• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.15-15
• /
• 1976

In analyzing the operational characteristics of a rice whitening machine, the internal radial pressure of the machine was measured using strain gage equipment. Changes in cylinder and feed screw configurations, screen type, cylinder speed and counter-pressure levels were examined to determine their impact on the quality and quantity of milled rice and the performance of the machine. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The internal radial pressure in the whitening chamber varied with the surface condition of the grain being processed. During the first or second pass through the machine, pressure was relatively low, reached a maximum after two to three passes with combinations I and II, three to six with combination III and then began to fall. 2. The pitch of the feed screw and the size of the feed gate opening which determine the rate of entry of grain into the whitening chamber, appeared to be the most important factor aff-::cting the degree of radial pressure, quality and quantity of milled rice and the efficiency of the machine. Using a feed screw with a wide pitch (4.8cm), radial pressure was relatively high and head rice recovery ratio \vere quite low. In this case capacity and machine effic?iency were much higher than obtained when using a feed screw with a narrow pitch (2.3cm). Very significant responses in radial pressure, head rice recovery rates and machine capacity were observed with changes in cylinder speed and counter-pressure levels when using the wide pitch feed screw. 3. The characteristics of the screen which surrounds the whitening chamber had an important effect on whitening efficiency. The existence of small protuberances on the original screen resulted in significant increases in both machine capacity and efficiency but without a significant decrease in head rice recovery or development of excessive radial pressure. Further work is required to determine the effects of screen surface conditions and the shape of the cylinderical steel roller on the rate of bran removal, machine efficiency and recovery rates. The size of the slotted perforations 0:1 the screen affects total milled rice recovery. The opening size on the original screen was fabricated to accommodate the round shape of Japonica rice varieties but was not suitable for the more slender Indica type. Milling Indica varieties with this screen resulted in a reduction in total milled rice recovery. 4. An increase in cylinder speed from 380 to 820 rpm produced a positive effect on head rice recovery for all machine combinations at every level of counter-pressure used in the tests. Head rice recovery was considerably lower at 380rpm using a wide screw pitch when compared to the results obtained at speeds from 600 to 820 r.p.m. The effects of cylinder speed On radial pressure, capacity and machine efficiency showed contrasting results, depending on the width of the feed screw pitch. With a narrow feed screw pitch (2.3cm), a direct proportional relationship was observed bet?ween cylinder speed and both radial pressure and machine efficiency. In contrast, using a 4.8 centimeter pitch feed roller produced a series of inverse relationships between the above variables. Based on the results of this study it is recommended when milling Indica type long grain rice varieties that the cylinder speed of the original machine be increased from 500-600 rmp up to a minimum of 800 rpm to obtain a greater abrasive effect between the grain and the screen. The pitch of the feed screw should be also reduced to decr?ease the level of internal radial pressure and to obtain higher machine efficiency and increased quality of milled rice with increased cylinder speeds. Further study on the interaction between cylinder speed and feed screw pitch is recommended. 5. An increase in the counter pressure level produced a negative effect On the head rice recovery with an increase in radial pressure, capacity, and machine efficiency over all combinations and at every level of cylinder speed. 6. Head rice recovery rates were conditioned primarily by the pressure inside the whitening chamber. According to the empirical cha racteristics curve developed in this study, the relationships of head rice recovery ($Y_h$) and machine capacity ($Y_c$/TEX>) to internal radial pressure ($X_p$) followed an inverse quadratic function and a linear function respectively: $$Y_h^\Delta=\frac{1}{{1.4383-0.2951X_p^\ast+0.1425X_p^{\ast\ast}}^2} , (R^2=0.98)$$$$Y_c^\Delta=-305.83+374.37X_p^{\ast\ast}, (R^2=0.88)$$The correlation between capacity and power consumption per unit of brown rice expressed in the following exponential function: $$Y_c^\Delta=1.63Y_c^{-0.7786^\{\ast\ast}, (R^2=0.94)$$These relationships indicate that when radial pressure increases above a certain range (1. 6 to 2.0 kg/$cm^2$ based On the results of the experiment) head ricerecovery decrea?ses in a quadratic relation with a inear increase in capacity but without any decrease in power consump tion per unit of brown rice. On the other hand, if radial pressure is below the range shown above, power consumption increases dramatically with a lin?ear decrease in capacity but without significant increases in head rice recovery. During the operation of a given whitening machine, the optimum radial pressure range or the correct capacity range should be selected by controlling the feed rate and/or counter-pressure keeping in mind the condition of the grain, particulary the hardness. It was observed that the total number of passes is related to radial pessure level, feed rate and counter-pressure level. The higher theradial pressure the fewer num?ber of pass required but with decreased head rice recovery. In particular, when using high feed rates, the total number of passes should be increased to more than three by reducing the counter-pressure level to avoid decreaseases in head rice recovery (less than 65 percent head rice recovery on the basis of brown rice) at every cylinder speed. 7. A rapid rise in grain temperature seemed to have a close relationship with the pressure generated inside the whitening chamber and, subsequently with head rice reco?very rates. The higher the rate of increase, the lower were the resulting head rice recoveries.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.17-48
