• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.51-63
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• 2017

Purpose - The current study examines the shopping behavior of Chinese tourists who purchase Korean cosmetics when visiting Korea, based on expectancy-disconfirmation of shopping satisfaction and brand attitude toward Korean cosmetics. A moderating effect of consumer conformity on the relationships between cosmetics selection factors and two dimensions of disconfirmation - expectation and performance is also examined. Research design, data, and methodology - We conducted a survey with 250 Chinese tourists who visited Jeju, Korea and had purchased Korean cosmetics during their stay. Excluding 43 respondents' inputs because of incomplete answers and missing values, 207 responses were used in the final analysis. All hypotheses were tested using structural equation model (SEM). Results - We found that the Chinese tourist expectations had positive impact on their satisfaction, and the factors for cosmetic selection had a positive effect on shopping satisfaction and brand attitude. A moderating effect of consumer conformity was found to be significant. Conclusions - Given the significantly increased demand for Korean cosmetics from Chinese tourists, Korean cosmetics firms need to better understand cosmetics selection attributes and preference of Chinese tourists, which can provide a guideline to develop retail stores and distribution outlets for Chinese tourists.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.41-48
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• 2019

Purpose - This study investigates whether financial analysts consider the intangible investment implicit in selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenditures to forecast firms' future earnings. Research design, data, and methodology - Using 52,609 U.S. firm-year observations spanning 1984-2016, this study examines the association between the Intangible investment implicit in SG&A expenditures and properties of analysts' earnings forecasts. To estimate the Intangible investment of SG&A, I decompose SG&A excluding R&D and advertising expenditures into maintenance and investment components following Enache and Srivastava (2017). Results - The main results show that analysts' earnings forecast errors and dispersion in analysts' forecasts increase with the intangible investment derived from SG&A because the investment component of SG&A affects future earnings and the uncertainty of those earnings. However, these results are weakened in the wholesale and retail industries where firms have a higher level of investment component of SG&A. I attribute the weaker results to low R&D expenditures in those industries. Conclusion - This study indicates that financial analysts incorporate the intangible investment of SG&A into their earnings forecasts differently across firms and industries. Furthermore, this study supports the argument for the separate reporting of the investment nature of SG&A from other operating expenses such as maintenance nature of SG&A.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.43-53
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• 2014

Purpose - This study suggested a practical model for super supermarkets (SSMs) and small- and medium-sized stores to grow together. Super centers expanded their business. However, after the retail distribution law was revised in 2009, mutual cooperation between large and small enterprises resulted in social issues and people raised the issue of profitability. Research design, data, and methodology - This study investigated cases of regulation over distribution in Japan, France, and other countries to reveal implications and recommendations. Results - This study demonstrated how SSM and middle and small supermarkets could grow together by franchising and using cooperative society law. Franchising was a mutual growth model whereby the franchiser provided franchisees with large enterprise systems and utilities while franchisees could provide the franchiser with local information. They could thus build trust in each other to facilitate a mutual growth model. Further, the voluntary franchise system's model facilitated the mutual growth model. Conclusions - This study demonstrates that the franchise system and cooperative society could constitute an ideal model whereby large enterprises and middle and small stores could rely upon each other and grow together.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.23-34
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• 2021

Purpose: This study identifies the critical elements of relationship management required to be studied in distribution sciences to create a relational bond of watch manufacturers with their retailers in India. The offline watch retail market is undergoing a rapid transformation due to technology intervention in the product portfolio and the advent of online retailing. The study identifies the interrelationships amongst the constructs of interdependence, trust, affective commitment, and information exchange to form long-lasting relational bonds in the watch industry. Research design, data and methodology: We used a path analysis to investigate the relationship between interdependence, trust, affective commitment, and information exchange. Data has been collected from 143 watch retailers using judgmental sampling method. Results: The data analysis suggested the establishment of measurement and structural model. The absolute and relative goodness of fit models in the causal analysis are 0.628 and 0.959 suggesting a sufficient fit index. Based on the analysis of direct and indirect effects, the results indicate that trust fully mediates the effect of interdependence and information exchange of retailers with the manufacturer. Conclusions: Trust plays an important role in driving commitment and information exchange between watch manufacturers and retailers. Interdependence in the manufacturer-channel relationships would lead to affective commitment only when trust exists in the relationship. [AMAWATE, Vibhas.] in Web of Science and Scopus).

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.19-27
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• 2021

Purpose: Former research has argued that organizations in distribution channels face several issues to make a better team-based system. The purpose of the present research is to measure between employee's job performance and three major issues which disturb a solid team system. Research design, data and methodology: Scant past studies are available to guide for team practitioners which elements should be eliminated to improve team performance. To achieve this goal, the present authors obtained 267 US workers in distribution channels and conducted ANOVA test to measure the relationship between three team issues (Free-rider, Trust, and Communication) and job performance. Results: Our statistical findings clearly suggests that there was a statistically recognizable difference at the significance level of probability between the mean value of employees' job performance and three major issues, showing the high degree of job performance can be occurred by eliminating three major team issues. Conclusions: Therefore, the present research concludes that it is necessary that team-based management in the supply chain should focus on removing free-rider issues and also adopt open communication lines to overcome team-building challenges due to communication. Above all else, the ability to increase trust can be enhanced via task delegation and more team members' engagement.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.105-117
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• 2022

