The determinants of mobile game success in South Korea

The global gaming industry, especially the mobile game market, has grown rapidly in recent years. One of the important characteristics of mobile games is that their lifetime is remarkably short compared with those of PC or console games, and downloads of most games peak during the early period of the service. Acquiring as many users as possible immediately after the launch and retaining these users therefore becomes very important for the successful performance of mobile games. This study aims to identify the determinants of mobile game success during different periods after the launch by comparing the first week's performance with the first 4 weeks' performance using a multiple regression analysis with mobile game application downloads from Google Play and estimated sales revenue as performance indicators. The predictors were classified on the basis of the pre- and postlaunch phases, and developer/publisher and third-party factors. A key finding is that for both revenue and downloads, TV advertising and the number of online videos have strong impacts on both the first week and 4 weeks' performance. In addition, preregistration during the prelaunch stage is effective for increasing both revenue and downloads in a relatively short time. Online videos uploaded by the users during the postlaunch phase may help to maintain long-term revenue. Although awareness of IP and name value of publishers are significant for short-term downloads, the effect diminishes after a month, which might imply that there could be an opportunity for small- and medium-sized companies to invest in media and obtain mobile platform advantages in the long run.     

Salesperson's innovation resistance and job satisfaction in intra-organizational diffusion of sales force automation technologies: The case of South Korea

One of the rapidly growing areas in industrial marketing is the application of sales force automation (SFA) technologies to help improve the efficiency of the sales force task. What is often overlooked is that there are some potential negative effects related to SFA technologies that arise when these innovations are forcefully adopted on the individual salesperson. This study empirically examines the psychological and social antecedents of salespeople's resistance toward SFA technologies in South Korea. Unlike previous studies that only looked at adoption, this studies adds to the literature on SFA technologies by looking at resistance toward innovation in the post-adoption or intra-organizational diffusion stage. This study looks at the direct and indirect relationships between innovation resistance and some key constructs such as job satisfaction, job performance, self-efficacy, group-efficacy, innovativeness, and peer usage. This study represents also one of the very few empirical studies conducted on sales force behavior in South Korea and as such may offer some insights on sales force management in collectivist cultures.     

A Test of Weak-Form Efficiency in Residential Real Estate Returns

This paper tests weak-form efficiency of residential real estate returns for the city of Memphis, Tennessee. The database for the study is comprised of the population of all sales of single-unit residential property over a fifteen-year period, 1970–1984. The city was divided into ten submarkets based on Memphis City Planning Commission planning districts. An analysis of variance procedure was utilized to stabilize the variance both within and across submarkets and nonmarket financing was partially controlled by eliminating transactions with loan-to-value ratios greater than 95%. The remaining transactions were then used to generate a mean return series. The advantage of the mean over the single transaction series used by Gau is that it represents the most likely outcome for the investor trying to duplicate investment performance since "property unique" features would be expected to cancel. Seven of the ten submarkets exhibited time patterns; however, after adjusting for transaction costs, all ten submarkets were determined weak-form efficient for the period 1970–1984. This was not true for the short horizon holding period, 1970–1975. In four sub-markets an asymmetric version of Alexander's filter rule was able to outperform a buy-and-hold, even for round- trip transaction costs as high as 10%.     

Effects of degrees of acceptance and awareness on a rate system for lowering mobile bills

South Korea has the highest mobile bills among the OECD countries, and there is strong public demand in the country to reduce expenditure amounts. In response, the South Korean government and mobile carriers have implemented measures such as a “Smart Choice Service,” data-centered plan, and 20% discount scheme in order to reduce mobile bills. However, it is unclear whether these systems have actually led to such a reduction. The present study analyzes quantitatively how people's acceptance and awareness toward rate systems reduce or do not reduce mobile bills, based on the results of a survey conducted here. More specifically, to solve the endogeneity problem of saving behavior's effect on mobile bills, the study adopts the instrumental variables of degree of acceptance and awareness of systems relating to mobile bills. The results show that acceptance and awareness of the system do affect savings behavior and thus mobile bills. If the degree of savings behavior (affected by acceptance and awareness) goes up one step on a seven-point Likert-type scale, there is an average 8.28% savings effect on mobile bills. Thus, this study shows that degrees of acceptance and awareness of the rate system do affect mobile bills.     

Effective competition and ineffective mobile industry regulation in South Africa

The most striking feature of South Africa’s mobile market is the skewed allocation of spectrum and a seemingly endless sequence of failed attempts to hold an auction for it. A shortage of spectrum (or the inefficient assignment of it) is blamed, among other things, for South Africa’s relatively slow LTE 4G speeds. Through historical accident, the country has two mobile data networks in addition to the four licensed mobile operators. The response of operators has been to innovate using roaming and network sharing agreements; as we explore in this paper, these have become the de facto spectrum allocation process.This paper looks at how the de facto industry structure has been moulded by spectrum holdings and sharing arrangements and asks how spectrum management could be improved. We observe that, although the number of mobile operators has effectively been reduced to 3 (a number which would raise concern in some circles), there exist a variety of arrangements between those three and other spectrum and network operators. The smallest of the current three mobile operators is still not able to offer a nationwide mobile service without a roaming agreement but, at the same time, the two larger operators depend critically on spectrum and roaming agreements themselves, mainly with the two physical data network operators that function as wholesale providers.The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) was established as a consequence of a new constitution that was adopted in 1996 and it helped to create new institutional arrangements for the burgeoning mobile industry. The authority has nevertheless continued to be hampered, as we shall demonstrate, by political imperatives. This has been pointed out by other authors over the past twenty years and we add to this body of evidence by considering the spectrum auction planned (again) for 2021.The “2021” auction is in fact an iteration of the auction originally announced in May 2010 and then abandoned (Song, 2011). The same thing happened again in 2016 (Paelo & Robb, 2020). Late in 2020, the regulator again announced an auction, due to take place during 2021 but by the second quarter of the year, two of the four national operators had already obtained a court injunction to stop it. The process is intertwined with a political imperative to establish a public wireless open-access network, which we discuss in detail.We describe how the industry has navigated around policy and regulatory dysfunction and how competitive interaction among the South African operators has managed to prevail. Following Hausman & Taylor’s (2013) lead in their work on the United States, in this paper we provide a commentary on apparently perverse outcomes from significant regulatory, judicial and legislative actions (or, perhaps more accurately, inactions) governing the South African mobile telecommunications industry from the commencement of the current constitutional arrangements in 1996 to the present.     

Unleashing the potential of online learning in Spain: An econometric analysis

Online learning and training continue gaining momentum worldwide resulting in the reduction of the traditional form of face-to-face education with its temporal and spatial limitations. Online education improves access to education and training, as witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic. This article focuses on online education adoption in Spain. A representative survey on ICT use in households conducted annually by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics is used to construct a panel database for the years 2008–2020. The first objective is to provide an econometric model for adopting online education using this panel data. