• Title/Summary/Keyword: environment-oriented

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Development Process for User Needs-based Chatbot: Focusing on Design Thinking Methodology (사용자 니즈 기반의 챗봇 개발 프로세스: 디자인 사고방법론을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Museong;Seo, Bong-Goon;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.221-238
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    • 2019
  • Recently, companies and public institutions have been actively introducing chatbot services in the field of customer counseling and response. The introduction of the chatbot service not only brings labor cost savings to companies and organizations, but also enables rapid communication with customers. Advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence are driving the growth of these chatbot services. The current chatbot can understand users' questions and offer the most appropriate answers to questions through machine learning and deep learning. The advancement of chatbot core technologies such as NLP, NLU, and NLG has made it possible to understand words, understand paragraphs, understand meanings, and understand emotions. For this reason, the value of chatbots continues to rise. However, technology-oriented chatbots can be inconsistent with what users want inherently, so chatbots need to be addressed in the area of the user experience, not just in the area of technology. The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents the importance of the User Experience as well as the advancement of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud, and IoT technologies. The development of IT technology and the importance of user experience have provided people with a variety of environments and changed lifestyles. This means that experiences in interactions with people, services(products) and the environment become very important. Therefore, it is time to develop a user needs-based services(products) that can provide new experiences and values to people. This study proposes a chatbot development process based on user needs by applying the design thinking approach, a representative methodology in the field of user experience, to chatbot development. The process proposed in this study consists of four steps. The first step is 'setting up knowledge domain' to set up the chatbot's expertise. Accumulating the information corresponding to the configured domain and deriving the insight is the second step, 'Knowledge accumulation and Insight identification'. The third step is 'Opportunity Development and Prototyping'. It is going to start full-scale development at this stage. Finally, the 'User Feedback' step is to receive feedback from users on the developed prototype. This creates a "user needs-based service (product)" that meets the process's objectives. Beginning with the fact gathering through user observation, Perform the process of abstraction to derive insights and explore opportunities. Next, it is expected to develop a chatbot that meets the user's needs through the process of materializing to structure the desired information and providing the function that fits the user's mental model. In this study, we present the actual construction examples for the domestic cosmetics market to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed process. The reason why it chose the domestic cosmetics market as its case is because it shows strong characteristics of users' experiences, so it can quickly understand responses from users. This study has a theoretical implication in that it proposed a new chatbot development process by incorporating the design thinking methodology into the chatbot development process. This research is different from the existing chatbot development research in that it focuses on user experience, not technology. It also has practical implications in that companies or institutions propose realistic methods that can be applied immediately. In particular, the process proposed in this study can be accessed and utilized by anyone, since 'user needs-based chatbots' can be developed even if they are not experts. This study suggests that further studies are needed because only one field of study was conducted. In addition to the cosmetics market, additional research should be conducted in various fields in which the user experience appears, such as the smart phone and the automotive market. Through this, it will be able to be reborn as a general process necessary for 'development of chatbots centered on user experience, not technology centered'.

History and Archives : Colleagues or Strangers? (역사학과 기록학 학문의 인연, 학제의 괴리)

  • OH, Hang-Nyeong
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.54
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    • pp.179-210
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    • 2017
  • By redefining the concept of history, my colleagues and I have reformed our department in terms of curriculum and faculty members. This paper is a report of some of the conclusions that we have obtained from this procedure. Despite a long relationship, two disciplines do not seem to match or complement each other in the Korean education system. We believe that this is due to the fact that the Department of Korean History has focused on "national history (NH)." By conferring a privilege on NH, persons, families, societies, regions, and others were removed from NH. To make matters worse, a biased view that history is just an interpretation has prevailed, and the empiricism of history was weakened, which brought about an indifference in keeping records and archives. In East Asia, "history" means both modern history and archives. The concern about the authenticity of records did not come from H. Jenkinson or L. Duranti, and not even from the electronic environment or the Public Records Act of 1998. Key concepts such as records, documents-archives, manuscripts, authenticity, compilation-appraisal, arrangement, and description are different from their signifiant but are same or similar to their $signifi{\acute{e}}$. In case of "provenance" and "original order," they are used in education and practice in the traditional archives. History includes the recording, archiving, and the story or historiography of an event. In this context, the Department of Korean History should contain a more archives-oriented curriculum and select an archival-trained faculty. On the other hand, the department has accumulated long-term experience with appraisal and description of records; thus, archival science should absorb the criticism of the material. History will be shaken without the help of archives, while archives will lose their root without history. We are at the point in which we need to be reminded why we want to be a historian or an archivist, and for this, the more colleagues, the better.

