• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.51-52
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• 2017

"Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture" means any genetic material of plant origin of actual or potential value for food and agriculture. "Genetic material" means any material of plant origin, including reproductive and vegetative propagating material, containing functional units of heredity. (Internal Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, ITPGRFA). The "Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (shortly Nagoya Protocol)" is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It provides a transparent legal framework for the effective implementation of one of the three objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources. The Nagoya Protocol on ABS was adopted on 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan and entered into force on 12 October 2014, 90 days after the deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification. Its objective is the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources, thereby contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The Nagoya Protocol will create greater legal certainty and transparency for both providers and users of genetic resources by; (a) Establishing more predictable conditions for access to genetic resources and (b) Helping to ensure benefit-sharing when genetic resources leave the country providing the genetic resources. By helping to ensure benefit-sharing, the Nagoya Protocol creates incentives to conserve and sustainably use genetic resources, and therefore enhances the contribution of biodiversity to development and human well-being. The Nagoya Protocol's success will require effective implementation at the domestic level. A range of tools and mechanisms provided by the Nagoya Protocol will assist contracting Parties including; (a) Establishing national focal points (NFPs) and competent national authorities (CNAs) to serve as contact points for information, grant access or cooperate on issues of compliance, (b) An Access and Benefit-sharing Clearing-House to share information, such as domestic regulatory ABS requirements or information on NFPs and CNAs, (c) Capacity-building to support key aspects of implementation. Based on a country's self-assessment of national needs and priorities, this can include capacity to develop domestic ABS legislation to implement the Nagoya Protocol, to negotiate MAT and to develop in-country research capability and institutions, (d) Awareness-raising, (e) Technology Transfer, (f) Targeted financial support for capacity-building and development initiatives through the Nagoya Protocol's financial mechanism, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) (Nagoya Protocol). The Rural Development Administration (RDA) leading to conduct management agricultural genetic resources following the 'ACT ON THE PRESERVATION, MANAGEMENT AND USE OF AGRO-FISHERY BIO-RESOURCES' established on 2007. According to $2^{nd}$ clause of Article 14 (Designation, Operation, etc. of Agencies Responsible for Agro-Fishery Bioresources) of the act, the duties endowed are, (a) Matters concerning securing, preservation, management, and use of agro-fishery bioresources; (b) Establishment of an integrated information system for agro-fishery bioresources; (c) Matters concerning medium and long-term preservation of, and research on, agro-fishery bioresources; (d) Matters concerning international cooperation for agro-fishery bioresources and other relevant matters. As the result the RDA manage about 246,000 accessions of plant genetic resources under the national management system at the end of 2016.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.119-133
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• 2024

As a result of significant investments by the government in promoting public technology commercialization and fostering a venture startup ecosystem, there have been quantitative achievements, such as the registration of over 1,600 Innopolis Start-ups since 2006, generating a total revenue of 1.1 trillion won as of 2021. However, these achievements have been overshadowed by critical qualitative challenges, including a continuous decline in average revenue per Innopolis Start-up. This led to a focus on whether managers' technological and market orientations affect business performance. This study aims to provide insights into improving the qualitative growth of Innopolis Start-ups by analyzing the effects of technological and market orientations on business performance, as well as the moderating effects of adjusting marketing and research and development (R&D) costs on this relationship. Through prior research and empirical analysis, this study derives three main findings. First, technological excellence and innovation significantly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, while technological intensity does not. Second, customer orientation and competitive orientation significantly impact business performance, whereas entry barriers as a single factor do not. Third, adjusting marketing and R&D costs, as controlled variables obtained through general situations, has no direct impact on other variables. However, it interacts with entry barriers, influencing financial business performance, with R&D costs exhibiting a negative buffering effect and marketing costs showing a positive enhancing effect. This study confirms that both technological and market orientations directly influence the business performance of Innopolis Start-ups, thus being crucial factors affecting their growth. Moreover, it establishes that investments in marketing and R&D play significant roles in alleviating initial entry barriers and enhancing financial performance. Consequently, it underscores the importance of reinforcing technological and market orientations tailored to the characteristics of Innopolis Start-ups. Additionally, it proposes five theoretical contributions: strengthening institutional support systems for technology commercialization and innovation, improving qualitative evaluation criteria during the selection process of Innopolis Start-ups, conducting comprehensive analyses of technological and market aspects during startup selection, enhancing support for marketing education and consulting for smooth market entry, and supporting expenditure strategies and milestone setting tailored to the industrial characteristics of individual Innopolis Start-ups.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.51-60
