Thought Experiments: on the Working Imagination and its Limitation (사고실험 - 상상의 작용과 한도에 대해)
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- Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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- v.146
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- pp.307-328
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- 2018
The use of thought experiments has a long history in many disciplines including science. In the field of philosophy, thought experiments have frequently appeared in the pre-existing literature on the contemporary Analytic Philosophy. A thought experiment refers to a synthetic environment where the designer of the experiment-with his or her intuition and imagination-tests common-sense knowledge. It can be understood as a conceptual tool for testing the validity of the common understanding of an issue or a phenomenon. However, we are not certain about the usefulness or efficacy of a thought experiment in knowledge production. The design of a thought experiment is meant to lure readers into believing as intended by the experiment itself. Thus, regardless of the purpose of a thought experiment, many readers who encounter the experiment could feel deceived. In this paper, to analyze the logic of thought experiments and to seek the source of uneasiness the readers and critics may feel about thought experiments, I draw lessons from three renowned thought-experiments: Thomson's 'ailing violinist', Putnam's 'brain in a vat', and Searle's 'Chinese room'. Imaginative thought experiments are usually constructed around a gap between the reality and the knowledge/information at hand. From the three experiments, several lessons can be learned. First, the evidence of the existence of a gap provided via thought experiments can serve as arguments for counterfactual situations. At the same time, the credibility and efficacy of the thought experiments can be damaged as soon as the thought-experiments are carried out with inappropriate and/or murky directions regarding the procedures of the experiment or the background of the study. According to D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett(1981), the 'knob setting' in a thought experiment can be altered in the middle of a simulation of the experimental condition, and then the implications of the thought experiment change altogether, indicating that an entirely different conclusion can be deduced from thought experiment. Lastly, some pre-suppositions and bias of the experiment designers play a considerable role in the validity and the chances of success of a thought experiment; thus, it is recommended that the experiment-designers refrain from exercising too much of their imagination in order to avoid contaminating the design of the experiment and/or wrongly accepting preconceived/misguided conclusions.
Artificial intelligences are changing world. Financial market is also not an exception. Robo-Advisor is actively being developed, making up the weakness of traditional asset allocation methods and replacing the parts that are difficult for the traditional methods. It makes automated investment decisions with artificial intelligence algorithms and is used with various asset allocation models such as mean-variance model, Black-Litterman model and risk parity model. Risk parity model is a typical risk-based asset allocation model which is focused on the volatility of assets. It avoids investment risk structurally. So it has stability in the management of large size fund and it has been widely used in financial field. XGBoost model is a parallel tree-boosting method. It is an optimized gradient boosting model designed to be highly efficient and flexible. It not only makes billions of examples in limited memory environments but is also very fast to learn compared to traditional boosting methods. It is frequently used in various fields of data analysis and has a lot of advantages. So in this study, we propose a new asset allocation model that combines risk parity model and XGBoost machine learning model. This model uses XGBoost to predict the risk of assets and applies the predictive risk to the process of covariance estimation. There are estimated errors between the estimation period and the actual investment period because the optimized asset allocation model estimates the proportion of investments based on historical data. these estimated errors adversely affect the optimized portfolio performance. This study aims to improve the stability and portfolio performance of the model by predicting the volatility of the next investment period and reducing estimated errors of optimized asset allocation model. As a result, it narrows the gap between theory and practice and proposes a more advanced asset allocation model. In this study, we used the Korean stock market price data for a total of 17 years from 2003 to 2019 for the empirical test of the suggested model. The data sets are specifically composed of energy, finance, IT, industrial, material, telecommunication, utility, consumer, health care and staple sectors. We accumulated the value of prediction using moving-window method by 1,000 in-sample and 20 out-of-sample, so we produced a total of 154 rebalancing back-testing results. We analyzed portfolio performance in terms of cumulative rate of return and got a lot of sample data because of long period results. Comparing with traditional risk parity model, this experiment recorded improvements in both cumulative yield and reduction of estimated errors. The total cumulative return is 45.748%, about 5% higher than that of risk parity model and also the estimated errors are reduced in 9 out of 10 industry sectors. The reduction of estimated errors increases stability of the model and makes it easy to apply in practical investment. The results of the experiment showed improvement of portfolio performance by reducing the estimated errors of the optimized asset allocation model. Many financial models and asset allocation models are limited in practical investment because of the most fundamental question of whether the past characteristics of assets will continue into the future in the changing financial market. However, this study not only takes advantage of traditional asset allocation models, but also supplements the limitations of traditional methods and increases stability by predicting the risks of assets with the latest algorithm. There are various studies on parametric estimation methods to reduce the estimated errors in the portfolio optimization. We also suggested a new method to reduce estimated errors in optimized asset allocation model using machine learning. So this study is meaningful in that it proposes an advanced artificial intelligence asset allocation model for the fast-developing financial markets.