• /
• 1976

In analyzing the operational characteristics of a rice whitening machine, the internal radial pressure of the machine was measured using strain gage equipment. Changes in cylinder and feed screw configurations, screen type, cylinder speed and counter-pressure levels were examined to determine their impact on the quality and quantity of milled rice and the performance of the machine. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The internal radial pressure in the whitening chamber varied with the surface condition of the grain being processed. During the first or second pass through the machine, pressure was relatively low, reached a maximum after two to three passes with combinations I and II, three to six with combination III and then began to fall. 2. The pitch of the feed screw and the size of the feed gate opening which determine the rate of entry of grain into the whitening chamber, appeared to be the most important factor aff-::cting the degree of radial pressure, quality and quantity of milled rice and the efficiency of the machine. Using a feed screw with a wide pitch (4.8cm), radial pressure was relatively high and head rice recovery ratio \vere quite low. In this case capacity and machine effic\ulcorneriency were much higher than obtained when using a feed screw with a narrow pitch (2.3cm). Very significant responses in radial pressure, head rice recovery rates and machine capacity were observed with changes in cylinder speed and counter-pressure levels when using the wide pitch feed screw. 3. The characteristics of the screen which surrounds the whitening chamber had an important effect on whitening efficiency. The existence of small protuberances on the original screen resulted in significant increases in both machine capacity and efficiency but without a significant decrease in head rice recovery or development of excessive radial pressure. Further work is required to determine the effects of screen surface conditions and the shape of the cylinderical steel roller on the rate of bran removal, machine efficiency and recovery rates. The size of the slotted perforations 0:1 the screen affects total milled rice recovery. The opening size on the original screen was fabricated to accommodate the round shape of Japonica rice varieties but was not suitable for the more slender Indica type. Milling Indica varieties with this screen resulted in a reduction in total milled rice recovery. 4. An increase in cylinder speed from 380 to 820 rpm produced a positive effect on head rice recovery for all machine combinations at every level of counter-pressure used in the tests. Head rice recovery was considerably lower at 380rpm using a wide screw pitch when compared to the results obtained at speeds from 600 to 820 r.p.m. The effects of cylinder speed On radial pressure, capacity and machine efficiency showed contrasting results, depending on the width of the feed screw pitch. With a narrow feed screw pitch (2.3cm), a direct proportional relationship was observed bet\ulcornerween cylinder speed and both radial pressure and machine efficiency. In contrast, using a 4.8 centimeter pitch feed roller produced a series of inverse relationships between the above variables. Based on the results of this study it is recommended when milling Indica type long grain rice varieties that the cylinder speed of the original machine be increased from 500-600 rmp up to a minimum of 800 rpm to obtain a greater abrasive effect between the grain and the screen. The pitch of the feed screw should be also reduced to decr\ulcornerease the level of internal radial pressure and to obtain higher machine efficiency and increased quality of milled rice with increased cylinder speeds. Further study on the interaction between cylinder speed and feed screw pitch is recommended. 5. An increase in the counter pressure level produced a negative effect On the head rice recovery with an increase in radial pressure, capacity, and machine efficiency over all combinations and at every level of cylinder speed. 6. Head rice recovery rates were conditioned primarily by the pressure inside the whitening chamber. According to the empirical cha racteristics curve developed in this study, the relationships of head rice recovery ($Y_h$) and machine capacity ($Y_c$/TEX>) to internal radial pressure ($X_p$) followed an inverse quadratic function and a linear function respectively: $$Y_h^\Delta=\frac{1}{{1.4383-0.2951X_p^\ast+0.1425X_p^{\ast\ast}}^2} , (R^2=0.98)$$ $$Y_c^\Delta=-305.83+374.37X_p^{\ast\ast}, (R^2=0.88)$$ The correlation between capacity and power consumption per unit of brown rice expressed in the following exponential function: $$Y_c^\Delta=1.63Y_c^{-0.7786^\{\ast\ast}, (R^2=0.94)$$ These relationships indicate that when radial pressure increases above a certain range (1. 