Purpose: This research investigates ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee. Although the RTD coffee market is growing competitively, few studies have examined behavioral re-intention or repurchase intention in the context of this industry. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore factors affecting the behavioral re-intention to purchase RTD coffee. Research design, data and methodology: Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as the underpinning theoretical framework, this study hypothesized that behavioral re-intention to purchase RTD coffee is influenced by the variables of the TPB and additional variables. A mixed-method research design was applied, starting with qualitative in-depth interviews and followed by a quantitative method. Data were collected using an online survey of coffee lovers. Multiple linear regression (MLR) was used to assess the hypothesized relationships in the proposed conceptual framework. Results: The results reveal that content sensory attribute beliefs are the strongest positive predictor of behavioral re-intention in Thailand, followed by perceived utilitarian value. In contrast, price signaling was negatively related to behavioral re-intention. Conclusions: The findings can help food and beverage companies to develop new coffee product lines to gain more market share, create integrated marketing communications to build brand awareness, and manage distribution channels and the supply chain.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.801-815
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• 2011

This study examines the characteristics of marketing and customer that influence the selection of multichannel (preference/frequency of use) in the fashion retail. The subjects of this study are men and women live in Seoul/Gyeonggi province and Busan/Gyeongsangnam-do in their 20s-40s who have shopping experiences in fashion items of more than 2 shopping channels among offline stores, catalogs, and the internet. The survey period was from March to May 2010 and 411 forms were used in this survey. The data were analyzed by a reliability analysis (Cronbach's ${\alpha}$), a factor analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVA. The main results of this study are summarized as follows. First, marketing characteristics, which effect the selection of multichannel (preference/frequency of use), consist of sales promotion, service, price, merchandise, and distribution. Those have a significant influence (***p${\leq}$.001) on choosing multichannel of fashion retail. Price has a significant impact on the preference of multichannel and merchandise affect for frequency of use in multichannel shopping. Second, customer characteristics have a significant influence (***p${\leq}$.001) on the monthly average purchasing amount, shopping hours, shopping frequency, brand knowledge, and price sensitivity. Particularly, monthly average purchasing amount & shopping frequency have meaningful differences in the frequency of using multichannel; in addition, shopping hours were affected by preference & frequency of use. Price sensitivity has a greater influence on the frequency of using multichannel and brand knowledge has a greater effect on multichannel preference. Customer's information searching characteristics have main 3 factors through the use of marketing information, personal information and experience information. Application of experience information is the main factor in preference and frequency of using multichannel shopping. The customer demographic characteristics of age (*p${\leq}$.05, **p${\leq}$.01) and gender (*p${\leq}$.05) show a difference for selecting multichannel. There is no difference for marital status, average household income per month, and job.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.153-172
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• 1997

The distribution sector is affected by a wide range of regulations. Many of these are related to health and safety, others are related to urban planning and environmental issues, whereas some mainly have an economic basis. But, regulations many be unduly restrictive, in which case they can drive up costs and ultimately prices, or they may, in some cases, reduce consumer choice. Unduly restrictive regulations could also increase costs indirectly, by reducing competition and thus lead to lower productivity growth. In the past few years, distribution sector has gone through drastic changes due to deregulation and market opening. Implementation of regulatory reforms served as an opportunity to change laws and systems which had been an obstacle to development of distribution sector. Market opening of distribution sector became a turning point to promote competition among domestic and foreign firms. However, for small and medium scale of the typical retail enterprises which were in no position to compete in terms of prices, additional facilities, and services, faced a threat of diminished trading area, and even of their existence. Because, large firms may have greater market power than small firms, as they can more easily extract favorable terms when procuring goods, and may also be able to deter entry by advertising outlays or access to the best sites. In addition, larger chain stores armied with sufficient capital dominated trading area and reduced customer's welfare by abusing their monopoly power when competing with other shops, and are often cited as an example of adverse effects of local monopoly. In order to minimize such adverse effects and to foster competition, regulatory reforms in distribution sector should set its goal to promote sound and stable distribution activities through market principle and restoring competition principle, and ultimately to boost customers welfare. Therefore, deregulation in distribution sector should be implemented in a way to promote customers welfare, eliminate entry barriers, and expand competition principle such as productivity and efficiency competition. However, it should be also recognized that deregulation of system alone is not enough to develop the distribution sector. To compete in a increasingly concentrated industry, small enterprises increasingly engage in co-operative arrangements, such as buying groups, strategic alliances or franchise agreements.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-57
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• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.15-26
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• 2009

The internet has dramatically changed a way of business management and competition in the business environment. Especially, it stimulated not only to evolve online floral distribution service but also to change a phase of competition among floral retail stores in industry. And that also led to keen competition among IT service providers as well. This study is to examine how floral retail stores have been evolved and competed with the radical situation of the floral distribution industry through IT service in the aspect of business and information technology. In addition, the Typhoon Positioning Strategy(TPS), a strategy for the IT service positioning, is introduced from IT service provider's perspective. For IT service providers to create high business value and continuous service providing, IT service should be positioned on the customers' "core business" and developed to the level of "solution." The Typhoon Positioning Strategy(TPS) is a strategy for the IT service positioning, indicating that IT service should be positioned according to a Business Process-Service model with the consideration of business development direction, IT service trend, and user's IT capability. That is, IT service providers should find out customers' "core business" area first to provide a right IT service to the company, and the IT service provided should meet to the level of business solution. The capability of the IT solution users is also an important factor to be considered for the advanced IT service. There are four principles of the Typhoon Positioning Strategy(TPS). Principle 1) IT service provided should be an IT solution Map suitable for customer business processes. Principle 2) IT service provided should be able to support customer core business. Principle 3) IT service provided should be a business solution. Principle. 4) IT service provided should be applied differently according to the level of customer's IT capability.