• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.49-59
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• 2011

A franchise can be said to be the main method of distribution and marketing. It appears to be the future of the retail industry and is one of the world's fastest growing businesses sectors, as many policy reports and research results have acknowledged. Korea's franchise industry began in the 1970s, spread out into many areas (including food services, retail, and the service industry), and has grown by over 10% each year ever since. The industry's influence on the national economy becomes ever greater. Although the size of the franchise industry is expected to grow as it spreads and as the government expands its support, it has not yet attracted much academic interest. Research has so far been very fragmented. The main interest has been the relationship and conflicts between the head offices and the affiliates. No study has yet occurred on whether the concepts of satisfaction and intent to conclude a contract directly affect the success or failure of the affiliates. Few studies have empirically inquired into the demographic characteristics and abilities of the affiliates that significantly affect their results. Domestic franchise industries must prepare to leap from quantitative to qualitative growth. Most important is the need for affiliate headquarters and affiliates to build confidence between them. A friendly and reliable relationship between affiliate headquarters and affiliates will eliminate distrust from the franchise and maintain a healthy franchise system. This study suggests that current and prospective heads of affiliation should concentrate not on attracting affiliates but on investment and techniques of affiliate support. They should work on the reinforcement of brand power, the appropriate affiliate business environment, systematic education/training, taking burdens off the affiliate business persons, consolidating the relationship with the affiliate business persons, marketing mix factors (e.g. products, price conditions, logistics and shipping services, promotion, supervising and supervisor, operation procedures/processes, and material evidence); these all greatly affect the success or failure of the affiliate business. Supporting the affiliates is an important factor that enhances their results and satisfaction and consequently increases the positive recommendations to others and the ratio of recurrent conclusions of contracts, which ultimately generate the growth of the franchises. In addition, it is suggested that prospective franchise founders should make every effort to choose a good head office since the characteristics of the head office greatly influence the success of the affiliates. This study is significant in that it grasps the characteristics of the head office of affiliation and of the affiliates that influence affiliate results in ways not yet academically attempted.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.1-9
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• 2016

In this study, we investigate the announcement effects of M&As with a start-up as a target firm on shareholder wealth of an acquiring firm. We use M&A events in KOSPI or KOSDAQ market between 2002 and 2014 after the financial crisis. Among the total 1436 mergers and acquisitions that took place domestically during this period, 1383 cases were selected as cases to be studied, excluding 53 cases where acquiring firms were unlisted firms. The results of the analysis are as follows: First, as a result of a comparison between the acquiring firms' CARs of the whole sample group(n=1383) occurred during the (-2, +1), (-5, +2), (-10, +5) periods of M&A announcement date(t=0) and the sub-sample group(n=468) where the target firms are start-ups which were established within five years, the acquiring firms of the whole sample group do not show significat CARs, while the acquiring firms of the sub-sample group show the significantly positive CARs. This suggests that M&A with start-ups have a positive effect on firm value of acquiring firms. Second, when merging unlisted start-ups, the acquiring firms show positive CARs, showing that there exists a listing effect in the merger of start-up. Third, merging the start-ups belonging to the high-tech industry shows the higher CARs than the case of merging the start-ups belonging to the non-high-tech industry. This study has great significance as the first in Korea to investigate the effect of M&A announcement with a start-up.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.163-169
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to present the basic data needed to improve the arts, music, and physical education provided by local child care centers based on an investigation of the current status of and satisfaction with the education. The subjects of this study were 17 local child care centers in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and the situation of the arts, music, and physical education programs operated from 2014 to 2016 were examined. In addition, 419 children who received the education were surveyed to evaluate their level of satisfaction. The results of this study are as follows. As regards the status of the arts education from 2014 to 2016, it was observed that three of the 17 local child care centers did not have any arts, music or physical education at all, while six of them continuously implemented all three of these programs during this period of time. Two and six of the 17 institutes had arts, music, and physical education programs for two years