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- P-ISSN1738-3110
- E-ISSN2093-7717
- SCOPUS, ESCI
ISSN : 1738-3110
Vol.13 No.2
Abstract
Purpose - In recent years, concerns over privatization have been growing in some public sectors. Privatization in Britain offers lessons for those who have intended to privatize their industry, and in particular, the port industry. Therefore, it is useful for researchers to examine British port privatization in detail, particularly the implications of UK port privatization. Research design, data, and methodology - After reviewing the historical development of the UK port industry, the important factors determining the success of the British port privatization process were identified. The interpretations could be lessons for some other country to consider port privatization in near future. Results - The key factors in relation to port privatization are first, regulation; second, ownership; and third, utilities and operations, which includes autonomy, efficiency, and competitiveness. In addition, the UK port management system is a pure private port system, which has been successful. Conclusions - In Britain, after deciding to privatize the erstwhile public ports, they were fully privatized, focusing on the aforesaid key factors. This offers important lessons for the privatization of other ports in the world.
Abstract
Purpose - Foreign exchange risk control is in an important component in the international supply chain management. This study shows the importance of the reference period in forecasting future exchange rates with a specific illustration of KIKO currency option contracts, and suggests feasible preventive measures. Research design, data, and methodology - Using monthly Won-Dollar exchange rate data for January 1995~July 2007, I evaluate the statistical characteristics of the exchange rate for two sub-periods; 1) a shorter period after the East Asian financial crisis and 2) a longer period including the financial crisis. The key instrument of analysis is the basic normal distribution theory. Results - The difference in the reference period could lead to an unexpected development in contract implementation and a consequent financial loss. We may avoid foreign exchange loss by using derivatives such as forwards or currency options. Conclusions - We should consider not only level values but also the volatilities of financial variables in making a binding financial contract. Appropriate measures may differ depending on the specific supply chain pattern. We may extend the study with surveys on actual risk measures.
Abstract
Purpose - This study aims to disclose the problems of both the government and the logistics industry regarding fourth-party logistics, and to provide various solutions at the level of enterprises as well as the government for the introduction of fourth-party logistics in China. Research design, data, and methodology - This study aims to reveal how a shipping company recognizes the creation of partnerships with fourth-party logistics providers, and it reveals several related implications. Results - Fourth-party logistics organizations can be used to achieve maximum business performance as professional logistics companies by incorporating the benefits of outsourcing and insourcing. Outsourcing logistics services through focusing on core competencies and improving customer service can have financial effects and advantages such as the simplification of labor issues. Conclusions - This study did not investigate Korean enterprises through an empirical analysis and provided fourth-party logistics concepts and promotional plans according to domestic and foreign literature. Further studies shall investigate not only the Korean fourth-party logistics model but also the training of logistics professionals to generate profits for both shippers as well as logistics enterprises.
Abstract
Purpose - In this study, corporate social responsibility activities as perceived by customers visiting super-centers and the influence of the authenticity of such social responsibility activities on trust have been examined while attempting to verify how trust would influence consumers' attitude and purchase intention. Research design, data, and methodology - For data collection, a questionnaire survey has been conducted on 200 consumers who would visit super-centers, and 161 effective samples have been used for the final analysis. Methodologies such as Cronbach's α, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling were used. Results - Among corporate social responsibility activities, legal responsibility in particular has turned out to influence consumers rather greatly. Thus, law observance has turned out to be a necessity rather than merely an economic or ethical responsibility; as for trust, trust in the product has turned out to exert more influence on consumers than trust in the enterprise. Conclusions - Corporate social responsibility activities can mean that the complete fulfillment of natural and proper corporate responsibility will secure consumer trust, thus influencing consumer attitude and purchase intention positively.
Abstract
Purpose - This study strives to discern trends in research productivity in the Journal of Consumer Behavior. It will identify prolific authors and institutions in articles over ten years (2004-2013). Research design, data, and methodology - The Journal of Consumer Behavior was chosen and articles over ten years were analyzed. Research productivity was determined by categorizing the data into four themes: number of authors per article, author affiliated institutions, a list of prolific authors over a ten-year period, and author-affiliated countries. Results - Authors have a propensity to collaborate on a research paper, yielding a high frequency of articles with two or three authors in a single publication. In addition, author and institution productivity was highest in North America and Europe. Conclusions - The research productivity of the Journal of Consumer Behavior is unprecedented. The trends and insights from this study will allow academics in the area of consumer behavior to observe leading authors and institutions. Moreover, speculations about the leading countries and institutions, not to mention top prolific authors in consumer behavior, will be elucidated in this study.
