• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.65-76
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• 2015

Purpose - This article aims to present and test a model regarding franchisors' supporting activities that may positively influence franchisees' attitude toward the franchising headquarter and their own business performance. Moreover, the authors examine the moderating effect of competitive intensity between franchisee attitude and business performance. Most previous research focused on behavioral performance measurements such as satisfaction, trust, and commitment. There are few empirical studies that focus on financial performance data because it is difficult to determine a relational mechanism between behavioral and financial performance. Moreover, financial data is confidential and difficult to collect in many cases. However, this study measures financial performance (e.g., sales revenue per square meter) differently than most previous research, which is mostly focused on the behavioral performance measurements. Research design, data, and methodology - To test our hypotheses, we selected 137 franchisee managers who are running chains of one of the foremost bakery franchise brands in South Korea. This study carefully investigated the reliability, content validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the proposed instrument by analyzing the data obtained from the samples. The data was analyzed using the AMOS structural equation modeling program. Results - The results indicated that: non-financial support activities (e.g., information exchange and communication) had a positive impact on the franchisee attitude toward the franchising headquarter. The franchisee attitude in turn had a positive effect on the headquarters' business performance. Furthermore, competitive intensity could enhance the relationship between franchisee attitude toward franchising headquarter and business performance in a local franchise market. However, financial support activities (e.g., rewards and promotional support) and training had no relationship with either franchisee attitude or business performance. Conclusions - This study provides some practical implications to franchisors in terms of franchise operation and store opening strategies. With respect to the franchise operation strategy, franchisors need to focus on non-financial rather than financial support. Most franchisees consider the necessity of financial support activities and not their sufficiency because these activities are specified in their franchise contract. In addition, it is important for franchisees to maintain a positive attitude for the franchise headquarters. The franchisees with a positive attitude for the franchisor can show a high degree of solidarity for various support activities, and it consequently determines franchisees' sales performance. In terms of franchise store opening strategy, this study suggests an additional criterion that can be considered in determining the location of direct and non-direct management stores (e.g., franchisees' stores). In this research, franchise stores located within high level of competitive intensity are shown to have a high relationship between franchisee attitudes of franchisor support activities and business performance compared to the franchisees located within low competitive intensity level. This result shows that opening non-direct franchise stores is more effective than direct stores in higher competitive market situations. Research contribution, implications, and further research directions are discussed at the end of the paper.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.55-64
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• 2015

Purpose - Multi-dimensional prices comprise multiple components such as monthly payments and a number of payments rather than a single lump-sum amount. According to previous studies, an increase in the number of price dimensions leads to a massive amount of cognitive stress resulting in incorrect calculation, and deterioration in the consistency of the price judgment. However, an increase only in the level of complexity of calculating multi-dimensional prices does not always result in a corresponding decrease in the accuracy of price evaluation. Since diverse variables could affect consumers' purchase-decision-making process, the results of price evaluation would be different. In this study, an empirical analysis was performed to determine how the accuracy of price evaluation varies depending on the extent of the complexity of price dimensions using product involvement and brand preference as moderating variables. Research design, data, and methodology - A survey was conducted on 260 students, and 252 effective responses were used for analysis. The data was analyzed using t-test, one-way ANOVA, and two-way ANOVA. In this study, six hypotheses were developed to examine the effect of product involvement and brand preference on consumers' evaluation effort of multi-dimensional prices. Results - As the number of price dimensions increased, accuracy of price evaluation appeared to be low in high involvement, as expected. However, it showed no differences in price evaluation effort when the level of complexity of calculating multi-dimensional prices is low. When a small number of price dimensions are presented in both cases of high and low involvement, accuracy of price evaluation is much higher in a weak brand preference. On the contrary, a strong brand preference enhances an accuracy of price evaluation only in case of low involvement when the number of price dimensions is increased. An interaction effect of product involvement and brand preference on consumers' evaluation of multi-dimensional prices did not exist irrespective of the level of complexity of calculating prices being high or low. Conclusions - When the number of price dimensions is small, consumers' effort for price evaluation shows almost no difference without the moderating effect of involvement, and a weak brand preference leads to a higher accuracy of price evaluation in an effort to make the best selection. No interaction effect of product involvement and brand preference was found except for a main effect of brand preference. When a price is composed of multiple dimensions rendering it more difficult to calculate the final price, the effort for price evaluation was expected to decrease only slightly in case of combination of high involvement and strong brand preference. This is because people have a higher purchase intentions and trust for that particular brand. However, the accuracy of price evaluation was much lower in cases of high involvement, and there was no interaction effect between product involvement and brand preference except for a main effect of involvement and brand preference, respectively.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.89-98
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• 2015