and one year, respectively. All of the teachers who ran the arts and music education programs of the 17 institutes were arts and music majors who were certified teachers of the liberal arts. However, the physical education programs were run as volunteer activities by college students majoring in physical education. The survey on the level of satisfaction of the children who participated in the arts, music, and physical education programs showed that they were helpful for the overall life experience of the children and that they were more helpful for the boys than for the girls. The level of satisfaction with the education was high for most of the students who participated in the programs, however the boys were more satisfied than the girls. When asked whether they would participate in the arts, music, and physical education programs again, most of the respondents answered that they would do so. The boys were more likely to participate again than the girls. Based on this study, in order to enhance the creativity and personality education of the children using the local child care centers, higher quality education is needed. Arts and music education can be used to help children to learn to communicate smoothly with their friends. In addition, it seems to be necessary to enhance the education by setting goals that are suitable for its purpose, in order to provide creative arts and music education that contributes to the physical health and emotional stability of the children.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.264-270
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• 2014

This study developed a portable respiratory training device to improve breathing stability, which is an important element in using the CyberKnife Synchrony respiratory tracking device, one of the typical Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (SRT) devices. It produced an interface for users to be able to select one of two displays, a graph type and a bar type, supported an auditory system that helps them expect next respiration by improving a sense of rhythm of their respiratory period, and provided comfortable respiratory inducement. By targeting 5 applicants and applying individual respiratory period detected through a self-developed program, it acquired signal data of 'guide respiration' that induces breathing through signal data gained from 'free respiration' and an auditory system, and evaluated the usability by comparing deviation average values of respiratory period and respiratory amplitude. It could be identified that respiratory period decreased $55.74{\pm}0.14%$ compared to free respiration, and respiratory amplitude decreased $28.12{\pm}0.10%$ compared to free respiration, which confirmed the consistency and stability of respiratory. SBRT, developed based on these results, using the portable respiratory training device, for liver cancer or lung cancer, is evaluated to be able to help reduce delayed treatment time due to respiratory instability and improve treatment accuracy, and if it could be applied to developing respiratory training applications targeting an android-based portable device in the future, even use convenience and economic efficiency are expected.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1-34
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• 2010

Introduction The purpose of this research is to develop overall model which involves the effect of ongoing support services by franchisor on franchisee's relationship quality(trust, satisfaction, and commitment) and business performance(financial and non-financial performance), and to investigate the relationships among trust, satisfaction, commitment, financial and non-financial performance. This study also suggests franchise business or franchise system should be based on long-term orientation between franchisor and franchisee rather than short-term orientation, or transactional relationship, and proposes the most effective way of providing on-going support services by franchisor with franchisee thru symbiotic relationship among franchisor and franchisee Research Model and Hypothesis The research model as Figure 1 shows the variables on-going support services which affect the relationship quality between franchisor and franchisee such as trust, satisfaction, and commitment, and also analyze the effects of relationship quality on business performance including financial and non-financial performance We established 12 hypotheses to test as follows; Relationship between on-going support services and trust H1: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's trust. Relationship between on-going support services and satisfaction H2: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's satisfaction. Relationship between on-going support services and commitment H3: On-going support services factors (product category & price, logistics service, promotion, information providing & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support) have positive effect on franchisee's commitment. Relationship among relationship quality: trust, satisfaction, and commitment H4: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's satisfaction. H5: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's commitment. H6: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's commitment. Relationship between relationship quality and business performance H7: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H8: Franchisee's trust has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. H9: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H10: Franchisee's satisfaction has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. H11: Franchisee's commitment has positive effect on franchisee's financial performance. H12: Franchisee's commitment has positive effect on franchisee's non-financial performance. Method The on-going support services were defined as an organized system of continuous supporting services by franchisor for the purpose of satisfying the expectation of franchisee based on long-term orientation and classified into six constructs such as product category & price, logistics service, promotion, providing information & problem solving capability, supervisor's support, and education & training support. The six constructs were measured agreement using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree)as follows. The product category & price was measured by four items: menu variety, price of food material provided by franchisor, and support for developing new menu. The logistics service was measured by six items: distribution system of franchisor, return policy for provided food materials, timeliness, inventory control level of franchisor, accuracy of order, and flexibility of emergency order. The promotion was measured by five items: differentiated promotion activities, brand image of franchisor, promotion effect such as customer increase, long-term plan of promotion, and micro-marketing concept in promotion. The providing information & problem solving capability was measured by information providing of new products, information of competitors, information of cost reduction, and efforts for solving problems in franchisee's operations. The supervisor's support was measured by supervisor operations, frequency of visiting franchisee, support by data analysis, processing the suggestions by franchisee, diagnosis and solutions for the franchisee's operations, and support for increasing sales in franchisee. Finally, the of education & training support was measured by recipe training by specialist, service training for store people, systemized training program, and tax & human resources support services. Analysis and results The data were analyzed using Amos. Figure 2 and Table 1 present the result of the structural equation model. Implications The results of this research are as follows: Firstly, the factors of product category, information providing and problem solving capacity influence only franchisee's satisfaction and commitment. Secondly, logistic services and supervising factors influence only trust and satisfaction. Thirdly, continuing education and training factors influence only franchisee's trust and commitment. Fourthly, sales promotion factor influences all the relationship quality representing trust, satisfaction, and commitment. Fifthly, regarding relationship among relationship quality, trust positively influences satisfaction, however, does not directly influence commitment, but satisfaction positively affects commitment. Therefore, satisfaction plays a mediating role between trust and commitment. Sixthly, trust positively influence only financial performance, and satisfaction and commitment influence positively both financial and non-financial performance.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.5-13
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• 2011

This study provides analysis of the effectiveness of domestic marketing strategies of the Korean coffee shop "Caffe Bene". It bases its evaluation on statistical outputs of 'choice attributes,' "market segmentation," demographic characteristics," and "satisfaction differences." The results are summarized in four points. First, five choice attributes were extracted from factor analysis: price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, and location; these are related to coffee shop selection behavior. Based on these five factors, cluster analysis was conducted, with statistical results classifying customers into three major groups: atmosphere oriented; comfort oriented; and taste oriented. Second, discriminant analysis tested cluster analysis and showed two discriminant functions: location and atmosphere. Third, cross-tabulation analysis based on demographic characteristics showed distinctive demographic characteristics within the three groups. Atmosphere oriented group, early-20s, as women of all ages was found to be 'walking down the street 'and 'through acquaintances' in many cases, as the cognitive path, and mostly found the store through 'outdoor advertising', and 'introduction'. Comfort oriented group was mainly women who are students in their early twenties or professionals, and appeared as a group to be very loyal because of high recommendation to other customers compared to other groups. Taste oriented group, unlike the other group, was mainly late-20s' college graduates, and was confirmed, as low loyalty, with lower recommendation activity. Fourth, to analyze satisfaction differences, one-way ANOVA was conducted. It shows that groups which show high satisfaction in the five main factors also show high menu satisfaction and high overall satisfaction. This results show that segmented marketing strategies are necessary because customers are considering price, atmosphere, comfort, taste, location when they choose coffee shop and demographics show different attributes based on segmented groups. For example, atmosphere oriented group is satisfied with shop interior and comfort while dissatisfied with price because most of the customers in this group are early 20s and do not have great financial capability. Thus, price discounting marketing strategies based on individual situations through CRM system is critical. Comfort oriented group shows high satisfaction level about location and shop comfort. Also, in this group, there are many early 20s female customers, students, and self-employed people. This group customers show high word of mouth tendency, hence providing positive brand image to the customers would be important. In case of taste oriented group, while the scores of taste and location are high, word of mouth score is low. This group is mainly composed of educated and professional many late 20s customers, therefore, menu differentiation, increasing quality of coffee taste and price discrimination is critical to increase customers' satisfaction. However, it is hard to generalize the results of study to other coffee shop brand, because this study have researched only one domestic coffee shop, Caffe Bene. Thus if future study expand the scope of locations, brands, and occupations, the results of the study would provide more generalizable results. Finally, research of customer satisfactions of menu, trust, loyalty, and switching cost would be critical in the future study.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-46
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• 2009

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced in May 2008 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for 2006 reached $ 107 billion, up from $ 87 billion in 2005 - an increase of 22 percent. From 2001 to 2006, retail e-sales increased at an average annual growth rate of 25.4 percent. The explosive growth of E-Commerce has caused profound changes in marketing channel relationships and structures in many industries. Despite the great potential implications for both academicians and practitioners, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the Internet channel introduction on distribution channel management. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the ownership of the new Internet channel affects the existing channel members and consumers. To explore the above research questions, this study conducts well-controlled mathematical experiments to isolate the impact of the Internet channel by comparing before and after the Internet channel entry. The 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 addition of the Internet store to this channel system results in a mixed channel comprised of two different types of channels. The new Internet store can be launched by the independent physical store such as Bestbuy. In this case, the physical retailer coordinates the two types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the two stores. The Internet store also can be introduced by an independent Internet retailer such as Amazon. In this case, a retail level competition occurs between the two types of stores. Although the manufacturer sells only one product, consumers view each product-outlet pair as a unique offering. Thus, the introduction of the Internet channel provides two product offerings for consumers. The channel structures analyzed in this study are illustrated in Fig.1. It is assumed that the manufacturer plays as a Stackelberg leader maximizing its own profits with the foresight of the independent retailer's optimal responses as typically assumed in previous analytical channel studies. As a Stackelberg follower, the independent physical retailer or independent Internet retailer maximizes its own profits, conditional on the manufacturer's wholesale price. The price competition between two the independent retailers is assumed to be a Bertrand Nash game. For simplicity, the marginal cost is set at zero, as typically assumed in this type of study. In order to explore the research questions above, this study develops a game theoretic model that possesses the following three key characteristics. First, the model explicitly captures the fact that an Internet channel and a physical store exist in two independent dimensions (one in physical space and the other in cyber space). This enables this model to demonstrate that the effect of adding an Internet store is different from that of adding another physical store. Second, the model reflects the fact that consumers are heterogeneous in their preferences for using a physical store and for using an Internet channel. Third, the model captures the vertical strategic interactions between an upstream manufacturer and a downstream retailer, making it possible to analyze the channel structure issues discussed in this paper. Although numerous previous models capture this vertical dimension of marketing channels, none simultaneously incorporates the three characteristics reflected in this model. The analysis results are summarized in Table 1. When the new Internet channel is introduced by the existing physical retailer and the retailer coordinates both types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the both stores, retail prices increase due to a combination of the coordination of the retail prices and the wider market coverage. The quantity sold does not significantly increase despite the wider market coverage, because the excessively high retail prices alleviate the market coverage effect to a degree. Interestingly, the coordinated total retail profits are lower than the combined retail profits of two competing independent retailers. This implies that when a physical retailer opens an Internet channel, the retailers could be better off managing the two channels separately rather than coordinating them, unless they have the foresight of the manufacturer's pricing behavior. It is also found that the introduction of an Internet channel affects the