• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.25-32
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• 2019

Purpose - Pricing strategy is a very effective marketing activity and has a significant impact on consumer purchasing decisions. Numerous studies have investigated the effects of various pricing strategies. However, tensile price claims have received little attention in the literature. It is thus necessary to investigate how different forms of tensile price claims affect consumer response. This study uses the consumer self-confidence level as a moderator of consumer behavior. Research Research design, data, and methodology - This study investigates the effect of four different tensile price claims (i.e., maximum discount, minimum discount, average discount, and range discount advertisements) on consumers' perceived savings. A survey was conducted to collect data for testing hypotheses. Results - The results show that consumers with high levels of self-confidence perceive more savings for maximum discount advertisements than minimum discount advertisements, for range discount advertisements than average discount advertisements. On the other hand, consumers with low self-confidence feel more perceived savings for average discount advertisements than range discount advertisement. Conclusions - The results of this study provide a new insight into the effectiveness of tensile pricing based on consumer self-confidence levels, which may provide valuable theoretical and practical applications.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.5 s.83
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• pp.251-270
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• 2006

This study examined how the households used and combined financing sources to pay for college education. It compared the probability of using each source (current incomes, saving, education loans and grants) by households' socio-economic characteristics and analyzed which factors influence the decision to use each source and the amounts from each source for financing college education. Data for this study were from a questionnaire completed by 4-year college students (n=623) and were analyzed by t-tests, ANOVA and Heckman's two-step estimation models. The findings of this study were as follows: First, the most frequent source for college education was parents' savings and the second one was parents' incomes. Also, the most frequent combination of sources was saving and current incomes and the second was combination of three sources, saving, incomes and education loans. Second, the probability of using incomes was higher for younger students than for older students. The number of siblings showed significant differences among income, savings and education loans. Those who had higher incomes were more likely to use current incomes, saving, but less likely to borrow for financing college education. Middle-class income groups were more likely to borrow for education. Third, household incomes and asset holdings had generally positive impacts on the probability of using incomes and savings for college education, while total debt burden decreased both the probability and amounts of income and saving sources. The college costs had significantly positive effects on both the probability and the amounts of all of financing sources. Total grants received significantly decreased the amounts from incomes, savings and borrowing sources.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.125-150
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• 2009

RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification) is a wireless frequency of recognition technology that can be used to recognize, trace, and identify people, things, and animals using radio frequency(RF). RFID will bring about many changes in manufacturing and distributions, among other areas. In accordance with the increasing importance of RFID techniques, great advancement has been made in RFID studies. Initially, the RFID research started as a research literature or case study. Recently, empirical research has floated on the surface for announcement. But most of the existing researches on RFID adoption have been restricted to a dichotomous measure of 'adoption vs. non-adoption' or adoption intention. In short, RFID research is still at an initial stage, mainly focusing on the research of the RFID performance, integration, and its usage has been considered dismissive. The purpose of this study is to investigate which factors are important for the RFID adoption and implementation with organizational resources. In this study, the organizational resources are classified into either finance resources or IT knowledge resources. A research model and four hypotheses are set up to identify the relationships among these variables based on the investigations of such theories as technological innovations, adoption stage, and organizational resources. In order to conduct this study, a survey was carried out from September 27, 2008 until October 23, 2008. The questionnaire was completed by 143 managers and workers from physical distribution and manufacturing companies related to the RFID in South Korea. 37 out of 180 surveys, which turned out unfit for the study, were discarded and the remaining 143(adoption stage 89, implementation stage 54) were used for the empirical study. The statistics were analyzed using Excel 2003 and SPSS 12.0. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the adoption stage shows that perceived benefits, standardization, perceived cost savings, environmental uncertainty, and pressures from rival firms have significant effects on the intent of the RFID adoption. Further, the implementation stage shows that perceived benefits, standardization, environmental uncertainty, pressures from rival firms, inter-organizational cooperation, and inter-organizational trust have significant effects on the extent of the RFID use. In contrast, inter-organizational cooperation and inter-organizational trust did not show much impact on the intent of RFID adoption while perceived cost savings did not significantly affect the extent of RFID use. Second, in the adoption stage, financial issues had adverse effect on both inter-organizational cooperation and the intent against the RFID adoption. IT knowledge resources also had a deterring effect on both perceived cost savings and the extent of the RFID adoption. Third, in the implementation stage, finance resources had a moderate effect on environmental uncertainty and extent of RFID use while IT knowledge resources had also a moderate effect on perceived cost savings and the extent of the RFID use. Limitations and future research issues can be summarized as follows. First, it is difficult to say that the sample is large enough to be representative of the population. Second, because the sample of this study was conducted among manufacturers only, it may be limited in analyzing fully the effect on the industry as a whole. Third, in consideration of the fact that the organizational resources in the RFID study require a great deal of researches, this research may deem insufficient to fulfill the purpose that it initially set out to achieve. Future studies using performance research are, therefore, needed to help better understand the organizational level of the RFID adoption and implementation.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.51-61
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• 2010

Using data from the 2007 SCF, this study examined the use of information source for investment decisions of elderly consumers. The results indicated that many elderly consumers (about 88%) involved savings /investment decisions. The elderly used 'Experts' (39.48%) as a major information source for their investment decisions, followed by 'Friends' (24.18%). The results of the multinomial logit analysis suggested that the perceived value, the cost for search, knowledge, risk and some of the demographic factors were significantly related to the choice of the information sources for investments by elderly consumers.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.37-61
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• 2016

