• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-33
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• 2017

In the last decades, technology-oriented small firms, i.e. venture businesses, have been increasingly engaged in R&D collaborations with external parties as strategic means for technological innovation. Despite ample evidence on the benefit of such collaborations for the firms, there has been less attention to examining whether and how the firms' social interactions with cooperating partners and their managerial characteristics contribute to that benefit. Drawing on the theories of social capital and entrepreneurial orientation, this study is to remedy this gap. The theory of social capital, referring to a sum of the value and potential resources embedded in social relationships of collectives, provides an integrated view of social factors among cooperating partners, e.g. strong ties, network stability, trust, reciprocity, shared vision and value. It categorizes these factors into structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions of social capital. Entrepreneurial orientation theory captures firms' managerial characteristics as a combination of innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking. This addresses firms' managerial process to utilize and combine internal and external resources for wealth creation and opportunity realization. Against this background, this study investigates what roles social capital among cooperating R&D partners and entrepreneurial orientation of the collaborating firms play for collective performance improvement in R&D collaborations. In terms of the collective performance, this study adopts two indicators: technological competitiveness and business performance. Technological competitiveness refers to the contribution of a technology developed by a cooperative R&D project to competitive advantage of a firm while business performance is defined as the financial and economic outcome of a collaboration. Using a sample of 218 Korean ventures engaging in R&D collaboration with external parties, the author finds the significant effects of social capital (i.e. structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions) and entrepreneurial orientation (i.e. innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking) on both of the technological competitiveness and the business performance. Further, the higher the social capital among R&D partners, the more likely it is to foster the entrepreneurial orientation at firm-level. Most importantly, the entrepreneurial orientation at firm-level is an significant mediator of the relationship between social capital and collective performance. Beyond these novel empirical findings, this study contributes to the literature on R&D collaboration. The findings' implications for management and policy are deeply discussed in the conclusion.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.43-52
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• 2012

As experiential education services are growing, the need for proper management is increasing. Considering that adequate measures are an essential factor for achieving success in managing something, it is important for managers to use a proper system of metrics to measure the performance of experiential education services. However, in spite of this need, little research has been done to develop a valid and reliable set of metrics for assessing the quality of experiential education services. The current study aims to develop a multi-item instrument for assessing the service quality of experiential education. The specific procedure is as follows. First, we generated a pool of possible metrics based on diverse literature on service quality. We elicited possiblemetric items not only from general service quality metrics such as SERVQUAL and SERVPERF but also from educational service quality metrics such as HEdPERF and PESPERF. Second, specialist teachers in the experiential education area screened the initial metrics to boost face validity. Third, we proceeded with multiple rounds of empirical validation of those metrics. Based on this processes, we refined the metrics to determine the final metrics to be used. Fourth, we examined predictive validity by checking the well-established positive relationship between each dimension of metrics and customer satisfaction. In sum, starting with the initial pool of scale items elicited from the previous literature and purifying them empirically through the surveying method, we developed a four-dimensional systemized scale to measure the superiority of experiential education and named it "Experiential Education PERFormance" (EEPERF). Our findings indicate that students (consumers) perceive the superiority of the experiential education (EE) service in the following four dimensions: EE-empathy, EE-reliability, EE-outcome, and EE-landscape. EE-empathy is a judgment in response to the question, "How empathetically does the experiential educational service provider interact with me?" Principal measures are "How well does the service provider understand my needs?," and "How well does the service provider listen to my voice?" Next, EE-reliability is a judgment in response to the question, "How reliably does the experiential educational service provider interact with me?" Major measures are "How reliable is the schedule here?," and "How credible is the service provider?" EE-outcome is a judgmentin response to the question, "What results could I get from this experiential educational service encounter?" Representative measures are "How good is the information that I will acquire form this service encounter?," and "How useful is this service encounter in helping me develop creativity?" Finally, EE-landscape is a judgment about the physical environment. Essential measures are "How convenient is the access to the service encounter?,"and "How well managed are the facilities?" We showed the reliability and validity of the system of metrics. All four dimensions influence customer satisfaction significantly. Practitioners may use the results in planning experiential educational service programs and evaluating each service encounter. The current study isexpected to act as a stepping-stone for future scale improvement. In this case, researchers may use the experience quality paradigm that has recently arisen.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.51-61
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• 2011