Abstract
Purpose - This study aims to investigate the success factors pertaining to K-POPs from an analysis of the internal business environment. Much research has investigated Korean Moves or how to popularize them. The research mainly focused on aspects of Korean Moves. However, few studies have attempted to examine Korean Moves or K-POPs from a managerial viewpoint. The current research tries to investigate the success factors of K-POP from strategic perspectives, specifically utilizing internal resource based view perspectives. It differentiates itself by looking at the competitiveness of K-POP from the internal resources. Research design, data, and methodology - In the entertainment industry, where creativity is heavily stressed, competitiveness is often regarded within the organization as a form of intangible asset, knowledge, or technology that is often related with the organization's personnel. Some research has tried to reveal the competitiveness of K-POP using Porter's competitiveness of nations framework. Others utilize the adapted model of Porter's structure. However, these models only look at the outside environment, and not inside a firm's resource, knowledge, or capabilities. This research utilizes the VRIO model to examine the internal resources and capabilities of K-POP producers. The model measures whether a firm's internal resources and capabilities are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate by competitors, or organizable. The research covered businesses whose yearly revenue exceeds $10 Million in music planning and recording in South Korea. There were only thirteen such companies (one percent of the total population). Of these, companies for whom 20 percent or more of the sales revenue comes from the abroad are targeted. Only seven are selected and these participated in the research. In order to find a firm's internal resources, we conducted qualitative research methodology. Their business names and persons who participated in this research are not revealed due to case sensitive issues. Instead, we use unrelated initials for their names and their statements. Results - From the in-depth interview with top-tier K-POP producers and managers, the current research tried to identify resources and capabilities that helped to strengthen their competitiveness. These resources and capabilities are sought from the scope of the VRIO model, which looks at the internal resources and capabilities from the scope of value, rarity, imitability, and organization. Interviews with the top tier producers and managers reveal the internal success factors of K-POPs. We conclude that these resources and capabilities are from internally accumulated producing know-how, unique managing (training) system, and outstanding all-round entertainment capabilities of the performers. Conclusions - These results indicate that the core resources and capabilities of K-POP are robust. It will take a significant amount of time and money to imitate for followers, because these resources and capabilities are the result of time investment and are embedded into producers' and performers' know-how. Taking Luo (2000)'s argument, K-POP is in the second stage of the globalization process, which is configuring and allocation resource capabilities to a global scope.
Abstract
Purpose - Satisfaction with service is evaluated according to customers' subjective judgment. The expected value of customer service and its evaluations depend on the customers' position. The customer recognizes two different forms of service levels. One is satisfaction and the other is dissatisfaction. Customers who are satisfied want to receive the service in future. However, those dissatisfied try to change the service. The service provider tries to improve the service. There are two different service cycles. One is the successful cycle and the other is the failure cycle. This study aimed to empirically determine the effects of the justice and authenticity of service recovery on customer behavioral intention through an integrated approach to cognitive justice and psychological authenticity. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on a literature review, justice of service recovery was categorized into three types: distributive, procedural, and interactive. Then, authenticity was added to obtain four independent variables, along with recovery satisfaction as a parameter. Behavioral intention, as an outcome variable, was divided into the repurchase intention and positive word-of-mouth. The model and hypotheses were created and measurement items were developed. A questionnaire survey of items concerning the service recovery experience at family restaurants was conducted on college students and residents in Gwangju from September 30 to October 31, 2013. A total of 400 copies of the questionnaire were sent out and 385 were returned. Respondents answered questions about the importance of, and satisfaction with service recovery on a 5-point Likert scale. Excluding 174 copies without service failure experiences and 7 inappropriate copies, 204 copies were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 for Windows and AMOS 20.0 to determine the reliability and validity of measurements. The hypotheses were tested through a goodness-of-fit analysis. Results - First, distributive justice positively affected recovery satisfaction. Second, procedural and interactive justice had no impact. Third, authenticity positively affected recovery satisfaction. Fourth, distributive justice had relatively stronger effects on recovery satisfaction than authenticity. Fifth, recovery satisfaction significantly affected repurchase intention and positive word-of-mouth and it proved effective in mediation. Finally, additional analysis was performed for descriptive statistics of the principal variables by various demographic characteristics and significant differences were found in gender, occupation, and so on. Conclusions - This study has academic significance as the fairness and authenticity of service recovery were investigated to reveal the effects on behavior. The findings could be applied to a wide range of service recovery strategies. However, there are some limitations. First, data was collected only from the residents of Gwangju and most respondents were aged 20-30. Future studies should target a wide range of areas and age groups. Second, because the questionnaire used in this study targets only convenience family restaurants, the results of this study cannot be generalized to all services companies. Future research should be done on a wide range of industries such as hotels, airlines, and hospitals, and perform a comparison between sectors.