power balance of the channel. The retail competition is strong when an independent Internet store joins a channel with an independent physical retailer. This implies that each retailer in this structure has weak channel power. Due to intense retail competition, the manufacturer uses its channel power to increase its wholesale price to extract more profits from the total channel profit. However, the retailers cannot increase retail prices accordingly because of the intense retail level competition, leading to lower channel power. In this case, consumer welfare increases due to the wider market coverage and lower retail prices caused by the retail competition. The model employed for this study is not designed to capture all the characteristics of the Internet channel. The theoretical model in this study can also be applied for any stores that are not geographically constrained such as TV home shopping or catalog sales via mail. The reasons the model in this study is names as "Internet" are as follows: first, the most representative example of the stores that are not geographically constrained is the Internet. Second, catalog sales usually determine the target markets using the pre-specified mailing lists. In this aspect, the model used in this study is closer to the Internet than catalog sales. However, it would be a desirable future research direction to mathematically and theoretically distinguish the core differences among the stores that are not geographically constrained. The model is simplified by a set of assumptions to obtain mathematical traceability. First, this study assumes the price is the only strategic tool for competition. In the real world, however, various marketing variables can be used for competition. Therefore, a more realistic model can be designed if a model incorporates other various marketing variables such as service levels or operation costs. Second, this study assumes the market with one monopoly manufacturer. Therefore, the results from this study should be carefully interpreted considering this limitation. Future research could extend this limitation by introducing manufacturer level competition. Finally, some of the results are drawn from the assumption that the monopoly manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader. Although this is a standard assumption among game theoretic studies of this kind, we could gain deeper understanding and generalize our findings beyond this assumption if the model is analyzed by different game rules.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.5-15
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• 2010

This study investigated research trends of JDS that KODISA published and gave implications to elevate quality of scholarly journals. In other words, the study classified scientific system of distribution area to investigate research trends and to compare it with other scholarly journals of distribution and to give implications for higher level of JDS. KODISA published JDS Vol.1 No.1 for the first time in 1999 followed by Vol.8 No.3 in September 2010 to show 109 theses in total. KODISA investigated subjects, research institutions, number of participants, methodology, frequency of theses in both the Korean language and English, frequency of participation of not only the Koreans but also foreigners and use of references, etc. And, the study investigated JDR of KODIA, JKDM(The Journal of Korean Distribution & Management) and JDA that researched distribution, so that it found out development ways. To investigate research trends of JDS that KODISA publishes, main category was made based on the national science and technology standard classification system of MEST (Ministry Of Education, Science And Technology), table of classification of research areas of NRF(National Research Foundation of Korea), research classification system of both KOREADIMA and KLRA(Korea Logistics Research Association) and distribution science and others that KODISA is looking for, and distribution economy area was divided into general distribution, distribution economy, distribution, distribution information and others, and distribution management was divided into distribution management, marketing, MD and purchasing, consumer behavior and others. The findings were as follow: Firstly, main category occupied 47 theses (43.1%) of distribution economy and 62 theses (56.9%) of distribution management among 109 theses in total. Active research area of distribution economy consisted of 14 theses (12.8%) of distribution information and 9 theses (8.3%) of distribution economy to research distribution as well as distribution information positively every year. The distribution management consisted of 25 theses (22.9%) of distribution management and 20 theses (18.3%) of marketing, These days, research on distribution management, marketing, distribution, distribution information and others is increasing. Secondly, researchers published theses as follow: 55 theses (50.5%) by professor by himself or herself, 12 theses (11.0%) of joint research by professors and businesses, Professors/students published 9 theses (8.3%) followed by 5 theses (4.6%) of researchers, 5 theses (4.6%) of businesses, 4 theses (3.7%) of professors, researchers and businesses and 2 theses (1.8%) of students. Professors published theses less, while businesses, research institutions and graduate school students did more continuously. The number of researchers occupied single researcher (43 theses, 39.5%), two researchers (42 theses, 38.5%) and three researchers or more (24 theses, 22.0%). Thirdly, professors published theses the