• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.208-218
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• 2010

Internet has grown fast and become one of the most important retail channels now. Various types of Internet retailers, hereafter etailers, have been introduced so far and as one type of Internet shopping mall, 'surrogate Internet shopping mall' has been prosperous and attracting consumers in the domestic market. Surrogate Internet shopping mall is a unique type of etailer that globally purchases well-known brand goods that are not imported in the market, completes delivery in the favor of individual buyers, and collects fees for these specific services. The consumers, who are usually interested in purchasing high-end and unique but not eligible brands, have difficulties to purchase these items overseas directly from the retailers or brands in other countries due to worries of payment failure and no address available for their usually domestic only delivery. In Korea, both numbers of surrogate Internet shopping malls and the magnitude of sales have been growing rapidly up to more than 430 active malls and 500 billion Korean won in 2008 since the population of consumers who want this agent shopping service is also expending. This etail business concept is originated from 'surrogate-mediated purchase' and this type of shopping agent has existed in many different forms and also in wide ranges of context level for quite a long time. As marketers face their individual buyers' representatives instead of a direct contact with them in many occasions, the impact of surrogate shoppers on consumer's decision making has been enormously important and many scholars have explored various range of agent's impact on consumer's purchase decisions in marketing and psychology field. However, not much rigorous research in the Internet commerce has been conveyed yet. Moreover, since as one of the shopping agent surrogate Internet shopping malls specifically connect overseas brands or retailers to domestic consumers, one specific character of the mall's, image of surrogate buying country, where surrogate purchases are conducted in, may play an important role to form consumers' attitude and purchase intention toward products. Furthermore it also possibly affects various dimensions of perceived risk in consumer's information processing. However, though tremendous researches have been carried exploring the effects of diverse dimensions of country of origin, related studies in Internet context has been rarely executed. There have been some studies that prove the positive impact of country of origin on consumer's evaluations as one of information clues in product manufacture descriptions, yet studies detecting the relationship between country image of surrogate buying origin and product evaluations rarely undertaken regarding this specific mall type. Thus, the authors have found it well-worth investigating in this specific retail channel and explored systematic relationships among focal constructs and elaborated their different paths. The authors have proven that country image of surrogate buying origin in the mall, where surrogate malls purchase products in and brings them from for buyers, not only has a positive effect on consumers' product evaluations including attitude and purchase intention but also has a negative effect on all three dimensions of perceived risk: product-related risk, shipping-related risk, and post-purchase risk. Specifically among all the perceived risk, product-related risk which is arisen from high uncertainty of product performance is most affected (${\beta}$= -.30) by negative country image of surrogate buying origin, and also shipping-related risk (${\beta}$= -.18) and post-purchase risk (${\beta}$= -.15) get influenced in order. Its direct effects on product attitude (${\beta}$= .10) and purchase intention (${\beta}$= .14) are also secured. Each of perceived risk dimension is proven to have a negative effect on purchase intention through product attitude as a mediator (${\beta}$= -.57: product-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.24: shipping-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.44: post-purchase risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude) as well. From the additional analysis, the paths of consumers' information processing are shown to be different based on their levels of product knowledge. While novice consumers with low level of knowledge consider only perceived risk important, expert consumers with high level of knowledge take both the country image, where surrogate services are conducted in, and perceived risk seriously to build their attitudes and formulate decisions toward products more delicately and systematically, which is in line with previous studies. This study suggests several pieces of academic and practical advice. Precisely, country image of surrogate buying origin does affect on consumer's risk perceptions and behavioral consequences. Therefore a careful selection of surrogate buying origin is recommended. Furthermore, reducing consumers' risk level is required to blossom this new type of retail business whether its consumer are novices or experts. Additionally, since consumer take different paths of elaborating information based on their knowledge levels, sophisticated marketing approaches to each group of consumers are required. For novice buyers strong devices for risk mitigation are needed to induce them to form better attitudes and for experts selections of better and advanced countries as surrogate buying origins are advised while endorsement strategy for the site might work as a reliable information clue to all consumers to mitigate the barriers to purchase goods online. The authors have also explained that the study suffers from some limitations, including generalizability. In future studies, tests of and comparisons among different types of etailers with relevant constructs are recommended to broaden the findings.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.165-177
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the Internet channel introduction on the channel composed of a monopoly manufacturer and an independent physical retailer. This study also examines what would be the best strategy for the Independent physical retailer to respond to the new internet channel entry. The game theoretic model consists of a monopolist manufacturer selling its product through a channel system including one independent physical store before the entry of an internet store. The audition of the internet store to this channel system results in a mixed channel comprised of two different types of channels. The new internet store is launched by the manufacturer. The results show that an Internet channel entry has the following impacts on the existing channel members. First, the manufacturer's internet channel introduction mitigates the double marginalization problem of the traditional channel. Second, the manufacturer could enhance Its channel power by introducing its own internet channel while it diminishes that of the incumbent independent physical retailer. Third, manufacturer's adding a new internet store leads to a higher demand. Finally, with its own internet direct channel, the manufacturer has an opportunity to practice price discrimination. The manufacture leaves only those with a strong preference for the physical store to be served by the Independent physical store. The results suggest that the independent physical store's best strategy to the entry of the manufacturer's Internet channel is to focus on the consumers who are highly loyal to the physical store while maintaining a high retail price.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.709-722
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• 2009

