• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.41 no.5
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2016

Consumers have been increasing their interests in firms' ethicality as well as in the features of the firms' products when they decide to purchase a certain product. Recently, fair trade is considered to be a type of ethical marketing in the business-to-consumer market. In this regard, the effects of fair trade-based marketing on firm performance have become the center of academic and managerial concerns. Despite this importance, few studies have investigated whether fair-trade is a source of competitive advantage or just a cost of doing business. The present research attempts to provide evidence of how fair trade-based marketing influences competitive advantage. Two experimental studies were conducted to explore consumers' purchase intention, which can be a proxy of competitive advantage, in a foreign product-consumption context. Drawing on the stakeholder theory, the first study was performed to examine the effects of fair trade marketing on consumers' purchase intention through a within-subjects design. In addition, building on the signal theory, the second study was executed to test the effects of a fair trade mark on consumers' purchase intention. The findings of the current research reveal that consumers prefer fair trade-based products to others and that when it comes to fair trade-certified products, consumers are more likely to purchase products with that certification than otherwise, even when those products are sold at higher costs than rival products. Interestingly, the results of this research present that there is a significant difference of consumers' purchase intention of a fair trade-based product between two different marketers. This implies that fair trade-based products should be differentially distributed and targeted at a certain type of consumers.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.6C
• /
• pp.367-377
• /
• 2008

As part of study to develop LRFD (Load and Resistance Factor Design) codes for foundation structures in Korea, resistance factors for static bearing capacity of driven steel pipe piles were calibrated in the framework of reliability theory. The 57 data sets of static load tests and soil property tests conducted in the whole domestic area were collected and these load test piles were sorted into two cases: SPT N at pile tip less than 50, SPT N at pile tip equal to or more than 50. The static bearing capacity formula and the Meyerhof method using N values were applied to calculate the expected design bearing capacities of the piles. The resistance bias factors were evaluated for the two static design methods by comparing the representative measured bearing capacities with the expected design values. Reliability analysis was performed by two types of advanced methods: the First Order Reliability Method (FORM), and the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method using resistance bias factor statistics. The target reliability indices are selected as 2.0 and 2.33 for group pile case and 2.5 for single pile case, in consideration of the reliability level of the current design practice, redundancy of pile group, acceptable risk level, construction quality control, and significance of individual structure. Resistance factors of driven steel pipe piles were recommended based on the results derived from the First Order Reliability Method and the Monte Carlo Simulation method.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.109-141
• /
• 2014

Recently, the interests of consumers in firms that implement the social commitment activities have been consistently growing. Consumers' evaluation about the level of corporate social responsibility(CSR) can affect the overall image for product or service of corporation. This recent changes make a marketer to have to consider direct and indirect effects of CSR efforts on the market performance. This phenomena is also found in the franchise industry. The importance of CSR is more critical rather than other industries since each franchisor should care franchisees as well as end users. Franchisors' execution of CSR could increase satisfaction of end user through consonance of activities provided by franchisees. However most franchisor stay in focusing on the traditional CSR activities. Therefore, this study aims to enhance the understanding the CSR in franchise and provide the phase model of CSR development for general firms including franchise. After diagnosis the firms with the proposed model, the study found many franchisors have huge gap between current CSR activities and higher level of CSR policies that franchisor have to make facing. This study call franchisors to reduce this gap by implementing new CSR efforts. If they answer for this calling, franchise industry could leap for making the best practice of creating shared value with other stakeholders.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.1C
• /
• pp.19-29
• /
• 2008

As a part of study to develop LRFD (Load and Resistance Factor Design) codes for foundation structures in Korea, reliability analyses for driven steel pipe piles are performed and the target reliability indices are selected carefully. The 58 data sets of static load tests and soil property tests conducted in the whole domestic area were collected and analyzed to determine the representative bearing capacities of the piles. The static bearing capacity formula and the Meyerhof method using N values are applied to calculate the expected design bearing capacity of the piles. The resistance bias factors were evaluated for the two static design methods by comparing the representative bearing capacities with the design values. Reliability analysis was performed by two types of advanced methods: First Order Reliability Method (FORM), and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) method using resistance bias factor statistics. The static bearing capacity formula exhibited relatively small variation, whereas the Meyerhof method showed relatively high inherent conservatism in the resistance bias factors. Reliability indices for safety factors in the range of 3 to 5 were evaluated respectively as 1.50~2.89 and 1.61~2.72 for both of the static bearing capacity formula and the Meyerhof method. The target reliability indices are selected as 2.0 and 2.33 for group pile case and 2.5 for single pile case, based on the reliability level of the current design practice and considering redundancy of pile group, acceptable risk level, construction quality control, and significance of individual structure.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.29 no.2D
• /
• pp.235-244
• /
• 2009

