• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.155-166
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of self-efficacy of SMEs' organization members on job engagement and job performance, and to analyze the difference between gender and marital status by applying SEM-ANN analysis. To accomplish the study purpose, 285 valid samples were collected from 400 SMEs' organization members and analyzed. In this study, self - efficacy consisted of three sub-dimensions: self-confidence, self-regulation efficacy, and task difficulty preference. As a result of the analysis, self - efficacy such as self-confidence, self-regulation efficacy, and task difficulty preference had a positive direct effect on job engagement. In addition, self-efficacy and self-control efficacy have a positive effect on job performance, but the preference of task difficulty has no significant effect. In addition, job engagement has a positive(+) effect on job performance, and has a mediating role in the relationship between self-efficacy and job performance. Also, married males preferred self-regulation efficacy, while females preferred self-regulation and self-control efficacy regardless of marital status. The purpose of this study is to present the framework of self-efficacy-job engagement-job performance of SMEs by measuring the self-efficacy related researches mainly in education and service industries, and is meaningful that companies can help to find the basis of management of organization members by gender and marital status of organization members. In addition, the SEM-ANN analysis process of this study is different in that it explains the nonlinear (nonobservative) relationship that can analyze the influence or the combination of the reference variables in the linear (compensatory) relation using the SEM.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.765-780
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to synthesize the theoretical perspectives, research methods, and research results of teachers' professional vision by reviewing and analyzing previous research papers and to suggest implications for science teacher education and research. Three databases were used to search peer reviewed journal articles published between 1997-2017, which include 'teachers' and 'professional vision' explicitly in abstracts and empirical studies only. 21 articles in total were analyzed and review results are as follows. First, researchers regarded professional vision as a new concept of teacher professionalism. Previous research viewed professional vision as integrated structure of teachers' knowledge or ability activated at specific moment. Second, the analytical framework of professional vision included two aspects; 'selective attention' and 'reasoning'. Several aspects of lessons or the desirable teaching and learning factors are suggested as the subcategories of selective attention. Hierarchical levels or independent reasoning ability factors are suggested as the subcategories of reasoning process. Third, research on teachers' professional vision focused more on middle school teachers than elementary teachers and on various subject areas. Most studies used video clips and more cases of using videos of non-participants were found. In case of measurement of professional vision, most quantitative scoring methods were whether the responses of experts and teachers on video clips were consistent. Last, most studies examined or assessed teachers' professional vision. It is reported that in-service teachers' professional vision was evaluated higher than novice teachers' and using video clips were effective to examine and improve teachers' professional vision.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.853-860
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to suggest an improvement plan for the calculation method of the engineer standard wage rate (ESWR) and to compute a reasonable ESWR. To this end, an adequacy review of theESWR calculation criteria was conducted along with an extensive engineering industry survey. The survey results were analyzed using an effective response sample of 748 companies out of 1,000 survey samples extracted by stratifying the 5,879 survey population. The main results were as follows. ①When calculating the engineering service fee, the prime contractor's engineer wage is suitable for the ESWR. The ESWR can be estimated by the formula 'average wage÷[1-proportion of subcontract orders×(1-subcontract rate)].' ② The field survey showed that the number of monthly working days was 20.35-20.54 days at 99 % confidence interval, which was significantly different from the current standard (22 days). In addition, as a result of a legal review of the ESWR criteria, it was found that the number of working days should be calculated in accordance with the Labor Standards Act after 2022. ③ Applying government guidelines, the time difference between the wage survey and the ESWR application can be corrected by the past ESWR increase rate for a specific period. ④ Using modeling based on the analysis above, the current ESWR was 13.5-14.5 % lower than the appropriate level. A lower ESWR was driven by the non-reflection of subcontract structure (4.1 %), overestimation of monthly work days (6.8-7.8 %), and application of past wage (2.6 %). The proposed model is expected to be widely used in policy making, as it can provide a useful framework for calculating the standard wage rate in similar industries as well as calculating appropriate engineering fees.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2022

