The Korean film industry with significant increase every year exceeded the number of cumulative audiences of 200 million people in 2013 finally. However, starting from 2015 the Korean film industry entered a period of low growth and experienced a negative growth after all in 2016. To overcome such difficulty, stakeholders like production company, distribution company, multiplex have attempted to maximize the market returns using strategies of predicting change of market and of responding to such market change immediately. Since a film is classified as one of experiential products, it is not easy to predict a box office record and the initial number of audiences before the film is released. And also, the number of audiences fluctuates with a variety of factors after the film is released. So, the production company and distribution company try to be guaranteed the number of screens at the opining time of a newly released by multiplex chains. However, the multiplex chains tend to open the screening schedule during only a week and then determine the number of screening of the forthcoming week based on the box office record and the evaluation of audiences. Many previous researches have conducted to deal with the prediction of box office records of films. In the early stage, the researches attempted to identify factors affecting the box office record. And nowadays, many studies have tried to apply various analytic techniques to the factors identified previously in order to improve the accuracy of prediction and to explain the effect of each factor instead of identifying new factors affecting the box office record. However, most of previous researches have limitations in that they used the total number of audiences from the opening to the end as a target variable, and this makes it difficult to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to predict the weekly number of audiences of a newly released film so that the stakeholder can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film. To that end, we considered the factors used in the previous studies affecting box office and developed new factors not used in previous studies such as the order of opening of movies, dynamics of sales. Along with the comprehensive factors, we used the machine learning method such as Random Forest, Multi Layer Perception, Support Vector Machine, and Naive Bays, to predict the number of cumulative visitors from the first week after a film release to the third week. At the point of the first and the second week, we predicted the cumulative number of visitors of the forthcoming week for a released film. And at the point of the third week, we predict the total number of visitors of the film. In addition, we predicted the total number of cumulative visitors also at the point of the both first week and second week using the same factors. As a result, we found the accuracy of predicting the number of visitors at the forthcoming week was higher than that of predicting the total number of them in all of three weeks, and also the accuracy of the Random Forest was the highest among the machine learning methods we used. This study has implications in that this study 1) considered various factors comprehensively which affect the box office record and merely addressed by other previous researches such as the weekly rating of audiences after release, the weekly rank of the film after release, and the weekly sales share after release, and 2) tried to predict and respond to the demand of market which changes dynamically by suggesting models which predicts the weekly number of audiences of newly released films so that the stakeholders can flexibly and elastically respond to the change of the number of audiences in the film.
Thanks to the rapid development of information technologies, the data available on Internet have grown rapidly. In this era of big data, many studies have attempted to offer insights and express the effects of data analysis. In the tourism and hospitality industry, many firms and studies in the era of big data have paid attention to online reviews on social media because of their large influence over customers. As tourism is an information-intensive industry, the effect of these information networks on social media platforms is more remarkable compared to any other types of media. However, there are some limitations to the improvements in service quality that can be made based on opinions on social media platforms. Users on social media platforms represent their opinions as text, images, and so on. Raw data sets from these reviews are unstructured. Moreover, these data sets are too big to extract new information and hidden knowledge by human competences. To use them for business intelligence and analytics applications, proper big data techniques like Natural Language Processing and data mining techniques are needed. This study suggests an analytical approach to directly yield insights from these reviews to improve the service quality of hotels. Our proposed approach consists of topic mining to extract topics contained in the reviews and the decision tree modeling to explain the relationship between topics and ratings. Topic mining refers to a method for finding a group of words from a collection of documents that represents a document. Among several topic mining methods, we adopted the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, which is considered as the most universal algorithm. However, LDA is not enough to find insights that can improve service quality because it cannot find the relationship between topics and ratings. To overcome this limitation, we also use the Classification and Regression Tree method, which is a kind of decision tree technique. Through the CART method, we can find what topics are related to positive or negative ratings of a hotel and visualize the results. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the representation of an analytical approach for the improvement of hotel service quality from unstructured review data sets. Through experiments for four hotels in Hong Kong, we can find the strengths and weaknesses of services for each hotel and suggest improvements to aid in customer satisfaction. Especially from positive reviews, we find what these hotels should maintain for service quality. For example, compared with the other hotels, a hotel has a good location and room condition which are extracted from positive reviews for it. In contrast, we also find what they should modify in their services from negative reviews. For example, a hotel should improve room condition related to soundproof. These results mean that our approach is useful in finding some insights for the service quality of hotels. That is, from the enormous size of review data, our approach can provide practical suggestions for hotel managers to improve their service quality. In the past, studies for improving service quality relied on surveys or interviews of customers. However, these methods are often costly and time consuming and the results may be biased by biased sampling or untrustworthy answers. The proposed approach directly obtains honest feedback from customers' online reviews and draws some insights through a type of big data analysis. So it will be a more useful tool to overcome the limitations of surveys or interviews. Moreover, our approach easily obtains the service quality information of other hotels or services in the tourism industry because it needs only open online reviews and ratings as input data. Furthermore, the performance of our approach will be better if other structured and unstructured data sources are added.