At the end of April, 2009, the number of mobile phone users reached about 46 million in Korea. Consequently, the mobile shopping market is growing rapidly, and fashion products are one of the most concerned categories in mobile shopping market. In the meantime, the growth rates of domestic fashion industry and fashion retail market are forecasted very slow. In this situation, however, the growth rate of on-line shopping market including internet shopping, TV home shopping, and mobile shopping is estimated more than 12% per year until 2010. Particularly, mobile shopping area is forecasted the most rapid growing field. The objective of this study were to confirm the factors which had influences on mobile fashion shopping and to examine the effects of these factors affect the attitude toward mobile fashion shopping and the using intention of mobile fashion shopping. With the results, marketing strategies for mobile fashion shopping companies would be proposed. Date were gathered from 125 respondents of 20's and 30's females and were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. The key points of the results are; 1) The 5 factors of instant access, individualization, amusement, usefulness and ease of use which extracted from preceding researches were confirmed as the characteristics of mobile fashion shopping, 2) among these factors, amusement and usefulness had positive influences on the attitude toward mobile fashion shopping, 3) reliability on mobile fashion shopping didn't had an influence on the attitude toward mobile fashion shopping significantly, but had a positive influence on the using intention of mobile fashion shopping directly, and 4) the attitude toward mobile fashion shopping affects using intention of mobile fashion shopping positively. With these results, mobile fashion shopping companies can establish marketing strategies from various angles.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.5-14
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• 2011

One of the new roles of modern retail stores is to supply consumers with a memorable experience. In Korea, enhancing a store's environment so that customers remember a unique shopping experience is recognized as a sound strategy for strengthening the store's competitiveness. Motivated by this incentive, awareness of the experience-store concept is starting to increase in various categories of the retail industry. However, many experience stores, except in a few cases, have yet to derive a significant profit, explaining why Korean consumers are somewhat unfamiliar with, yet fascinated by, the experience stores that now exist in the country. Consumer satisfaction directly, and indirectly, affects a company's future profit and potential financial gain; customer satisfaction also affects loyalty. Therefore, knowing the significant factors that increase satisfaction and loyalty is essential for any company, in any field, to be able to effectively differentiate itself from the competition. Intrigued by increased competition opportunities, most Korean companies have adopted experience-store marketing strategies. When establishing the most effective processes for increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage of a new concept, companies should consider certain factors that influence consumers' ability to accept new concepts and ideas. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a theory that models how people accept new concepts. TAM proposes the following two factors that influence a person's decisions about how, and when, he or she will use a new product: "perceived usefulness" and "perceived ease of use." Much of the existing research has suggested that a person's character also affects the process for accepting new ideas. Such personal character attributes as individual preferences, self-confidence, and a person's values, traits, and/or skills affect the process for willingly consenting to try something new. It will be meaningful to establish how the TAM theory's components, as well as personal character, affect individuals accepting the experience-store concept. To that end, as it pertains to an experience store, the first goal of the study is to examine the influence of innovative factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) on satisfaction and loyalty. The second objective is to define the moderate effect of consumers' personal characteristics on the model. The proposed model was tested on 149 respondents who were engaged in leisure sports activities and bought sports outdoor garments and equipment. According to the study's findings, the satisfaction and loyalty of an experience store can be explained by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, with the study's results demonstrating the stronger of the two factors being "perceived ease of use." The study failed to explain the effects of a person's character on the model. In conclusion, when the companies that operate the experience stores execute their marketing and promotion strategies, they should stress the stores' "ease of use" product components. Additionally, it can be extrapolated from the study data that since the experience-store idea is still relatively unfamiliar to Korean consumers, most customers are not yet able to evaluate, nor take a position regarding, their respective attitudes toward experience stores.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.37-46
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• 2011

