• International Area Studies Review
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• 제16권1호
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• pp.53-74
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• 2012

The bundling of multiple products/services at a set price has become a popular marketing strategy. However, little is known on how effects of bundling strategy influence tourists' evaluation of tour packages. Tourists evaluate a tour package based on the trade-off between the perceived benefits and costs involved in purchasing the tour package. In other words, the perceived value of the tour package influenced whether tourists to purchase a tour package or not. This study tested a tour package based on the theory of bundling, taking a moderating approach with perceived value. The data for this study wascollected by subjects who live Seoul Metropolitan Area and Gyeonggi Province and 4234 respondents, potential tourists to northeastern U.S.A/Canada. Results show that bundling taken by travel agencies include how many product items to put in a tour package and what degree of discount for the tour package. Also explaining functional relationship among product items in the tour package. Result show that tourists expect a discount, large or small, from purchasing a tour package. And the larger the number of products in a tour packages, the larger the discount size, and low functional relationship among items tourists expect to get.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• 제59권1호
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• pp.301-327
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to examine the timing and the risk factors associated with the adoption of legally-free foster children. The sample of the study was drawn from foster care files of Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System(AFCARS) in 32 states between October 1998 (FY 1999) and September 2002(FY 2002). The timing post-TPR to adoption was examined by plotting the Kaplan-Meier cumulative hazard function for adoption and by plotting the KM hazard functions stratified by child's race and child's age at TPR. Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for adoption of legally-free foster children after TPR. The hazard of adoption was very low immediately after TPR but increased steadily starting at 3 months and then declined after 20 months. The cumulative hazard functions for White non-Hispanic children and Black non-Hispanic children crossed over at 13 months after TPR. Racial minority status, older age, and disability were negatively associated with the hazard of adoption. Physical abuse, sexual abuse had the lower hazard for adoption compared by neglect. Caretaker's inability to cope had the slightly lower hazard for adoption whereas inadequate housing showed the slightly greater hazard for adoption. Characteristics of foster care services turned into be powerful predictors of adoption. Specifically, legally-free children placed in pre-adoptive homes, those who shared the same racial/ethnic background with their foster caretakers, and those who were placed in two-parent families have a greater likelihood of adoption. The findings highlight the importance of foster care service provisions after TPR to facilitate adoption of legally-free foster children. Furthermore, a more substantial resources and targeted support for foster children who experience physical abuse and sexual abuse in need of adoption should be provided for moving the foster children into permanency.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• 제22권1호
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• pp.119-138
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• 2016

Since the Industrial Revolution, which made the mass production and mass distribution of standardized goods possible, machine-made (manufactured) products have accounted for the majority of the market. However, in recent years, the phenomenon of purchasing even more expensive handmade products has become a noticeable trend as consumers have started to acknowledge the value of handmade products, such as the craftsman's commitment, belief in their quality and scarcity, and the sense of self-esteem from having them,. Consumer interest in these handmade products has shown explosive growth and has been coupled with the recent development of three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies. Etsy.com is the world's largest online handmade platform. It is no different from any other online platform; it provides an online market where buyers and sellers virtually meet to share information and transact business. However, Etsy.com is different in that shops within this platform only deal with handmade products in a variety of categories, ranging from jewelry to toys. Since its establishment in 2005, despite being limited to handmade products, Etsy.com has enjoyed rapid growth in membership, transaction volume, and revenue. Most recently in April 2015, it raised funds through an initial public offering (IPO) of more than 1.8 billion USD, which demonstrates the huge potential of online handmade platforms. After the success of Etsy.com, various types of online handmade platforms such as Handmade at Amazon, ArtFire, DaWanda, and Craft is ART have emerged and are now competing with each other, at the same time, which has increased the size of the market. According to Deloitte's 2015 holiday survey on which types of gifts the respondents plan to buy during the holiday season, about 16% of U.S. consumers chose "homemade or craft items (e.g., Etsy purchase)," which was the same rate as those for the computer game and shoes categories. This indicates that consumer interests in online handmade platforms will continue to rise in the future. However, this high interest in the market for handmade products and their platforms has not yet led to academic research. Most extant studies have only focused on machine-made products and intelligent services for them. This indicates a lack of studies on handmade products and their intelligent services on virtual platforms. Therefore, this study used signaling theory and prior research on the effects of sellers' characteristics on their performance (e.g., total sales and price premiums) in the buyer-seller relationship to identify the key influencing e-Image factors (e.g., reputation, size, information sharing, and length of relationship). Then, their impacts on the performance of shops within the online handmade platform were empirically examined; the dataset was collected from Etsy.com through the application of web harvesting technology. The results from the structural equation modeling revealed that the reputation, size, and information sharing have significant effects on the total sales, while the reputation and length of relationship influence price premiums. This study extended the online platform research into online handmade platform research by identifying key influencing e-Image factors on within-platform shop's total sales and price premiums based on signaling theory and then performed a statistical investigation. These findings are expected to be a stepping stone for future studies on intelligent online handmade services as well as handmade products themselves. Furthermore, the findings of the study provide online handmade platform operators with practical guidelines on how to implement intelligent online handmade services. They should also help shop managers build their marketing strategies in a more specific and effective manner by suggesting key influencing e-Image factors. The results of this study should contribute to the vitalization of intelligent online handmade services by providing clues on how to maximize within-platform shops' total sales and price premiums.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.15-24
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• 2011