Abstract
Purpose - This study aims to identify the effects of communication cues, anonymity, and social presence on group polarization in computer-mediated communication (CMC) settings. Extant literature has introduced some theoretical backgrounds of social presence and SIDE (Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects) to explain the effects of communication cues and anonymity. The concept of social presence emphasized the mediating role on communication cues and anonymity. However, most literature did not measure social presence and compare group polarization of all condition groups. This does not sufficiently explain the result of group polarization. Research design, data, and methodology - We believe that the direct impact of anonymity on group polarization can provide a more admissible and clearer explanation for the results. In addition, this study categorizes anonymity into two levels, as anonymity of group and anonymity of self. To justify the anonymity view, a laboratory experiment was conducted. The experiment was conducted in communication cues settings (visual cue; without visual cue) and anonymity settings (identified; anonymous). Each of the four settings has 10 groups consisting of five subjects each (total 200 subjects). The subjects are undergraduates from a large university, majoring in business. All experimental procedures and calculations of choice shift and preference change follow the literature. Results - First, the removal of visual cues does not produce a significant impact on group polarization, which cannot be explained by the social presence view. Second, the anonymous condition does not significantly affect group polarization, which also cannot be explained by the social presence view. However, the anonymous condition directly affects group polarization. Specifically, anonymity of self has a stronger effect on group polarization than anonymity of group. The result explains about the leading factor affecting group polarization. This study examines another view of how computer-mediated communication may be associated with group polarization. The process and outcome data from the experiment reveal that group polarization is not affected by level of social presence, but by level of anonymity. Group discussions conducted with visual cue CMC setting and identified CMC setting result in weaker group polarization. Conversely, group discussions conducted without visual cue CMC setting and anonymous CMC setting lead to stronger group polarization. The results of the study have the following implications. First, they provide clues for business organizations to design the most appropriate media conditions and preemptive social conditions to implement when making group decisions through CMC, to maximize achievements, generate amicable agreements, or actively share information. Second, this study can be useful in analyzing different adverse effects generated through Internet use. Conclusions - This research can help explain discussions and decision-making actions on Internet forums, which have recently increased, as well as providing a foundational basis in newly establishing policies for the forums. Finally, it should be noted that many other factors such as group size, topics, and group history may affect group polarization. These should be examined in future studies.
Abstract
Purpose - This study attempts to examine the impacts of consumers' perceived service convenience of retailers on various service performance metrics such as service quality and customer satisfaction. It also tries to investigate differences in the importance of service convenience dimensions on service performance between a department store and a general super market. Research design, data, and methodology - The four hypotheses in this study were proposed and tested. Two hypotheses were on the causal relationships between service convenience dimensions and service performances (service quality and customer satisfaction). The other two hypotheses were on comparisons for the effects of convenience dimensions on service quality and customer satisfaction between department stores and general super markets. To test the hypotheses, three department store chains (Hyundai, Lotte, and Shinsegae department Store) and three general super markets (E-mart, Homeplus, and Lotte mart) were involved. Overall, 510 usable responses were used. The data were analyzed using regression analysis. Results - The results largely support the hypothesized relationships of the proposed model. The results show that access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, and post-benefit convenience have positive influences on service quality, whereas decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, and post-benefit convenience have positive effects on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the results show that there are differences between department stores and general super markets in the effects of benefit convenience and post-benefit convenience on service quality as well as the effects of transaction convenience and post-benefit convenience on customer satisfaction. Conclusions - The concept of service convenience is important in retail environments but little is known about this topic in retail literature. Specially, while service convenience dimensions have different impacts on service performance in distinct retail environments, there has been little investigation or comparison between retail types as regards service convenience. This study is the first to test the differences between distinct retail types (department stores and general super markets) on the service convenience-service performance links. Managerially, the findings of this study suggest that the service convenience management of retailers is an important part of successful service performance management. Because it is most important that both department stores and general super markets enhance benefit convenience to improve service performance, managers of both store types need to invest their resources to reduce consumers' perceived time and effort expenditures to experience the retailer's core benefits. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that retail stores should spend human and financial resources to enhance customer perceptions of service convenience, while also considering what constitutes the service outcome in the consumer's mind. Furthermore, the findings suggest that managers need to use different service convenience management tactics in department stores and general super markets. Specifically, managers in general super markets should pay more attention to benefit convenience and transaction convenience to achieve better service performance whereas managers in department stores should concentrate on post-benefit convenience to create customers' positive evaluation.