Fostering trusting belief in financial transactions is a challenging task in Internet banking services. Authenticated Certificate had been regarded as an effective method to guarantee the trusting belief for online transactions. However, previous research claimed that this method has some loopholes for such abusers as hackers, who intend to attack the financial accounts of innocent transactors in Internet. Two types of methods have been suggested as alternatives for securing user identification and activity in online financial services. Control transparency uses information over the transaction process to verify and to control the transactions. Outcome feedback, which refers to the specific information about exchange outcomes, provides information over final transaction results. By using these two methods, financial service providers can send signals to involved parties about the robustness of their security mechanisms. These two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-have been widely used in the IS field to enhance the quality of IS services. In this research, we intend to verify that these two methods can also be used to reduce risks and to increase the security protections in online banking services. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effects of the control transparency and the outcome feedback on the risk perceptions in Internet banking services. Our assumption is that these two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-can reduce perceived risks involved with online financial transactions, while increasing perceived trust over financial service providers. These changes in user attitudes can increase the level of user satisfactions, which may lead to the increased user loyalty as well as users' willingness to pay for the financial transactions. Previous research in IS suggested that the increased level of transparency on the process and the result of transactions can enhance the information quality and decision quality of IS users. Transparency helps IS users to acquire the information needed to control the transaction counterpart and thus to complete transaction successfully. It is also argued that transparency can reduce the perceived transaction risks in IS usage. Many IS researchers also argued that the trust can be generated by the institutional mechanisms. Trusting belief refers to the truster's belief for the trustee to have attributes for being beneficial to the truster. Institution-based trust plays an important role to enhance the probability of achieving a successful outcome. When a transactor regards the conditions crucial for the transaction success, he or she considers the condition providers as trustful, and thus eventually trust the others involved with such condition providers. In this process, transparency helps the transactor complete the transaction successfully. Through the investigation of these studies, we expect that the control transparency and outcome feedback can reduce the risk perception on transaction and enhance the trust with the service provider. Based on a theoretical framework of transparency and institution-based trust, we propose and test a research model by evaluating research hypotheses. We have conducted a laboratory experiment in order to validate our research model. Since the transparency artifact(control transparency and outcome feedback) is not yet adopted in online banking services, the general survey method could not be employed to verify our research model. We collected data from 138 experiment subjects who had experiences with online banking services. PLS is used to analyze the experiment data. The measurement model confirms that our data set has appropriate convergent and discriminant validity. The results of testing the structural model indicate that control transparency significantly enhances the trust and significantly reduces the risk perception of online banking users. The result also suggested that the outcome feedback significantly enhances the trust of users. We have found that the reduced risk and the increased trust level significantly improve the level of service satisfaction. The increased satisfaction finally leads to the increased loyalty and willingness to pay for the financial services.
