• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.55-68
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• 2002

Internet group buying systems have been widely used recently. In those systems, because the reserve price is provided by the buyer, the success rate can be decreased if the reserve price is set too low compared with the normal price. Otherwise, an unsuitable successful bid can be made if the reserve price is set too high based on inaccurate information. Likewise, the seller's providing too high a bid price can deteriorate his/her own successful bid rate, whereas a successful bid with too low a price may make no profit in the sale. Therefore, pricing agents that recommend adequate prices based on the past buying and selling history data can be helpful. In this paper, we propose two kinds of agents. One suggests reserve prices to buyers based on the past buying history database of the system. The other recommends bid prices to a seller based on the past bidding history data of the company using the cost accounting theory. Through performance experiments, we show that the successful bid rate can increase by preventing buyers from making unreasonable reserve prices. Also, we show that, for the seller, the rate of successful bids with appropriate profits can increase. Using the pricing agents, we design and implement an XML-based group buying system.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.225-237
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• 2009

This study started with the cognition of problem that design activities closely related to industries could cause damages to the environment. The purpose of this study was to suggest a new concept of fashion design for environment using pre-consumer textile wastes which are produced in cutting process and used to be disposed in landfill sites. To achieve the purpose of this study, the literatures about fashion design for environment were reviewed, and design process including design development, producing, and presentation was performed. As a result, three fashion designs for environment using textile wastes were suggested. The results of this study were followings. Using pre-consumer textile wastes, this study suggested realistic way of fashion design for environment which is not just showing environment image, but providing practical use as well as preventing the waste of resources. Second, through constructing textile wastes, both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional designs were possible, and unexpected effects created new value of beauty. Third, because the amount and type of pre-consumer textile wastes are unlimited, this fashion design for environment could be considered as continuous profit model.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.85-106
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• 2003

Recently, firms which have offered a "free Internet service" to their customers, are considering a "charged Internet service" for increasing a company's profit. But they have doubts about the results, because consumers may fly away from their web-site easily and may discontinue using their services. The purpose of this study is to investigate which factors make consumers use the charged Internet services. To do this, the factors, which are ease of using the service, usefulness of the service, the reputation of the service provider, service cost, and the intention to use the service as a mediator, are analyzed. To achieve this research objective, a structural equation model was constructed and a field study method was used. The findings are summarized as follows: First, ease of using the service, usefulness of the service, and service cost have significant impacts on the charged Internet service usage through the intention to use. Especially, although service cost influences on the service usage largely, the usefulness of the service has a bigger impact on the charged Internet service usage than service cost. Second, the reputation of the service provider does not have any impact on the service usage. Third, consumers using only the free Internet service tend to hesitate about using the "charged Internet service" because they doubt its ease of use and usefulness in spite of the service cost.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.362-373
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• 2012

The ship recycling industry is growing rapidly. It is estimated that the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) decision to phase-out single hull tankers by 2015 will result in hundreds of ships requiring disposal. At present, the ship recycling industry is predominantly based in South Asia. Due to the bad practice of current scrapping procedure, the paper will highlight the harm occurring to health, safety and environment. The efforts of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) which led to the signing of the Hong Kong International Convention are also reviewed. The criteria and standards required to reduce the risk and damage to the environment are discussed and a proposed plan for the safe scrapping of ships is then presented. A technological and economic study for the ship recycling in Egypt is carried out as a case study. This includes the ship recycling facility size and layout. The equipment and staff required to operate the facility are also evaluated. A cost analysis is then carried out. This includes site development, human resources, machineries and equipment. A fuzzy logic approach is used to assess the benefits of the ship breaking yard. The use of the fuzzy logic approach is found suitable to make decisions for the ship breaking industry. Based on given constraints, the proposed model has proved capable of assessing the profit and the internal rate of return.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.95-102
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to test both the alignment theory and entertainment theory on family firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. To achieve these goals, we collected secondary data from 164 non-financial family firms in various sectors during 2014-18. These family firms are classified into two categories: family control firms and family owned firms. We take the audit fee and the audit quality as dependent variables while family control firms, family-owned firms, and family CEOs as independent variables. In addition, the study uses leverage, profit and export as control variables. To test the effect of the explanatory variables on the output variables, we use two econometric models, Ordinary Least Square and the Probit regression model. In addition, Huber Sandwich test is used to check the non-normality and heteroscedasticity of panel data. Contrary to the alignment effect, the study supports the entrenchment effect and advocates that family-controlled firms as well as family-owned firms are not conscientious regarding the selection of external auditors during their contracts with audit firms. They are less likely to pay high audit fees for good quality audit in Pakistan. Furthermore, the study shows a statistically significant and positive relationship between audit quality and audit fees.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.11
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• pp.205-218
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• 2020