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• 2017

Purpose - This study aimed to investigate the correlation between the social activity of the elderly and recognition of family cohesion of the elderly who are exposed to the current aging society. In addition, the study has delved into the method of family cohesion improvement through the differences between groups based on the mediator effect of how the results have effects on the elderly's self-control capabilities. Research design, data, and methodology - This study has targeted the elderly who are attending the elderly university among users in seven community centers located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area. The study has also conducted a survey by the format of a half-structured questionnaire. It is aiming to investigate the elderly's family cohesion with children and their self-control capability, and understand their satisfaction of social activity to help successful elderly life. The study has suggested the following as mentioned. First, the study analyzed that the perceptual factor of family cohesion with children would be deducted based on advanced researches. Second, the influencing relationship would be analyzed through the relational analysis between the elderly's family cohesion and social activity. Results - The family cohesion with children has a significant effect on psychological happiness and it showed the influencing relationship with improvement of the elderly's self-control capability. Therefore, creating fellowship through meaningful conversation with children would be needed. In addition, various programs and consultant service would be offered to build healthy relationship between aged parents and their children. Through this, the elderly will be able to have not only better relationships with their family, but also increased psychological health and well-being as well. Conclusions - It is needed that not only supporting policies for children who take care of aged parents but also that the elderly who need long-term care could meet their children whenever they want through increased numbers of sanatoriums operated by cities and countries. In addition, the nation would offer financial and administrative support continuously so that people receive the benefits from sanatoriums located in the locality of children's residence beyond the elderly's residence. Moreover, social infra would be established as well.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.53
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• pp.129-153
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• 2003

This study examines the socio-economic impacts of recent welfare reform in the United States. Based on the neo-conservative critique to the traditional public assistance system for low-income families, the 1996 welfare reform has given greater emphases on reducing welfare dependency and increasing work effort and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. In particular, the welfare reform legislation instituted 60-month lifetime limits on cash assistance, expanded mandatory work requirements, and placed financial penalties for noncompliance. With the well-timed economic boom in the second half of the 1990s, the welfare reform seems to achieve considerable progress; welfare caseload has declined sharply to reach less than 50% of its 1994 peak, single mothers' labor force participation has increased substantially, and child poverty has decreased. In spite of these good signals, the welfare reform also has several potential problems. Many welfare leavers participate in the labor market, but not all (or most) of them. The economic well being of working welfare leavers did not increased significantly, because earnings increase was canceled out by parallel decrease in welfare benefits. Furthermore, most of working welfare leavers are employed in jobs with poor employment stability and low wages, making them highly vulnerable to frequent layoff, long-time joblessness, persistent poverty, and welfare recidivism. Another serious problem of the welfare reform is that a substantial number of welfare recipients are faced with extreme difficulties in finding jobs, because they have severe barriers to employment. The new welfare system with 5-year time limit can severely threaten the livelihoods of these people. The welfare reform presupposes that welfare recipients can achieve self-reliance by increasing their labor market activities. However, empirical evidences suggest that many people are unable to respond to the new, work-oriented welfare strategy. It may be a very difficult task to achieve both objectives of the welfare reform((1) providing adequate income security for low-income families and (2) promoting self-sufficiency) at the same time, because sometimes they are conflicting each other. With this in mind, a possible solution can be to distinguish welfare recipients into "(Very)-Hard-to-Employ" group and "(Relatively)-Ready-to-Work" group, based on elaborate examinations of a wide range of personal conditions. For the former group, the primary objective of welfare policies should be the first one(providing income security). For the "Ready-to-Work" group, follow-up services to promote job retention and advancement, as well as skill-training and job-search services, are very important. The U. S. experiences of the welfare reform provide some useful implications for newly developing Korean public assistance policies for the able-bodied low-income population.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.569-592
