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

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

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1-27
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• 2011

Introduction: Sales of private labels(PU have been growing m recent years. Globally, PLs have already achieved 20% share, although between 25 and 50% share in most of the European markets(AC. Nielson, 2005). These products are aimed to have comparable quality and prices as national brand(NB) products and have been continuously eroding manufacturer's national brand market share. Stores have also started introducing premium PLs that are of higher-quality and more reasonably priced compared to NBs. Worldwide, many retailers already have a multiple-tier private label architecture. Consumers as a consequence are now able to have a more diverse brand choice in store than ever before. Since premium PLs are priced higher than regular PLs and even, in some cases, above NBs, stores can expect to generate higher profits. Brand extensions and private label have been extensively studied in the marketing field. However, less attention has been paid to the private label extension. Therefore, this research focuses on private label extension using the Multi-Attribute Attitude Model(Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Especially there are few studies that consider the hierarchical effect of the PL's two parent brands: store brand and the original PL. We assume that the attitude toward each of the two parent brands affects the attitude towards the extended PL. The influence from each parent brand toward extended PL will vary according to the perceived fit between each parent brand and the extended PL. This research focuses on how these two parent brands act as reference points to one another in the consumers' choice consideration. Specifically we seek to understand how store image and attitude towards original PL affect consumer perceptions of extended premium PL. How consumers perceive extended premium PLs could provide strategic suggestions for retailer managers with specific suggestions on whether it is more effective: to position extended premium PL similarly or dissimilarly to original PL especially on the quality dimension and congruency with store image. There is an extensive body of research on branding and brand extensions (e.g. Aaker and Keller, 1990) and more recently on PLs(e.g. Kumar and Steenkamp, 2007). However there are no studies to date that look at the upgrading and influence of original PLs and attitude towards store on the premium PL extension. This research wishes to make a contribution to this gap using the perceived fit difference between parent brands and extended premium PL as the context. In order to meet the above objectives, we investigate which factors heighten consumers' positive attitude toward premium PL extension. Research Model and Hypotheses: When considering the attitude towards the premium PL extension, we expect four factors to have an influence: attitude towards store; attitude towards original PL; perceived congruity between the store image and the premium PL; perceived similarity between the original PL and the premium PL. We expect that all these factors have an influence on consumer attitude towards premium PL extension. Figure 1 gives the research model and hypotheses. Method: Data were collected by an intercept survey conducted on consumers at discount stores. 403 survey responses were attained (total 59.8% female, across all age ranges). Respondents were asked to respond to a series of Questions measured on 7 point likert-type scales. The survey consisted of Questions that measured: the trust towards store and the original PL; the satisfaction towards store and the original PL; the attitudes towards store, the original PL, and the extended premium PL; the perceived similarity of the original PL and the extended premium PL; the perceived congruity between the store image and the extended premium PL. Product images with specific explanations of the features of premium PL, regular PL and NB we reused as the stimuli for the Question response. We developed scales to measure the research constructs. Cronbach's alphaw as measured each construct with the reliability for all constructs exceeding the .70 standard(Nunnally, 1978). Results: To test the hypotheses, path analysis was conducted using LISREL 8.30. The path analysis for verification of the model produced satisfactory results. The validity index shows acceptable results(${\chi}^2=427.00$(P=0.00), GFI= .90, AGFI= .87, NFI= .91, RMSEA= .062, RMR= .047). With the increasing retailer use of premium PLBs, the intention of this research was to examine how consumers use original PL and store image as reference points as to the attitude towards premium PL extension. Results(see table 1 & 2) show that the attitude of each parent brand (attitudes toward store and original pL) influences the attitude towards extended PL and their perceived fit moderates these influences. Attitude toward the extended PL was influenced by the relative level of perceived fit. Discussion of results and future direction: These results suggest that the future strategy for the PL extension needs to consider that positive parent brand attitude is more strongly associated with the attitude toward PL extensions. Specifically, to improve attitude towards PL extension, building and maintaining positive attitude towards original PL is necessary. Positioning premium PL congruently to store image is also important for positive attitude. In order to improve this research, the following alternatives should also be considered. To improve the research model's predictive power, more diverse products should be included in study. Other attributes of product should also be included such as design, brand name since we only considered trust and satisfaction as factors to build consumer attitudes.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.185-210
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• 2011

For many firms, customers are their most valuable assets. This is a shift in the interest of managers and researchers from a traditional focus on product management to a more recent focus on customer management. And they manage their customers with relationship marketing. Despite the recent academic interest in the study of customer equity, prior research has focused on brand equity and limited relationship mediated variate such as satisfaction, commitment and trust. This paper suggests customer equity drives with mediated variate and examines how relationship marketing can generate drives of customer equity and influence on customer behaviors. The results are like this. First, customer equity drives include value, brand and relationship equity and they mediate between relationship marketing activities and customer behaviors. Second, financial, social and structural activities have significant impact on repurchase, positive word of mouth, and cross purchase through customer equity drives. Third, this study tried to organize literature on customer equity systematically. It will become the foundation of follow-up studies.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.255-269
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• 2020