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was first introduced sixty years ago in the academic field. However, the phrase CSR was not explicitly stated before the 1990s in Korean business and academic researches. Recently CSR is more considered a corporate strategy than a philanthropic donation. CSR comprises contributions to local communities as well as using environmentally beneficial and humane practices. Sponsoring is one available marketing tactic used in order to communicate with the market. This study of sponsorship has concentrated on developing brand asset by accessing potential values of sporting events or star-players. However, sponsorship includes providing funds or goods to non-profit institutions as well as sports or entertainment organizations. Accordingly corporate community-specific sponsorship is defined as firms offering to provide money, goods and/or services to individuals and/or institutions within a particular community, thus establishing an interdependent relationship between the partners aspiring to gain social and economic assets. National sponsorship is typically targeted toward commonly recognized individuals and/or organizations with the intent to maximize exposure of a sponsor's brand, and is known to positively affect brand equity(community-specific sponsorship is committed to a limited local area) that a firm could benefit from by gaining a specific asset. POSCO sponsors the Jukdo Market, locate dinthe city of Pohang, tohelp revive their traditional market. Inreturn, the Jukdo Market merchant suni on display sflags with the POSCO embleminfrontof stores with in the market intending to make shopper sand merchant saware of POSCO's sponsorship. POSCO has succeeded in acquiring public support from the citizens of Pohang. However, the economic effects resulting from the cooperative relationship between POSCO and the Jukdo Market have yet to be measured by any empirical research. The purpose of this study is to assess the economic effects created by the community-specific sponsorship from the groups of merchants and shoppers, measuring its influence on the corporate image and subsequent brand loyalty, as parts of brand equity. The result of the study shows that the community-specific sponsorship of POSCO of the Jukdo Market had different influences on its corporate image and the brand loyalty of shoppers and merchants. First, the merchant group who was more frequently exposed to POSCO's flag recognized the sponsorship of POSCO more than the shopper group, and, therefore, had a better image of the company. Second, the recognition of POSCO's sponsorship had a positive influence on its corporate image, and that positive corporate image had a positive effect on brand loyalty development. However, the recognition of the sponsorship did not have a direct influence on brand loyalty. The friendly corporate image developed by the recognition of the sponsorship consequently could have had an effect on brand loyalty. Therefore, companies should not relinquish investments to corporate image development if they require more brand loyalty. Third, the influence of corporate image on brand loyalty shows stronger results in the shopper group rather than in the merchant group. Psycho-graphic factors of shoppers and merchants might give rise to the difference between the two groups.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.199-210
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of sustainability management in institutional foodservice on store image and behavioral intention (revisit intention, word of mouth, willingness to pay a premium). Methods: Based on a total of 371 samples obtained from the empirical research, this study reviewed the reliability and fitness of the model. Results: According to results of exploratory factor analysis, sustainability management derived three factors, economic value, socially responsible, and environmentally sound. The structural equation modeling showed that social responsibility in sustainability management had a significant positive effect on store image and behavioral intention. In addition, customer's perceived store image in foodservice had a significant positive effect on behavioral intention. The relationship between sustainability management and behavioral intention was found to be a partially significant effect. Conclusion: The results of this study revealed the importance of sustainability management of foodservice to improve store image and behavioral intention.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.284-309
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• 2007