Abstract
Purpose - This is a comparative study of the market development and characteristics of Ulsan in South Korea, Fukuoka in Japan, and Yanji in China, which are major East Sea Rim cities with adjacent areas of similar natural characteristics of the sea and the country. Particularly, it considers these aspects while focusing on the evolution of networks that appear in the distribution system and at the same time examining the institutions of market activation and regulations that are handled by the central and the local government and the changing logistics due to the development of transportation and the concern of food safety, using a meso-analysis approach. Research design, data, and methodology - The study used a historical and comparative approach with a focus on case studies. It made use of various materials such as local newspaper articles, reports, literature, interviews with experts, discussions with local merchants, discussions with customers, and so forth. Results - In the case of Fukuoka, from the 1960s, due to the entry of supermarkets, supermarkets expanded and they have now come to a dominant market position in the current market. They offer a convenient and comfortable environment while providing a large mall offering a variety of educational and cultural activities for customers to meet the customers' needs, such as the preferences of Korean tourists, who appear to prefer Japanese foods. The Fukuoka City Central Wholesale Market has been exporting fruits and vegetables as well as seafood products to Korea, China, and so forth. In the case of Ulsan, as in the early 2000s, due to the expansion of supermarkets, the traditional markets have been shrinking and further, the modernization of traditional markets was conducted under the auspices of the Small Business Administration. In addition to the large discount malls, the expansion of SSM is expected to further drive the small trader bay. Shopping malls, department stores, and traditional markets contend with each other in Yanji, China, but a large number of citizens appear to prefer traditional markets and imported milk in the supermarket after the melamine scandal in China. Recently, the WanYuan (萬源) wholesale market has been partially completed and made an attempt to become a logistics hub in Northeast Asia. Conclusions - For the development of Korea's retail industry, it is important to offer the government with proposals regarding desired regulation. On the other hand, in order to enable the business of traditional markets, it requires an association for cultural tourism. At present, it would be better to provide a venture fund for the youth rather than infrastructure support. This study emphasizes the importance of institutions and policy to develop networks in the East Sea Rim. Future studies should conduct a survey on customers, managers, and merchants more carefully and systematically to understand the market situation while considering the size of the city and its evolution of markets, as well as policies and institutions.
Abstract
Purpose - There is a recent social trend that is focused on the revitalization of business-founding. Business-founding now has an important impact on the progress of the national economy because of youth unemployment and an increase in baby-boom generation retirees. However, the support and infrastructure required for business-founding of the disabled are very insufficient. Since most supporting policies are on youth or middle-aged business-founding, business-founding by the disabled and the socially weak is losing competitiveness. Accordingly, this study diagnosed the issues by analyzing the current status of business-founding by the disabled and suggested a fostering direction for the advance of business-founding by the disabled. An idea for the founding of various business items is required for the competitiveness of business-founding by the disabled and the establishment of a growth-model based on marketing is required so that business-founding by the disabled would advance toward commercialization with growth potential. Research design, data, and methodology - Regarding the study method, the existing study literature on the status and issues in business-founding was mainly explored. In addition, the existing literature on the status and issues in business-founding by the disabled was also studied. The support on business-founding by the disabled by policy enforced by the 'Welfare Service Agency for the Disabled'and the support of related agencies including financial support on the commercialization of business-founding by the disabled were also examined. Results - Existing studies on business-founding by the disabled are very insufficient. It is very difficult to study a viable business-founding by the disabled fostering policy without thorough learning on the difficulties of business-founding by the disabled. Therefore, this study suggested a direction for the resolution of various issues such as market, funds, item, operational matters, and service by analyzing the difficulties in business-founding by the disabled until now. Particularly, this study suggested that building a commercialization model from the aspect of marketing strategy and the effort to change the growth aspect of the disabled into competitiveness are essential. Conclusions - This study examined the aspect of developing an item-development process for the growth and founding of disabled-owned businesses and the requirement of a government support system by multiple policies. Since the number of studies on business-founding by the disabled is very small, it is expected that this study would become an important study in the field of business-founding by the disabled. The revitalization of business-founding by the disabled substantially contributes to the progress of the state of the economy and continuous interest is required from the viewpoint of equal advance in the society. Success models in business-founding by the disabled should be created continuously and active publicizing of them to the disabled business-founders by analyzing the success cases would also be required. In addition, it is believed that a market entry strategy by way of a win-win strategy and cooperative relation with big companies should be also developed in the future.