This paper aims to analyze the factors influencing consumer's choice of smartphone purchase channel in multichannel environments. Recently, smartphone purchase channels are becoming more complex and diverse. A smartphone with a short purchase cycle is a product applying advanced technology, the research of this topic would be significant. The major findings of this study are as follows. First, depending on the consumer's shopping orientation, the consumer group was classified into three groups of preference 1. Active shopping, 2. Convenient shopping, and 3. Rational shopping. Second, it was analyzed that the consumer's shopping orientation influenced the decisions of the information search channel and the purchase channel. Third, there was a significant difference between the search and purchase channels in the three groups. Finally, in the channel experience, there was a significant difference in price satisfaction by group. The results of these studies are expected to provide practical implications for establishing a customized multi-channel strategy. This study provides a desirable model for research on smartphone purchase channels.

• Archives of design research
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• v.20 no.3 s.71
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• pp.5-14
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of personal characteristics and body cathexis of middle-aged women on their clothing image preferences. Data was collected using questionnaire from 35 to 59 of age living in Daegu. The questions for personal characteristics included ascendancy, responsibility, emotional stability, sociability and self-confidence. Clothing images included the noble, bold, practical and female. Data were analyzed using SAS, SPSS programs for frequency, percentage, average, correlation, ANOVA, Duncan's multiple range test. The results of this study are as follows: 1. The body cathexis of middle-aged women to their own body is not so high and the satisfaction with their body parts were face features, upper limb, lower limb, torso, height, physique, weight orderly. 2. The more satisfied with their body the higher emotional stability and self-confidence. 3. The more satisfied with the face the more preferred noble, bold, female image in doffing. The more satisfied with the torso and physique the more preferred bold, female image in clothing. 4. Middle-aged women with a high ascendancy preferred bold image and, those with a high responsibility preferred a practical image. Those with a high emotional stability preferred noble, practical image. Middle-aged women having a high sociability preferred noble, male image and having a high self-confidence preferred bole, male image.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.4 s.62
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• pp.129-138
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• 2005

Until the early part of the 1990s, interior design has never been thought important by car makers. Repeated attempts have been made to systemize a technical structure, such as layout, driving method, and size, and the car's interior design has been developed by in simple comparison with the exterior design. In the 1990s, however, this trend began to change because consumers began spending more time in their cars, so the motive of the technology development became that of giving comfort and functional satisfaction to the customers. Observing how a person spends inside his or her car and considering the latest trends in car interiors have made a consumer-oriented sense of value i.e., intensifying the personality of the car's interior design and considering the emotional makeup of the consumer factor in the acquisition of a strategic brand identity. These days, car interiors assume a new concept every year due to the constant change in various factors, and the application of a high-tech design, with a sensing function and a navigation system, to achieve driverless running, is being raised as a key trend element technology for the future. Now, at the present when multilateral concept applications of design are attempted under the direct influences from other fields such as product design, fashion and furniture, I would like to lay stress on investigating and analysing the changes in car interior design varying with the background of the times and formative characteristics from the object point of view. On this study, I would like to compare the background of the times and flow of car interior design with priority given to crash pad and would like to attempt to present the direction of the future car interior design together with diversifying major technical factors.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-47
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• 2013

We know that humans are able to live comfortably when there is a balance between the living environment that surrounds us and us. Clothing, one of the necessities of life, serves a dual purpose of functioning as protection for the body as well as providing visual satisfaction, and so is the most effective bonding mechanism. A different type of comfort that has been provided through industrialization and advancements in technology has resulted in pollution problems in the environment, and it has reached a point of seriously thinking about its effects. The biggest problems in environmental pollution are air pollution and waste disposal, and something that cannot be ignored is that environmental hormones and harmful heavy metals have been discovered in the synthetic dyes used in the clothing product, and not only are they harmful to the body, but they also have adverse effects on skin allergies such as atopic dermatitis. Its effects on clothing, especially underwear and baby products, can become a serious issue. The use of natural vegetable dye can be considered the basis for the traditional Korean dyeing process, however not all natural dyeing process can be thought of as traditional Korean dyeing. This is because natural dyeing used to be the most common method of dyeing before synthetic dyes came along and became the dye of choice for most clothing. Natural dyes are beneficial to the body, and the nature colors, achieved from the natural materials, relieve eye strains as well as have a healing effect for people who are suffering from psychological instability such as stress. However, the use of mordant in order to increase the fastness and get better color effects can lead to even more damage to the environment, and it cannot be a dyeing method that is good for the body. Traditional natural dyeing is different from regular natural dyeing because it uses colors that the Korean people can identify with and applies specific methods in order to achieve those colors. Even though experimental study with dyestuff and practical use of the dyeing methods for traditional Korean dyeing has been started(Soh, H., 1983) and has been ongoing, it is still not easy for regular people to use the method on their own. At the present time, natural dye materials are getting made and sold more than ever, but there is a lot of confusion among consumers regarding the difference between traditional Korean dyeing and natural dyeing, as companies are using the two terms interchangeably to market their natural dye products. So getting a better understanding of the characteristics of traditional Korean dyeing and traditional colors should be considered first priority at this time. The purpose of this thesis is to study the traditional Korean view of color, which developed the culture of traditional dyeing in Korea, and the characteristics of traditional Korean dyeing, a method that pursued achieving Korea's color through natural dyeing.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.157-180
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• 2010

