• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.115-132
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• 2008

Metal industry is one of the most representative heavy industries and the median sales volume of steel and nonferrous metal companies is over one billion dollars in the case America [Forbes 2006]. As seen in the recent business market situation, an increasing number of industrial manufacturers and suppliers are moving from adversarial to cooperative exchange attitudes that support the long-term relationships with their customers. This article presents the results of an empirical study of the antecedent factors of business relationships in metal industry of the United States. Commitment has been reviewed as a significant and critical variable in research on inter-organizational relationships (Hong et al. 2007, Kim et al. 2007). The future stability of any buyer-seller relationship depends upon the commitment made by the interactants to their relationship. Commitment, according to Dwyer et al. [1987], refers to "an implicit or explicit pledge of relational continuity between exchange partners" and they consider commitment to be the most advanced phase of buyer-seller exchange relationship. Bonds are made because the members need their partners in order to do something and this integration on a task basis can be either symbiotic or cooperative (Svensson 2008). To the extent that members seek the same or mutually supporting ends, there will be strong bonds among them. In other words, the principle that affects the strength of bonds is 'economy of decision making' [Turner 1970]. These bonds provide an important idea to study the causes of business long-term relationships in a sense that organizations can be mutually bonded by a common interest in the economic matters. Recently, the framework of structural bonding has been used to study the buyer-seller relationships in industrial marketing [Han and Sung 2008, Williams et al. 1998, Wilson 1995] in that this structural bonding is a crucial part of the theoretical justification for distinguishing discrete transactions from ongoing long-term relationships. The major antecedent factors of buyer commitment such as technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance were identified and explored from the perspective of structural bonding. Research hypotheses were developed and tested by using survey data from the middle managers in the metal industry. H1: Level of technology of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H2: Comparison level of alternatives is negatively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H3: Amount of the transaction-specific assets is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H4: Importance of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H5: Level of structural bonding is positively related to the level of commitment to the relationship. To examine the major antecedent factors of industrial buyer's structural bonding and long-term relationship, questionnaire was prepared, mailed out to the sample of 400 purchasing managers of the US metal industry (SIC codes 33 and 34). After a follow-up request, 139 informants returnedthe questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 35 percent. 134 responses were used in the final analysis after dropping 5 incomplete questionnaires. All measures were analyzed for reliability and validity following the guidelines offered by Churchill [1979] and Anderson and Gerbing [1988]., the results of fitting the model to the data indicated that the hypothesized model provides a good fit to the data. Goodness-of-fit index (GFI = 0.94) and other indices ( chi-square = 78.02 with p-value = 0.13, Adjusted GFI = 0.90, Normed Fit Index = 0.92) indicated that a major proportion of variances and covariances in the data was accounted for by the model as a whole, and all the parameter estimates showed statistical significance as evidenced by large t-values. All the factor loadings were significantly different from zero. On these grounds we judged the hypothesized model to be a reasonable representation of the data. The results from the present study suggest several implications for buyer-seller relationships. Theoretically, we attempted to conceptualize the antecedent factors of buyer-seller long-term relationships from the perspective of structural bondingin metal industry. The four underlying determinants (i.e. technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance) of structural bonding are very critical variables of buyer-seller long-term business relationships. Our model of structural bonding makes an attempt to systematically examine the relationship between the antecedent factors of structural bonding and long-term commitment. Managerially, this research provides industrial purchasing managers with a good framework to assess the interaction processes with their partners and, ability to position their business relationships from the perspective of structural bonding. In other words, based on those underlying variables, industrial purchasing managers can determine the strength of the company's relationships with the key suppliers and its state of preparation to be a successful partner with those suppliers. Both the supplying and customer companies can also benefit by using the concept of 'structural bonding' and evaluating their relationships with key business partners from the structural point of view. In general, the results indicate that structural bonding gives a critical impact on the level of relationship commitment. Managerial implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.13-21
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• 2014

Purpose - This study reveals antecedent factors to help develop expressway rest areas in which employees were exposed to inferior environments, using Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Theory. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey was conducted on 148 expressway rest area employees in Gyeonggi-do. After excluding questionnaires with invalid responses, 141 questionnaires were analyzed. Results - The sub-factors of job characteristics had a positive influence on the organizational commitment of employees, and organizational commitment had a positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Further, the results of mediation effects showed that organizational commitment and self-leadership were partially mediated. Finally, the results of the moderation effect of self-leadership showed that self-leadership was thought to be vital to let members endeavor to promote the competitiveness of expressway rest areas. Conclusions - The expressway rest area company needed to design jobs to let employees be self-motivated, productive, positive, responsible, and aspirational; job redesign, including job enrichment and job enlargement can be considerably helpful for affirmative influence.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.40
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• pp.119-136
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• 1996

With new competitive environments, innovation is more necessary to survive severe competitions than ever. However, most Small and Medium(SM) businesses are used to be short of professional staffs, money and equipments for performing various innovations(ie., technological or administrative innovation, product development or Process development, and radical or incremental innovation). Many students have suggested that incremental innovation is more adequate than radical innovation in SM business. The purpose of this paper is to find antecedent factors In promote employees' Incremental Innovation Activities(IIA), In analyse moderating effects of ability and attitudes, and to test the difference of IIA-level by ability(or attitudes) and 11 independent factors. Each IIA-level by 5 variables of 11 independent variables-job variety, importance, identity, communication, performance dependency-is found to be significantly different in high-ability group affirmative-attitude group.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2016

This exploratory study examines the critical factors associated with news consumers' perception of information overload and news consumption patterns. An online survey was conducted with Qualtrics panels (N = 1001). The demographics and three antecedent factors of perceived information overload were considered including the frequency of news access through multiple media platforms, level of attention to news, and interest in news. Three news consumption patterns were investigated as possible consequences of perceived information overload: news avoidance, selective exposure, and willingness to pay for news. The results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed a meaningful distinction between general and news information overload. Overall, news consumers who paid more attention to news through newer media/platforms/devices perceived higher levels of information overload, were more willing to pay for the news, and often avoided news or selectively exposed themselves to certain sources of news to manage news information overload.

