• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.52
• /
• pp.154-176
• /
• 2010

Rooted in the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the cultural intermediaries have recently developed as a focus of attention for the Anglo-saxon sociology of culture and cultural studies. This paper tries to critically examine the debate around the definition and role of cultural intermediaries. It also explores the applicability of the notion ‘cultural intermediaries’ to a changing digital mediascape. In the first part of the paper, I clarify the critical problematics inherent in the Bourdieusian conception which focuses on the function of cultural intermediaries for the ‘production of the belief’ in cultural goods. Consequently, I draw attention to the mediation and transformation process of ‘legitimate culture’ by critics in mass media as ‘new cultural intermediaries’. In the second part, I attempt to constitute a typology of cultural intermediaries, proposing the notion of ‘on-line cultural mediation’ and ‘on-line cultural intermediaries’. I also outline the characteristics of three different types (‘traditional’, ‘new' and 'on-line') of cultural intermediaries. I argue this new conception of cultural intermediaries can help to understand the complex power relations and their transmutation in various cultural fields under digital environment.

• 한국경영정보학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.06a
• /
• pp.378-381
• /
• 2007

Traditional intermediaries refer to service providers such as travel agents, real estate brokers, job agencies and insurance agents which matching services for buyers and suppliers in a traditional market. The introduction of Electronic commerce resulted in the automation of many tasks provided by intermediaries and seemed to eliminate the role of many traditional intermediaries, which is called disintermediation. However, depending on their market power, traditional intermediaries either will be disintermediated or fill new roles by providing added value and assistance, which is called reintermediation. According to the research of Alina M. Chircu et al. there are three conditions for reintermediation for traditional intermediaries. Three conditions are weak appropriability of EC innovations, ownership of co-specialized assets for both market intermediation and EC innovations and economies of scale. Besides these three reintermediation conditions, we hypothesize that leveraging BPO can be a suitable strategy for traditional intermediaries to be transformed into reintermediaries. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the leveraging of technology or specialist process vendors to provide and manage an organization's critical and/or non-critical enterprise processes and applications. This paper will investigate the relationship between above reintermediation conditions including BPO and reintermediation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.45-55
• /
• 2013

Purpose - The development and implementation of OSS (Open Source Software) led to a dramatic change in corporate IT infrastructure, from system server to smart phone, because the performance, reliability, and security functions of OSS are comparable to those of commercial software. Today, OSS has become an indispensable tool to cope with the competitive business environment and the constantly-evolving IT environment. However, the use of OSS is insufficient in small and medium-sized companies and software houses. This study examines the need for OSS Intermediaries in the Software Distribution Channel. It is expected that the role of the OSS Intermediary will be reduced with the improvement of the distribution process. The purpose of this research is to prove that OSS Intermediaries increase the efficiency of the software distribution market. Research design, Data, and Methodology - This study presents the analysis of data gathered online to determine the extent of the impact of the intermediaries on the OSS market. Data was collected using an online survey, conducted by building a personal search robot (web crawler). The survey period lasted 9 days during which a total of 233,021 data points were gathered from sourceforge.net and Apple's App store, the two most popular software intermediaries in the world. The data collected was analyzed using Google's Motion Chart. Results - The study found that, beginning 2006, the production of OSS in the Sourceforge.net increased rapidly across the board, but in the second half of 2009, it dropped sharply. There are many events that can explain this causality; however, we found an appropriate event to explain the effect. It was seen that during the same period of time, the monthly production of OSS in the App store was increasing quickly. The App store showed a contrasting trend to software production. Our follow-up analysis suggests that appropriate intermediaries like App store can enlarge the OSS market. The increase was caused by the appearance of B2C software intermediaries like App store. The results imply that OSS intermediaries can accelerate OSS software distribution, while development of a better online market is critical for corporate users. Conclusion - In this study, we analyzed 233,021 data points on the online software marketplace at Sourceforge.net. It indicates that OSS Intermediaries are needed in the software distribution market for its vitality. It is also critical that OSS intermediaries should satisfy certain qualifications to play a key role as market makers. This study has several interesting implications. One implication of this research is that the OSS intermediary should make an effort to create a complementary relationship between OSS and Proprietary Software. The second implication is that the OSS intermediary must possess a business model that shares the benefits with all the participants (developer, intermediary, and users).The third implication is that the intermediary provides an OSS of high quality like proprietary software with a high level of complexity. Thus, it is worthwhile to examine this study, which proves that the open source software intermediaries are essential in the software distribution channel.

• 한국디지털정책학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.75-87
• /
• 2005

Under the internet age, the competition among recruiting intermediaries including online and offline players has been intensified for several years. Therefore, their business processes or business models have also been transformed to be able to earn the competitive advantages. For these reasons, the traditional players like offline-based recruiting companies have willingly or unwillingly experienced the competitive disadvantages on the recruit battle ground. The online recruiting intermediaries, who newly participated in this industry and based on the internet environment, however, seized on the competitive advantages with the richness and the reach traits of online media. Under this context, the offline traditional intermediaries, who have been threatened by new online entries, must make a replacement of traditional trading mechanisms with alternative trading mechanisms like IT-enabled intermediaries. In this study by exploratory approach, we investigate the phases of transformation of the traditional recruiting intermediaries, changes in business strategies of offline-based firms, and impacts of online media in e-recruiting industry.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.77
• /
• pp.305-327
• /
• 2018