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• 2018

This study purported to investigate the current state of human rights of older adults residing in rural areas of Korea. The study utilized, as an analytic framework, 4 priority directions (1. "older persons and development", 2. "rural area development", 3. "advancing health and well-being into old age", and 4. "ensuring enabling and supportive environments") with 13 task actions recommended by Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA). Furthermore, the study examined gender differences in all items included in the analytic framework. Data was collected by the face-to-face survey on 800 subjects aged 65 and over. Statistical analyses were conducted using STATA 13.0 program. The main results were summarized in order of 4 priority directions as follows. First, average working hours per day were 6.2, and men reportedly participated in economic activities and needed job training more than women, while women participated in lifelong education programs more than men. Awareness of fire and disaster prevention facilities was low in both genders. Second, accessibility to the support center for the elderly living alone as well as protective services for the vulnerable elderly was found to be low. IT-based services and networking were used more by men than women, and specifically, IT-based financial transactions and welfare services were least used. Third, medical check-ups and vaccinations were well received, while consistent treatments for chronic illnesses and long-term care services were relatively less given. In addition, accessibility to mental health service centers was considerably low. Fourth, although old house structures and the lack of convenience facilities were found to be circumstantial risk factors for these elders, experiences of receiving housing support services were scarce. The elderly were found to rely more on informal care, and concerns for their care were higher in women than men. Plus, accessibility to elderly abuse services was markedly low. Based on these results, discussed were implications for implementing policies and practical interventions to raise the levels of the human rights for this population.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.81-101
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• 2012

A franchise system develops competitive products for a franchise store through the system established by the franchise head office. Therefore, it has advantages of expanding the marketing effect since the risk of failure is reduced for a founder and the franchise head office supports the overall sales, advertisement and promotional activities. Also, a franchise store has advantages of fulfilling necessary facilities and tools on advantageous terms, reducing expenses by purchasing in bulk, and getting a supply of products with stable qualities. However, aside from such advantages, franchise head offices are forcing franchise stores to make unnecessary investments in equipments and remodel the interior. Also, franchise business operators are being made to share the cost of marketing and multiple franchise stores are being approved within the same business district, and franchise business operators are suffering damages. Therefore, cases of shutting down a franchise store or not renewing the contract are frequent. From the position of a franchise head office, profits that are generated from franchise fees, interior remodeling fees and supplying facilities and materials will increase as the number of new franchise stores increases. However, franchise stores are faced with difficulties due to excessive competitions between similar types of businesses and the overlapping of business districts that come from increases in the number of stores, and they eventually end up shutting down. Therefore, in order for a franchise business operator and franchise head office to grow and develop continuously, opening new stores is important, but successfully renewing the contract by maintaining a relationship with an existing franchise business operator is desirable. In this aspect, a study that examines the elements that can affect the relationship between a franchise business operator and franchise head office is believed to be important for the development of the franchise industry and creating safe jobs for the public. With an emphasis on the relationship between a franchise head office and franchise store, this study attempted to examine the effect of characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise business operator on the bilateral relationship such as the faith and immersion, and wished to review the effects of such faith and immersion on the satisfaction of a franchise store, including an intention of renewing the contract. In particular, in the current situation of great uncertainties in the market, this study also wished to examine how uncertain market elements will affect the relationship between the characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise business operator, and the faith and immersion. The study revealed that among the characteristics of a franchise head office, the standardization management of a franchise head office hinders a franchise store's faith and immersion in a franchise head office. Also, a franchise head office's support was shown to increase a franchise store's faith and immersion. However, it was revealed that a franchise head office's regulation and incentive policies for a franchise store do not affect a franchise store's faith and immersion. Among characteristics of a franchise business operator, a franchise store's healthy financial status and entrepreneur spirits were shown to enhance the faith and immersion in a franchise head office. However, it was shown that excellent business abilities of a franchise business operator actually reduce the immersion for a franchise head office. Also, the faith and immersion in a franchise head office were