Investors prefer to look for trading points based on the graph shown in the chart rather than complex analysis, such as corporate intrinsic value analysis and technical auxiliary index analysis. However, the pattern analysis technique is difficult and computerized less than the needs of users. In recent years, there have been many cases of studying stock price patterns using various machine learning techniques including neural networks in the field of artificial intelligence(AI). In particular, the development of IT technology has made it easier to analyze a huge number of chart data to find patterns that can predict stock prices. Although short-term forecasting power of prices has increased in terms of performance so far, long-term forecasting power is limited and is used in short-term trading rather than long-term investment. Other studies have focused on mechanically and accurately identifying patterns that were not recognized by past technology, but it can be vulnerable in practical areas because it is a separate matter whether the patterns found are suitable for trading. When they find a meaningful pattern, they find a point that matches the pattern. They then measure their performance after n days, assuming that they have bought at that point in time. Since this approach is to calculate virtual revenues, there can be many disparities with reality. The existing research method tries to find a pattern with stock price prediction power, but this study proposes to define the patterns first and to trade when the pattern with high success probability appears. The M & W wave pattern published by Merrill(1980) is simple because we can distinguish it by five turning points. Despite the report that some patterns have price predictability, there were no performance reports used in the actual market. The simplicity of a pattern consisting of five turning points has the advantage of reducing the cost of increasing pattern recognition accuracy. In this study, 16 patterns of up conversion and 16 patterns of down conversion are reclassified into ten groups so that they can be easily implemented by the system. Only one pattern with high success rate per group is selected for trading. Patterns that had a high probability of success in the past are likely to succeed in the future. So we trade when such a pattern occurs. It is a real situation because it is measured assuming that both the buy and sell have been executed. We tested three ways to calculate the turning point. The first method, the minimum change rate zig-zag method, removes price movements below a certain percentage and calculates the vertex. In the second method, high-low line zig-zag, the high price that meets the n-day high price line is calculated at the peak price, and the low price that meets the n-day low price line is calculated at the valley price. In the third method, the swing wave method, the high price in the center higher than n high prices on the left and right is calculated as the peak price. If the central low price is lower than the n low price on the left and right, it is calculated as valley price. The swing wave method was superior to the other methods in the test results. It is interpreted that the transaction after checking the completion of the pattern is more effective than the transaction in the unfinished state of the pattern. Genetic algorithms(GA) were the most suitable solution, although it was virtually impossible to find patterns with high success rates because the number of cases was too large in this simulation. We also performed the simulation using the Walk-forward Analysis(WFA) method, which tests the test section and the application section separately. So we were able to respond appropriately to market changes. In this study, we optimize the stock portfolio because there is a risk of over-optimized if we implement the variable optimality for each individual stock. Therefore, we selected the number of constituent stocks as 20 to increase the effect of diversified investment while avoiding optimization. We tested the KOSPI market by dividing it into six categories. In the results, the portfolio of small cap stock was the most successful and the high vol stock portfolio was the second best. This shows that patterns need to have some price volatility in order for patterns to be shaped, but volatility is not the best.