Rapid development of information technology has generated a new industry and market. In particular, network technology such as the Internet and other computer networks made transaction activities switched from traditional offline commerce to e-commerce. Among them, digital content is bit-based object which is created and distributed through electronic environment. In particular, many entertainment contents such as the music, the movies, and the computer game softwares are main products. Although digital content commerce has high potential demand, it lacks the consideration about the factor related to maintaining existing customer such as customer loyalty and switching costs. There has been a number of research on customer loyalty and other factors affecting it in the traditional electronic commerce environment, but there is a lack of research which examines the characteristics of digital content. The study about the effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce is necessary because the customers of digital content commerce market are from those of other e-commerce market or traditional offline commerce market. In addition, customer loyalty and switching costs are important factors because they may build up greater customer retention. For that reason, this study focused on examining the relationships among switching costs, antecedents for switching costs, and customer loyalty in online digital music service industry. The study has three major purposes: (1) to find antecedents of switching costs on digital content commerce and examine effect of antecedents for switching costs; (2) to identify effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce and examine moderating effects of alternative attractiveness; (3) to identify the differences of antecedents for switching costs by contents transmission type(streaming service and downloading service). And, the online digital music service industry is selected in this study since there are many users and transactions incurring. To accomplish these purposes, a survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 256 informants. Survey instrument was developed based on previous research and pre-established survey items. Total of 206 surveys are collected and used in the data analysis. Among the respondents, 56.8% is male and 43.2% is female. Also, 86 responses were streaming service user group and 120 responses were download service user group. These data was analyzed using regression analysis. Major findings of empirical analysis can be summarized as follows. First, switching costs have positive effect on customer loyalty in digital content commerce environment. Second, the influence of switching costs on customer loyalty increases under conditions of high alternative attractiveness. Third, DRM convenience and breadth of use have positive effect on switching costs. The findings imply that the digital content provider should pay more attention to switching costs in addition to customer satisfaction in order to attract customers. Also, increasing the convenience of DRM use by securing the convenience of user interface and expanding the support device and increasing the service use scope by providing diverse value-added service helps to create a switching barrier. The result of the study can become a practical use in marketing strategy for maintaining existing customer. In particular, switching barrier is very important under conditions of high competition in the online music service market. This study can be used as a basis for further studies about customer retention in digital content commerce.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.145-175
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• 2011

The purpose of this research investigates the determinant factors of the joint technology development project performance between SMEs and universities. Reviewing existing papers we could categorize independent variables into three groups of partner characteristics, process management variables and relationship characteristics between partners. Three measures of satisfaction with the cooperation result, the intention of continuing relationship and the utilization of developed technology and product were used as dependent variable considering that we studied the joint projects of SMEs' involvement, short period and small scale. The data was collected by questionnaire survey mailed to the 1082 SMEs and university professors which executed the joint projects sponsored by Small Business Administration in 2009. We received 200 responses from SMEs, and 305 cases from professors among which 55 responses of each partner were on the same project. We analyzed the data sets individually, data of SMEs and that of universities with multiple regression analysis technique and also analyzed the common responses of 55 projects. Analysis results of the data from SMEs indicated that partners' expertise, facilities and equipment, communications, strategic importance, and trust were significant variables for the project performance. Analysis results of the data from universities showed that previous links, definition of objectives, strategic importance, trust and commitment were significant variables. Analysis results of combined data of 55 projects from SMEs and universities indicated that facilities and equipment, project management proficiency and commitment were significant variables.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.27-44
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• 2009

This research classified the customer service factor of on-line shopping mall into tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, and empathy and analyzed the effect that the factors affect to consumer's purchase and re-purchase. If we present suggestions on the basis of these results of study, we would provide next two points: First, purchasers have utilized online shopping mall who pursued free from hard sell that being done in off-line and convenience of purchase affected more by reliability and responsiveness such as the fame of shopping mall that visit, reliability of security, and quick product search than the Customer of After-purchase Feedback influence for online purchasers decision factor out of consumer's purchase and re-purchase by on-line shopping mall customer service factor. Second, This study analyzed that online re-purchaser recognized the Customer of After-purchase Feedback factor high and built their loyalty through friendly emotion of on-line shopping mall and satisfaction of shopping mall service, and recommendation. In addition, they behave themselves as an affirmative messenger that is role of the Customer of After-purchase Feedback that make active opinion presentation and participation through community by important adjustment impact that empathy factor of on-line shopping mall customer service.