Purpose - This research is to provide new insights for policy makers in Korea, comparing South Korea and foreign countries such as Japan, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and the forth, in terms of the effects of retail regulations on a retail trade industry. Research design, data, and methodology - After introduction, the research begins with literature review on the background why advanced countries have introduced retail legislations, then, will present their effects. The fourth section will compare the South Korea with the above foreign countries. Finally, the authors will draw conclusions and mention not only research limitations but also future research directions. Results - Based on the previous research, the authors compared Korea and advanced countries, in terms of how retail regulations influence retail employment, retail productivity, retail price, and the protection of independent retailers. The authors found that industrialized countries have made a significant effort to protect small shops for social stability with many different regulations and/or budget. With regard to results, however, the degree of its achievement is lower than expected. Conclusions - In order to protect small- and medium-sized retailers efficiently and effectively, policy makers need to develop better sophisticated retail regulations than those of advanced countries.

Purpose - This study aims to present ways to secure capable employees by examining key factors of internal marketing applicable to the jewelry distribution business and analyzing the relations among organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions among employees who play important roles in jewelry distributors. Research Design, data, and methodology - To examine these research models, samples were collected from 210 individuals working in jewelry distribution companies. The analysis was conducted by the use of a questionnaire method among employees in jewelry distribution companies. SPSS 18.0 were utilized for data analysis. Results - Among internal marketing components of jewelry distribution companies, the two factors - management support and reward system - have positive (+) effect on organizational commitment and while internal communication and education/training have negative (-) effect on employees' turnover intention. Jewelry distribution company employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment have negative (-) effect on their turnover intention. Conclusions - This is an exploratory study that aims to find out ways to prevent employee turnover in the perspective of jewelry distribution companies' organizational measure - internal marketing. The future study needs to present more sophisticated strategies of internal marketing based on in-depth analysis of specific causes that make employees at jewelry distribution companies leave the occupations.

Purpose - In this study, the author investigates which shopping motivations affect regulatory focus differently. This study also determines the effect of shopping motivation on regulatory focus when consumers use different shopping channels. Additionally, the author tries to investigate how information quality affects regulatory focus. Similarly, this study also examines the effect of the shopping channel on the relationship between information quality and regulatory focus. Research design, data, and methodology - With 635 surveyed questionnaires, this study was conducted by SPSS and AMOS 22.0 version. SEM was used to verity hypotheses and model. Results - According to this research, hedonic shopping motivation affects promotion focus positively and prevention focus negatively. Furthermore, when consumers use a mobile channel rather than an online one, hedonic shopping motivation affects prevention focus more negatively. However, depending on the shopping channel, there are no significant differences in the case of the relationship between hedonic motivation and promotion focus. The author also examines how information quality affects regulatory focus. In particular, when consumers use a mobile channel rather than an online one, information quality affects promotion and prevention focus more positively. Conclusions - Through this study, the author suggests that shopping motivation and information quality could influence consumers' regulatory focus, shopping attitude, and intention.

Purpose - This study explores the influence of franchisors' supports on franchisees financial performance, overall satisfaction and intention to remain. Research design, data, and methodology - Given the exploratory design of the investigation, purposive sampling technique was used to select twenty-six (26) franchisees as key informants for this study. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted leading to generation of rich qualitative data on the phenomenon of support services in the Nigeria franchise system. Results - Results indicate that at both the initial and growing stages, training and management service supports have marked influence on franchisees business outcomes. However, findings revealed that at the initial stage, the impact of training is greatest but this impact subsequently declines as franchisees master the nuances of the business. Management services on the other hand maintains a constant relevance through all stages of franchisees business. Conclusions - Three key conclusions were drawn from the findings of this study. First, the quality of initial and ongoing supports have consequences for the long-term health of franchisees and franchisors' businesses. Second, poor management of franchisees' expectations and perception of supports could damage franchise partnerships. Third, franchisees form their expectation of supports largely from the nature of initial supports provided by the franchisors.