Multi-Level Analysis on the Influence of Core Employment Policies on the Team Leader's the Perceived Internal Process Organizational Competency and Job Satisfaction - Moderation Effect of Corporate Entrepreneurship - (인재우대 정책이 팀장의 인지된 조직 내부프로세스 역량과 직무만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 다수준 분석 - 사내기업가 정신의 조절효과 중심으로 -)

  • Oh, Se-Ho;Nam, Jung-Min
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.21 no.8
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    • pp.150-162
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    • 2021
  • Companies have recently become increasingly interested in corporate entrepreneurship to establish a core employment policy in order to secure and maintain core employees and to foster an innovation-oriented organizational culture. Therefore, The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the causal relationship between core employment policies and the team leader's the perceived internal process organizational competency and job satisfaction, and to investigate whether corporate entrepreneurship has a moderation effect. Non-financial service industries including ICT companies were subject of the study and human capital corporate panel(HCCP) was utilized. The samples were 367 team leaders from 79 domestic companies. This study also applied Multi-Level Analysis(HLM), which simultaneously analyzes variables at both the individual level and the organizational level in order to improve the accuracy of the study. According to the result of the study analysis, core employment policies have a positive(+) impact on the perceived internal process organizational competency and job satisfaction. In addition, the moderation effect of corporate entrepreneurship was verified during the process when core employment policies influence the two outcome variables. corporate entrepreneurship was found to have a moderation effect that strengthens the influence on job satisfaction, but the moderation effect on the perceived internal process organizational competency was not statistically significant. These results confirm that organizational cultural factors such as corporate entrepreneurship are important influence variables in the process of influencing individual-level variables such as core employment policies. Academically, It suggests that in order to enhance the effectiveness of company strategies in respect of human resource management such as core employment policies, it is important to foster a cultural environment that suits the industry and characteristics of the organization. In addition, it suggested that companies in need of new innovation need to utilize corporate entrepreneurship.

A Study on Survey of Non Face to Face Realtime Education Focused on Firefighter in COVID-19 (코로나19 상황에서 소방공무원의 비대면 실시간 교육에 관한 의식조사연구)

  • Park, Jin Chan;Baek, Min Ho
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.722-732
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    • 2021
  • Purpose: Due to the coronavirus infection-19 (COVID) pendemics, all educational institutions were required to provide full non-face-to-face real-time education, and fire officials were required to provide fire-fighting education by applying non-face-to-face education. In this difficult situation, the National Fire Service Academy tries to find the direction of the non-face-to-face real-time education and suggest ways to improve it through a survey of the status of non-face-to-face real-time education conducted by the NFSA to fire officials. Method: A survey was conducted on fire officials under the theme of "Consciousness Survey for Improving the Quality and Specialization of Non-face-to-face Real-Time Remote Education" and an in-depth analysis was conducted based on the results. Result & Conclusion: First, professors or educational operators shall actively utilize remote education programs suitable for educational characteristics by utilizing various programs. Second, a dedicated notebook for non-face-to-face training should be provided to provide an educational environment where all learners can participate in the training without difficulty. Third, in the case of education and training that requires the use of equipment due to the nature of fire officials' education and training, it is necessary to consider it as a non-face-to-face training place by arranging educational equipment at each fire station. Fourth, it is hard to expect a satisfactory educational effect to cope with practical education with theoretical education. Therefore, facilities and programs that enable non-face-to-face real-time hands-on training should be developed. It is worth considering the proper combination of face-to-face education while maintaining the social distance as much as possible until such non-face-to-face training is possible. Fifth, non-face-to-face education is considered to have high eye fatigue due to the light and electromagnetic waves of the computer screen, and as time goes by, the concentration level decreases. Therefore, it is necessary to form an education time to reduce the eye fatigue of learners and increase concentration through proper class and rest time. Finally, professors should operate a learner participation-oriented education that allows professors and learners to interact rather than one-sided knowledge transfer education. In addition, technical problems of non-face-to-face remote education should be thoroughly prepared through preliminary system checks to ensure that education is not disrupted.