6 to 2.0 kg/$cm^2$ based On the results of the experiment) head ricerecovery decrea\ulcornerses in a quadratic relation with a inear increase in capacity but without any decrease in power consump tion per unit of brown rice. On the other hand, if radial pressure is below the range shown above, power consumption increases dramatically with a lin\ulcornerear decrease in capacity but without significant increases in head rice recovery. During the operation of a given whitening machine, the optimum radial pressure range or the correct capacity range should be selected by controlling the feed rate and/or counter-pressure keeping in mind the condition of the grain, particulary the hardness. It was observed that the total number of passes is related to radial pessure level, feed rate and counter-pressure level. The higher theradial pressure the fewer num\ulcornerber of pass required but with decreased head rice recovery. In particular, when using high feed rates, the total number of passes should be increased to more than three by reducing the counter-pressure level to avoid decreaseases in head rice recovery (less than 65 percent head rice recovery on the basis of brown rice) at every cylinder speed. 7. A rapid rise in grain temperature seemed to have a close relationship with the pressure generated inside the whitening chamber and, subsequently with head rice reco\ulcornervery rates. The higher the rate of increase, the lower were the resulting head rice recoveries.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.61-118
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.65-86
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• 2012

The $20^{th}$ century was the era of manufacturer brands which built higher brand equity for consumers. Consumers moved from generic products of inconsistent quality produced by local factories in the $19^{th}$ century to branded products from global manufacturers and manufacturer brands reached consumers through distributors and retailers. Retailers were relatively small compared to their largest suppliers. However, sometime in the 1970s, things began to slowly change as retailers started to develop their own national chains and began international expansion, and consolidation of the retail industry from mom-and-pop stores to global players was well under way (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007, p.2) In South Korea, since the middle of the 1990s, the bulking up of retailers that started then has changed the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. Retailer private labels, generally referred to as own labels, store brands, distributors own private-label, home brand or own label brand have also been performing strongly in every single local market (Bushman 1993; De Wulf et al. 2005). Private labels now account for one out of every five items sold every day in U.S. supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007), and the market share in Western Europe is even larger (Euromonitor 2007). In the UK, grocery market share of private labels grew from 39% of sales in 2008 to 41% in 2010 (Marian 2010). Planet Retail (2007, p.1) recently concluded that "[PLs] are set for accelerated growth, with the majority of the world's leading grocers increasing their own label penetration." Private labels have gained wide attention both in the academic literature and popular business press and there is a glowing academic research to the perspective of manufacturers and retailers. Empirical research on private labels has mainly studies the factors explaining private labels market shares across product categories and/or retail chains (Dahr and Hoch 1997; Hoch and Banerji, 1993), factors influencing the private labels proneness of consumers (Baltas and Doyle 1998; Burton et al. 1998; Richardson et al. 1996) and factors how to react brand manufacturers towards PLs (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999; Hoch 1996; Quelch and Harding 1996; Verhoef et al. 2000). Nevertheless, empirical research on factors influencing the production in terms of a manufacturer-retailer is rather anecdotal than theory-based. The objective of this paper is to bridge the gap in these two types of research and explore the factors which influence on manufacturer's private label production based on two competing theories: S-C-P (Structure - Conduct - Performance) paradigm and resource-based theory. In order to do so, the authors used in-depth interview with marketing managers, reviewed retail press and research and presents the conceptual framework that integrates the major determinants of private labels production. From a manufacturer's perspective, supplying private labels often starts on a strategic basis. When a manufacturer engages in private labels, the manufacturer does not have to spend on advertising, retailer promotions or maintain a dedicated sales force. Moreover, if a manufacturer has weak marketing capabilities, the manufacturer can make use of retailer's marketing capability to produce private labels and lessen its marketing cost and increases its profit margin. Figure 1. is the theoretical framework based on a strategic market management perspective, integrated concept of both S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The model includes one mediate variable, marketing capabilities, and the other moderate variable, competitive intensity. Manufacturer's national brand reputation, firm's marketing investment, and product portfolio, which are hypothesized to positively affected manufacturer's marketing capabilities. Then, marketing capabilities has negatively effected on private label production. Moderating effects of competitive intensity are hypothesized on the relationship between marketing capabilities and private label production. To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 192 manufacturers (212 responses) who are producing private labels in South Korea. Cronbach's alpha test, explanatory / comfirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. The