most at most of areas. Researchers of main category of distribution economy consisted of professors (25 theses, 53.2%), professors and businesses (7 theses, 14.9%), professors and businesses (7 theses, 14.9%), professors and researchers (6 theses, 12.8%) and professors and students (3 theses, 6.3%). And, researchers of main category of distribution management consisted of professors (30 theses, 48.4%), professors and businesses (10 theses, 16.1%), and professors and researchers as well as professors and students (6 theses, 9.7%). Researchers of distribution management consisted of professors, professors and businesses, professors and researchers, researchers and businesses, etc to have various types. Professors mainly researched marketing, MD and purchasing, and consumer behavior, etc to demand active participation of businesses and researchers. Fourthly, research methodology was: Literature research occupied 45 theses (41.3%) the most followed by empirical research based on questionnaire survey (44 theses, 40.4%). General distribution, distribution economy, distribution and distribution management, etc mostly adopted literature research, while marketing did empirical research based on questionnaire survey the most. Fifthly, theses in the Korean language occupied 92.7% (101 theses), while those in English did 7.3% (8 theses). No more than one thesis in English was published until 2006, and 7 theses (11.9%) were published after 2007 to increase. The theses in English were published more to be affirmative. Foreigner researcher published one thesis (0.9%) and both Korean researchers and foreigner researchers jointly published two theses (1.8%) to have very much low participation of foreigner researchers. Sixthly, one thesis of JDS had 27.5 references in average that consisted of 11.1 local references and 16.4 foreign references. And, cited times was 0.4 thesis in average to be low. The distribution economy cited 24.2 references in average (9.4 local references and 14.8 foreign references and JDS had 0.6 cited reference. The distribution management had 30.0 references in average (12.1 local references and 17.9 foreign references) and had 0.3 reference of JDS itself. Seventhly, similar type of scholarly journal had theses in the Korean language and English: JDR( Journal of Distribution Research) of KODIA(Korea Distribution Association) published 92 theses in the Korean language (96.8%) and 3 theses in English (3.2%), that is to say, 95 theses in total. JKDM of KOREADIMA published 132 theses in total that consisted of 93 theses in the Korean language (70.5%) and 39 theses in English (29.5%). Since 2008, JKDM has published scholarly journal in English one time every year. JDS published 52 theses in the Korean language (88.1%) and 7 theses in English (11.9%), that is to say, 59 theses in total. Sixthly, similar type of scholarly journals and research methodology were: JDR's research methodology had 65 empirical researches based on questionnaire survey (68.4%), followed by 17 literature researches (17.9%) and 11 quantitative analyses (11.6%). JKDM made use of various kinds of research methodologies to have 60 questionnaire surveys (45.5%), followed by 40 literature researches (30.3%), 21 quantitative analyses (15.9%), 6 system analyses (4.5%) and 5 case studies (3.8%). And, JDS made use of 30 questionnaire surveys (50.8%), followed by 15 literature researches (25.4%), 7 case studies (11.9%) and 6 quantitative analyses (10.2%). Ninthly, similar types of scholarly journals and Korean researchers and foreigner researchers were: JDR published 93 theses (97.8%) by Korean researchers except for 1 thesis by foreigner researcher and 1 thesis by joint research of the Korean researchers and foreigner researchers. And, JKDM had no foreigner research and 13 theses (9.8%) by joint research of the Korean researchers and foreigner researchers to have more foreigner researchers as well as researchers in foreign countries than similar types of scholarly journals had. And, JDS published 56 theses (94.9%) of the Korean researchers, one thesis (1.7%) of foreigner researcher only, and 2 theses (3.4%) of joint research of both the Koreans and foreigners. Tenthly, similar type of scholarly journals and reference had citation: JDR had 42.5 literatures in average that consisted of 10.9 local literatures (25.7%) and 31.6 foreign literatures (74.3%), and cited times accounted for 1.1 thesis to decrease. JKDM cited 10.5 Korean literatures (36.3%) and 18.4 foreign literatures (63.7%), and number of self-cited literature was no more than 1.1. Number of cited times accounted for 2.9 literatures in 2008 and then decreased continuously since then. JDS cited 26,8 references in average that consisted of 10.9 local references (40.7%) and 15.9 foreign references (59.3%), and number of self-cited accounted for 0.2 reference until 2009, and it increased to be 2.1 references in 2010. The author gives implications based on JDS research trends and investigation on similar type of scholarly journals as follow: Firstly, JDS shall actively invite foreign contributors to prepare for SSCI. Secondly, ratio of theses in English shall increase greatly. Thirdly, various kinds of research methodology shall be accepted to elevate quality of scholarly journals. Fourthly, to increase cited times, Google and other web retrievals shall be reinforced to supply scholarly journals to foreign countries more. Local scholarly journals can be worldwide scholarly journal enough to be acknowledged even in foreign countries by improving the implications above.

• 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.