At the same time the unique cultural traits of each country are valued, it has become an essential element to establish the cultural identity of a country. This study is aimed at comparing the residence architectural cultures in East-Asia and thus identifying Korea's own unique traits by determining the application characteristics of traditional architectures of Korea, China and Japan through practical investigation of materials, a basic element of architectural shaping. Literature survey and field study were conducted in parallel for this study, and architectural buildings under investigation included Mucheomdang House in Korea, Prince Gong Mansion in China and Dokyudo Building in Japan. Construction materials in Korea, China and Japan include natural materials such as wood, stone and clay, and artificial materials such as metals, paper, roof tiles, plug and glass. and the buildings were constructed with the combination of these materials. This commonality can be often found in the architectural composition. However, in the interior composition, the choice and application of different materials were clear between three countries, which were shown to be different depending on climates, processing methods and living culture of each country. First of all, since each country selected materials under the influence of its own vegetation and climates, living environment of each country could be seen via its residence. Also, it could be seen that while Korea and Japan show a certain similarity such as the traits of standing-sitting culture and the finish of paper in the interior, China is clearly different. In particular, regarding the material processing, the artificial processing was minimized in Korea, which mainly gave rough and crude feelings while due to the use of straight timbers, the architectural representation with organized and refined feelings was made in Japan. China showed the highest percentage of artificial processing of materials among three countries, which was highly associated with the coloring culture of China. Also, it could be seen that technology related to fine architectural materials such as bricks and glass was greatly advanced in China. Thus, how immaterial elements such as natural characteristics, functionality and aesthetics were applied in relation to residence in Korea, Japan and China could be determined through the comparison of architectural materials.
This study performs social network analysis based on consumer sentiment related to a location in Seoul using data reflecting consumers' web search activities and emotional evaluations associated with commerce. The study focuses on large commercial districts in Seoul. In addition, to consider their various aspects, social network indexes were combined with the trading area's public data to verify factors affecting the area's sales. According to R square's change, We can see that the model has a little high R square value even though it includes only the district's public data represented by static data. However, the present study confirmed that the R square of the model combined with the network index derived from the social network analysis was even improved much more. A regression analysis of the trading area's public data showed that the five factors of 'number of market district,' 'residential area per person,' 'satisfaction of residential environment,' 'rate of change of trade,' and 'survival rate over 3 years' among twenty two variables. The study confirmed a significant influence on the sales of the trading area. According to the results, 'residential area per person' has the highest standardized beta value. Therefore, 'residential area per person' has the strongest influence on commercial sales. In addition, 'residential area per person,' 'number of market district,' and 'survival rate over 3 years' were found to have positive effects on the sales of all trading area. Thus, as the number of market districts in the trading area increases, residential area per person increases, and as the survival rate over 3 years of each store in the trading area increases, sales increase. On the other hand, 'satisfaction of residential environment' and 'rate of change of trade' were found to have a negative effect on sales. In the case of 'satisfaction of residential environment,' sales increase when the satisfaction level is low. Therefore, as consumer dissatisfaction with the residential environment increases, sales increase. The 'rate of change of trade' shows that sales increase with the decreasing acceleration of transaction frequency. According to the social network analysis, of the 25 regional trading areas in Seoul, Yangcheon-gu has the highest degree of connection. In other words, it has common sentiments with many other trading areas. On the other hand, Nowon-gu and Jungrang-gu have the lowest degree of connection. In other words, they have relatively distinct sentiments from other trading areas. The social network indexes used in the combination model are 'density of ego network,' 'degree centrality,' 'closeness centrality,' 'betweenness centrality,' and 'eigenvector centrality.' The combined model analysis confirmed that the degree centrality and eigenvector centrality of the social network index have a significant influence on sales and the highest influence in the model. 'Degree centrality' has a negative effect on the sales of the districts. This implies that sales decrease when holding various sentiments of other trading area, which conflicts with general social myths. However, this result can be interpreted to mean that if a trading area has low 'degree centrality,' it delivers unique and special sentiments to consumers. The findings of this study can also be interpreted to mean that sales can be increased if the trading area increases consumer recognition by forming a unique sentiment and city atmosphere that distinguish it from other trading areas. On the other hand, 'eigenvector centrality' has the greatest effect on sales in the combined model. In addition, the results confirmed a positive effect on sales. This finding shows that sales increase when a trading area is connected to others with stronger centrality than when it has common sentiments with others. This study can be used as an empirical basis for establishing and implementing a city and trading area strategy plan considering consumers' desired sentiments. In addition, we expect to provide entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs entering the trading area with sentiments possessed by those in the trading area and directions into the trading area considering the district-sentiment structure.