following results were drawing using structural equation modeling and all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that manufacturer's private label production is strongly related to its marketing capabilities. Consumer marketing capabilities, in turn, is directly connected with the 3 strategic factors (e.g., marketing investment, manufacturer's national brand reputation, and product portfolio). It is moderated by competitive intensity between marketing capabilities and private label production. In conclusion, this research may be the first study to investigate the reasons manufacturers engage in private labels based on two competing theoretic views, S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The private label phenomenon has received growing attention by marketing scholars. In many industries, private labels represent formidable competition to manufacturer brands and manufacturers have a dilemma with selling to as well as competing with their retailers. The current study suggests key factors when manufacturers consider engaging in private label production.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.83-98
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• 2012

In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.302-311
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• 1995

Benfuresate or oxolinic acid, as an experimental pesticide, was applied to the different textural paddy or upland soil respectively under the field condition and the residual concentrations were determined. Six kinetic models were employed to characterize the best-fit kinetic model describing the residual pattern of benfuresate or oxolinic acid and the $t\frac{1}{2}$ estimated from each model was comparatively assessed. All of the six models explained significantly the residual patterns of the pesticides but the empirical models such as PF, EL, and PB were not recommendable for the $t\frac{1}{2}$ estimation. Among theoretical models, the residual patterns were followed in the orders of the second-order(SO)>first-order(FO)>zero-order(ZO) kinetics, judging from the size and significance of coefficient of determination and standard error. However, the multiple FO model, consisting of the fast and slow decomposition steps, was better than the single FO model for the residual pattern and the $r^2$ in this case became similar to that of SO kinetic model. Thus the multiple FO and SO models were represented as the best fit model of the experimental pesticide. The $t\frac{1}{2}$ of benfuresate estimated from the single FO kinetic model in Weolgog and Cheongwon series was 49 and 63 days, respectively, which were 20 and 13% longer than the respective $t\frac{1}{2}$ from the SO kinetic model. The $t\frac{1}{2}$ of oxolinic acid from the FO model in Yonggye and Ihyeon series were 87 and 51% longer than those from the SO kinetic model, respectively. These results demonstrated that the best-fit model representing the residual pattern of a pesticide and the resultant $t\frac{1}{2}$ might be variable with the kinds of pesticides and the environmental conditions. Therefore it is recommended that the half-life of a pesticide be assessed from the best-fit model rather than from the FO kinetic model uniformly.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.45-75
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• 2006

How much influence does a business plan have on a corporate performance? Whilst previous studies and literatures all assert a strong correlation between the two, very few have actually conducted practical analyses to support that. This study takes an empirical approach in its analysis of Korea' s small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) with the view to finding an answer to the question. A business plan' s components, which have to date been suggested only in theory and in concept, have been selected through the study of literatures and preliminary examination. The selected components were then narrowed down into five factors of productivity, implementation, operational direction, product/service and customer accessibility by applying factor analysis. With which items to measure corporate performance is also an important question as results differ depending on which measurement items were used. For the purpose of this study, corporate performance was classified into effectiveness, adaptability and efficiency to measure how greatly each is influenced by the components of a business plan. Results show that effectiveness and adaptability have a positive (+) influence on corporate performance. The regression model seems to explain effectiveness particularly well. However, different directions of influences were showed in explain power of the research model were not high. And it can be interpreted that implementation of the plan is as important as the establishment of it. Thus a good corporate performance is to be had only under an excellent plan and following an excellent implementation. In most of the companies surveyed, business plans were established regularly led by the intense involvement of the CEO. Such plans were then used in internal operations, such as guiding operational direction and measuring corporate performance. Unlike general expectations, relatively few companies used them in financing from external sources such as banks or venture capitals. These findings are different from previous studies conducted in this field. Also, as market uncertainty was pointed out as the biggest obstacle to business planning. a manager must pay more attention to acquiring external information and knowledge so as to minimize it.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.157-173