shown to enhance the intention of renewing the contract by increasing the satisfaction for a franchise head office. In addition, it was originally believed that the effects of a franchise business operator's characteristics on the faith and immersion in a franchise head office will vary depending on the market uncertainty, but the effect of a franchise business operator's characteristics depending on the recognition of uncertainties was shown to be insignificant. Such findings show that instead of making a franchise store pay for equipment investments and marketing and obtaining profits by force, a franchise head office should actively support a franchise store so that a franchise store's business activities can be conducted well, which will bring profits to a franchise store and ultimately to a franchise head office. This is a more desirable direction for the development of both parties. Implications of such findings are summarized as follows. First, it was shown that a franchise head office's standardization management actually reduces a franchise store's faith and immersion. Therefore, it is believed that instead of conducting standardization managements for regulating and managing franchise stores, measures should be developed so that franchise stores can actually participate voluntarily. For this, a head office should put in efforts to develop and provide standardized manuals, and make sure that a self-review system takes root. Second, a franchise head office's incentives did not have significant effects on the faith and immersion, but the support was shown to be effective. Therefore, it can be seen that instead of taking post-measures for a franchise store, taking pre-measures of actively supporting is more effective in maintaining a franchise store. Third, among characteristics of a franchise head office, it was shown that a franchise store's healthy financial status increased the faith and immersion in a franchise head office. Therefore, when selecting a franchise business operator, instead of thoughtlessly opening up franchise stores for the profit of a head office, it is believed that reviewing a franchise business operator's financial firepower and credit status is necessary. As for academic implications, previous studies examined the relationship by focusing on the characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise store, but this study focused on the characteristics of a franchise business operator. Therefore, this study dealt with the importance of a franchise business operator's competence, and is significant because it revealed the fact that a franchise business operator's excellent commercialization ability can become an element that hinders the immersion in a franchise head office. It was originally believed that a franchise store's characteristics will have different effects on the faith and immersion depending on the market uncertainty, but it was shown that the effect of a franchise store's characteristics depending on the recognition of uncertainties was insignificant, and that is the limitation of this study.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.86-97
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• 1978

The mobile medical service has been operated for many years by a number of medical schools and hospitals as a most convenient means of medical service delivery to the people residing in such area where the geographical and socioeconomic conditions are not good enough to enjoy modern medical care. Despite of official appraisal showing off simply with numbers of outpatients treated and medical persons participated, however, as well recognized, the capability (in respect of budget, equipment and time) of those mobile medical teams is so limitted that it often discourages the recipients as well as medical participants themselves. In the midst of rising need to secure medical service of good quality to all parts of the country, and of developing concept of primary health care system, authors evaluated the effectiveness of and problems associated with mobile medical servies program through the community diagnosis of a village (Opo-myun, Kwangju-gun) to obtain the information which may be halpful for future improvement. 1. Owing to the nationwide Sae-Maul movement powerfully practiced during last several years, living environment of farm villages generally and remarkably improved including houses, water supply and wastes disposal etc. Neverthless, due to limitations in budget time and lack of knowledge (probably the most important), these improvements tend to keep up appearances only and are far from the goal which may being practical benefit in promoting the health of the community. 2. As a result of intensive population policy led by the government since 1962, there has been considerable advances in understanding and the rate of practicing family planning through out the villages and yet, one should see many things, especially education, to be done. Fifty eight per cent of mothers have not received prenatal check and the care for most (72%) delivery was offered by laymen at home. 3. Approximately seven per cent of the population was reported to have chronic illness but since only a few (practically none) of the people has had physical check up by doctors, the actual prevalence of chronic diseases may reach many times of the reported. The same fact was observed also in prevalence of tuberculosis; the patients registered at local health center totaled 31 comprising only 0.51% while the numbers in two neighboring villages (designated as demonstration area of tuberculosis control and mass examination was done recently) were 3.5 and 4.0% respectively. Prevalence rate of all dieseses and injuries expereinced during one month (July, 1977) was 15.8%. Only one tenth of those patients received treatment by physicians and one fifth was not treated at all. The situation was worse as for the chronic patients; 84% of all cases either have never been treated or discontinued therapy, and the main reasons were known to be financial difficulty and ignorance or indifference. 