Technology transfer (TT) consortium is an affiliation of two or more public research institutions (PRIs) that participate in a common technology transfer activity or pool their resources together, with the objective of facilitating technology transfer. Based on empirical analysis of five regional TT consortia (2002-2006) operating in Korea, this paper suggests their effectiveness by employing a TT performance index (TTPI) and identifies possible characteristics involved, such as motivations, facilitators, barriers, and challenges. TTPI devised in the paper is a new composite TT performance index to measure how much the TT performance of a PH changed in a designated year compared to a base year. All the performance indicators of TTPI are well-structured based on the unique TT process that is prevalent in Korea. Further, TTPI can bring different size and focus of PRIs to the same scale for comparison by double-normalizing. The paper tests the effectiveness of TT consortium for the escalation of TT performances in member PRIs by highlighting the differences of TTPI's between 2005 and 2001. As a result, the paper found that the escalation of TTPI for member PRIs was greater than that for non-member PRIs. As for the characteristics of TT consortia, their respective factors obtained by TT expert survey were computed with proportion tests of differences (Z tests) to compare two perspectives between intramural and extramural groups. One of key findings is that there is general homogeneity in stakeholder perspectives regarding motivations, facilitators, barriers, and challenges. Some notable responses are as follow; the most probable motivation to join TT consortium is to share or exchange TT competences for enhanced performance. Second, the most probable facilitator is professional capability of consortium-hired personnel. Third, the foremost probable barriers to effective TT consortium are frequent change of consortium director and passive participation of member PRIs. Lastly, both publicizing TT consortia and developing performance metrics are the most important for the improvement of TT consortia. The understanding of the characteristics of TT consortia increases the likelihood of accelerated success, because TT consortia path from formation to termination encompasses many concepts, processes, principles, and factors. Finally, an analysis of the survey data combined with expert interview and observation data led the authors to derive five conditions as being critical to viable TT consortia in Korea at early stage of technology transfer systems. These conditions include policy infrastructure, proactive participation, excellent professionals, personal motivation, and teaming mechanisms. It is expected that the Korean evidence is a starting point to develop and refine the theory of TT consortia and for additional studies in other countries.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.235-259
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• 2014

New product or new technology developments are directly linked to a firm's survival and thus their performance and improvement are gaining attention in the midst of rapidly changing business environment and aggravating competition. However, despite SMEs' significance in the national economy, they are limited in terms of size and resources in possession, so the government provides a variety of supports as a policy. According to a study on the organizational life cycle, a firm's limits and difficulties differ by growth stage, so the supports need to be tailored. Based on the data from 2,575 firms that responded to the "2011 SMEs Technological Statistics," how technological capability level and deviation in the R&D process affect the R&D sales performance was studied. The result of analysis revealed that the technological capability has a positive impact on the R&D sales performance. It was also learned that the relationship between deviation in the technological capability and R&D sales performance was moderated by the government support. For the hypothesis that the government support would have a different moderating effect by growth stage for the impact the technology level has on the R&D sales performance, the empirical analysis showed a different meaningful moderating effect for each growth stage. The theoretical implications of the study are that, instead of a simple relation of dynamics that does not take the growth stages into account, it suggested a more realistic causal relationship model that reflects the complex environment the SMEs are in and that the need for measuring and using the deviation in technological capability as a research variable has been justified. The practical implications are that the government policy for supports can be tailored to a growth stage and that the guidelines have been suggested to effectively use the government funding by encouraging the SMEs in a different growth stage to adapt to the customized policy.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.98-109
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• 2010

Research on the construction, measurement, and management of brand equity has been extensive since David A. Aaker(1991) and Kevin Lane Keller(1993) first advanced the concept. Recently, much attention has been devoted to the components of brand equity: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. This study explores the relationships among these components, focusing particularly on the moderating role of product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) in their causal relationships. A model to study the relationship among components of brand equity, particularly the moderating role of product type, is featured in Figure 1. The hypotheses of the study are proposed as follows: that consumers' brand awareness has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' perceived quality has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' brand image influences brand loyalty positively; and that relationships among components of brand equity will be moderated by product type. That is, in the case of utilitarian products, the impact of perceived quality on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger, whereas with hedonic products the impact of brand image on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger. To determine the products for the study, a pre-test of 58 college students in the Seoul metropolitan area was conducted based on the product type scale. As a result, computers were selected as the utilitarian product and blue jeans became the hedonic product. For each product type, two brands were selected: Samsung and HP for computers, and Levis and Nix for blue jeans. In the main study, 237 college students in the metropolitan area were surveyed to measure their brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty toward the selected two brands of each product type. The subjects were divided into two groups: one group (121 subjects) for computers, the other (116 subjects) for blue jeans. The survey questionnaires for the study included four parts: five questions on brand awareness and four questions each on perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. All questions were to be answered using 7-point Likert scales. The data collected by the survey were processed to assess reliability and validity, and the causal relationships were analyzed to verify the hypotheses using the AMOS 7 program, a tool for analyzing structural equation modeling. A confirmatory factor analysis assessed the appropriateness of the measurement model, and the fit indices denoted that the model was satisfactory. The relationships among the components of brand equity were also analyzed using AMOS 7. The fit indices of the structural model denoted that it was also satisfactory. The paths in the structural model as will be seen in Figure 2 show that perceived quality affects brand image positively, but that brand awareness does not affect brand image. Moreover, it shows that brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand image are positively related with brand loyalty, and that this relationship is moderated by product type. In the case of utilitarian products, perceived quality has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. Conversely, in the case of hedonic products, brand image has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. The results of this empirical study contribute toward the advancement of our understanding of the relationships among the components of brand equity and expand the theoretical underpinnings for brand equity measurement. It also helps further our understanding of the effect of product type on customer-based brand equity. In a marketing management practice perspective, these results may provide managerial implications for building and maintaining brand equity effectively.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.237-243
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• 2009