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• 2011

As the Internet use explodes recently, the malicious attacks and hacking for a system connected to network occur frequently. This means the fatal damage can be caused by these intrusions in the government agency, public office, and company operating various systems. For such reasons, there are growing interests and demand about the intrusion detection systems (IDS)-the security systems for detecting, identifying and responding to unauthorized or abnormal activities appropriately. The intrusion detection models that have been applied in conventional IDS are generally designed by modeling the experts' implicit knowledge on the network intrusions or the hackers' abnormal behaviors. These kinds of intrusion detection models perform well under the normal situations. However, they show poor performance when they meet a new or unknown pattern of the network attacks. For this reason, several recent studies try to adopt various artificial intelligence techniques, which can proactively respond to the unknown threats. Especially, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have popularly been applied in the prior studies because of its superior prediction accuracy. However, ANNs have some intrinsic limitations such as the risk of overfitting, the requirement of the large sample size, and the lack of understanding the prediction process (i.e. black box theory). As a result, the most recent studies on IDS have started to adopt support vector machine (SVM), the classification technique that is more stable and powerful compared to ANNs. SVM is known as a relatively high predictive power and generalization capability. Under this background, this study proposes a novel intelligent intrusion detection model that uses SVM as the classification model in order to improve the predictive ability of IDS. Also, our model is designed to consider the asymmetric error cost by optimizing the classification threshold. Generally, there are two common forms of errors in intrusion detection. The first error type is the False-Positive Error (FPE). In the case of FPE, the wrong judgment on it may result in the unnecessary fixation. The second error type is the False-Negative Error (FNE) that mainly misjudges the malware of the program as normal. Compared to FPE, FNE is more fatal. Thus, when considering total cost of misclassification in IDS, it is more reasonable to assign heavier weights on FNE rather than FPE. Therefore, we designed our proposed intrusion detection model to optimize the classification threshold in order to minimize the total misclassification cost. In this case, conventional SVM cannot be applied because it is designed to generate discrete output (i.e. a class). To resolve this problem, we used the revised SVM technique proposed by Platt(2000), which is able to generate the probability estimate. To validate the practical applicability of our model, we applied it to the real-world dataset for network intrusion detection. The experimental dataset was collected from the IDS sensor of an official institution in Korea from January to June 2010. We collected 15,000 log data in total, and selected 1,000 samples from them by using random sampling method. In addition, the SVM model was compared with the logistic regression (LOGIT), decision trees (DT), and ANN to confirm the superiority of the proposed model. LOGIT and DT was experimented using PASW Statistics v18.0, and ANN was experimented using Neuroshell 4.0. For SVM, LIBSVM v2.90-a freeware for training SVM classifier-was used. Empirical results showed that our proposed model based on SVM outperformed all the other comparative models in detecting network intrusions from the accuracy perspective. They also showed that our model reduced the total misclassification cost compared to the ANN-based intrusion detection model. As a result, it is expected that the intrusion detection model proposed in this paper would not only enhance the performance of IDS, but also lead to better management of FNE.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.371-384
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• 2014

This study developed a new algorithm of extreme rainfall extraction based on the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Satellite image data and evaluated its applicability for the heavy rainfall event in July-2011 in Seoul, South Korea. The power-series-regression-based Z-R relationship was employed for taking into account for empirical relationships between TRMM/PR, TRMM/VIRS, COMS, and Automatic Weather System(AWS) at each elevation. The estimated Z-R relationship ($Z=303R^{0.72}$) agreed well with observation from AWS (correlation coefficient=0.57). The estimated 10-minute rainfall intensities from the COMS satellite using the Z-R relationship generated underestimated rainfall intensities. For a small rainfall event the Z-R relationship tended to overestimated rainfall intensities. However, the overall patterns of estimated rainfall were very comparable with the observed data. The correlation coefficients and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 10-minute rainfall series from COMS and AWS gave 0.517, and 3.146, respectively. In addition, the averaged error value of the spatial correlation matrix ranged from -0.530 to -0.228, indicating negative correlation. To reduce the error by extreme rainfall estimation using satellite datasets it is required to take into more extreme factors and improve the algorithm through further study. This study showed the potential utility of multi-geostationary satellite data for building up sub-daily rainfall and establishing the real-time flood alert system in ungauged watersheds.