Online consumers browse products belonging to a particular product line or brand for purchase, or simply leave a wide range of navigation without making purchase. The research on the behavior and purchase of online consumers has been steadily progressed, and related services and applications based on behavior data of consumers have been developed in practice. In recent years, customization strategies and recommendation systems of consumers have been utilized due to the development of big data technology, and attempts are being made to optimize users' shopping experience. However, even in such an attempt, it is very unlikely that online consumers will actually be able to visit the website and switch to the purchase stage. This is because online consumers do not just visit the website to purchase products but use and browse the websites differently according to their shopping motives and purposes. Therefore, it is important to analyze various types of visits as well as visits to purchase, which is important for understanding the behaviors of online consumers. In this study, we explored the clustering analysis of session based on click stream data of e-commerce company in order to explain diversity and complexity of search behavior of online consumers and typified search behavior. For the analysis, we converted data points of more than 8 million pages units into visit units' sessions, resulting in a total of over 500,000 website visit sessions. For each visit session, 12 characteristics such as page view, duration, search diversity, and page type concentration were extracted for clustering analysis. Considering the size of the data set, we performed the analysis using the Mini-Batch K-means algorithm, which has advantages in terms of learning speed and efficiency while maintaining the clustering performance similar to that of the clustering algorithm K-means. The most optimized number of clusters was derived from four, and the differences in session unit characteristics and purchasing rates were identified for each cluster. The online consumer visits the website several times and learns about the product and decides the purchase. In order to analyze the purchasing process over several visits of the online consumer, we constructed the visiting sequence data of the consumer based on the navigation patterns in the web site derived clustering analysis. The visit sequence data includes a series of visiting sequences until one purchase is made, and the items constituting one sequence become cluster labels derived from the foregoing. We have separately established a sequence data for consumers who have made purchases and data on visits for consumers who have only explored products without making purchases during the same period of time. And then sequential pattern mining was applied to extract frequent patterns from each sequence data. The minimum support is set to 10%, and frequent patterns consist of a sequence of cluster labels. While there are common derived patterns in both sequence data, there are also frequent patterns derived only from one side of sequence data. We found that the consumers who made purchases through the comparative analysis of the extracted frequent patterns showed the visiting pattern to decide to purchase the product repeatedly while searching for the specific product. The implication of this study is that we analyze the search type of online consumers by using large - scale click stream data and analyze the patterns of them to explain the behavior of purchasing process with data-driven point. Most studies that typology of online consumers have focused on the characteristics of the type and what factors are key in distinguishing that type. In this study, we carried out an analysis to type the behavior of online consumers, and further analyzed what order the types could be organized into one another and become a series of search patterns. In addition, online retailers will be able to try to improve their purchasing conversion through marketing strategies and recommendations for various types of visit and will be able to evaluate the effect of the strategy through changes in consumers' visit patterns.
The sprig of Jinryungtang Gagambang has been used for curing as a traditional medicine without any experimental evidence to support the rational basis for their clinical use. This experiment was carried out to evaluate the possible therapeutic or antitumoral effects of Jinryungtang Gagambang extract against cancer, and to study some mechanisms responsible for its effect. The cytotoxic and antitumor effects were evaluated on human cell liens (A549, hep3B, Caki-1, Sarcoma 180) after exposure to Jinryungtang Gagambang extract using in ILS, colony forming efficency and SRB assay which were regarded as a valuable method for cytotoxic and antitumor effects of unknown compound on tumor cell lines. The results obtained in this studies were as follows. 1. As a result of exposure to Jinryungtang Gagambang extract, the proliferation of A549, hep3B, Caki-1, good correlations were shown from the results of SRB assay and those of clogenetic assay. 2. The oral administration of Jinryungtang Gagambang extract showed significant effects of increase of MST(mean survival time) and ILS(increased life span) depending on the increasing concentration. 3. Against squamous cell carcinoma induced by MCA, Jinryungtang Gagambang decreased not only the frequency of tumor production but also the number and weight of tumors per tumor bearing mice(TBM). Jinryungtang Gagambang also significantly suppressed the development of 3LL cell-implanted tumors by frequency and their size, and some developed tumors were regressed by the continuous treatment of Jinryungtang Gagambang extract into TBM. 4. Jinryungtang Gagambang extract also increased NK cell activities. According to the above results, it could be suggested that Jinryungtang Gagambang extract has prominent antiutmor effect.