Purpose - In today's globalized and modern business environment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are considered to be essential for the sustainable development of enterprises. In addition, the corporate philanthropy that is related to CSR practices, as well as their being capable of reducing the anti-corporate sentiment of people have facilitated a qualitative forward leap into the quantitative growth phase. This study aims to undertake a comparative evaluation of corporate philanthropy through the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method focusing on service and manufacturing industries, and to eventually determine a differentiated approach that is needed for corporate philanthropy. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey responses were collected through online research on specialized companies from consumers nationwide who were aged from 20 to 60 and who are aware of corporate philanthropy. A total of 408 sheets of questionnaire survey were used. Frequency analysis was undertaken in this study. The interviewees had demographic characteristics of gender: 206 males (50.5%) and 202 females (49.5%). They also had demographic characteristics of age: 82 people were over 20 (20.1%), 96 over 30 (23.5%), 105 over 40 (25.7%), and 125 over 50 (30.7%) years of age. The distribution of interviewees' residences is as follows: 154 persons (37.7%) in the Special City, 102 persons (25.0%) in the Metropolitan City, and 152 persons (37.3%) in the Provincial Region. The interviewees have been working for the following companies: 34 persons (8.3%) in LG Display, 80 (19.6%) in KT&G, 49 (12.0%) in Amore Pacific, 42 (10.3%) in KIA Motors, 47 (11.5%) in SBS, 52 (12.8%) in Shinhan Bank, 86 (21.1%) in Asiana Airlines, and 18 (4.4%) in Hyundai Department Store. We applied the paired t-test for the IPA analysis. PASW Statistics 18 was used for statistical analysis. Results - The results of IPA analysis indicated that the importance and performance degrees in both manufacturing and service industries were significantly different. Major empirical results showed that, in consumer, social, economic, philanthropic, and environmental dimensions, in the sub-factors of philanthropy activities in both manufacturing and service industries, the importance degree was found to be higher than performance degree. Further, the average difference between importance degree and performance degree by the sub-factors of philanthropy activities. On the other hand, the average difference of environmental dimension was found to be highest in both service and manufacturing industries. Thus, while consumers consider the philanthropy activities of the environmental dimension as most important, actual companies treat performance of philanthropy activities of the environmental dimension insufficiently or negligibly to some degree. Conclusions - The differentiated approach method that is required for corporate philanthropy may be proposed to uplift corporate accomplishments by analyzing the IPA of the attributes of the sub-factors of corporate philanthropy. This is, to an extent, insufficient in the existing studies related to the use of the IPA technique, and it shows the items that are to be conducted intensively.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.93-100
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• 2015

Purpose - Since the early 1990s, it has been observed that the number and substance of studies on female leadership have been increasing. One of the reasons for this development may be concerned with the increasing number of female labor market participants as well as the greater opportunities for them to take higher positions in various organizations. In addition to this, the transition from mechanistic organizational structures that emphasize authority, control, and efficiency toward organic ones that focus on environmental adaptability, equality, and trust has also encouraged research on female leadership. The research tendency is based on the assumption that male and female leaders tend to exhibit different leadership styles according to their gender differences. Recent research has cast doubt on this assumption, by showing that the sociological gender roles of men and women are independent such that some female leaders show authoritative and control-oriented leadership, which were once considered to be male leadership styles. Research design, data, and methodology - This research attempts to carry out an empirical study on the gender-related leadership styles of female leaders and to examine their effect on group performance in the K business organization. This study also focuses on leader attributes such as trust, and it aims to discover whether these attributes should be regarded as independent or as moderating variables between leadership styles and performance. For these purposes, this study generated four hypotheses based on a review of the literature and it tested them using a survey. Female workers in the sales departments of the K Company, all of whom are women, were asked to provide answers to the presented questionnaires. This study hypothesizes that the type of gender roles played by women leaders will affect the job satisfaction and organizational commitment among the members of the sales group, and that the level of trust that is garnered by women leaders will also affect the types of gender roles that they play as well as employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Results - The results of this study show that both androgynous and masculine leadership styles are superior to the feminine leadership style in terms of employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, contrary to our expectations, this study fails to show the superiority of the androgynous leadership style over the masculine leadership style. Moreover, there are no significant differences between these two leadership styles with regard to group performance. Conclusions - This study shows that it is important that different attributes of leaders, such as how trusted they are, be treated as moderating variables between leadership and performance rather than as independent variables. Finally, as this is the first attempt to view the role of the gender in a new perspective, the managerial implications of this study for leadership research, as well as its limitations, are presented. Suggestions for future related research are also proposed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.329-341
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• 2016

