• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.19-38
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• 2010

This study surveyed L2 learners' needs for different components of communicative competence. It aimed to determine what abilities the learners strongly need to achieve communicative competence in different learning contexts. It also examined gender differences in the learners' need for phonological competence. A total of 359 students participated in this study, divided into three learner groups: high school, vocational college, and university students. The data were collected via a questionnaire, which was based on Bachman's (1990) framework of language competence. The study drew some important findings: (a) The vocational trainees expressed a stronger need for illocutionary competence than the high school students and for sociolinguistic competence than the high school and the university groups; (b) The high school and the university groups equated grammatical, textual, illocutionary, and strategic competences in their needs with lesser attention to sociolinguistic competence; (c) To the high school and the university groups, pragmatic competence was assessed higher than organizational competence; (d) Female students showed greater sensitivity to pronunciation ability than did male students. On the basis of these results, pedagogical implications are discussed, along with some helpful suggestions.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.595-608
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• 2008

Although Korean apparel companies have transformed dramatically from contractors to sourcing companies thanks to the rapid growth of local market, relatively little work has been done identifying the determinants and the patterns of global sourcing activities of Korean companies. The purpose of this study was to outline a conceptual model that may be used to organize and guide global sourcing activities of Korean apparel manufacturers and retailers. The conceptual model identified four important factors, cost factor, strategic non-cost factor, firm's internal factor, and global factor, which affect global sourcing strategies and help predict how companies conduct various sourcing activities. The model also identified two sourcing patterns, outsourcing and intra-firm sourcing. In developing the model, literature review on how manufacturers and retailers in diverse areas including global apparel sourcing was conducted. Managerial implications and directions far future study were offered as well.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.89-104
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• 2006

Though weight manufacturing has in national gross production is decreasing, it has still a decisive role in economic growth of Korea, and foreign competitiveness of manufacturing has a great influence on our whole economy. Therefore, as this study speculates export competitiveness of manufacturing item by item, the results can be used for selection of strategic export-oriented products. The results of the analysis are summarized as follows: first, products that are found as competitive through analysis of trade specialization indexes are plastic, rubber, fabric, home electronic appliances, computers, communication equipment, automobiles and their spare parts. Second, electronic-electric industry such as semi-conduits, communication equipment, home electronics, computers was decided as advantageous through analysis of comparative advantages at present, while paper, print and publishing, and leather industries were classified as comparatively disadvantageous. Its political implications are presented as follows: Private corporations should develop more advanced technology and government should give more support to secure export competitiveness of manufacturing toward America. Governmental policies should be prepared to induce consistent and daring investment to technology-intensive products for export products with high-added value.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.167-184
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• 2009

New internet trend, such as Web 2.0, has brought about new roles of users and changes in the web ecosystem. In the age of information overload like nowadays, activities in the brand community sites help to make more reasonable decisions in choosing certain brands and products. In order to examine organizational strategic aspects of brand community, this study examine (1) what difference exists in user satisfaction according to the brand community types (the user-initiated type and the corporate-established type), and (2) which dimensions of service quality affect brand community users' satisfaction. Research findings show that types of brand community influence perceived user satisfaction, and tangibility, reliability, interactivity, and stability dimensions of service quality make a positive influence on user satisfaction as well. Practical implications for managing brand community sites in marketing perspectives are further discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.51-64
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• 2014

Open innovation concept is advocating the importance of the customer roles in firm's innovation. As a result, crowdsourcing community is drawing attention as a strategic asset for open innovation across diverse industries. Considering that the goal of crowdsourcing community is harnessing innovative ideas, understanding the characteristics of user-favorable and organization-adoptable ideas can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of idea crowdsourcing. In our approach, we extracted idea content-based characteristics such as subjectivity, negativity, prosocialness, and depth of idea to examine what are the factors that affect user preference and organizational adoption. An analysis of 71,134 ideas from MyStarbucksIdea.com shows that there are significant differences between user-favorable and organization-adoptable ideas in terms of idea characteristics. Lastly, both theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.239-264
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• 2015

This study aims to investigate the effect of message content and source user identity on information diffusion in Twitter networks. For the empirical study, we collected 11,346 tweets pertaining to the three major mobile telecom carriers in Korea for three months, from September to December 2011. These tweets generated 59,111 retweets (RTs) and were retweeted at least once. Our analysis indicates that information diffusion in Twitter in terms of RT volume is affected primarily by the type of message content, such as the inclusion of corporate social responsibility activities. However, the effect of message content on information diffusion is heterogeneous to the identity of the information source. We argue that user identity affects recipients' perception of the credibility of focal information. Our study offers insights into the information diffusion mechanism in online social networks and provides managerial implications on the strategic utilization of online social networks for marketing communications with customers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.220-227
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• 2012

The case company has driven the six sigma innovation programme company wide for the last seven years without any stop in spite of the CEO change. There was neither any benchmark nor the sufficient number of internal experts during the initial stage of driving six sigma. However, the company raised a lot of innovation experts such as MBB, BB and GB, thereby successfully changed the way of employees' doing work and reaped an enormous amount of either visible or invisible performances as a result of implementing the six sigma innovation programme. This paper deals with both main activities undertaken at each stage of the innovation life cycle of six sigma and their performances in a ICT (Information Communication Technology) industry. The performances are described from the four aspects of a balanced score card (BSC) and finally some strategic implications suggested.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.311-338
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• 2016

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US, declining globalism confronts rising protectionism. This paper models the ratification process as contest between globalism and protectionism, and analyzes the optimal timing for ratification. Based on this framework, various ratification scenarios are analyzed. The paper argues less likelihood for the lame-duck session passage and more likelihood for prolonged and protracted delay, due to changing political dynamics and declining intellectual support for globalism. Hence, the future of Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement may prove different, compared to the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, both of which were renegotiated and ratified eventually. Then, the US would lose the first move advantage. The paper also discusses strategic implications of delayed ratification on the evolution of trading architecture in East Asia.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.215-235
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• 2002

Recently, most banks in Korea provide internet banking services for customers, and the number of internet banking users is growing rapidly. However, the percentage of internet banking from the perspective of total banking transactions is only about 8.8%. In this thesis we identify customers' perceived value of internet banking and the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty. Furthermore, we illustrate the role of internet banking as the strategic channel of customer loyalty. We performed an empirical data analysis on internet banking users. The results showed that the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty is significant and customer loyalty toward internet banking sites has a positive effect on customer loyalty toward banks. The implications of this study are that internet banking sites should concentrate on delivering customer value such as ease of use, playfulness, and trust, and thereby strengthen customer loyalty.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.245-260
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• 2001

While past knowledge management researches have focused on conceptualization and strategic implications, knowledge asset researches attempt to provide practical guidelines for companies. However, each research classifies knowledge asset from its own perspective, and thus it is not a trivial task to leverage consistent and inclusive criteria in managing corporate knowledge asset. The objective of this paper is to develop a knowledge asset classification schema on the basis of the three business functions: customer relationship management, product innovation, and infrastructure management. To demonstrate the feasibility of our schema, it has been applied to 9 Korean corporations. Knowledge assets are evaluated according to core capabilities, which are main drivers of sustainable competitive advantages. The results of case study show that the leveraged classification schema reflects current knowledge asset management and characteristics of corporations. Our finding is that most top-quality knowledge management corporations are likely to develop well-balanced knowledge asset.