Analysis on Dynamics of Korea Startup Ecosystems Based on Topic Modeling (토픽 모델링을 활용한 한국의 창업생태계 트렌드 변화 분석)

  • Heeyoung Son;Myungjong Lee;Youngjo Byun
    • Knowledge Management Research
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.315-338
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    • 2022
  • In 1986, Korea established legal systems to support small and medium-sized start-ups, which becomes the main pillars of national development. The legal systems have stimulated start-up ecosystems to have more than 1 million new start-up companies founded every year during the past 30 years. To analyze the trend of Korea's start-up ecosystem, in this study, we collected 1.18 million news articles from 1991 to 2020. Then, we extracted news articles that have the keywords "start-up", "venture", and "start-up". We employed network analysis and topic modeling to analyze collected news articles. Our analysis can contribute to analyzing the government policy direction shown in the history of start-up support policy. Specifically, our analysis identifies the dynamic characteristics of government influenced by external environmental factors (e.g., society, economy, and culture). The results of our analysis suggest that the start-up ecosystems in Korea have changed and developed mainly by the government policies for corporation governance, industrial development planning, deregulation, and economic prosperity plan. Our frequency keyword analysis contributes to understanding entrepreneurial productivity attributed to activities among the networked components in industrial ecosystems. Our analyses and results provide practitioners and researchers with practical and academic implications that can help to establish dedicated support policies through forecast tasks of the economic environment surrounding the start-ups. Korean entrepreneurial productivity has been empowered by growing numbers of large companies in the mobile phone industry. The spectrum of large companies incorporates content startups, platform providers, online shopping malls, and youth-oriented start-ups. In addition, economic situational factors contribute to the growth of Korean entrepreneurial productivity the economic, which are related to the global expansions of the mobile industry, and government efforts to foster start-ups. Our research is methodologically implicative. We employ natural language processes for 30 years of media articles, which enables more rigorous analysis compared to the existing studies which only observe changes in government and policy based on a qualitative manner.

Effectiveness Analysis of HOT Lane and Application Scheme for Korean Environment (HOT차로 운영에 대한 효과분석 및 국내활용방안)

  • Choi, Kee Choo;Kim, Jin Howan;Oh, Seung Hwoon
    • KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.29 no.1D
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    • pp.25-32
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    • 2009
  • Currently, various types of TDM (Transportation Demand Management) policies are being studied and implemented in an attempt to overcome the limitations of supply oriented policies. In this context, this paper addressed issues of effectiveness and possible domestic implementation of the HOT lane. The possible site of implementation selected for this simulation study is part of the Kyung-bu freeway, where a dedicated bus lane is currently being operated. Minimum length of distance required in between interchanges and access points of the HOT lane for vehicles to safely enter and exit the lane, and traffic management policies for effectively managing the weaving traffic trying to enter and exit the HOT lane were presented. A 5.2km section of freeway from Ki-heuing IC to Suwon IC and a 8.3km section from Hak-uei JC to Pan-gyo JC have been selected as possible sites of implementation for the HOT lane, in which congestion occurs regularly due to the high level of travel demand. VISSIM simulation program has been used to analyze the effects of the HOT lane under the assumption that one-lane HOT lane has been put into operation in these sections and that the lane change rate were in between 5% to 30%. The results of each possible scenario have proven that overall travel speed on the general lanes have increased as well by 1.57~2.62km/h after the implementation of the HOT lane. It is meaningful that this study could serve as a basic reference data for possible follow-up studies on the HOT lane as one effective method of TDM policies. Considering that the bus travel rate would continue increase and assuming the improvement in travel speed on general lanes, similar case study can be implemented where gaps between buses on bus lane are available, as a possible alternative of efficient bus lane management policies.

Determinants Affecting Organizational Open Source Software Switch and the Moderating Effects of Managers' Willingness to Secure SW Competitiveness (조직의 오픈소스 소프트웨어 전환에 영향을 미치는 요인과 관리자의 SW 경쟁력 확보의지의 조절효과)

  • Sanghyun Kim;Hyunsun Park
    • Information Systems Review
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.99-123
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    • 2019
  • The software industry is a high value-added industry in the knowledge information age, and its importance is growing as it not only plays a key role in knowledge creation and utilization, but also secures global competitiveness. Among various SW available in today's business environment, Open Source Software(OSS) is rapidly expanding its activity area by not only leading software development, but also integrating with new information technology. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to empirically examine and analyze the effect of factors on the switching behavior to OSS. To accomplish the study's purpose, we suggest the research model based on "Push-Pull-Mooring" framework. This study empirically examines the two categories of antecedents for switching behavior toward OSS. The survey was conducted to employees at various firms that already switched OSS. A total of 268 responses were collected and analyzed by using the structural equational modeling. The results of this study are as follows; first, continuous maintenance cost, vender dependency, functional indifference, and SW resource inefficiency are significantly related to switch to OSS. Second, network-oriented support, testability and strategic flexibility are significantly related to switch to OSS. Finally, the results show that willingness to secures SW competitiveness has a moderating effect on the relationships between push factors and pull factor with exception of improved knowledge, and switch to OSS. The results of this study will contribute to fields related to OSS both theoretically and practically.

A Study on the Cultivation Processes and Settlement Developments on the Mangyoung River Valley (만경강유역의 개간과정과 취락형성발달에 관한 연구)