4. Among the patients treated by our mobile clinic, one third was chronic cases and 45% of all patients, by the opinion of doctors attended, were those who may be treated by specially trained nurses or other paramedics (objects of primary care). Besides, 20% of the cases required professional managements of level beyond the mobile team's capability and in this sense one may conclude that the effectiveness (performance) of present mobile medical team is quite limitted. According to above findings, the authors would like to suggest following for mobile medical service and overall medicare program for the people living in remote country side. 1. Establishment of primary health care system secured with effective communication and evacuation (between villages and local medical center) measures. 2. Nationwide enforcement of medical insurance system. 3. Simple outpatient care which now constitutes the main part of the most mobile medical services should largely be yielded up to primary health care unit of the village and the mobile team itself should be assigned on new and more urgent missions such as mass screening health examination of the villagers, health education with modern and effective audiovisual aids, professional training and consultant services for the primary health care organization.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.51-60
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• 2003

In the radical char]go of the business environments that the existing facilities can not guarantee the business-frosts anymore, enterprises have been importing ERP system. In Korea, Sam-sung Electronics did it for the first tin in the latter half of 1994 and other enterprises succeeded. Currently, government and public enterprises as well as most of the large enterprises are employing ERP system to sharpen the competitiveness and to win the business transparency. On the other hand, it is harder for small and medium enterprises shaded by the large enterprises to be well-equipped with information system such as ERP, because they have already suffered from chronic financial difficulties and shortage of many resources. Most of all, they prefer the short-term project that does not need much tine for them to make decisions and to carry out fully. Grounded on the above factors, in this work, I suggest the suitable ERP model for the small and medium enterprises and the successful importing process of ERP, which is derived from the previous researches made by other masters' thesis. If necessary information and human resources are interchanged pertinently between local education institute and small and medium enterprise, the latter could not only deal with the confronted difficulties successfully inside and outside but attain the goal of being proficient in up-to-minute high technology. Besides, giving the students the opportunity of researching into the practice of the business they have not ever known, local universities could help their students accumulate knowledges and acquire ideas which could not be achieved in pure academic studies. When the above-mentioned procedure is over, the students might get the intellectual faculty to ponder on the future more concretely and enter a profession more carefully. In the result, we would raise up the percentage of the employment among the graduates. And active participation of university professors is the last important factor that assists the small and medium enterprises for introducing ERP system successfully. Their scholarly attainments play an important role in strengthening local economy and make the business competitiveness balanced between the capital and the local economy.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2012

As exhibition industry, which is a part of 17 new growth engines of the government, is related to other industries such as tourism, transportation and financial industries. So it has a significant ripple effect on other industries. Exhibition is a knowledge-intensive, eco-friendly and high value-added Industry. Over 13,000 exhibitions are held every year around the world which contributes to getting foreign currency. Exhibition industry is closely related with culture and tourism and could be utilized as local and national development strategies and improve national brand image as well. Many countries try various efforts to invigorate exhibition industry by arranging related laws and support system. In Korea, more than 200 exhibitions are being held every year, but only 2~3 exhibitions are hosted with over 400 exhibitors and except these exhibitions most exhibitions have few foreign exhibitors. The main reason of weakness of domestic trade show is that there are no agencies managing exhibitionrelated statistics and there is no specific and reliable evaluation. This might cause impossibility of providing buyer or seller with reliable data, poor growth of exhibitions in terms of quality and thus service quality of trade shows cannot be improved. Hosting a lot of visitors (Public/Buyer/Exhibitor) is very crucial to the development of domestic exhibition industry. In order to attract many visitors, service quality of exhibition and visitor's satisfaction should be enhanced. For this purpose, a variety of real-time customized services through digital media and the services for creating new customers and retaining existing customers should be provided. In addition, by providing visitors with personalized information services they could manage their time and space efficiently avoiding the complexity of exhibition space. Exhibition industry can have competitiveness and industrial foundation through building up exhibition-related statistics, creating new information and enhancing research ability. Therefore, this paper deals with customized service with visitor's smart-phone at the exhibition space and designing mobile framework which enables exhibition devices to interact with other devices. Mobile server framework is composed of three different