Design Value Engineering (VE) has become an import part of the daily design process since it has been introduced in the construction industry. Design VE is usually conducted in the general and execution design stages respectively. In order to increase the effectiveness of the VE process, the outcome from the general design VE activities should be integrated into execution design. The outcome from the execution design should be used again for construction. In this study, a consecutive VE process model has been presented as a way to improve the current practice of design VE activities in the construction industry. In the presented model, follow-up activities are emphasized to increase values from the life-cycle perspective of a construction project. The model was tested in a case study of an actual design VE process. The result of the study demonstrates that the model can: 1) effectively incorporate owners requirements; 2) assist decision making in selecting better construction; 3) increase the interface between general and execution design stages; and 4) trace the value flow more efficiently. Overall, the study results indicates that a the consecutive VE process model can be effectively applied when construction project are contracted for the life-cycle management of construction projects.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.311-324
• /
• 2023

Background: Long-term care insurance for the elderly has been stably established along with the quantitative expansion of long-term care facilities. Indeed, the need for a paradigm about human rights-based service approach is being raised throughout society from a service perspective. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the association between elderly human rights awareness and quality of service by considering human rights education as a moderate variable. Methods: This study conducted surveys with 138 caregivers working in long-term care facilities located in Seoul and Gangwon. General characteristics, awareness of human rights, and the level of service quality were examined using descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, and correlation analysis. And multi-variable linear regression with a hierarchical framework was employed. These analyses were performed using IBM SPSS ver. 25.0. Results: Of the 138 caregivers, 97.1% were female, 87.7% were more than 50 years old, and most of their education level was high-school graduates. Their length of employment ranged from more than 5 years to less than 10 years. The level of awareness regarding elderly human rights of the elderly was below normal (mean=2.21), but the quality of service was high (mean=4.21), and the need for human rights education was also high (mean=4.28). Among the general characteristics, the length of employment was significantly associated with awareness of elderly human rights. Moreover, political rights awareness, included as sub-domains of human rights, was positively associated with quality of service. However, the moderating variable, human rights education, was not significantly associated with the quality of service. Conclusion: In this study, human rights education, as a moderating variable, did not have a statistically significant effect on caregivers' human rights awareness in relation to service quality. This finding is inconsistent with previous research results. These results can be explained by the fact that the frequency of education in long-term care facilities was a significant factor in the practice of protecting the human rights of the elderly. Therefore ongoing encouragement for the frequency of current human rights education and improvements in the educational approach appear to be necessary. In addition, these findings reveal the need for strength of education policies and effective in-depth research about human rights and quality of service to respect the human rights of the elderly.

• Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.201-226
• /
• 2023

This study aims to develop a web records management process for public institutions and define the roles of agents in task execution. First, web records' concept and management environment across 17 domestic and international institutions were examined, and web archiving professionals were interviewed to investigate the current status of the environment, policies, and systems related to web record management. Then, a web records life-cycle management process was formulated to create a web records management framework applicable to domestic institutions. This process was classified into short-term, medium-to-long-term, and medium-to-long-term, with additional consideration plans designed to strengthen the web records management capabilities of public institutions from a long-term perspective. Third, the roles of agents in web records management, including the processing department, archivist, and permanent records management organization, are presented to establish a working foundation for the web record management process. Finally, the study's result can be used to build a process that reflects the practice of web records management or establish policies and systems related to web records management.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.100-107
• /
• 2024