With the introduction of smart phones in the late 2000's, the audio guides of museums have been gradually replaced by the mobile apps of smart phones. Although many studies have been already conducted about the mobile apps in the fields of tourism or finance, it is hard to find empirical research on the mobile docent apps. This study aimed to investigate the influence of the various factors of mobile docent apps on user satisfaction and intention to reuse. For this goal, based on the review of literature and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a research model was constructed that consists of information timeliness, information service quality, ubiquitous access, and interactivity, along with the variables of TAM such as perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness. A survey was conducted at Rodin museum in the United States where all the information about exhibitions is provided over a smart docent app. 210 surveys were collected, and 204 valid ones were used for analysis. The analysis using structural equation modeling revealed that information timeliness, information service quality, and interactivity have significant influence on perceived ease of use; ubiquitous access and interactivity showed significant impact on perceived usefulness. The perceived ease of use and usefulness then had significant impact on satisfaction and intention to re-use.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-30
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• 2003

The recent experience about self-employment shows three main trends: first, its share out of the total workers has steadily increased, recording 37.6% in 2001, implying its prevalence and importance; second, its share out of male workers has caught up female workers', implying its importance to males as well as females; and finally, during the recent Economic Crisis when there was mass layoff and large scale bankruptcy, its share rapidly increased, reflecting its role of a buffer to economic fluctuation. However, there have been few studies on self-employment, mainly focusing on what makes someone choose it as an alternative to being employed. This study analyzes the determinants of the duration to terminate self-employment, by applying the proportional hazard model to the Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey(KLIPS) by the Korea Labor Institute. The KLIPS started the first wave in 1998 with the 5,000 household sample (and about 12,000 individual sample of household members aged 15 and more). In this study, the first four waves are used for analysis. The average duration of 5,357 spells of self-employment is 130 months. It shows slight difference between males(124 months) and females(138 months) while it widely ranges over industries (296 months for agriculture industry while 50 months for restaurant and hotel industry). Estimates of the proportional hazard model of the self-employment duration show that females are more likely to terminate self-employment while it is not statistically significant. The effect of age at starting self-employment on the hazard shows the inverse V-shape, which implies that, until a certain age(47 years), the hazard become higher as aging while, since then, it become lower as aging. The level of education has a positive effect on the hazard, implying that more education is related to the higher probability to be employed. The measures of economic performances, annual sales and earnings, are positively related to continuing self-employment while hardship at the start of self-employment measured by several ways has a negative effect. Training before opening business has a positive effect on keeping on self-employment and its effects are different over its providers, significantly positive for public providers while insignificant for private providers. More and further research on self-employment is urgent in the rapidly ageing society. To help workers to be self-employed, more public assistance is necessary for education, training, financing, marketing, management, and human resource management in order to make the olders consider self-employment as a good alternative rather than an inevitable one.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.473-479
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• 2018

Objective: The study was designed to perform a genome-wide association (GWA) and partitioning of genome using Illumina's PorcineSNP60 Beadchip in order to identify variants and determine the explained heritability for the total number of teats in Yorkshire pig. Methods: After screening with the following criteria: minor allele frequency, $MAF{\leq}0.01$; Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, $HWE{\leq}0.000001$, a pair-wise genomic relationship matrix was produced using 42,953 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide mixed linear model-based association analysis (MLMA) was conducted. And for estimating the explained heritability with genome- or chromosome-wide SNPs the genetic relatedness estimation through maximum likelihood approach was used in our study. Results: The MLMA analysis and false discovery rate p-values identified three significant SNPs on two different chromosomes (rs81476910 and rs81405825 on SSC8; rs81332615 on SSC13) for total number of teats. Besides, we estimated that 30% of variance could be explained by all of the common SNPs on the autosomal chromosomes for the trait. The maximum amount of heritability obtained by partitioning the genome were $0.22{\pm}0.05$, $0.16{\pm}0.05$, $0.10{\pm}0.03$ and $0.08{\pm}0.03$ on SSC7, SSC13, SSC1, and SSC8, respectively. Of them, SSC7 explained the amount of estimated heritability along with a SNP (rs80805264) identified by genome-wide association studies at the empirical p value significance level of 2.35E-05 in our study. Interestingly, rs80805264 was found in a nearby quantitative trait loci (QTL) on SSC7 for the teat number trait as identified in a recent study. Moreover, all other significant SNPs were found within and/or close to some QTLs related to ovary weight, total number of born alive and age at puberty in pigs. Conclusion: The SNPs we identified unquestionably represent some of the important QTL regions as well as genes of interest in the genome for various physiological functions responsible for reproduction in pigs.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.193-224
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• 2018