Modern enterprises should concentrate their efforts on continuous improvements in focusing their development in the core areas of business and to reduce their expenses and to enhance the quality of service for customers. The enterprises should focus on their core business while outsourcing the non-core areas of business to external specialists for the purpose of reducing cost. In South Korea, the enterprises are becoming increasingly interested in outsourcing their logistics function, especially in using IT technologies to the 3PL. The underlying reason for this trend is because the logistics costs of Korean businesses are much higher than that of other advanced countries. This higher logistic costs weakens the price competitiveness of Korean companies in the overseas export markets and even dampening the balance of international trade. Domestically, the higher logistics costs have the effect of raising prices in the local markets and thus affecting the local economy. Therefore a solution is urgently needed to save the logistics costs for the Korean companies in the interest of increasing national competitiveness. Outsourcing to the 3PL is becoming an attraction solution to this problem. Thanks to the increasing supply of professional logistics companies, many of the enterprises are switching to the Third Party Logistics. Nevertheless the enterprises do not yet utilize the integrated third-party logistics services on a full scale. This study analyzes present conditions and problems of the domestic third-party logistics market and suggests directions for future development. To solve the problems in the domestic third-party logistics market, four actions are recommended. First there should be new supporting policies in the laws and regulations and a system for small and medium sized companies to grow. Solutions to structural problems such as abnormal multilevel merchandising, illegal operation of private cars, and freight dumping should be implemented concurrently. Furthermore, standards for new companies entry into the market should be enhanced to allow only the competitive distribution companies to enter the market. Second, development of variety of educational programs is needed through establishing human-resource development system and specialized formal educational institution focused on this market. Third, the third party distribution companies, which seek long-term relationships with the owners of goods, should endeavor to strengthen their communications capability. Fourth, adoption of high-tech distribution system and the advent of U-Logistics, making use of RFID is urgent. This study has the limitation of objectivity because it does not include various comparative case studies about companies relating to the Third Party Logistics and domestic franchise companies. However, this study is significant to the extent that it analyzes the general present conditions and the problems of domestic Third Party Logistics and suggests recommendations for revitalization of Third Party Logistics. For future studies, analyzing the successful cases of international third party logistics companies' empirical data and studying the application into domestic franchise companies would improve the objectivity of the results. This would assist the domestic third party logistics companies not only to perform excellent domestic logistics function but also to enter into the global market for international logistics.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• 제19권5호
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• pp.432-443
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• 2018

This study aims to present the direction of development of a policy framework to solve the problems associated with Smart Cities. For this purpose, first, after investigating the development process of domestic smart cities, we examined various cases of smart city policies being established overseas. Second, we analyzed the existing research into smart cities, in order to understand the relationship between the major issues. Third, an expert interview was conducted based on the identified issues. Fourth, we presented the direction of development of a Smart City policy framework to solve the major problems associated with domestic and foreign smart cities. In the policy framework presented in this research, after subdividing the elements used for solving each problem, we linked them with the smart city components and selected matching executable agents to prepare solutions. Then, once the deliberation process of the National Smart City Committee and the Smart Urban Service Support Organization has been completed, the government will support it financially and politically. It also suggested that it is necessary to perform continuous information gathering and monitoring work, along with the construction of a control tower to strengthen the network effect between smart city related markets. This research has significance in that it presents the procedures required for efficiently responding to the problems arising in the smart city promotion process. It is expected that it will serve as the basis for establishing policies dealing with the development and advancement of domestic smart cities in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.175-187
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• 2011

Since insects play important roles in existence of plants and other animals in the natural environment, they are considered as necessary biological resources from the perspectives of those biodiversity conservation and national utilization strategy. For the conservation and utilization of insect species, an observational learning environment is needed for non-experts such as citizens and students to take interest in insects in the natural ecosystem. The insect identification is a main factor for the observational learning. A current time-consuming search method by insect classification is inefficient because it needs much time for the non-experts who lack insect knowledge to identify insect species. To solve this problem, we proposed an smart phone-based insect identification inference system that helps the non-experts identify insect species from observational characteristics in the natural environment. This system is based on the similarity between the observational information by an observer and the biological insect characteristics. For this system, we classified the observational characteristics of insects into 27 elements according to order, family, and species, and proposed similarity indexes to search similar insects. In addition, we developed an insect identification inference prototype system to show this study's viability and performed comparison experimentation between our system and a general insect classification search method. As the results, we showed that our system is more effective in identifying insect species and it can be more efficient in search time.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.39-54
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• 2012