The present study is an attempt to solve the basic problems involved in the control of the Sclerotium disease. The biologic stranis of Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc., pathogen of Sclerotium disease of Magnolia kobus, were differentiated, and the effects of vitamins, various nitrogen and carbon sources on its mycelial growth and sclerotial production have been investigated. In addition the relationship between the cultural filtrate of Penicillium sp. and the growth of Sclerotium rolfsii, the tolerance of its mycelia or sclerotia to moist heat or drought and to Benlate (methyl-(butylcarbamoy 1)-2-benzimidazole carbamate), Tachigaren (3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole) and other chemicals were also clarified. The results are summarizee as follows: 1. There were two biologic strains, Type-l and Type-2 among isolates. They differed from each other in the mode of growth and colonial appearance on the media, aversion phenomenon and in their pathogenicity. These two types had similar pathogenicity to the Magnolia kobus and Robinia pseudoacasia, but behaved somewhat differently to the soybaen and cucumber, the Type-l being more virulent. 2. Except potassium nitrite, sodium nitrite and glycine, all of the 12 nitrogen sources tested were utilized for the mycelial growth and sclerotial production of this fungus when 10r/l of thiamine hydrochloride was added in the culture solution. Considering the forms of nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen was more available than nitrate nitrogen for the growth of mycelia, but nitrate nitrogen was better for sclerotia formation. Organic nitrogen showed different availabilities according to compounds used. While nitrite nitrogen was unavailable for both mycelial growth and sclerotial formation whether thiamine hydrochlioride was added or not. 3. Seven kinds of carbon sources examined were not effective in general, as long as thiamine hydrochloride was not added. When thiamine hydrochloride was added, glucose and saccharose exhibited mycelial growth, while rnaltose and soluble starch gave lesser, and xylose, lactose, and glycine showed no effect at all,. In the sclerotial production, all the tested carbon sources, except lactose, were effective, and glucose, maltose, saccharose, and soluble starch gave better results. 4. At the same level of nitrogen, the amount of mycelial growth increased as more carbon Sources were applied but decreased with the increase of nitrogen above 0.5g/1. The amount of sclerotial production decreased wi th the increase of carbon sources. 5. Sclerotium rolfsii was thiamine-defficient and required thiamine 20r/l for maximun growth of mycelia. At a higher concentration of more than 20r/l, however, mycelial growth decreased as the concentration increased, and was inhibited at l50r/l to such a degree of thiamine-free. 6. The effect of the nitrogen sources on the mycelial growth under the presence of thiamine were recognized in the decreasing order of
The rule of the Warsaw Convention of 1929 are well known and still being all over the world. The Warsaw Convention is undoubtedly the most widely accepted private international air law treaty with some 140 countries. In the international legal system for air transportation, the Warsaw Convention has played a major role for more than half century, and has been revised many times in consideration of the rapid developments of air high technology, changes of social and economic circumstances, need for the protection of passengers. Some amendments became effective, but others are still not effective. As a result, the whole international legal system for air transportation is at past so complicated and tangled. However, the 'Warsaw system' consists of the Warsaw Convention of 1929 the Guadalajara Convention of 1961, a supplementary convention, and the following six protocols: (1) the Hague Protocol of 1955, (2) the Guatemala Protocol of 1971, (3) the Montreal Additional Protocols, No.1, (4) the Montreal Additional Protocol No.2, (5) the Montreal Additional Protocol No.3, and (6) the Montreal Additional Protocol No.4. of 1975. As a fundamental principle of the air carrier's liability in the international convention and protocols, for instance in the Warsaw Convention and the Hague Protocol, the principle of limited liability and a presumed fault system has been adopted. Subsequently, the Montreal Inter-carrier Agreement of 1966, the Guatemala City Protocol, the Montreal Additional Protocol No.3, and the Montreal Additional Protocol No. 4 of 1975 maintained the limited liability, but substituted the presumed liability system by an absolute liability, that is, strict liability system. The Warsaw System, which sets relatively low compensation limits