  • NamGoong, Bong
    • Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.37-87
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    • 1997
  • As a results of researches on the cultivation processes and settlement developments on the Mangyoung river valley as a whole could be have four 'Space-Time Continuity' through a [Origin-Destination] theory model. On a initial phases of cultivation, the cultivation process has been begun at mountain slopes and tributory plains in upper part of river-basin from Koryo Dynasty to early Chosun Dynasty. At first, indigenous peasants burned forests on the mountain slopes for making 'dryfield' for a cereal crops. Following population increase more stable food supply is necessary facets of life inducing a change production method into a 'wetfield' in tributory plains matching the population increase. First sedentary agriculture maybe initiated at this mountain slopes and tributory plains on upper part of river basin through a burning cultivation methods. Mountain slopes and tributory plains are become a Origin area in cultivation processes. It expanded from up to down through the valleys with 'a bits of land' fashion in a steady pace like a terraced fields expanded with bit by bit of land to downward. They expanded their land to the middle part of river basin in mid period of Chosun Dynasty with dike construction techniques on the river bank. Lower part of river cultivated with embankment building techniques in 1920s and then naturally expanded to the tidal marshes on the estuaries and river inlets of coastal areas. 'Pioneer fringes' are consolidated at there in modern times. Changes in landscapes are appeared it's own characters with each periods of time. Followings are results of study through the Mangyoung river valley as a whole. (1) Mountain slopes and tributory plains on the upper part of river are cultivated 'dryfields' by indigenous peasants with Burning cultivation methods at first and developed sedentary settlements at the edges of mountain slopes and on the river terrace near the fields. They formed a kind of 'periphery-located cluster type' of settlement. This type of settlement are become a prominant type in upper part of river basin. 'Dryfields' has been changed into a 'wetfields' at the narrow tributory plains by increasing population pressure in later time. These wetfields are supplied water by Weir and Ponds Irrigation System(제언수리방법). Streams on the tributory plains has been attracted wetfields besides of it and formed a [water+land] complex on it. 'Wetfields' are expanded from up to downward with a terraced land pattern(adder like pattern, 붕전) according to the gradient of valley. These periphery located settlements are formed a intimate ecological linkage with several sets of surroundings. Inner villages are expanded to Outer villages according to the expansion of arable lands into downward. (2) Mountain slopes and tributory plains expanded its territory to the alluvial deposited plains on the middle part of river valley with a urgent need of new land by population increase. This part of alluvial plains are cultivated mainly in mid period of Chosun Dynasty. Irrigation methods are changed into a Dike Construction Irrigation method(천방수리방법) for the control of floods. It has a trend to change the subjectives of cultivation from community-oriented one who constructed Bochang along tributories making rice paddies to local government authorities who could be gather large sums of capitals, techniques and labours for the big dike construction affairs. Settlements are advanced in the midst of plains avoiding friction of distances and formed a 'Centrallocated cluster type' of settlements. There occured a hierarchical structures of settlements in ranks and sizes according merits of water supply and transportation convenience at the broad plains. Big towns are developed at there. It strengthened a more prominant [water+land] complex along the canals. Ecological linkages between settlements and surroundings are shaded out into a tiny one in this area. (3) It is very necessary to get a modern technology of flood control at the rivers that have a large volume of water and broad width. The alluvial plains are remained in a wilderness phase until a technical level reached a large artificial levee construction ability that could protect the arable land from flood. Until that time on most of alluvial land at the lower part of river are remained a wilderness of overgrown with reeds in lacks of techniques to build a large-scale artificial levee along the riverbank. Cultivation processes are progressed in a large scale one by Japanese agricultural companies with [River Rennovation Project] of central government in 1920s. Large scale artificial levees are constructed along the riverbank. Subjectives of cultivation are changed from Korean peasants to Japanese agricultural companies and Korean peasants fell down as a tenant in a colonial situation of that time in Korea. They could not have any voices in planning of spatial structure and decreased their role in planning. Newly cultivated lands are reflected company's intensions, objectives and perspectives for achieving their goals for the sake of colonial power. Newly cultivated lands are planned into a regular Rectangular Block settings of rice paddies and implanted a large scale Bureaucratic-oriented Irrigation System on the cultivated plains. Every settlements are located in the midst of rice paddies with a Central located Cluster type of settlements. [water+land] complex along the canal system are more strengthened. Cultivated space has a characters of [I-IT] landscapes. (4) Artificial levees are connected into a coastal emnankment for a reclamation of broad tidal marshes on the estuaries and inlets of rivers in the colonial times. Subjectives of reclamation are enlarged into a big agricultural companies that could be acted a role as a big cultivator. After that time on most of reclamation project of tidal marshes are controlled by these agricultural companies formed by mostly Japanese capitalists. Reclaimed lands on the estuaries and river inlets are under hands of agricultural companies and all the spatial structures are formed by their intensions, objectives and perspectives. They constructed a Unit Farming Area for the sake of companies. Spatial structures are planned in a regular one with broad arable land for the rice production of rectangular blocks, regular canal systems and tank reservoir for the irrigation water supply into reclaimed lands. There developed a 'Central-located linear type' of settlements in midst of reclaimed land. These settlements are settled in a detail program upon this newly reclaimed land at once with a master plan and they have planned patterns in their distribution, building materials, location, and form. Ecological linkage between Newly settled settlemrnts and its surroundings are lost its colours and became a more artificial one by human-centred environment. [I-IT] landscapes are become more prominant. This region is a destination area of [Origin-Destination] theory model and formed a 'Pioneer Fringe'. It is a kind of pioneer front that could advance or retreat discontinously by physical conditions and socio-cultural conditions of that region.