One of the characteristics of South Korea's economic structure is that it is highly dependent on exports. Thus, many businesses are closely related to the global economy and diplomatic situation. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) specialized in exporting are struggling due to the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a model to forecast exports for next year to support SMEs' export strategy and decision making. Also, this study proposed a strategy to recommend promising export countries of each item based on the forecasting model. We analyzed important variables used in previous studies such as country-specific, item-specific, and macro-economic variables and collected those variables to train our prediction model. Next, through the exploratory data analysis(EDA) it was found that exports, which is a target variable, have a highly skewed distribution. To deal with this issue and improve predictive performance, we suggest a separated learning method. In a separated learning method, the whole dataset is divided into homogeneous subgroups and a prediction algorithm is applied to each group. Thus, characteristics of each group can be more precisely trained using different input variables and algorithms. In this study, we divided the dataset into five subgroups based on the exports to decrease skewness of the target variable. After the separation, we found that each group has different characteristics in countries and goods. For example, In Group 1, most of the exporting countries are developing countries and the majority of exporting goods are low value products such as glass and prints. On the other hand, major exporting countries of South Korea such as China, USA, and Vietnam are included in Group 4 and Group 5 and most exporting goods in these groups are high value products. Then we used LightGBM(LGBM) and Exponential Moving Average(EMA) for prediction. Considering the characteristics of each group, models were built using LGBM for Group 1 to 4 and EMA for Group 5. To evaluate the performance of the model, we compare different model structures and algorithms. As a result, it was found that the separated learning model had best performance compared to other models. After the model was built, we also provided variable importance of each group using SHAP-value to add explainability of our model. Based on the prediction model, we proposed a second-stage recommendation strategy for potential export countries. In the first phase, BCG matrix was used to find Star and Question Mark markets that are expected to grow rapidly. In the second phase, we calculated scores for each country and recommendations were made according to ranking. Using this recommendation framework, potential export countries were selected and information about those countries for each item was presented. There are several implications of this study. First of all, most of the preceding studies have conducted research on the specific situation or country. However, this study use various variables and develops a machine learning model for a wide range of countries and items. Second, as to our knowledge, it is the first attempt to adopt a separated learning method for exports prediction. By separating the dataset into 5 homogeneous subgroups, we could enhance the predictive performance of the model. Also, more detailed explanation of models by group is provided using SHAP values. Lastly, this study has several practical implications. There are some platforms which serve trade information including KOTRA, but most of them are based on past data. Therefore, it is not easy for companies to predict future trends. By utilizing the model and recommendation strategy in this research, trade related services in each platform can be improved so that companies including SMEs can fully utilize the service when making strategies and decisions for exports.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.23-42
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• 2006

This is a study of the digital archives of Culturecontent.com where 'Cultural Archetype Contents' are currently in service. One of the major purposes of our study is to point out problems in the current system and eventually propose improvements to the digital archives. The government launched a four-year project for developing the cultural archetype content sources and establishing its related business with the hope of enhancing the nation's competitiveness. More specifically, the project focuses on the production of source materials of cultural archetype contents in the subjects of Korea's history. tradition, everyday life. arts and general geographical books. In addition, through this project, the government also intends to establish a proper distribution system of digitalized culture contents and to control copyright issues. This paper analyzes the digital archives system that stores the culture content data that have been produced from 2002 to 2005 and evaluates the current system's weaknesses and strengths. The summary of our findings is as follows. First. the digital archives system does not contain a semantic search engine and therefore its full function is 1agged. Second, similar data is not classified into the same categories but into the different ones, thereby confusing and inconveniencing users. Users who want to find source materials could be disappointed by the current distributive system. Our paper suggests a better system of digital archives with text mining technology which consists of five significant intelligent process-keyword searches, summarization, clustering, classification and topic tracking. Our paper endeavors to develop the best technical environment for preserving and using culture contents data. With the new digitalized upgraded settings, users of culture contents data will discover a world of new knowledge. The technology we introduce in this paper will lead to the highest achievable digital intelligence through a new framework.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.71-100
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• 2014

While the role of emotional antecedents of effective selling behavior would be important, the issue has not been fully addressed in the sales literature. To fill this gap, we conceptualize and empirically examine the relationships among salesperson's emotional regulation processes such as emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional labor (EL), effective selling behavior, and sales performance on the basis of educational, occupational, social psychology literature and marketing literature (e.g., Henning-Thurau, Groth, Paul, and Gremler 2006; Kidwell et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2008; Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso 2008). First, salesperson's EI is defined as his or her capability that enables correct perceptions about emotional situations in sales interactions. The EI is expected to work as psychological resources for different types of EL (i.e., deep acting and surface acting) to be performed by salesperson as emotional expression strategies (e.g., Lie et al. 2008). It is, then, expected that the features of EL selected by the salesperson would lead to different levels of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and thereby sales performance (Monaghan 2006). Further, given that salesperson's customer orientation (CO) is found to be an important correlate of ASB (Franke and Park 2006), it is expected that CO would moderate the