Export Intermediaries engage in an exporter's side transaction with an importer's side, both of which are customers of these intermediaries. Therefore, dyadic perspectives implied in conventional theories of customer orientation should be revised to apply to a triadic relationship systemin indirect export settings. The present manuscript proposed that customer orientation of export intermediaries consists of total customer orientation toward both the exporter and importer sides and customer orientation asymmetry, which is customer orientation in favor of the exporter relative to the importer side, and examines the antecedents and outcomes of these orientations. It is posited that each side attention increases total customer orientation and customer orientation asymmetry toward exporters or importers. These positive effects would be weaker when importers and exporters interact directly versus indirectly and would be stronger when the offering prices vary versus remain stable during negotiations. Lastly, total customer orientation would increase export intermediaries' performance by itself and in interaction with customer attention. Nonetheless, orientation asymmetry would increase their outcomes in line with customer attention.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.139-147
• /
• 2002

In this paper, a mathematical model was introduced to analyze pricing and quality strategies for the web sites of electronic intermediaries. Especially, I focused on the intermediary sites that initiate their businesses by providing free services such as free e-mail, search, and directory services. intermediaries may gather third party providers looking for new markets for their services, based on customers who want to use the free services. And intermediaries provide charged intermediary services to both of customers and providers. By analyzing the mathematical model, I can find optimal quality and prices to maximize the profit of intermediaries. And I can found also that intermediaries should make efforts to improve their productivity of developing their services to make profits.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.131-142
• /
• 2005

Under the internet age, the competition among recruiting intermediaries including online and offline players has been intensified for several years. Therefore, their business processes or business models have also been transformed to be able to earn the competitive advantages. For these reasons, the traditional players like offline-based recruiting companies have willingly or unwillingly experienced the competitive disadvantages on the recruit battle ground. The online recruiting intermediaries, who newly participated in this industry and based on the internet environment, however, seized on the competitive advantages with the richness and the reach traits of online media. Under this context, the offline traditional intermediaries, who have been threatened by new online entries, must make a replacement of traditional trading mechanisms with alternative trading mechanisms like IT-enabled intermediaries. In this study by exploratory approach, we investigate the phases of transformation of the traditional recruiting intermediaries, changes in business strategies of offline-based firms, and impacts of online media in e-recruiting industry.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.15-34
• /
• 2024

This study aims to analyze the effect of absorptive capacity on technology collaboration performance and the moderating effect of innovation intermediaries. We set absorptive capacity (potential, realized) as independent variables and technology collaboration performance (relative technology level, development period, cost savings, new product development, collaboration satisfaction) as dependent variables, with innovation intermediaries as a moderating variable. We conducted a survey of 145 ICT companies that experienced technology collaboration and analyzed the data using 101 valid responses. The results show that potential absorptive capacity has a significant effect on new product development and collaboration satisfaction, while realized absorptive capacity has a significant effect on relative technology level, cost savings, and new product development. Furthermore, innovation intermediaries have a moderating effect between realized absorptive capacity and new product development. The contribution of this study to academia and industry is that it highlights absorptive capacity as a key factor influencing technology collaboration performance. The limitations of this study include the lack of accurate measurement of absorptive capacity and innovation intermediaries, as well as a lack of control over external factors. These limitations should be addressed through more in-depth research by systematically defining and measuring them in future follow-up studies.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.235-246
• /
• 2022

SMEs are being forced to continuously innovate their technologies for survival due to changes in the external industrial environment. In order to innovate technology or discover technology cooperation partners of SMEs, it is necessary to actively introduce open innovation, centering on industry-academia-research. However, SMEs need to use open innovation brokers due to their lack of access to external resources and difficulty in independent promotion, and accordingly, the role of open innovation brokers is important. Until now, performance factors and influencing factors have been studied mainly by technology providers in the field of technology transfer, and research on mediators is very insufficient. This study analyzes the role and function of technology transfer intermediaries to explore the role of open innovation intermediaries and how they differ from existing technology transfer intermediaries. This role of open innovation intermediaries is of practical significance in that it deals with the role of intermediaries based on the results of government support projects, and it is of academic significance to serve as the basis for future research on open innovation intermediaries.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.105-113
• /
• 2021

Purpose: The rural market in India provides tremendous scope for FMCG consumer healthcare companies to market their products because of a significant increase of rural purchasing power. Many empirical studies in this area highlight the challenges and opportunities for marketers in the FMCG space. Research articles are not in abundance to understand intermediaries' expectations in the supply chain specific to consumer healthcare products. The existing literature did not significantly address the challenges of channel partners in the rural market. The present study aims to determine the retailer expectations from manufacturers and channel members' mutual expectations in the FMCG distribution channel. Research design and Methodology: The present study adopted a qualitative research methodology. Fifty respondents from each level of distribution channel such as super-stockist, distributors and retailers in central India were identified and an interview method was adopted to collect the data. Results: Nineteen factors were identified to influence the intermediaries for involvement in the business with any FMCG brand. Factors like Profit margin, reverse logistics, credit terms, return on investment, timely payments were crucial for managing the expectations of all intermediaries. This study provides academic as well as practical implications in terms of enabling the industry to align its channel management strategies accordingly.