that they have problems of low business performance mostly. This paper aims to investigate the influential factors on enhancing corporate innovation and nonfinantial business performance, and to clarify practical measures and present a solution of KOSDAQ companies' problems through analysis of previous researches and an empirical research. This research present corporate entrepreneurship and human resources innovation as impact factors on the business performance to apply finely the path of technological innovation for the solution of the relevance investigation limit between the complexity of corporates' innovation paths and the firms' performance. And also knowledge management activities and external networks management or the firms have been adopted as a corporate innovation activities for free from quantitative measures, such as conventional research and development(R&D) activities by considering recent corporates' knowledge business operations. The results of the empirical analysis shows that significant impact factors on corporate innovation activities are the firms' propensities of competitive advantage initiative, risk taking and chief executive officer's innovation. These can be interpreted that the CEOs' innovation propensity should be enhanced for stimulating corporate's innovaton activities, which include the CEOs' interest in the development of new technology, the exploiting new businesses and their support of the innovation discipline for employees. In addition, it can be said that it is necessary to intensify more initiatives within those enterprise for enhancing the competitive advantage in the identical industry. The significant impact factors of corporate entrepreneurship and human resource innovation on the non-financial performance are resulted as the propensities of firms' competitive advantage initiative, CEOs' innovation and employees' innovaton. This shows that the higher propensities of firms' competitive advantage initiative, CEOs' innovation and employees' innovaton, the higher the cognitive degrees of business performance within each corporate, which include the members' awareness about firms' sales growth, market share growth, profit ratio growth, customers' preference and corporates' awareness.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.247-269
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• 2007

In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.78-96
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to analyze and evaluate the menu served in government offices foodservice by using Kasavana & Smith's Menu-Engineering. Sales and food costs were collected from the daily sales reports for a year from Jan 2 to Dec 31 in 2007. Calculation for menu analysis and customer's data were done by computer using the MS 2003 Excel spreadsheet program and SPSS 12.0 package program. Menu mix% (MM%) and unit contribution margin were used as variables by Kasavana & Smith. Four possible classifications by Menu-Engineering technique were turned out as 'STAR', 'PLOWHORSE', 'PUZZLE', 'DOG'. The main menus served during a year were 128 dishes and about 141 peoples visited this restaurant daily. The mean age of the men was $44.1\;{\pm}\;6.3$, women were $32.7\;{\pm}\;6.4$ and showed that was statistically higher than that of women (p < .0001). The rates of STAR menus were 'Western style (75.0%)', 'guk/tang-ryu (48.1%)', 'jjigae/ jeongol-ryu (23.1%)', 'bap-ryu (17.2%)' in sequence. There were no STAR menus in gui/jorim/jjim-ryu. PLOWHORSE menus were 'gui-ryu (75.0%)', 'guk/tang-ryu (29.6%)', 'bap-ryu (27.6%)' in sequence. There were no PUZZLE or DOG menus in 'jjigae/jeongol-ryu'. PUZZLE menus were 'jorim/jjim-ryu and Myeonryu (each 33.3%)', 'bap-ryu (31.0%)' in sequence. PUZZLE menus were a lots of 'Chinese food (75.0%)' and 'myeonryu (55.6%)'. This study provides the basic data based on regularly menu analysis method applied the scientific menu analysis techniques in government offices food services, I'd like to suggest that the menu management must be done based on the necessity and result of menu analysis according to the seasonal and middle, long-term plans.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2012

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.