This study aims to analyze the influence of financial inclusion on micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises' (MSMEs) performance and examine the mediation role of financial intermediation and access to capital. The object of this study is MSMEs in Malang, Indonesia. The sample consists of 100 MSME actors in Malang City, which is determined using Roscoes theory. The data is collected using Simple Random Sampling method, by distributing questionnaire measured with Likert scales. The hypotheses proposed in this study are examined using Partial Least Square (PLS) model. The results of this study show that financial inclusion influences MSMEs' performance both directly and indirectly through mediation from financial intermediation and access to capital. The direct influence means that the efforts to increase access to financial services, especially access to credit financing for MSMEs, will be able to increase market share, number of workers, sales, as well as profit of the MSMEs. Increased financial inclusion has a major impact on improving MSMEs' performance through financial intermediation compared to access to capital. This means that the increase of financial access for MSMEs followed by an increase in financial intermediation in the form of a financial service approach to MSMEs will improve MSMEs' performance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.11
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• pp.669-677
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• 2020

The study aims to compare the effects of employing investment deposits (joint and specified investment deposits) in Islamic banks, and investment deposits (term deposits and deposits with notification) at conventional banks, on shareholders' profitability, represented by the earnings per share (EPS), in light of operational profits as a controlling variable. Data related to the study variables was collected from the annual financial reports published by the study sample banks, during the period (2009-2018). The study relies on multiple regression to test the hypotheses of the study. The high adjusted R² to explain the change in EPS for Islamic banks model as compared to conventional banks, is a result of the high difference between investment deposits (specified and joint) at Jordanian Islamic banks and investment deposits (term deposits and deposits with notification) at Jordanian conventional banks. The study found that it is important for the managements of Islamic banks to adopt a uniform method to combine speculative funds, in order to develop and improve shareholders' profitability. The study recommended Islamic banks to follow practical, methodological and transparent approaches to calculate the rates of Murabaha profit margins between shareholders and depositors, while also taking into consideration some of the issues which could be harmful for the competition between Islamic and conventional banks.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.45
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• pp.220-249
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• 2001

In order to understand the provision of social welfare in Korea, this study puts forward a method to measure and tracks the welfare mix, and applies the method to Korea. This is the goal of this study, which is in three parts. First, I critically review the concept of welfare pluralism and develop the welfare mix model, Second, I present a methodology and technique for measuring and systematically comparing the components of the welfare mix. Third, I examine the roles of five welfare providers including state, market, non-profit organization, enterprise and family in the welfare mix of Korea. This study argues that the welfare mix in Korea has some characteristics of 'residual state, expanded market, negligible voluntary sector, and protective family'. The state in Korea has played a relatively little role in the provision of social welfare, enforcing most Koreans being with a meagre social protection. Thus, most of the 'left' needs for social welfare has to be met in the private sector composed of market and enterprises. In addition, in a situation that self/mutual help through family or community is encouraged, the family has played an important role in the welfare mix. But the role of voluntary sector in the welfare mix has remained negligible. Consequently, the characteristics of the welfare mix in Korea can be best described by a welfare society rather than a welfare state.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.264-273
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• 2002

This paper focuses on disassembly sequencing, which is the problem of determining the optimum disassembly level and the corresponding disassembly sequence for a product at its end-of-life with the objective of maximizing the overall profit. In particular, sequence-dependent operation times, which frequently occur in practice due to tool-changeover, part reorientation, etc, are considered in the parallel disassembly environment. To represent the problem, a modified directed graph of assembly states is suggested as an extension of the existing extended process graph. Based on the directed graph, the problem is transformed into the shortest path problem and formulated as a linear programming model that can be solved straightforwardly with standard techniques. A case study on a photocopier was done and the results are reported.

• IE interfaces
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.368-375
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• 2009

This paper considers a two-stage supply system consisting of two make-to-stock facilities. The facility in the first stage produces a single type of component in anticipation of future demands from the market and the end item production while the facility in the second stage produces the end item in anticipation of future demands from the OEM customers. The facility in the first stage has the option of to accept or reject each incoming demand from the market. In this paper, we address the problem of how to control the exogenous component demand and how to manage the production of the end item and the component so as to maximize the system's profit subject to the system costs. In this paper, we present a heuristic policy that is the base-stock production policy combined with a linear switching curve for component demand control. Numerical study is implemented under different operating conditions of the system and it shows that the performance of the heuristic is very promising compared to that of the optimal policy for the Markov model.