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The Cross-Cultural Study about Effects of Service Quality Dimensions on CS in Korea and China (할인점 서비스품질의 각 차원이 CS에 미치는 영향에 대한 한(韓).중(中)간 비교 문화적 연구)

  • Noh, Eun-Jeong;Seo, Yong-Goo
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.23-35
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    • 2009
  • A hypermarket as the one of the most globally standardized retailing format is also the type of store among various types of stores that the most active in expanding into other foreign markets. Recently, as several Korean retailing companies start to penetrate into Chinese market they differentiate themselves with modern facilities and customers service oriented high-end concept. China and Korea as Far East Asian countries share many common values, however precise and careful analysis should be carried out since there may also be critical differences in socio-economic aspects as well as in consumption patterns due to the level of development stages of retail industry among two countries. Even though precise and careful study is crucial on Chinese retailing market and consumers, none of researches and studies on 'how the quality of service dimensional structure is different between Korea and China', and 'what will be the most important and influential service dimensional factors for Chinese consuers compared to the hypermarkets customers in Korea' in order to improve the level of Chinese consumers satisfaction' have been fulfilled At this point of view, this study uses KD-SQS (Rho Eun Jung & Sir Yong Gu, 2008) which is a measure of Korean hypermarkets service quality to set up a hypothesis on Korean and Chinese consumers, and an empirical analysis is conducted. We try to get the answers about how the comparative importance of Service quality dimensions which decides the level of customer satisfaction is different depending on the cultural dimensions and socio-economic factors among two countries, Korea and China. Based upon the results, we try to give a valuable suggestion of what service dimensional factors should be reinforced to improve the level of CS in Chinese retailing market. Hypotheses for this study are as follows : H1. Each dimension of Service Quality significantly affects the level of CS H2. The effect of 'Basic Benefit' in service quality dimensions on the level of CS is greater in China than in Korea H3. The effect of 'Promotion' in service quality dimensions on the level of CS is greater in China than in Korea H4. The effect of 'Physical Aspects'in service quality dimensions on the level of CS is greater in Korea than in China. H5. The effect of 'Personal Interaction' in service quality dimensions on the level of CS is greater in China than in Korea H6. The effect of 'Policy' in service quality dimensions on the level of CS will be greater in Korean than in China H7. The effect of additional convenience in service quality dimensions on the level of CS will be greater in Korean than in China. More than 1,100 data were collected directly from the surveys of Chinese and Korean consumers in order to verify the hypotheses above. In Korea, stores which have floor space of over $9,000m^2$and opened later than year 2000 were selected for the samples, and thus Gayang, Wolgye, Sangbong, Eunpyeong, Suh-Suwon, Gojan stores and their customers were surveyed. In China, notable differences in the income levels and consumer behaviors between cities and regions were considered, and thus the research area was limited to the stores only in Shanghai. 6 stores which have the size of over $6,000m^2$ and opened later than 2000, such as Ruihong, Intu, Mudanjang, Sanrin, Raosimon, and Ranchao stores were selected for the survey. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used as statistical tools, and exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and multi-group analysis were conducted. In order to carry out a multi group analysis that decides whether the structure variables which shows the different effects of 6 service dimensions in Korean and Chinese groups is statistically valid, configural invariance, metric invariance, and structural invariance are tested in order. At the results of the tests, 3 out of 7 hypotheses were supported and other 4 hypotheses were denied. According to the study, 4 dimensions (Basic Benefit, Physical Environment, Policy, and additional convenience) were positively correlated with CS in Korea, and 3 dimensions (i.e. basic benefit, policy, additional convenience) were significant in China. However, the significance of the service-dimensions was turned out to be partially different in Korea and China. The Basic Benefit is more influential in deciding the level of CS in china than Korea, however Physical Aspect is more important factor in Korea. 'Policy dimension' did not make significant difference between two countries. In the 'additional convenience dimension', the differences in 'socio-economic factors' than in'cultural background' were considered as more important in Chinese consumers than Korean. Overall, the improvement of Service quality will be crucial factors to increase the level of CS in Chinese market same as Korean market. In addition, more emphases need to be placed on the service qualities of 'Basic Benefit' and 'additional convenience' dimensions in China. In particular, 'low price' and 'product diversity' that constitute 'Basic Benefit' are proved to be comparatively disadvantageous and weak points of Korean companies compared to global players, and thus the prompt strengthening those dimensions would be urgent for Korean retailers. Moreover, additional conveniences such as various tenants and complex service and entertaining area will be more important in China than in Korea. Besides, Applying advanced Korean Hypermaret`s customer policy to Chinese consumers will help to get higher reliability and to differentiate themselves to other competitors. However, as personal interaction, physical aspect, promotions were proved as not significant for the level of CS in China, Korean companies need to reconsider the priority order of resource allocations when they tap into Chinese market.

