• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.93-102
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• 2016

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) system, bi-direction power trading technology, enables drivers possessing electric vehicle to sell the spare electricity charged in the vehicle to power distribution company. The drivers gain profit by charging electricity in the day time of high electricity rate. In this regard, the government is preparing the policies of building and supporting V2G infrastructure and demanding the potential consumers' preference for the V2G system. This paper attempts to analyze the consumers' preference using the data from obtained a survey of randomly selected 1,000 individuals. To this end, choice experiment, an economic technique, is employed here. The attributes considered in the study are residual amount of electricity, electricity trading hours, required plug-in time, and price measured as an amount additional to current gasoline vehicle price. The multinomial logit model, which requires the assumption of 'independence of irrelevant alternatives', is applied but the assumption could not be satisfied in our data. Thus, we finally utilized nested logit model which does not require the assumption. All the parameter estimates in the utility function are statistically significant at the 10% level. The estimation results show that the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for one hour increase in electricity trading hours is estimated to be KRW 1,601,057. On the other hand, a one percent reduction in residual amount of electricity and one hour reduction in required plug-in time in V2G system are computed to be KRW -91,911 and -470,619, respectively. The findings can provide policy makers with useful information for decision-making about introducing and managing V2G system.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.236-250
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• 2016

This study was conducted to provide baseline data regarding functional cosmetics so that Inula. based cosmetics can increase its competitiveness in the market as well as to understand current trends to enable anticipation of demands for future product development. For this research, general consumers over the age of 20 residing in Seoul and the Gyeonggi district were surveyed. The results show consumers preferred serum-type products among various types of cosmetics, and that they purchased these once every 1-3 months. Consumers also preferred these products in less than 10-30ml capacity, and at costs of less than 30,000-50,000 KRW. For whitening, functional cosmetics consumers also preferred the serum type, in less than 30-50ml capacity and priced less than 30,000-50,000 KRW. Consumers preferred to purchase functional cosmetics in single units. The major purchasing location, with a high preference rate, was cosmetic stores, and the major sources of information, also with high preference rates, were 'experienced reviews from family, friends and acquaintances' and 'TV advertisements'. Respondents selected 'over 50,000 KRW' the most for all items when responding to 'Purchase Intent for Functional Cosmetics containing Inula', and responded that they were willing to pay 10%-30% more for functional cosmetics containing Inula compared to standard functional cosmetics. These results show that businesses in the cosmetics industry need to take consumer demand into account when developing new functional cosmetic products, as well as establish plans to create specialized spaces that provide better quality service and increase word of mouth effect through better utilization of various types of offline media, social media, and blogs. The study also shows a need for businesses to develop products fully utilizing the Inula flower, which has been shown to be effective as a natural skin whitener, wrinkle reducer and skin moisturizer, to appeal to the increasing number of customers interested in health and beauty.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1-24
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• 2019

This study confirms the responses of consumers when the composition of emoticon bundles can be selected by individuals in MIM service. This aims to verify that customized bundling is a valid marketing strategy in the MIM emoticon market. Currently, the emoticon bundling used in Korean MIM services is in the form of pure bundling. As a result, Consumers must purchase an entire bundle even though he/she doesn't need to use all the emoticons contained in it. Some researches(e.g. Hitt & Chen, 2005; Wu & Anandalingam, 2002) show that when consumers value only part of the products or services included in pure bundling, customized bundling is much more profitable. In their works, customized bundling is appropriate when marginal costs are near zero. Information goods, such as emoticons, meet the condition. On the other hand, customized bundling increase the choosable options, so it can pose a problem of complexity (Blecker et al., 2004). And consumers may experience information overload(Huffman & Kahn, 1998). Thus, judgement on the necessity to introduce customized bundling needs to be made through empirical analyses in the light of characteristics of the product and the reaction of consumers. Results show that when customized bundling was introduced, consumers' purchase intention and willingness to pay significantly increased. Purchase intention for customized bundles has increased by 0.44 based on the five point Likert scale than the purchase intention for existing pure bundles. The increase in purchase intention for customized bundles was statistically independent of the existing purchasing experience. In addition, the willingness to pay was increased by about 2.8% compared to the price of the existing emoticon bundles in the whole group. The group with experience in purchasing pure bundles were willing to pay 5.9% more than pure bundles. The other group without experience in purchasing pure bundles were willing to buy if they were about 5% cheaper than the existing price. Overall, introducing customized bundling into emoticon bundles can lead to positive consumers responses and be a viable marketing strategy.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.75-97
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• 2012