Since the Korean retail industry was made accessible to the big conglomerates and foreign retail companies, local traditional markets have faced serious problems. To sustain the local traditional markets' survival, the Korean government established various remedial policies for addressing, and many scholars published articles to suggest how to find solutions to, the problem. Unfortunately, the results have not been satisfactory. The purpose of this study is to find another way to help the Korean traditional retail market, from the view point of the Green Growth Policy, an initiative designed to address environmentally balanced economic growth in Korea. In order to survive and to maintain sustainable growth, it is incumbent upon retailers in the traditional market to understand the concept of the Green Growth Policy. A survey was conducted as a means of testing the degree of awareness of the Green Growth Policy, as well as determining the relationship between the degree of awareness and the degree of organizational commitment by the retailers in the local traditional markets. Interestingly, we were able to detect some of the features (e.g., they were distinguished by the elderly and the young, as well as low level of education and high level of education) in the traditional market retailers' demographic characteristics. We utilized the analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical method to simultaneously compare the differences in retailers' demographic characteristics; the results were as follows: Overall, the results showed that the awareness of the Green Growth Policy, the degree of trust in the government's policy, levels of self-efficacy, and levels of organizational commitment were higher with the older traditional market retailers than the younger traditional market retailers. Specifically, the degree of trust in government policies (F=9.964,p < .05), levels of self-efficacy (F=5.532,p < .05), and levels of organizational commitment (F=5.697,p < .05) were statistically significant. Moreover, in the portion of the study that addressed the difference between education levels, all the variables were averaged in the higher education category of the traditional market retailers. Specifically, awareness levels of the Green Growth Policy (F=8.564,p < .005) and levels of self-efficacy (F=6.754,p < .005) were statistically significant. These results revealed that the traditional market retailers' demographic characteristics should be considered important factors in order to realize their policy. The results of the study showed the following: 1) The degree of awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy was statistically significant as it related to traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. 2) The degree of trust of the government's policy was significantly moderated between the awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy and the traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. This result demonstrates that the traditional market retailers' awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy will show more organizational commitment with higher levels of trust of the government's policy. 3) It also revealed that traditional market retailers' self-efficacy was fully mediated between the awareness of the Green Growth Policy of the government and traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. The results suggest that the government should show an interest in showing traditional market retailers how to enhance their traditional markets. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.5-24
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• 2009

In the retail management, store location has an important influence like business skills. The reason for failure to selecting location is that the market analysis model is not popular in business field. It gets worse in supermarket industry. Currently, store developers are relying on simple statistics and the sixth sense as market analysis techniques. lt proves that the market analysis model is not distributed well in the field. This market analysis model can apply to medium and small business market using an existing market analysis model, broad market model. And its study outcome can be theorized as a result. Converse's new retail model can be used as to analyze junction market. Pareto_Huff model can also be used to compute shopping probability. To do so, this study can be divided into walking distance market and driving distance market as a model market. Also it examines industry type such as SM and SSM. By taking consumer survey, condition of consumers to select store will be counted in shopping probability so that it improves the objectivity and reliability. Through this process, derived study outcome can be a new estimated revenue model for practical application of selecting store location in large and medium-sized supermarket.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.93-105
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• 2019

Purpose - First, empirical research will reveal how personal creativity affects the knowledge sharing and innovation behaviors of organizational members. Second, self-management competency will be verified to explain the causal relationship between independent and dependent variables as a mediating variable and to reduce the time interval. Research design, data, and methodology - There are two major research models. First, personal creativity (professionalism, emotional intelligence, internal motivation) has a positive impact on knowledge sharing (creation of knowledge, organization of knowledge, use of knowledge) and innovation behavior (deriving ideas, implementing ideas, promoting ideas). Second, self-management competency (intellectual capacity, emotional capacity, personality capacity) plays a mediating role. In addition to descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, Cronbach's α was calculated for 259 workers in the retail industry. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using the AMOS 24.0 program, and the influence on the measurement model was analyzed to verify the structural equation model. Results - First, personal creativity had a positive effect on knowledge sharing and innovation behavior. In other words, it was confirmed that the decision-making process accompanied by individual creativity can create an atmosphere of knowledge sharing and continue to innovate. Second, personal creativity had a positive effect on self-management competency, and self-management competency had a positive effect on knowledge sharing and innovation behavior. Third, self-management competency was found to partially mediate the influence of personal creativity on knowledge sharing and innovation behavior. Conclusions - First, it is important for managers to recognize the value of creative talents who can be a fundamental source of organizational success and competitive advantage, and to attract talented people. Second, managers should be able to develop decision-making processes to develop potential creativity and encourage creative ideas, opinions, or solutions when organizing the work environment of their members. Third, managers should promote the sharing and integration of new knowledge that underlies the creative views and attitudes of teams and organizational members. Unlike previous studies, which emphasize the role of the work environment in which creative behaviors are promoted, this study shows that creativity of individual members, itself, is an important determinant of knowledge sharing and innovation behavior.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.12-25
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• 2009