for victims of aircraft accidents and regulates the limited liability for death and injury of air passengers, had become increasingly outdated. Japanese Airlines and Inter-carrier Agreement of International Air Transport Association in 1995 has been adopted the unlimited liability of air carrier in international flight. The IATA Inter-Carrier Agreement, in which airlines in international air transportation agree to waive the limit of damages, was long and hard in coming, but it was remarkable achievement given the political and economic realities of the world. IATA deserves enormous credit for bringing it about. The Warsaw System is controversial and questionable. In order to find rational solution to disputes between nations which adopted differing liability systems in international air transportation, we need to reform the liability of air carriers the 'Warsaw system' and fundamentally, to unify the liability system among the nations. The International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO) will therefore reinforce its efforts to further promote a legal environment that adequately reflects the public interest and the needs of the parties involved. The ICAO Study Group met in April, 1998, together with the Drafting Committee. The time between the "Special Group on the Modernization and Consolidation of the 'Warsaw system'(SGMW)" and the Diplomatic Conference must be actively utilized to arrange for profound studies of the outstanding issues and for wide international consultations with a view to narrowing the scope of differences and preparing for a global international consensus. From 11 to 28 May 1999 the ICAO Headquarters at Montreal hosted a Diplomatic Conference convened to consider, with a view to adoption, a draft Convention intended to modernize and to integrate replace the instruments of the Warsaw system. The Council of ICAO convened this Conference under the Procedure for the Adoption of International Conventions. Some 525 participants from 121 Contracting States of ICAO attended, one non-contracting State, 11 observer delegations from international organizations, a total of 544 registered participants took part in the historic three-week conference which began on 10 May. The Conference was a success since it adopted a new Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air. The 1999 Montreal Convention, created and signed by representatives of 52 countries at an international conference convened by ICAO at Montreal on May 28, 1999, came into effect on November 4, 2003. Representatives of 30 countries have now formally ratified the Convention under their respective national procedures and ratification of the United States, which was the 30th country to ratify, took place on September 5, 2003. Under Article 53.6 of the Montreal Convention, it enters into force on the 60th day following the deposit of the 30th instrument of ratification or acceptation. The United States' ratification was deposited with ICAO on September 5, 2003. The ICAO have succeeded in modernizing and consolidating a 70-year old system of international instruments of private international law into one legal instrument that will provide, for years to come, an adequate level of compensation for those involved in international aircraft accidents. An international diplomatic conference on air law by ICAO of 1999 succeeded in adopting a new regime for air carrier liability, replacing the Warsaw Convention and five other related legal instruments with a single convention that provided for unlimited liability in relation to passengers. Victims of international air accidents and their families will be better protected and compensated under the new Montreal Convention, which modernizes and consolidates a seventy-five year old system of international instruments of private international law into one legal instrument. A major feature of the new legal instrument is the concept of unlimited liability. Whereas the Warsaw Convention set a limit of 125,000 Gold Francs (approximately US$ 8,300) in case of death or injury to passengers, the Montreal Convention introduces a two-tier system. The first tier includes strict liability up to l00,000 Special Drawing Rights (SDR: approximately US$ 135,000), irrespective of a carrier's fault. The second tier is based on presumption of fault of a carrier and has no limit of liability. The 1999 Montreal Convention also includes the following main elements; 1. In cases of aircraft accidents, air carriers are called upon to provide advance payments, without delay, to assist entitled persons in meeting immediate economic needs; the amount of this initial payment will be subject to national law and will be deductable from the final settlement; 2. Air carriers must submit proof of