This study was conducted to develop economic injury level (ElL) and economic threshold (ET) of Cabbage armyworm, Mamestra brassicae L. on cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. var). The changes of cabbage biomass and M. brassicae density were investigated after introduction of larval M. brassicae (2nd instar) at different densities: 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 larvae per plant at 40 d after planting for an open field experiment, and 0, 2, 5, 8 and 12 larvae per plant at 25 d after planting for a glass house experiment. In the field experiment, the yield loss of cabbage was not significantly different among treated-plots at 30 d after the larval introduction, showing an over-compensatory response of cabbage plants to M. brassicae attack. In the glasshouse experiment, however, the biomass of cabbage at 15 d after the larval introduction significantly decreased with increasing the initial introduced number of M. brassicae, resulting in 38.3, 36.7, 21.7, 23.3 and 16.7g in above treated-plots, respectively. The relationship between cumulative insect days (CID) and yield loss (%) of cabbage was well described by a nonlinear logistic equation. Using the estimated equation, ElL of M. brassicae on cabbage was estimated at 44 CID per plant based on the yield loss 14%, which take into account of an empirical gain threshold 5% and marketable rate 91% of cabbage. Also, ET was calculated at 80% of the EIL: 35 CID per plant. Until a more elaborate EIL-model is developed, the present result may be useful for M. brassicae management at early growth stage of cabbage.

• 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.282-309
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• 2003

This exploratory qualitative study investigates the effects of experiencing domestic violence on male adolescent offenders' masculinities. Empirical and theoretical literature suggests that negative male role models in violent families result in male adolescents' experiencing conflict in constructing gender identities, especially masculinities. Moreover. criminologists argue that masculinities are often connected with crimes as a way to prove masculine competence. This study compares male adolescent offenders who have experienced domestic violence with those who have not experienced domestic violence and explores how domestic violence experiences influence the construction of gender identities among male adolescent offenders. The study used a secondary qualitative data analysis method. The data consisted of ethnographic in-depth interview transcripts, observational field notes, and formal facility records collected at a juvenile correctional facility in Minnesota. The process of data analysis was a "constant comparative method" that sought to understand differences and similarities in the expressed gender narratives and identity patterns between the two groups of offenders. This process also examined differences within each group. The qualitative data analysis revealed that domestic violence experiences in childhood may be related to the construction of gender identities during adolescence. The findings of this study showed that male adolescent offenders who had experienced domestic violence tended to attach themselves to oppressed mothers more readily than those who had not experienced domestic violence. Next, their attachment to mothers related to the construction of more relational gender identities although most participants, regardless of domestic violence experiences, had much in common regarding gender expression. Finally, despite these relational gender identities, male adolescent offenders who had experienced domestic violence tended to depend upon violence and crimes to show masculine competence, as did male adolescent offenders who had not experienced domestic violence. The study findings suggest a need for research to understand the construction of gender identities in the context of particular experiences and the importance of building theories that advance a comprehensive understanding of the construction of masculinities and youth crime. This study also discusses the development of social work programs that protect young men from adherence to exaggerated masculinity, which is often associated with crimes.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.53-67
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• 2009