Fostering trusting belief in financial transactions is a challenging task in Internet banking services. Authenticated Certificate had been regarded as an effective method to guarantee the trusting belief for online transactions. However, previous research claimed that this method has some loopholes for such abusers as hackers, who intend to attack the financial accounts of innocent transactors in Internet. Two types of methods have been suggested as alternatives for securing user identification and activity in online financial services. Control transparency uses information over the transaction process to verify and to control the transactions. Outcome feedback, which refers to the specific information about exchange outcomes, provides information over final transaction results. By using these two methods, financial service providers can send signals to involved parties about the robustness of their security mechanisms. These two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-have been widely used in the IS field to enhance the quality of IS services. In this research, we intend to verify that these two methods can also be used to reduce risks and to increase the security protections in online banking services. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effects of the control transparency and the outcome feedback on the risk perceptions in Internet banking services. Our assumption is that these two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-can reduce perceived risks involved with online financial transactions, while increasing perceived trust over financial service providers. These changes in user attitudes can increase the level of user satisfactions, which may lead to the increased user loyalty as well as users' willingness to pay for the financial transactions. Previous research in IS suggested that the increased level of transparency on the process and the result of transactions can enhance the information quality and decision quality of IS users. Transparency helps IS users to acquire the information needed to control the transaction counterpart and thus to complete transaction successfully. It is also argued that transparency can reduce the perceived transaction risks in IS usage. Many IS researchers also argued that the trust can be generated by the institutional mechanisms. Trusting belief refers to the truster's belief for the trustee to have attributes for being beneficial to the truster. Institution-based trust plays an important role to enhance the probability of achieving a successful outcome. When a transactor regards the conditions crucial for the transaction success, he or she considers the condition providers as trustful, and thus eventually trust the others involved with such condition providers. In this process, transparency helps the transactor complete the transaction successfully. Through the investigation of these studies, we expect that the control transparency and outcome feedback can reduce the risk perception on transaction and enhance the trust with the service provider. Based on a theoretical framework of transparency and institution-based trust, we propose and test a research model by evaluating research hypotheses. We have conducted a laboratory experiment in order to validate our research model. Since the transparency artifact(control transparency and outcome feedback) is not yet adopted in online banking services, the general survey method could not be employed to verify our research model. We collected data from 138 experiment subjects who had experiences with online banking services. PLS is used to analyze the experiment data. The measurement model confirms that our data set has appropriate convergent and discriminant validity. The results of testing the structural model indicate that control transparency significantly enhances the trust and significantly reduces the risk perception of online banking users. The result also suggested that the outcome feedback significantly enhances the trust of users. We have found that the reduced risk and the increased trust level significantly improve the level of service satisfaction. The increased satisfaction finally leads to the increased loyalty and willingness to pay for the financial services.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.495-521
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• 2009

This paper measures welfare losses from beef consumption reduction, which might be resulted from psychological anxiety about potential outbreak of BSE (commonly known as "bad cow dieses") risks after announcement of resuming US-beef imports in April of 2008. Unlike the previous literature of utilizing the contingent valuation method or experimental market approach, this study estimated quality-differentiated consumer demand functions using the information of self-reported beef consumption quantity, individually constructed price indices of beef, and subjective perception of BSE risks. The empirical results based on a survey sample of 360 residents in Jeon Ju city were consistent with the anticipation from economic theory, in terms of coefficients of own prices, substitute prices and income variables. The announcement of resuming US-beef imports did not make significant differences in the sign and sizes of the main economic variables. However, the subjective perception variable about BSE risks had negative significant impacts on beef demand functions after the announcement but not significant before the announcement. The welfare losses in a form of equivalent variation (EV) corresponding to the increases in concerns about BSE risks were measured to be about 30 thousand won per household.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.135-147
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• 2012

The benefit of traffic information on variable message sign can be divided into two. At the public level, the benefit of ATIS is the travel time saving, which is not only induced from ATIS, but also mixed with that of ATMS. In the economic appraisal of ITS, the benefit of ATIS has so far been regarded as the derived benefit from ATMS. At the user level, the benefit of ATIS is reduced driver uncertainty through the forward traffic status information. User can benefit from the information on VMS and therefore may have the willingness to pay for it. Recently attempt to qualify the value of information on VMS was increased, but there was a danger of distorting or over-estimates of the ATIS benefit because the related studies didn't consider the time-dependent attributes of traffic information and provided the single value. Estimates of the time-varying value should be needed for a rigorous economic appraisal of ATIS. In this study, we varied the value of information on VMS according to peak and non peak trip and verified the hypothesis that time-varying of value was statistically significant.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.81-99
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• 2014