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The Effect of Retailer-Self Image Congruence on Retailer Equity and Repatronage Intention (자아이미지 일치성이 소매점자산과 고객의 재이용의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Han, Sang-Lin;Hong, Sung-Tai;Lee, Seong-Ho
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.29-62
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    • 2012
  • As distribution environment is changing rapidly and competition is more intensive in the channel of distribution, the importance of retailer image and retailer equity is increasing as a different competitive advantages. Also, consumers are not functionally oriented and that their behavior is significantly affected by the symbols such as retailer image which identify retailer in the market place. That is, consumers do not choose products or retailers for their material utilities but consume the symbolic meaning of those products or retailers as expressed in their self images. The concept of self-image congruence has been utilized by marketers and researchers as an aid in better understanding how consumers identify themselves with the brands they buy and the retailer they patronize. Although self-image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories, the theory has not been tested extensively in the retailing. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of self image congruence between retailer image and self image of consumer on retailer equity such as retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to find out whether retailer-self image congruence can be a new antecedent of retailer equity. In addition, this study tries to examine how four-dimensional retailer equity constructs (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) affect customers' repatronage intention. For this study, data were gathered by survey and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study was 254. The reliability of the all seven dimensions was estimated with Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability values and average variance extracted values. We determined whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity and discriminant validity by Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted values exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the AMOS 18.0. As expected, the image congruence hypotheses were supported. The greater the degree of congruence between retailer image and self-image, the more favorable were consumers' retailer evaluations. The all two retailer-self image congruence (actual self-image congruence and ideal self-image congruence) affected customer based retailer equity. This result means that retailer-self image congruence is important cue for customers to estimate retailer equity. In other words, consumers are often more likely to prefer products and retail stores that have images similar to their own self-image. Especially, it appeared that effect for the ideal self-image congruence was consistently larger than the actual self-image congruence on the retailer equity. The results mean that consumers prefer or search for stores that have images compatible with consumer's perception of ideal-self. In addition, this study revealed that customers' estimations toward customer based retailer equity affected the repatronage intention. The results showed that all four dimensions (retailer awareness, retailer association, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty) had positive effect on the repatronage intention. That is, management and investment to improve image congruence between retailer and consumers' self make customers' positive evaluation of retailer equity, and then the positive customer based retailer equity can enhance the repatonage intention. And to conclude, retailer's image management is an important part of successful retailer performance management, and the retailer-self image congruence is an important antecedent of retailer equity. Therefore, it is more important to develop and improve retailer's image similar to consumers' image. Given the pressure to provide increased image congruence, it is not surprising that retailers have made significant investments in enhancing the fit between retailer image and self image of consumer. The enhancing such self-image congruence may allow marketers to target customers who may be influenced by image appeals in advertising.

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