systems; multi-server interaction, server, client, display device. By making knowledge pool of exhibition environment, the accumulated data for each visitor can be provided as personalized service. In addition, based on the reaction of visitors each of all information is utilized as customized information and so the cyclic chain structure is designed. Multiple interaction server is designed to have functions of event handling, interaction process between exhibition device and visitor's smart-phone and data management. Client is an application processed by visitor's smart-phone and could be driven on a variety of platforms. Client functions as interface representing customized service for individual visitors and event input and output for simultaneous participation. Exhibition device consists of display system to show visitors contents and information, interaction input-output system to receive event from visitors and input toward action and finally the control system to connect above two systems. The proposed mobile framework in this paper provides individual visitors with customized and active services using their information profile and advanced Knowledge. In addition, user participation service is suggested as well by using interaction connection system between server, client, and exhibition devices. Suggested mobile framework is a technology which could be applied to culture industry such as performance, show and exhibition. Thus, this builds up the foundation to improve visitor's participation in exhibition and bring about development of exhibition industry by raising visitor's interest.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2013

This case focuses on Shanghai Tang, the first truly Chinese luxury brand that appeals to both Westerners and, more recently, to Chinese consumers worldwide. A visionary and wealthy businessman Sir David Tang created this company from scratch in 1994 in Hong Kong. Its story, spanned over almost two decades, has been fascinating. It went from what best a Chinese brand could be in the eyes of Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a nearly-bankrupted company in 1998, before being acquired by Richemont, the second largest luxury group in the world. Since then, its turnaround has been spectacular with a growing appeal among Chinese luxury consumers who represent the core segment of the luxury industry today. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how Shanghai Tang overcame its downfall and re-emerged as one the very few well- known Chinese luxury brands. More specifically, this case highlights the ways with which Shanghai Tang made a transitional change from a brand for Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a brand for both, Westerners who love the Chinese culture and Chinese who love luxury. A close examination reveals that Shanghai Tang has followed the brand identity concept that consists of two major components: functional and emotional. The functional component for developing a luxury brand concerns all product characteristics that will make a product 'luxurious' in the eyes of the consumer, such as premium quality of cachemire from Mongolia, Chinese silk, lacquer, finest leather, porcelain, and jade in the case of Shanghai Tang. The emotional component consists of non-functional symbolic meanings of a brand. The symbolic meaning marks the major difference between a premium and a luxury brand. In the case of Shanghai Tang, its symbolic meaning refers to the Chinese culture and the brand aims to represent the best of Chinese traditions and establish itself as "the ambassador of modern Chinese style". It touches the Chinese heritage and emotions. Shanghai Tang has reinvented the modern Chinese chic by drawing back to the stylish decadence of Shanghai in the 1930s, which was then called the "Paris of the East", and this is where the brand finds inspiration to create its own myth. Once the functional and emotional components assured, Shanghai Tang has gone through a four-stage development to become the first global Chinese luxury brand: introduction, deepening, expansion, and revitalization. Introduction: David Tang discovered a market gap and had a vision to launch the first Chinese luxury brand to the world. The key success drivers for the introduction and management of a Chinese luxury brand are a solid brand identity and, above all, a creative mind, an inspired person. This was David Tang then, and this is now Raphael Le Masne de Chermont, the current Executive Chairman. Shanghai Tang combines Chinese and Western elements, which it finds to be the most sustainable platform for drawing consumers. Deepening: A major objective of the next phase is to become recognized as a luxury brand and a fashion or design authority. For this purpose, Shanghai Tang has cooperated with other well-regarded luxury and lifestyle brands such as Puma and Swarovski. It also expanded its product lines from high-end custom-made garments to music CDs and restaurant. Expansion: After the opening of his first store in Hong Kong in 1994, David Tang went on to open his second store in New York City three years later. However this New York retail operation was a financial disaster. Barely nineteen months after the opening, the store was shut down and quietly relocated to a cheaper location of Madison Avenue. Despite this failure, Shanghai Tang products found numerous followers especially among Western tourists and became "souvenir-like" must-haves. However, despite its strong brand DNA, the brand did not generate enough repeated sales and over the years the company cumulated heavy debts and became unprofitable. Revitalizing: After its purchase by Richemont in 1998, Le Masne de Chermont was appointed to lead the company, reposition the brand and undertake some major strategic changes such as revising the "Shanghai Tang" designs to appeal not only to Westerners but also to Chinese consumers, and to open new stores around the world. Since then, Shanghai Tang has become synonymous to a modern Chinese luxury lifestyle brand.