Purpose - This study aims to analyze the effects of preference for Korean Wave and heuristic on shopping satisfaction and switching barriers of Chinese people visiting Korea, and also their positive effects on consumers' behavioral intention with these variables as mediating variables by using the structural equation model. Research design, data, and Methodology - For this study, we collected 264 questionnaires of Chinese consumers' who have experienced tourism and shopping in Korea after excluding questionnaires that were not proper to be analyzed. The residence of Chinese visiter was Shandong Province, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang. The data of this study was analyzed using SPSS 23 statistics to verify the reliability and discriminant validity. Structural equation method was used to test the hypotheses in this study. Results - The effects of heuristic variable on shopping satisfaction and the switching barriers variable were statistically significant. The effects variables of Korean Wave effect variable were statistically significant only on the switching barriers variable. However, the Korean Wave effect variable did not have a statistically significant effect on the shopping satisfaction. Conclusions - The shopping satisfaction and Korean Wave effect variables had statistically significant effects on the behavioral intention variable. In the result of indirect analysis, only the heuristic effect had indirect effects on consumers' behavior intention.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature on casino services by investigating critical service failures using the critical incident technique (CIT) and provide effective recovery strategies that can be adopted in practice. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected from Asian casinos' HNI customers in China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. This is the first study that has investigated VIP casino customers in leading Asian countries. The research used the critical incident technique (CIT) collect and a total of 227 incidents were analyzed. Results - The results show that three main categories and eleven subcategories are deduced. The first group concerns casino service system failures. The second group relates to service providers' responses to VIP customer complaints. The last group covers employees' attitudes and behavior toward customers. Conclusions - First, the most serious service problem in casinos was the service providers' attitudes rather than the service system failures. Second, Tangible recovery strategies such as "all pay" and "additional comps" were proven to enhance a casino's image and lower customers' intentions to switch. Customers, however, preferred intangible recovery strategies such as considerate responses, reliable problem management, sincere apologies, and accurate explanations.

Purpose - This study aims to find ways to have CSR efforts lead to a purchase decision. For this purpose, this research examines the influence of the perceived CSR proximity on the purchase intention and studies the moderating role of psychological distance. Research design, data, and methodology - A total of 185 undergraduate students from a university in Korea were recruited and were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (CSR proximity: close vs. far) × 2 (temporal distance: near vs. distant) × 2 (information type: concrete vs. abstract) between-subjects design. ANOVA was conducted to test the hypotheses. Results - When consumers construe a purchase decision at a high level via the far psychological distance, a firm's CSR efforts are considered important for the purchase decision. Conversely, when consumers construe a purchase decision at a low level via the near psychological distance, a firm's CSR efforts are not considered for the purchase decision. Conclusions - This research demonstrates that people have a greater intention to purchase products from a firm whose CSR proximity is perceived as being close rather than far. Furthermore, this study shows that the psychological distance moderates the effect of CSR proximity on the purchase intention.

Purpose - The volume and valence of online word-of-mouth(eWOM) have become an important part of the retailer's market success for a wide range of products. This study aims to investigate how the growth of eWOM has generated the product's final financial outcomes in the introductory period influences. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses weekly box office performance for 117 movies released in the South Korea from July 2015 to June 2016 using Korean Film Council(KOFIC) database. 292,371 posted online review messages were collected from NAVER movie review bulletin board. Using regression analysis, we test whether eWOM incurred during the opening week is valuable to explain the last of box office performance. Three major eWOM metrics were considered after controlling for the major distributional factors. Results - Results support that major eWOM variables play a significant role in box-office outcome prediction. Especially, the growth rate of the positive eWOM volume has a significant effect on the growth potential in sales. Conclusions - The findings highlight that the speed of eWOM growth has an informational value to understand the market reaction to a new product beyond valence and volume. Movie distributors need to take positive online eWOM growth into account to make optimal screen allocation decisions after release.

Purpose - In the joint development of new products, buyers and suppliers exchange information to solve various problems. Uncertainty and ambiguity are typical examples. Uncertainty refers to the lack of information to solve the problem, and equivocality refers to the case where the information is interpreted in multiple processes in the process of providing the information. These uncertainty and equivocality cause new products to be delayed in their development and adversely affect quality. However, unfortunately, there is a lack of researches on how the uncertainty and equivocality of such concepts control the results of new product joint development. But, smooth communication and effective exchange of information is not emphasized only in the general organization. The importance of the new product joint development projects to achieve the two organizations' common goals becomes even greater. The purposes of this study are to analyse the effect of supplier's strategy on the NPD performance and moderating effect of uncertainty and equivocality. Research design, data, and methodology - In order to make a contribution to the lack of academic researches in Korea, this study collects data through questionnaires based on organizational information processing theory and previous studies, and conducts empirical analysis. Results - As a result, the product modularization strategy and the strategic supply chain relationship positively influenced the new product development performance - return on investment and ease of manufacturing. And the interaction effect of uncertainty and equivocality with supplier's strategy - product modularity strategy and strategic supply chain management relationship - reduces or negates the influence of product modularization strategy on new product development performance. Conclusions - This implies that it is important to control uncertainty and equivocality in order for the supplier strategy to have a positive effect on new product development performance. It also emphasizes the necessity of sharing information appropriately for companies that do not want to share the information as possible due to their fear of loss of competitive advantage in the joint development of new products. Because this kind of negative policy might let uncertainty and equivocality be happen in new product joint development process.