relationship between EL and ASB (Rozell, Pettijohn, and Parker 2004). Hence, this research attempts to shed additional light on emotionally-driven (EL) as well as cognitively-driven (CO) antecedents of ASB (Frank and Park 2006). The findings of the survey research, done with 336 salespersons in insurance and financial companies, are summarized as follows. First, salespersons with a high level of EI are found to use both deep acting (regulating the emotions themselves) and surface acting (controlling only emotional expressions) in a versatile way, when implementing EL. Second, the more the salesperson performs deep acting, the more he or she shows ASB. It is, then, important for salespersons to use deep acting more frequently in the EL process in order to enhance the quality of interacting with customers through ASB. On the other hand, the salesperson's surface acting did not have a significant relationship with ASB. Moreover, CO was found to moderate the relationship between the salesperson's deep acting and ASB. That is, the context of high CO culture and individual salesperson's deep acting would synergistically make the selling efforts adaptive to customer preferences. Conceptualizing and empirically verifying the antecedent roles of important emotional constructs such as EI and EL in salesperson's effective selling behavior (ASB) and sales performance is a major theoretical contribution in the sales literature. Managerially, this research provides a deeper understanding on the nature of tasks performed by salespersons in service industries and a few guidelines for managing the sales force. First, sales organizations had better consciously assess EI capacity in the selection and nurturing processes of salespersons, given that EI can efficiently drive EL and the resulting effective selling behavior and performance. Further, the concept of EL could provide a framework to understand the salespersons' emotional experiences in depth. Especially, sales organizations may well think over how to develop deep acting capabilities of their sales representatives. In this direction, the training on deep acting strategies would be an essential task for improving effective selling behavior and performance of salespersons. This kind of training had better incorporate the perspectives of customers such that many customers can actually discern whether salespersons are doing either surface acting or deep acting. Finally, based on the synergistic effects of deep acting and CO culture, how to build and sustain CO is always an ever-important task in sales organizations. While the prior sales literature has emphasized the process and structure of highly customer-oriented sales organization, our research not only corroborates the important aspects of customer-oriented sales organization, but also adds the important dimension of competent sales representatives who can resonate with customers by deep acting for sales excellence.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.545-570
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• 2015

Korea is among the ten countries with the largest R&D budget and the highest R&D investment-to-GDP ratio, yet the subject of security and protection of R&D results remains relatively unexplored in the country. Countries have implemented in their legal systems measures to properly protect cutting-edge industrial technologies that would adversely affect national security and economy if leaked to other countries. While Korea has a generally stable legal framework as provided in the Regulation on the National R&D Program Management (the "Regulation") and the Act on Industrial Technology Protection, many difficulties follow in practice when determining details on security management and obligations and setting standards in carrying out national R&D projects. This paper proposes to modify and improve security level classification standards in the Regulation. The Regulation provides a dual security level decision-making system for R&D projects: the security level can be determined either by researcher or by the central agency in charge of the project. Unification of such a dual system can avoid unnecessary confusions. To prevent a leakage, it is crucial that research projects be carried out in compliance with their assigned security levels and standards and results be effectively managed. The paper examines from a practitioner's perspective relevant legal provisions on leakage of confidential R&D projects, infringement, injunction, punishment, attempt and conspiracy, dual liability, duty of report to the National Intelligence Service (the "NIS") of security management process and other security issues arising from national R&D projects, and manual drafting in case of a breach. The paper recommends to train security and technological experts such as industrial security experts to properly amend laws on security level classification standards and relevant technological contents. A quarterly policy development committee must also be set up by the NIS in cooperation with relevant organizations. The committee shall provide a project management manual that provides step-by-step guidance for organizations that carry out national R&D projects as a preventive measure against possible leakage. In the short term, the NIS National Industrial Security Center's duties should be expanded to incorporate national R&D projects' security. In the long term, a security task force must be set up to protect, support and manage the projects whose responsibilities should include research, policy development, PR and training of security-related issues. Through these means, a social consensus must be reached on the need for protecting national R&D projects. The most efficient way to implement these measures is to facilitate security training programs and meetings that provide opportunities for communication among industrial security experts and researchers. Furthermore, the Regulation's security provisions must be examined and improved.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.157-194
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• 2008