In MIS field, the researches on payment services are focused on adoption factors of payment service using behavior theories such as TRA(Theory of Reasoned Action), TAM(Technology Acceptance Model), and TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior). The previous researches presented various adoption factors according to types of payment service, nations, culture and so on even though adoption factors of identical payment service were presented differently by researchers. The payment service industry relatively has strong path dependency to the existing payment methods so that the research results on the identical payment service are different due to payment culture of nation. This paper aims to suggest a successful adoption factor of noble payment service regardless of nation's culture and characteristics of payment and prove it. In previous researches, common adoption factors of payment service are convenience, ease of use, security, convenience, speed etc. But real cases prove the fact that adoption factors that the previous researches present are not always critical to success to penetrate a market. For example, PayByPhone, NFC based parking payment service, successfully has penetrated to early market and grown. In contrast, Google Wallet service failed to be adopted to users despite NFC based payment method which provides convenience, security, ease of use. As shown in upper case, there remains an unexplained aspect. Therefore, the present research question emerged from the question: "What is the more essential and fundamental factor that should takes precedence over factors such as provides convenience, security, ease of use for successful penetration to market". With these cases, this paper analyzes four cases predicted on the following hypothesis and demonstrates it. "To successfully penetrate a market and sustainably grow, new payment service should find non-customer of the existing payment service and provide noble payment method so that they can use payment method". We give plausible explanations for the hypothesis using multiple case studies. Diners club, Danal, PayPal, Square were selected as a typical and successful cases in each category of payment service. The discussion on cases is primarily non-customer analysis that noble payment service targets on to find the most crucial factor in the early market, we does not attempt to consider factors for business growth. We clarified three-tier non-customer of the payment method that new payment service targets on and elaborated how new payment service satisfy them. In case of credit card, this payment service target first tier of non-customer who can't pay for because they don't have any cash temporarily but they have regular income. So credit card provides an opportunity which they can do economic activities by delaying the date of payment. In a result of wireless phone payment's case study, this service targets on second of non-customer who can't use online payment because they concern about security or have to take a complex process and learn how to use online payment method. Therefore, wireless phone payment provides very convenient payment method. Especially, it made group of young pay for a little money without a credit card. Case study result of PayPal, online payment service, shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who reject to use online payment service because of concern about sensitive information leaks such as passwords and credit card details. Accordingly, PayPal service allows users to pay online without a provision of sensitive information. Final Square case result, Mobile POS -based payment service, also shows that it targets on second tier of non-customer who can't individually transact offline because of cash's shortness. Hence, Square provides dongle which function as POS by putting dongle in earphone terminal. As a result, four cases made non-customer their customer so that they could penetrate early market and had been extended their market share. Consequently, all cases supported the hypothesis and it is highly probable according to 'analytic generation' that case study methodology suggests. We present for judging the quality of research designs the following. Construct validity, internal validity, external validity, reliability are common to all social science methods, these have been summarized in numerous textbooks(Yin, 2014). In case study methodology, these also have served as a framework for assessing a large group of case studies (Gibbert, Ruigrok & Wicki, 2008). Construct validity is to identify correct operational measures for the concepts being studied. To satisfy construct validity, we use multiple sources of evidence such as the academic journals, magazine and articles etc. Internal validity is to seek to establish a causal relationship, whereby certain conditions are believed to lead to other conditions, as distinguished from spurious relationships. To satisfy internal validity, we do explanation building through four cases analysis. External validity is to define the domain to which a study's findings can be generalized. To satisfy this, replication logic in multiple case studies is used. Reliability is to demonstrate that the operations of a study -such as the data collection procedures- can be repeated, with the same results. To satisfy this, we use case study protocol. In Korea, the competition among stakeholders over mobile payment industry is intensifying. Not only main three Telecom Companies but also Smartphone companies and service provider like KakaoTalk announced that they would enter into mobile payment industry. Mobile payment industry is getting competitive. But it doesn't still have momentum effect notwithstanding positive presumptions that will grow very fast. Mobile payment services are categorized into various technology based payment service such as IC mobile card and Application payment service of cloud based, NFC, sound wave, BLE(Bluetooth Low Energy), Biometric recognition technology etc. Especially, mobile payment service is discontinuous innovations that users should change their behavior and noble infrastructure should be installed. These require users to learn how to use it and cause infra-installation cost to shopkeepers. Additionally, payment industry has the strong path dependency. In spite of these obstacles, mobile payment service which should provide dramatically improved value as a products and service of discontinuous innovations is focusing on convenience and security, convenience and so on. We suggest the following to success mobile payment service. First, non-customers of the existing payment service need to be identified. Second, needs of them should be taken. Then, noble payment service provides non-customer who can't pay by the previous payment method to payment method. In conclusion, mobile payment service can create new market and will result in extension of payment market.