Internet commerce has been growing at a rapid pace for the last decade. Many firms try to reach wider consumer markets by adding the Internet channel to the existing traditional channels. Despite the various benefits of the Internet channel, a significant number of firms failed in managing the new type of channel. Previous studies could not cleary explain these conflicting results associated with the Internet channel. One of the major reasons is most of the previous studies conducted analyses under a specific market condition and claimed that as the impact of Internet channel introduction. Therefore, their results are strongly influenced by the specific market settings. However, firms face various market conditions in the real worlddensity and disutility of using the Internet. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various market environments on a firm's optimal channel strategy by employing a flexible game theory model. We capture various market conditions with consumer density and disutility of using the Internet.
shows the channel structures analyzed in this study. Before the Internet channel is introduced, a monopoly manufacturer sells its products through an independent physical store. From this structure, the manufacturer could introduce its own Internet channel (MI). The independent physical store could also introduce its own Internet channel and coordinate it with the existing physical store (RI). An independent Internet retailer such as Amazon could enter this market (II). In this case, two types of independent retailers compete with each other. In this model, consumers are uniformly distributed on the two dimensional space. Consumer heterogeneity is captured by a consumer's geographical location (ci) and his disutility of using the Internet channel (${\delta}_{N_i}$).
shows various market conditions captured by the two consumer heterogeneities.
(a) illustrates a market with symmetric consumer distributions. The model captures explicitly the asymmetric distributions of consumer disutility in a market as well. In a market like that is represented in
(c), the average consumer disutility of using an Internet store is relatively smaller than that of using a physical store. For example, this case represents the market in which 1) the product is suitable for Internet transactions (e.g., books) or 2) the level of E-Commerce readiness is high such as in Denmark or Finland. On the other hand, the average consumer disutility when using an Internet store is relatively greater than that of using a physical store in a market like (b). Countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria, or the market for "experience goods" such as shoes, could be examples of this market condition.
summarizes the various scenarios of consumer distributions analyzed in this study. The range for disutility of using the Internet (${\delta}_{N_i}$) is held constant, while the range of consumer distribution (${\chi}_i$) varies from -25 to 25, from -50 to 50, from -100 to 100, from -150 to 150, and from -200 to 200.
summarizes the analysis results. As the average travel cost in a market decreases while the average disutility of Internet use remains the same, average retail price, total quantity sold, physical store profit, monopoly manufacturer profit, and thus, total channel profit increase. On the other hand, the quantity sold through the Internet and the profit of the Internet store decrease with a decreasing average travel cost relative to the average disutility of Internet use. We find that a channel that has an advantage over the other kind of channel serves a larger portion of the market. In a market with a high average travel cost, in which the Internet store has a relative advantage over the physical store, for example, the Internet store becomes a mass-retailer serving a larger portion of the market. This result implies that the Internet becomes a more significant distribution channel in those markets characterized by greater geographical dispersion of buyers, or as consumers become more proficient in Internet usage. The results indicate that the degree of price discrimination also varies depending on the distribution of consumer disutility in a market. The manufacturer in a market in which the average travel cost is higher than the average disutility of using the Internet has a stronger incentive for price discrimination than the manufacturer in a market where the average travel cost is relatively lower. We also find that the manufacturer has a stronger incentive to maintain a high price level when the average travel cost in a market is relatively low. Additionally, the retail competition effect due to Internet channel introduction strengthens as average travel cost in a market decreases. This result indicates that a manufacturer's channel power relative to that of the independent physical retailer becomes stronger with a decreasing average travel cost. This implication is counter-intuitive, because it is widely believed that the negative impact of Internet channel introduction on a competing physical retailer is more significant in a market like Russia, where consumers are more geographically dispersed, than in a market like Hong Kong, that has a condensed geographic distribution of consumers.