Purpose Targeting Korean companies listed on Korean securities markets (i.e., KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets), this study aims to shed lights the effects of personal information security breaches on stock prices of information security companies. Interestingly, this study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to examine the information transfer effect on personal information security breaches of companies. Design / Methodology /Approach To examine the information transfer effect of personal information security breaches, our study employs the event study commonly used in financial studies. To this end, we investigate a variety of events of personal information security breaches of companies listed on the KOPSI stock market and the KOSDAQ market. We collect the total samples of one hundred and twelve with forty seven of events of personal information security breaches by thirty companies and sixty five of information security companies. Findings The principal findings from the empirical study are as follows. First, for companies of personal information security breaches, our event study presents the significantly negative AAR (averaged abnormal return) value on the event day at the 5 % level and the highly significant negative CAAR(cumulative averaged abnormal return) value on the event day and the day after the event day at the 1 % level. The results suggest that personal information breaches significantly contribute to an decrease in value of the information breached companies. The cross sectional regressions in this study estimate the significantly negative coefficient for the ME/BE variable, the proxy for a growth opportunity at the 5 % level. This suggests a reverse relation between the growth opportunity of companies and their value. As for the various samples of the information security companies categorized by physical security, network and system security, security application software, code authentication, system integration, we find the significantly positive AAR on the day after the event day at the 5% level, only for the network and system security-companies. This addresses that the information transfer effect followed by personal information breaches is uniquely observable for companies categorized into network and system companies. The regressions for the network and system companies estimate the significantly positive coefficient for the NS dummy variable (i.e., the dummy of the network and system security companies) at the standard level. This allows us to identify appropriate times needed to make the information transfer effect realized from personal information breached companies to information security companies.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.49-58
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• 2018

In recent years, various studies have been carried out on various types of entrepreneurship and comparative activities according to policy efforts and support such as the activation of a bachelor's degree in the establishment of a university, and attention has been paid to the fact that the participation and the educational effect of the students may be different depending on the type. The purpose of this study is to investigate entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial intention in the case of experiential entrepreneurship class focusing on the theoretical-oriented general entrepreneurship class, And the effect of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intention. The data were collected and empirical analysis was conducted to compare the difference between the two groups. The results of this study are as follows: First, out of the motivation factors of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship education, achievement desire, human network, self - esteem, etc. We can confirm that the motivation of entrepreneurs is recognized more greatly. Second, the entrepreneurship factor was not significantly different from the perception between experiential entrepreneurship lecture and theoretical entrepreneurship learner. Third, experiential entrepreneurship learner perceived more willingness to start business than theoretical entrepreneurship learner. Finally, among the entrepreneurship motivation factors, among the entrepreneurship education, achievement desire and entrepreneurship factor, the risk sensitivity affects the entrepreneurial will. This study suggests that the direction of entrepreneurial education focused on quantitative expansion and the creation of qualitative effects of entrepreneurship education are needed. In the future, it will provide policy implications for revitalizing experiential entrepreneurship education In addition, it can contribute to the diffusion of research on the effect of entrepreneurship education.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.103-119
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• 2020

This study aimed to derive theoretical and practical implications by analyzing the relationship between adversity quotient, entrepreneurial orientation, and customer orientation, which are the internal competency of start-up entrepreneurs affecting the performance of a small business CEO. As in previous domestic studies, we deviated from analyzing internal competency as a single-dimensional functional relationship to business performance, and attempted to explain the relationship between the internal competences of start-up entrepreneurs. Empirical analysis was conducted by setting the adversity quotient as an independent variable, the entrepreneurial orientation as a parameter, and the customer orientation as a dependent variable. As a result of the analysis, first, it was found that control and ownership, which are sub-elements of adversity quotient, have a positive effect on entrepreneurial orientation and customer orientation. Second, entrepreneurial orientation was found to have a positive effect on customer orientation. Third, it was found that only the ownership of the adversity quotient had a positive effect on customer orientation through the mediating effect of entrepreneurial orientation. In other words, it was found that the entrepreneur's ownership influences customer orientation through entrepreneurial orientation. On the other hand, endurance, sub-element of adversity quotient, was found to have no significant effect on entrepreneurial orientation and customer orientation. This means that in the rapidly changing New Normal era, endurance of entrepreneur can no longer have a large impact on entrepreneurial orientation and customer orientation. This study gives implications for the entrepreneur's competencies that must be developed first and the tendency to be developed together. Furthermore, it can be helpful in policy designing start-up support programs and guidelines for investors' investment standards.