• Proceedings of the CALSEC Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.163-168
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• 2005

While the client-vendor relationship has been mainly examined from the service receiver's perspective in IS outsourcing literature, the vendor's factors have seldom been explored. To address this issue, our study adopts interaction process theory and develops the model focusing on the competence of the vendor as a key antecedent of the client-vendor relationship intensity and outsourcing success. Results from empirical data gathered from Korean firms indicate that the vendor competence factors identified in this paper positively impacts the client-vendor relationship and outsourcing success. The findings have significant implications for IS outsourcing practices and further research.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.155-164
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• 2016

Cognitive impairment associated with childhood-onset epilepsy is an important consequence in the developing brain owing to its negative effects on neurodevelopmental and social outcomes. While the cause of cognitive impairment in epilepsy appears to be multifactorial, epilepsy-related factors such as type of epilepsy and underlying etiology, age at onset, frequency of seizures, duration of epilepsy, and its treatment are considered important. In recent studies, antecedent cognitive impairment before the first recognized seizure and microstructural and functional alteration of the brain at onset of epilepsy suggest the presence of a common neurobiological mechanism between epilepsy and cognitive comorbidity. However, the overall impact of cognitive comorbidity in children with epilepsy and the independent contribution of each of these factors to cognitive impairment have not been clearly delineated. This review article focuses on the significant contributors to cognitive impairment in children with epilepsy.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.21-42
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• 2010

As digital convergence and mobile services evolve, personalization becomes one of the most important factors attracting customers. Personalization means functions offering individually customized services with relevant contents using information on individual preferences. This sort of personalized services has attracted great attention of a large part of online firms. One of representative services of such personalized services is a mobile widget service. In this study, we identified seven antecedents affecting the quality of personalized mobile widget services and empirically investigated which antecedent has a significant effect of the quality of personalized mobile widget services. In addition we carried out empirical investigation into the effect of the quality of personalized mobile widget service on user satisfaction and trust. As a result of this research, we revealed that seven variables including information services affected components of personalized services, and usefulness and perceived benefit as components of personalized services affected user trust and satisfaction for personalized services.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.49-84
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• 2016

The importance of technological innovation orientation, which denotes the firm's general direction of thought toward steadily pursuing and promoting technological innovation in the long run for its viability and competitiveness, is on the rise. Although the technological innovation orientation has conceptually and practically important implications for securing the firm's sustainable competitive advantage, to date there has been limited research systematically analyzing the role of the technological innovation orientation for the firm's successful technological innovation and performance. Recognizing such deficiency in previous research regarding technological innovation orientation, this study selected internal and external critical factors which might affect the technological innovation orientation, and proposed and empirically examined a research model and hypotheses demonstrating the contingency relationships among the antecedent factors, technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. In the proposed research model, the selected antecedents of technological innovation orientation included two internal factors of CEO's technical-function experience and cross-functional integration and two external factors of environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition, and eventually it was suggested that these antecedent factors affected the firm's technological innovation performance via the technological innovation orientation. In addition, the research model suggested that the two environmental factors of environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition had a positive moderation effect on the relationship between technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. Analysis of data on sample of 86 Korean IT SMEs showed that CEO's technical-function experience, cross-functional integration and environmental uncertainty had a positive impact on the firm's technological innovation orientation and that the technological innovation orientation positively influenced the firm's technological innovation performance. The results also revealed that environmental uncertainty positively moderated the relationship between the firm's technological innovation orientation and technological innovation performance. The theoretical and practical implications for the results of this study were discussed.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.37-46
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• 2015

Purpose - The present study examines interrelationships among antecedent factors defining consumer behavior in selecting online shopping websites. Research design, data, and methodology - The study identified factors from existing literature and used Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) to propose a conceptual approach to explain consumer website selection behavior. Through extensive discussions among industry and academia experts, qualitative assessment of the relationship between various factors was determined. Results - According to the model, eight congregating factors do not converge directly for website selection, rather, they operate following a hierarchy of influence. The ISM and MICMAC analysis reveal that information on a website and website aesthetics play key roles in influencing website selection. However, convenience and the value proposition also play very significant roles. Conclusions - The study's findings can help the e-commerce industry, especially online retailers. The findings can be used to enhance e-retailer ability to attract, communicate, engage, achieve, monitor, and evaluate web traffic and design appropriate strategies. The study's prime contribution is the application of Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM) to the field of website selection.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1454-1463
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• 2021

Demographics, personality traits and attitudes are related to safety behaviors in varied workplaces, but their roles in nuclear power plants (NPPs) have not been fully understood. This study was conducted to explore the roles of a set of demographic, personality and attitudinal factors on self-reported safety behaviors (including safety participation and human errors) among NPP commissioning workers. Survey data were collected from 157 Chinese commissioning workers. Results showed that age and work experience were significantly associated with human errors, but not with safety participation. Neuroticism and conscientiousness were significantly related to human errors, while neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness were significantly related to safety participation. Attitude towards questioning was observed as an antecedent of safety participation, and functioned as a mediating variable in the relation between conscientiousness and safety behaviors. The findings provide evidence-based implications on the design of diverse interventions and strategies for the promotion of safety behaviors in NPPs.