The popularity of communities on the internet has captured the attention of marketing scholars and practitioners. By adapting to the culture of the internet, however, and providing consumer with the ability to interact with one another in addition to the company, businesses can build new and deeper relationships with customers. The economic potential of online communities has been discussed with much hope in the many popular papers. In contrast to this enthusiastic prognostications, empirical and practical evidence regarding the economic potential of the online community has shown a little different conclusion. To date, even communities with high levels of membership and vibrant social arenas have failed to build financial viability. In this perspective, this study investigates the role of various kinds of influencing factors to online community loyalty and basically suggests the framework that explains the process of building purchase loyalty. Even though the importance of building loyalty in an online environment has been emphasized from the marketing theorists and practitioners, there is no sufficient research conclusion about what is the process of building purchase loyalty and the most powerful factors that influence to it. In this study, the process of building purchase loyalty is divided into three levels; characteristics of community site such as content superiority, site vividness, navigation easiness, and customerization, the mediating variables such as self congruency, consumer experience, and consumer to consumer interactivity, and finally various factors about online community loyalty such as visit loyalty, affect, trust, and purchase loyalty are those things. And the findings of this research are as follows. First, consumer-to-consumer interactivity is an important factor to online community purchase loyalty and other loyalty factors. This means, in order to interact with other people more actively, many participants in online community have the willingness to buy some kinds of products such as music, content, avatar, and etc. From this perspective, marketers of online community have to create some online environments in order that consumers can easily interact with other consumers and make some site environments in order that consumer can feel experience in this site is interesting and self congruency is higher than at other community sites. It has been argued that giving consumers a good experience is vital in cyber space, and websites create an active (rather than passive) customer by their nature. Some researchers have tried to pin down the positive experience, with limited success and less empirical support. Web sites can provide a cognitively stimulating experience for the user. We define the online community experience as playfulness based on the past studies. Playfulness is created by the excitement generated through a website's content and measured using three descriptors Marketers can promote using and visiting online communities, which deliver a superior web experience, to influence their customers' attitudes and actions, encouraging high involvement with those communities. Specially, we suggest that transcendent customer experiences(TCEs) which have aspects of flow and/or peak experience, can generate lasting shifts in beliefs and attitudes including subjective self-transformation and facilitate strong consumer's ties to a online community. And we find that website success is closely related to positive website experiences: consumers will spend more time on the site, interacting with other users. As we can see figure 2, visit loyalty and consumer affect toward the online community site didn't directly influence to purchase loyalty. This implies that there may be a little different situations here in online community site compared to online shopping mall studies that shows close relations between revisit intention and purchase intention. There are so many alternative sites on web, consumers do not want to spend money to buy content and etc. In this sense, marketers of community websites must know consumers' affect toward online community site is not a last goal and important factor to influnece consumers' purchase. Third, building good content environment can be a really important marketing tool to create a competitive advantage in cyberspace. For example, Cyworld, Korea's number one community site shows distinctive superiority in the consumer evaluations of content characteristics such as content superiority, site vividness, and customerization. Particularly, comsumer evaluation about customerization was remarkably higher than the other sites. In this point, we can conclude that providing comsumers with good, unique and highly customized content will be urgent and important task directly and indirectly impacting to self congruency, consumer experience, c-to-c interactivity, and various loyalty factors of online community. By creating enjoyable, useful, and unique online community environments, online community portals such as Daum, Naver, and Cyworld are able to build customer loyalty to a degree that many of today's online marketer can only dream of these loyalty, in turn, generates strong economic returns. Another way to build good online community site is to provide consumers with an interactive, fun, experience-oriented or experiential Web site. Elements that can make a dot.com's Web site experiential include graphics, 3-D images, animation, video and audio capabilities. In addition, chat rooms and real-time customer service applications (which link site visitors directly to other visitors, or with company support personnel, respectively) are also being used to make web sites more interactive. Researchers note that online communities are increasingly incorporating such applications in their Web sites, in order to make consumers' online shopping experience more similar to that of an offline store. That is, if consumers are able to experience sensory stimulation (e.g. via 3-D images and audio sound), interact with other consumers (e.g., via chat rooms), and interact with sales or support people (e.g. via a real-time chat interface or e-mail), then they are likely to have a more positive dot.com experience, and develop a more positive image toward the online company itself). Analysts caution, however, that, while high quality graphics, animation and the like may create a fun experience for consumers, when heavily used, they can slow site navigation, resulting in frustrated consumers, who may never return to a site. Consequently, some analysts suggest that, at least with current technology, the rule-of-thumb is that less is more. That is, while graphics etc. can draw consumers to a site, they should be kept to a minimum, so as not to impact negatively on consumers' overall site experience.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.32-43
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• 2009

Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.