This study is carried out to find out Chinese cabbage price sensitivity of consumer. Even though Chinese cabbage is the most important vegetable in our country, the price fluctuation continues to be changed ever year. However, there was no price criteria which is low, high, optimum price level for stabilization policies. In this paper, we investigated urban consumer price sensitivity by using the price sensitivity measurement(PSM), and then suggest to farmer and policy maker the results. The purchasing attribute Chinese cabbage of consumer will be provided to farmer. Optimal willingness to pay price of Chinese cabbage was analyzed between 1,991~2,018 won per head. If the consumer price were formated that price range, the costs will be able to satisfied both producers and consumers. The consumer's acceptable price range was from lower price (PMC) 1,472 won to the upper limit price of 2,714 won (PME). So when the market price researched above 2,714 won, import should be considered. The most important attribute when purchasing was a taste of cabbage, and he most suitable size was 3kg per head.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2018

The role of the botanical garden in securing biodiversity, responding to climate change, and sustainable development in modern cities is becoming more important. Private botanical gardens that lead the domestic botanical culture are declining due to complex reasons such as an increase of tourist destinations, lack of policy support, lack of introduction of advanced management strategies, and similar leisure activities to national and public botanical gardens. The Private Botanical Garden not only has a large number of plant species with high conservation value, but also provides various public utilities as a cultural and educational space and government efforts are needed to activate the operation of this amenity. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the value of public functions provided by private botanical gardens using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). In this way, the government aims to provide a basis for policy and institutional support for private botanical gardens. The main results are as follows. First, public utility functions provided by private botanical gardens were recognized as 'preservation' (23.4%), 'recreation and tourism' (17.5%) and 'research' (16.6%) in order of analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Second, 'heritage value' (33.0%) and 'existence value' (32.5%) were recognized as significant among the values provided by private botanical gardens. Third, the willingness to pay (WTP) to preserve the public functions of the private botanical garden was 12,234 won. Based on this, the economic value of all private botanical gardens in the whole country was estimated, resulting in about 233.8 billion won. There is a need to revise laws and regulations related to financial support for the revitalization and quality improvement of private botanical gardens. It is also necessary to establish a cooperative operating system between national, public and private botanical gardens.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.39-51
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• 2016

In accordance to rapid aging of population, the accidents of elderly pedestrian and pedestrian safety are becoming very important issues. In terms of smartphone technologies, older people are increasingly looking for useful and friendly ICT services that which can add a value on their silver life. This paper introduced a new IT-based service for elderly walking assist using a smart-phone accompanied by a wearable watch. We describe the functional requirements and a systems architecture model with an interface between a smart-phone and wearable watch. Moreover, this study attempted to verify what services are needed and to estimate elderly pedestrians' WTP (willingness to pay) for IT-based walking assistance device. A total of 189 elderly pedestrians were randomly surveyed through face-to-face interviews. The questionnaire consisted of 3 categories: (1) questions pertaining to socio-economic status, (2) 12 questions regarding walking attitudes, and (3) a question to measure WTP. With this gathered data, factor analysis and path model estimating were conducted. The results identified the elderly user requirements and the use-value of new innovative products for IT-based walking assistance services by two groups(latent elderly and elderly). The modeling result shows that elderly's service preference would increase the possibilities for the commercialization of IT-based walking device with improving their walking safety.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.1-15
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• 2015

During global recessions, such as the 2008 financial crisis, Korean shipping companies have been undergoing a liquidity crisis that is comparably worse than other shipping companies worldwide. One of the reasons behind this repetitive vicious cycle can be the lack of ability to foresee the future by analyzing and understanding the volatile shipping market. Traditionally, in order to assimilate the shipping market, larger Korean shipping companies have been purchasing market reports published by Europe-based research companies and shipping brokers, leading to a digital divide by company size. To resolve this issue, the Maritime Exchange Information Center (MEIC) has been publishing shipping market reports that include essential shipping information such as freight rates by different routes; commodity trends for iron ore, grain, and coal; ship-building trends for new-building, second-hand, and demolition markets; as well as bunker price and port congestion. This research was conducted to analyze the effectiveness of four variables-information usefulness, market reflection, information composition, and latest information-on information satisfaction. If the information satisfaction was found to be adequate, the analysis of actual proof was used to determine if the customers would be willing to purchase MEIC's report when it is chargeable. All the four variables were found to have positive effects on information satisfaction. In particular, latest information was found to directly affect the intention to purchase. Furthermore, high information satisfaction was related to the intention to purchase.