The aim of this study is to analyze the periodical and spatial characteristics of urban crime and to find out the factors that affect the crime occurrence. For these, crime data of Masan City was examined and crime occurrence pattern is ploted on a map using crime density and criminal hotspot analysis. The spatial relationship of crime occurrence and factors affecting crime were also investigated using ESDA (Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis) and SAR (Spatial Auto-Regression) model. As a result, it was found that crimes had strong tendency of happening during a certain period of time and with spatial contiguity. Spatial contiguity of crimes was made clear through the spatial autocorrelation analysis on 5 major crimes. Especially, robbery revealed the highest spatial autocorrelation. However as a autocorrelation model, Spatial Error Model(SEM) had statistically the highest goodness of fit. Moreover, the model proved that old age population ratio, property tax, wholesale-retail shop number, and retail & wholesale number were statistically significant that affect crime occurrence of 5 most major crimes and theft crime. However population density affected negatively on assault crime. Lastly, the findings of this study are expected to provide meaningful ideas to make our cities safer with U-City strategies and services.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.31-42
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• 2012

After the rapidly changing business management environment and financial crisis, high prices and domestic recession in Korea posed threats to the business survival of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This paper looks at the potential of micro business owners for sustainable development: those who have a spirit of entrepreneurship and the potential to be a hidden champion. Our study of micro business values uses structure equation modeling by LISREL. We have done so in order to understand the foundation of management innovation and success model of micro enterprise by increasing the entrepreneurship and management performance relationship analysis. A micro-enterprise is a type of small business, found only in Korea, often registered as having ten or fewer employees. We examine the successful type of hidden champions and the influence of entrepreneurship on start-ups in business. As compared to past research on the SME entrepreneurship, this study segments small businesses even further. Small business entrepreneurship was classified into three forms that are most appropriate for the Korean situation today: innovation, risk-taking, and pro-activeness. This research is meaningful as it is Korea's first empirical analysis on four business types: wholesale and retail sales, food and lodging business, service business, and manufacturing business. Thus far, research on small business entrepreneurship was carried out using small-scale investigative analysis. However, this research attempted to develop a model that can explain a cause-effect relation of the motivational level when it comes to the difference of entrepreneurship by each business type and small business start-up success factors. Various conceptual and operational definitions could be developed in a diverse and precise manner. Independent variables that are related to the success of small businesses can be developed additionally to examine the success factors related to the systematization in detailed manner. The research showed that the innovation, risk-taking and pro-activeness of the manifested difference in the degree of perception depending on the type of small businesses. Among the four business types, the ones that manifested the highest successful start-up rates were food, service, wholesale and retail sales and manufacturing. Results after conducting the regression analysis are shown on, which proves that the small business entrepreneurship exerts direct effect on the financial management performance of small businesses. In other words, small business entrepreneurship exerts a positive effect on the small business financial success and management performance. The R² value is 0.61. It is possible to know that the perception of systematization and variables on attitude explains the 61% of the success for small self-employed businesses management performance. We define start-up key factors that are helpful to achieve internal growth of firms by finding business survival strategies. The results also focus on Korean government policy for micro enterprise and small business support.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.45-53
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of the study was to investigate operation system of current convenience store and competing retail store and to find out development of unattended convenience store. Operators can save labor cost and solve labor seeking when opening shop under suitable environment and commerce area, and assure of employee's safety. Customers are allowed to select commodity comfortably without disclosure of face and to shorten standby time at simple store opening, buying and paying and to produce convenient living environment by financing, delivery and goods control. This study examined effect and problems of operation of existing and unattended convenience store from point of view of visual merchandising to find out model of unattended convenience store and to strengthen competitiveness of convenience store business. Research design, data, and methodology - Research procedure of accomplishment of goal of the study was: The study investigated state of distribution business, and role and definition of VMD. First, VMD played an important role of promotion and competitiveness of unattended convenience stores. Second, the author investigated research and cases of unattended convenience stores 14 months, that is to say, from August 15, 2017 to October 15, 2018. Third, the author investigated on-the-spot three of common convenience stores, three of unattended convenience stores and three of retailers one month, that is to say, June 1, 2018 to July 1, 2018. The subject was convenience stores and retailers selling similar type of products at Seoul and metropolitan area. Results - Layout, selling place, brand identity, goods assortment, authentication system, product information cognition and control, buying and payment system, security system, salesmen, promotion and other services should be improved from point of view of merchandising. Structure, furniture, lighting, voice, façade, VP, PP, IP and POP should be developed. Conclusions - Unattended convenience stores saved operating cost and lessened labor and gave visitors convenience and comfortable shopping and made use of resources effectively. Further studies with quantitative analysis shall find out strategic conditions for promotion of unattended convenience stores.