insurance, thereby ensuring the availability of financial resources in cases of automatic payments or litigation; 3. The legal action for damages resulting from the death or injury of a passenger may be filed in the country where, at the time of the accident, the passenger had his or her principal and permanent residence, subject to certain conditions. The new Montreal Convention of 1999 included the 5th jurisdiction - the place of residence of the claimant. The acceptance of the 5th jurisdiction is a diplomatic victory for the US and it can be realistically expected that claimants' lawyers will use every opportunity to file the claim in the US jurisdiction - it brings advantages in the liberal system of discovery, much wider scope of compensable non-economic damages than anywhere else in the world and the jury system prone to very generous awards. 4. The facilitation in the recovery of damages without the need for lengthy litigation, and simplification and modernization of documentation related to passengers. In developing this new Montreal Convention, we were able to reach a delicate balance between the needs and interests of all partners in international civil aviation, States, the travelling public, air carriers and the transport industry. Unlike the Warsaw Convention, the threshold of l00,000 SDR specified by the Montreal Convention, as well as remaining liability limits in relation to air passengers and delay, are subject to periodic review and may be revised once every five years. The primary aim of unification of private law as well as the new Montreal Convention is not only to remove or to minimize the conflict of laws but also to avoid conflict of jurisdictions. In order to find a rational solution to disputes between nations which have adopted differing liability systems in international air transport, we need fundamentally to reform their countries's domestic air law based on the new Montreal Convention. It is a desirable and necessary for us to ratify rapidly the new Montreal Convention by the contracting states of lCAO including the Republic of Korea. According to the Korean and Japanese ideas, airlines should not only pay compensation to passengers immediately after the accident, but also the so-called 'condolence' money to the next of kin. Condolence money is a gift to help a dead person's spirit in the hereafter : it is given on account of the grief and sorrow suffered by the next of kin, and it has risen considerably over the years. The total amount of the Korean and Japanese claims in the case of death is calculated on the basis of the loss of earned income, funeral expenses and material demage (baggage etc.), plus condolence money. The economic and social change will be occurred continuously after conclusion of the new Montreal Convention. In addition, the real value of life and human right will be enhanced substantially. The amount of compensation for damage caused by aircraft accident has increased in dollar amount as well as in volume. All air carrier's liability should extend to loss of expectation of leisure activities, as well as to damage to property, and mental and physical injuries. When victims are not satisfied with the amount of the compensation for damage caused by aircraft accident for which an airline corporation is liable under the current liability system. I also would like to propose my opinion that it is reasonable and necessary for us to interpret broadly the meaning of the bodily injury on Article 17 of the new Montreal Convention so as to be included the mental injury and condolence. Furthermore, Korea and Japan has not existed the Air Transport Act regulated the civil liability of air carrier such as Air Transport Act (Luftverkehrsgestz) in Germany. It is necessary for us to enact "the Korean Air Transport Contract Act (provisional title)" in order to regulate the civil liability of air carrier including the protection of the victims and injured persons caused by aircraft accident.
The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPSt) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPSt), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPSt-1) and the current earnings per share(EPSt), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEAt), the current leverage ratio(LEVt), the current operating return on assets(ROAt), the current business risk(RISKt), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURNt), and the current dividend premium(DPREMt). In these control variables, CEAt, LEVt, and ROAt are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROAt and RISKt are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURNt is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREMt is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.