For the last decades, service quality has been studied as one of the most important tools for a service company to compete with the other companies. Based on these past researches, it has been agreed that the service quality is a basic and powerful tool to create the competitive advantage. Due to similar reason, many service marketing practitioners have been also focused on the service quality to retain the existing consumers and collect the new consumers. However, service quality is subjectively perceived by individual consumers. Consumer evaluation of service quality can be different from each other. Especially consumers with one life-style may evaluate the service quality differently from the consumers with the other life-styles. Therefore we need to know whether there are differences in service quality perception on the categories of life-style. Life-style refers to a distinctive mode of living in its aggregate and broadest sense. It embodies the patterns that were developed and emerged from the dynamics of living in a society. Since the concept of life-style and its relationship to marketing was introduced in 1963 by William Lazer, methods of measuring the life-style and their application have been developed. Life-style has been usually used to segment the marketplace because it offers marketers a unique and important view of the market. When Life-style is combined with clustering methods, life-style segmentation can generate identifiable whole persons rather than isolated fragment. Life-style segmentation begins with people instead of products and classifies them into different life-style types, each characterized by a unique style of living based on a wide range of activities, interests, and opinions(Plummer, 1974). In this study we applies the life-style segmentation based on the AIO(Activities, Interests, and Opinions) to the consumers of the large discount stores. In Korea, the large discount store market has entered into maturity stage so that the market differentiation strategy is becoming a more critical issue to the marketing practitioners. One of the most important tools to differentiate from the competitors in large discount store market is continuously to provide service of better quality than competitors. This study tries to find answers about the following questions: 1) How can we categorize the consumer life-styles in the large discount store? 2) What are the characteristics of the categorized groups? 3) Are there any differences in service quality perception among the consumers with different life-styles 4) Are there any differences in consumer behavior among them in the large discount store? For the purpose, we collected survey data from consumers and analyzed the data with the SPSS package where we had $X^2$-test, factor analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, and cluster analysis. The survey was made during one month in the April of 2008. Among the collected 306 copies of questionnaires, 281 copies were chosen as the effective samples for empirical analysis except 25 copies with wrong responses. To identify the life-style patterns, we used the measures employed by Kim and Kwon(1999), where 44 items on a seven-point scale were used to measure factors of the life-style patterns. The Principal Component Method was used for factor extraction, and the VARIMAX orthogonal factor rotation was employed. The 7 items showing low factor loading were eliminated. The results of the factor analysis suggested that nine factors of the life-style patterns were identified as follows: 1) the equality-of-sexes and pursuit-of-independence tendency 2) self-management tendency 3) sociable tendency 4) self-display tendency 5) degree of a dilettante life 6) pursuit-of-information tendency 7) bargain hunter tendency 8) TV preference tendency 9) pursuit-of-leisure tendency. Next, after the K-means cluster analysis was performed with nine factors of the life-style patterns, the life-styles of the respondents were classified into four groups which are named as the 'progressive practicality-oriented group', 'positive success-oriented group', 'sociable ostentation-oriented group', 'stable conservation-oriented group'. The analysis results for usage behavior between the market segments showed statistically significant differences in the frequency of usage, duration time in the store, consumer satisfaction, and loyalty. Also, we tried to investigate whether the large discount store consumers differently perceive the quality of service based upon the types of life-style. To measure the service quality of large discount store, we adapted several measurement models measuring the service quality such as SERVPERF, BCP, R-SERVPERF, R-BCP. MANOVA and One-Way ANOVA were performed to confirm the difference in service quality perception based on the market segments. The results have also shown significant differences between life-style types in service quality perception. These findings show that the large discount store marketers should consider consumer life-style as one of the most important market segments for marketing and understand the difference in service quality perception between life-style types. Our findings give important implications to marketers of large discount stores as well as life-style researchers. First, this study showed there were significant differences in consumer's service quality perception and usage behavior between the types of life-style. It provides evidence that the life-style approach can be a important basis in segmenting the large discount store market and will make consumers perceive the service quality high. Second, most previous researches on service quality have been in aggregate level. However, our results imply that the future research on service quality have to focus on segment level.