Currently, in Korea, due to the rapid aging and deterioration of facilities, the minimum Maintenance Level and Performance Level' of facilities are required by the 'Facility Safety Act' or 'Infrastructure Management Act'. Since infrastructure assets have a long lifespan and the pattern of deterioration over time is complex, it is very difficult to maintain infrastructure as 'minimum maintenance state' or 'minimum performance state' by the current way of management. 'Asset Management' shall be performed not only by a technical perspective, but also by an accounting perspective such as cost and asset value. However, due to lack of awareness of 'asset management' among stakeholder, only technical perspective management is being carried out in practice. In order to effectively manage infrastructure assets, complex consideration of various asset value factors such as budget and service as well as safety and durability are required. In this paper, we presented a theory to evaluate and quantify the road network value for efficient asset management of the road network. We also presented a method of simulation to apply the theory presented in this paper. Through simulation and the results derived from this study, it is possible to specify the budget for the future national asset management, and to optimize the strategy for the management of old road facilities.

• Coupled systems mechanics
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.201-217
• /
• 2024

This study aims to develop a new model to obtain the minimum area in circular isolated footings with eccentric column taking into account that the surface in contact with the ground works partially in compression, i.e., a part of the contact area of the footing is subject to compression and the other there is no pressure (pressure zero). The new model is formulated from a mathematical approach based on a minimum area, and it is developed by integration to obtain the axial load "P", moment around the X axis "M_x" and moment around the Y axis "M_y" in function of σ_max (available allowable soil pressure) R (radius of the circular footing), α (angle of inclination where the resultant moment appears), y₀ (distance from the center of the footing to the neutral axis measured on the axis where the resultant moment appears). The normal practice in structural engineering is to use the trial and error procedure to obtain the radius and area of the circular footing, and other engineers determine the radius and area of circular footing under biaxial bending supported on elastic soils, but considering a concentric column and the contact area with the ground works completely in compression. Three numerical problems are given to determine the lowest area for circular footings under biaxial bending. Example 1: Column concentric. Example 2: Column eccentric in the direction of the X axis to 1.50 m. Example 3: Column eccentric in the direction of the X axis to 1.50 m and in the direction of the Y axis to 1.50 m. The new model shows a great saving compared to the current model of 44.27% in Example 1, 50.90% in Example 2, 65.04% in Example 3. In this way, the new minimum area model for circular footings will be of great help to engineers when the column is located on the center or edge of the footing.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.24 no.11
• /
• pp.1102-1113
• /
• 2023

Objective: To elucidate the use of radiological studies, including nuclear medicine, and biopsy for the diagnosis and staging of prostate cancer (PCA) in clinical practice and understand the current status of PCA in Asian countries via an international survey. Materials and Methods: The Asian Prostate Imaging Working Group designed a survey questionnaire with four domains focused on prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), other prostate imaging, prostate biopsy, and PCA backgrounds. The questionnaire was sent to 111 members of professional affiliations in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan who were representatives of their working hospitals, and their responses were analyzed. Results: This survey had a response rate of 97.3% (108/111). The rates of using 3T scanners, antispasmodic agents, laxative drugs, and prostate imaging-reporting and data system reporting for prostate MRI were 21.6%-78.9%, 22.2%-84.2%, 2.3%-26.3%, and 59.5%-100%, respectively. Respondents reported using the highest b-values of 800-2000 sec/mm² and fields of view of 9-30 cm. The prostate MRI examinations per month ranged from 1 to 600, and they were most commonly indicated for biopsy-naïve patients suspected of PCA in Japan and Singapore and staging of proven PCA in Korea and Taiwan. The most commonly used radiotracers for prostate positron emission tomography are prostate-specific membrane antigen in Singapore and fluorodeoxyglucose in three other countries. The most common timing for prostate MRI was before biopsy (29.9%). Prostate-targeted biopsies were performed in 63.8% of hospitals, usually by MRI-ultrasound fusion approach. The most common presentation was localized PCA in all four countries, and it was usually treated with radical prostatectomy. Conclusion: This survey showed the diverse technical details and the availability of imaging and biopsy in the evaluation of PCA. This suggests the need for an educational program for Asian radiologists to promote standardized evidence-based imaging approaches for the diagnosis and staging of PCA.