Medical services are a fundamental and essential service in all urban areas. The location and accessibility of medical service facilities and institutions are critical to the diagnosis, control and prevention of illness and disease. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study on the location of medical facilities in Kwangju and the utilization of these facilities by the inhabitants. The following information is a summary of the findings: (1) Korea, like many countries, is now witnessing an increase in the age of its population as a result of higher living standards and better medical services. Korea is also experiencing a rapid increase in health care costs. To ensure easy access to medical consultation, diagnosis and treatment by individuals, the hierarchical efficient location of medical facilities, low medical costs, equalized medical services, preventive medical care is important. (2) In Korea, the quality of medical services has improved significantly as evident by the increased number of medical facilities and medical personnel. However, there is still a need for not only quantitative improvements but also for a more equitable distribution of and location of medical services. (3) There are 503 medical facilities in Kwangju each with a need to service 2,556 people. This is below the national average of 1,498 inhabitants per facility. The higher locational quotient and satisfactory population per medical facility showed at the civic center. On the other hand, problem regions such as the traditional residential area in Buk-Gu, Moo-deung mountain area and the outer areas of west Kwangju still maintain rural characteristics. (4) In the study area there are 86 general medicine clinics which provide basic medical services. i. e. one clinic per every 14,949 residents. As a basic service, its higher locational quotient showed in the residential area. The lower population concentration per clinic was found in the civic center and in the former town center, Songjeong-dong. In recently build residential areas and in the civic center, the lack of general medicine clinics is not a serious medical services issue because of the surplus of medical specialists in Korea. People are inclined to seek a consultation with a specialist in specific fields rather than consult a general practitioner. As a result of this phenomenon, there are 81 internal medicine facilities. Of these, 32.1% provide services to people who are not referred by a primary care physician but who self-diagnose then choose a medical facility specializing in what they believe to be their health problem. Areas in the city, called dongs, without any internal facilities make up 50% of the total 101 dongs. (5) There are 78 surgical facilities within the area, and there is little difference at the locational appearance from internal medicine facilities. There are also 71 pediatric health clinics for people under 15 years of age in this area, represents one clinic per 5,063 people. On the quantitative aspect, this is a positive situation. Accessibility is the most important facility choice factor, so it should be evenly located in proportion to demander distribution. However, 61% of 102 dongs have no pediatric clinics because of the uneven location. (6) There are 43 obstetrical and gynecological clinics in Kwangju, and the number of residents being served per clinic is 15,063. These services need to be given regularly so it should increase the numbers. There are 37 ENT clinics in the study area with the lower concentration in Dong-gu (32.4%) making no locational differences by dong. There are 23 dermatology clinics with the largest concentration in Dong-Gu. There are 17 ophthalmic clinics concentrated in the residential area because of the primary function of this type of specialization. (7) The use of general medicine clinics, internal medicine clinics, pediatric clinics, ENT clinics by the inhabitants indicate a trend toward primary or routine medical services. Obstetrics and gynecology clinics are used on a regular basis. In choosing a general medicine clinic, internal medicine clinic, pediatric clinic, and a ENT clinic, accessibility is the key factor while choice of a general hospital, surgery clinic, or an obstetrics and gynecology clinic, thes faith and trust in the medical practitioner is the priority consideration. (8) I considered the efficient use of medical facilities in the aspect of locational and management and suggest the following: First, primary care facilities should be evenly distributed in every area. In Kwangju, the number of medical facilities is the lowest among the six largest cities in Korea. Moreover, they are concentrated in Dong-gu and in newly developed areas. The desired number of medical facilities should be within 30 minutes of each person's home. For regional development there is a need to develop a plan to balance, for example, taxes and funds supporting personnel, equipment and facilities. Secondly, medical services should be co-ordinated to ensure consistent, appropriate, quality services. Primary medical facilities should take charge of out-patient activities, and every effort should be made to standardize and equalize equipment and facility resources and to ensure ongoing development and training in the primary services field. A few specialty medical facilities and general hospitals should establish a priority service for incurable and terminally ill patients. (9) The management scheme for the inhabitants' efficient use of medical service is as follows: The first task is to efficiently manage medical facilities and related services. Higher quality of medical services can be accomplished within the rapidly changing medical environment. A network of social, administrative and medical organizations within an area should be established to promote information gathering and sharing strategies to better assist the community. Statistics and trends on the rate or occurrence of diseases, births, deaths, medical and environment conditions of the poor or estranged people should be maintained and monitored. The second task is to increase resources in the area of disease prevention and health promotion. Currently the focus is on the treatment and care of individuals with illness or disease. A strong emphasis should also be placed on promoting prevention of illness and injury within the community through not only public health offices but also via medical service facilities. Home medical care should be established and medical testing centers should be located as an ordinary service level. Also, reduced medical costs for the physically handicapped, cardiac patients, and mentally ill or handicapped patients should be considered.
The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.