Experiments on rice concerning it s varieties, fertilization, seedling dates and herbicides have been conducted to determine the most desirable method of direct sowing cultivation on dry paddy field land in the middle part of Korea. The results obtained at the Office of Rural Development of Choongnam Province are as follows:. 1. Sixteen different derivatives from the main varieties of low land rice were cultivated on a dry paddy field by the direct sowing method; at the same time, a few varieties were tried adopting the common transplanting cultivation method. The yield and yield factors from these two groups were examined to give the following results: a) Compared to the common transplanting cultivation, the direct sowing method showed remarkably increased number of panicles while the number of flowers per panicle was shown to be significantly decreased. The maturing ratio was detected to be lowered. The yield horn them differed according to the different varieties : good yield was obtained from Hokwang while Norin ＃25 proved poor when compared with the common transplanting cultivation method. b) Among sixteen varieties tested, Sunsou, Norin ＃25, Jaigou, Hokwang, Palkueng and Gosi showed comparatively high yields, their yield being more than 325 kilograms per 10 Are, but Nampoong, Paldal, Nongkwang, Norin ＃29, Eunbangju ＃101 and Shiro gane showed less yield, their yield being less than 271 kilograms per 10 Are, the relations between the yield and the yield factors can be summarized as follows; Number of varieties and their rice yield. 1) The varieties which were great in the, number of panicles and high in yield=Jaigoun, Hokwang Palkueng and Gosi. 2) The varieties which were low in the number of panicles and high in yield=Sounsou and Norin ＃25. 3) The varieties which were great in the number of panicles and poor in yield=Eunbangju ＃101 and Sirogane. 4) The varieties which were poor in the number of panicles and poor in yield: Nampung, Paldal and Norin ＃29. Number of flowers per panicle and yield. 1) The varieties which were great in the number of flowers per panicle and high in yield: Sounsou, Norin ＃25 and Gosi. 2) The varieties which were poor in the number of flowers per panicle and high in yield ; Jaigoun, Hokwang and Palkueng. 3) The varieties which were great in the number of flowers per panicle and poor in yield: Paldal and Nampung. 4) The varieties which were poor in the number of flowers per panicle and poor in yield: Norin ＃29. Eunbangju ＃101 and Sirogane. Maturing ratio and yield. 1) The varieties which were high in the maturing ratio and high in yield: Jaigoun, Sounsou, Norin ＃25 and Palkueng. 2) The varieties which were low in the maturing ratio and high in yield: Hokwang and Gosi. 3) The varieties which were early maturing rat io and low in yield: Hokwang and Gosi. 4) The varieties which were late maturing ratio and poor in yield: Eunbangju ＃101, Nampungand Sirogane 1, 000 grain weight and yield. 1) The varieties which were heavy in 1, 000 grains weight and high in yield=Norin ＃25 and Hokwang. 2) The varieties which were light in 1, 000 grains weight and high in yield=Sounsou and Jaigoun. 3) The varieties which were heavy in 1, 000 grains weight and poor in yield=Nongkwang and Eunbanju. 4) The varieties which were light in 1, 000 grains weight and poor in yield=Norin ＃29 and Sirogane. 2. The experiment on fertilization showed that the most desirable amount to be given per 10 Are was 10 kilograms of Nitrogen, 5 kilograms of phosphate and 6 kilograms of potassium; and when the Nitrogen given exceeded 8 kilograms, its effect was better when given in amsll consecutive (split) amounts, while the maturing ratio and the number of the flowers per panicle increased when Nitrogen was given in large amount during the later stage of growth of rice. 3. The experiment on the date and amount of seedling showed that the tested variety, Sunsou gave the best results when planted on the days between 25 April and 10 May. Eight liters per 10 Are were preferable if planted early and 12 liters per 10 Are if planted late. The reason why the later planting gave a lower yield was that the number of flowers per panicle was fewer. 4. The experiment on the irrigation for rice with direct sowing cultivation immersed in water showed that it was the most satisfactory when irrigated on 25th June, 55 days after its seedling, its plot giving the best yield. The plots 10th June and 15th July showed just as good results. However, irrigated later, than 15th July it showed lower yields. 5. Compared to the yield of the plot controlled by the common method, the yield from the plots treated with chemical herbicide such as LOROX, TOK, PCP, SWEP, Mo-338 on dry condition soil seemed poorer, but significant difference was not found statistically. On the other hand in the case where chemical herbicides such as TOK, Mo-338, Stam F-34 or ORDRAM were used after irrigation, the yield from the ORDRAM and TOK treated plots did not show significant differences compared to the common hand weed controling method, but those treated with chemicals other than the above showed a lower yield.