Purpose This study examines firms at various industries to identify key organizational characteristics that positively drive the evaluation of cloud computing. In addition, this study tests the impact of one's evaluation has on the adoption and integration of cloud computing within their respective firm. Design/methodology/approach A total of 172 responses from various firms currently using cloud computing service were analyzed using the structural equation modeling(SEM). Findings Results show that organizational Needs(Mobility and Job Relevance), Perceived Factors(Relative Advantages and Cost Savings), and Organizational Readiness(Technical Knowledge, Financial Supports, and Managerial Supports) have a significant impact on cloud computing evaluation; and evaluation influences its adoption, and integration. However, two variables(IT Performance Gaps and Compatibility) have no significant impact on cloud computing evaluation. Finally, Evolutional Leadership has a significant moderating effect within the relationship among variables in the process of cloud computing implementation.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.523-526
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• 2015

In recent years, building commissioning has often been part of a standard delivery practice in construction, particularly in the high-performance green building market, to ensure the building is designed and constructed per owner's requirements. Commissioning, therefore, intends to provide quality assurance that buildings perform as intended by the design and often helps achieve energy savings. Commissioning, however, is not as widely adopted as its potential benefits are perceived. Owners are still skeptical of the cost-effectiveness claims by energy management and commissioning professionals. One of the issues in the current commissioning practice is that not every project is guaranteed to benefit from the commissioning services. This, coupled with its added cost, the commissioning service is not acquired with great acceptance and confidence by building owners. To overcome this issue, this paper presents a unique methodology to enhance owner's predicting capability of the degree of success of commissioning service using the Bayesian theorem. The paper analyzes a situation where a future building owner wants to use a pre-commissioning in an attempt to refine the success rate of the future commissioned building performance. The author proposes the Bayesian theorem based framework to improve the current commissioning practice where building owners are not given accurate information how much successful their projects are going to be in terms of energy savings from the commissioning service. What should be provided to the building owners who consider their buildings to be commissioned is that they need some indicators how likely their projects benefit from the commissioning process. Based on this, the owners can make better informed decisions whether or not they acquire a commissioning service.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.1 s.79
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• pp.193-207
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze middle-aged salaried workers' retirement plans and the factors that affect the plans. The main point of this study was to compare male workers with female workers on their economic preparation and health care plans. The major findings were as follows; First, middle-aged salaried workers perceived their level of economic retirement plan to be relatively low. Second, the factors the affected the level of economic preparation for post-retirement were their current subjective economic level, age, household assets and debts, economic and health problems expected in their future elderly life, and savings and assets reserved for their elderly life. Third, the factors that affected whether to put aside savings for elderly life or not were age, current subjective economic level, capital assets, and savings and assets reserved for their elderly life. Fourth, the level of preparation for post-retirement health care depended on health problems expected in their elderly life, current subjective economic level, locus of control, job, and expected retirement age. Overall, the factors that affect male salaried workers' economic and health care plans were different from those of female salaried workers. From the findings, it can be concluded that the middle-aged salaried workers' level of economic retirement plans was different from that of their health care plans. Also, male salaried workers' level of retirement plan were different from that of female workers.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.87-100
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• 2012

Smart wear integrates computing technology into fabric or a garment for additional functionality. This research explored the attitudes and opinions of the use of smart wear from the viewpoint of caregivers. Thirty two individuals including care providers of children and adult family members with health problems participated in focus group interviews. Participants reported being interested in smart wear because of the potential to detect the location (GPS) of a dependent (e.g., child, elderly) and to monitor vital signs. Participants indicated perceived advantages of smart wear such as identifying geographical location and effectiveness. Perceived concerns mentioned were privacy/security issues and accuracy of data. Participants taking care of dependents without a specific disease were hesitant to adopt and pay for smart wear. However, caregivers of elderly individuals expressed positive adoption intentions and willingness to reasonably pay for smart wear. They indicated expectations that potential insurance would provide coverage for cost savings. Caregivers expressed the need of specific requirements for future adoption such as customizability, and comfort/safety. Specific to smart wear clothing, most respondents preferred it be an undershirt or a jacket with a sensor located in the shoulder area. The findings from this study can be used in product development, promotion and marketing of smart wear.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.149-177
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• 2010

Radio Frequency Identification(RFID) is rapidly growing the attention of many firms as a care technology for their businesses. As RFID moves into the mainstream, it replaces the standard barcodes that is used to identify and track products for a long time. With the intention of gaining competitive advantages, some firms have started the changeover to RFID technology while others have been disinclined to adopt it. Thus, this study examines firms as an attempt to identify key organizational characteristics driving the ear1y adoption and successful implementation of RFID. Results from 228 adopting organizations show Organizational Needs(Ubiquity and Performance Gaps), Technological Factors(Perceived Benefits and Perceived Cost Savings) and RFID Reduced Risk have a significant influence on RFID initiation. In addition, Trust Factors(Institutional Trusts and Inter-organizational Trusts) have a significant impact on RFID Reduced Risk. Finally, Organizational Readiness(Financial Resources and Technological Knowledge) have a significant influence as moderating effects between RFID initiation and adoption. The implications of the findings propose a new theoretical framework for the future IT/IS adoption study and offer suggestions for RFID researchers and practitioners in the development of the technology.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.455-465
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• 2001

Assessing soil removal is of interest to the washing machine industry because of government-mandated energy savings and changes in detergent formulation and consumer laundry practices. We designed this study to examine the laundry process from a holistic perspective by integrating factors perceived to be of importance. Our purpose was to assess the impact of selected variables (fabric and soil type, wash temperature and time. detergent amount, and degree of agitation) on soil removal using accelerated laundry conditions. We used the Taguchi method to develop the research design and ANOVA to analyze the data. Although soil removal was affected by fabric type, soil type, type and amount of detergent, degree of agitation, wash time and temperature, and water hardness and volume, wash temperature was the most significant variable.