Franchise system in Korea has been developed in different way compared with American way of franchising based on mutual contract and intellectual property context. Korean franchising is mostly based on product distribution franchise concept rather than business format franchise in which franchisor makes revenue sources from providing their products as much as possible thru group purchasing and logistics rather than receiving royalty. Many franchise enterprises from Korea drive to enter into global franchise market based on the successful performance of Korean way of franchising. Korean enterprises are required to prepare completely for research and survey regarding local culture, custom, way of life and legal matters etc. when entering into global franchise market to gain a substantial performance. CaffeBene recently entered into American franchise business with success, and many other Korean franchise enterprises have a deep interest in proceeding with global franchise business modeling CaffeBene case. There is no Korean franchise enterprise in United Kingdom in which service franchise area in particular with personal service is considered to become a promising and potential franchise business and many people show a great interest in Oriental foods and beverages with well-being trend. Korean franchise enterprises have now access to United Kingdom easier because IT industry including internet of the country have been developed by leaps and bounds since London Olympic in 2012. The purpose of this study is to suggest key success factors and basic strategy such as situation analysis, selecting business format, and marketing strategy for successful launching of franchise business in United Kingdom.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• 제44권9호
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• pp.1388-1398
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• 2015

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is the most complete and comprehensive method for translating what customers need from a product. This study utilized QFD to develop sauces made from Gochujang and to determine how to fulfill international customers' requirements. A customer survey and expert opinion survey were conducted from May 13 to August 22, 2014 and targeted 220 consumers and 20 experts in the U.S. and China. Finally, a total of 208 (190 consumers and 18 experts) useable data were selected. The top three customer requirements for Gochujang sauces were identified as fresh flavor (4.40), making better flavor (3.99), and cooking availability (3.90). Thirty-three engineering characteristics were developed. The results from the calculation of relative importance of engineering characteristics identified that 'cooking availability', 'free sample and food testing', 'unique concept', and 'development of brand' were the highest. The relative importance of engineering characteristics, correlation, and technical difficulties are ranked, and this result could contribute to the development Korean sauces based on customer needs and engineering characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• 제53권
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• pp.129-153
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• 2003

This study examines the socio-economic impacts of recent welfare reform in the United States. Based on the neo-conservative critique to the traditional public assistance system for low-income families, the 1996 welfare reform has given greater emphases on reducing welfare dependency and increasing work effort and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients. In particular, the welfare reform legislation instituted 60-month lifetime limits on cash assistance, expanded mandatory work requirements, and placed financial penalties for noncompliance. With the well-timed economic boom in the second half of the 1990s, the welfare reform seems to achieve considerable progress; welfare caseload has declined sharply to reach less than 50% of its 1994 peak, single mothers' labor force participation has increased substantially, and child poverty has decreased. In spite of these good signals, the welfare reform also has several potential problems. Many welfare leavers participate in the labor market, but not all (or most) of them. The economic well being of working welfare leavers did not increased significantly, because earnings increase was canceled out by parallel decrease in welfare benefits. Furthermore, most of working welfare leavers are employed in jobs with poor employment stability and low wages, making them highly vulnerable to frequent layoff, long-time joblessness, persistent poverty, and welfare recidivism. Another serious problem of the welfare reform is that a substantial number of welfare recipients are faced with extreme difficulties in finding jobs, because they have severe barriers to employment. The new welfare system with 5-year time limit can severely threaten the livelihoods of these people. The welfare reform presupposes that welfare recipients can achieve self-reliance by increasing their labor market activities. However, empirical evidences suggest that many people are unable to respond to the new, work-oriented welfare strategy. It may be a very difficult task to achieve both objectives of the welfare reform((1) providing adequate income security for low-income families and (2) promoting self-sufficiency) at the same time, because sometimes they are conflicting each other. With this in mind, a possible solution can be to distinguish welfare recipients into "(Very)-Hard-to-Employ" group and "(Relatively)-Ready-to-Work" group, based on elaborate examinations of a wide range of personal conditions. For the former group, the primary objective of welfare policies should be the first one(providing income security). For the "Ready-to-Work" group, follow-up services to promote job retention and advancement, as well as skill-training and job-search services, are very important. The U. S. experiences of the welfare reform provide some useful implications for newly developing Korean public assistance policies for the able-bodied low-income population.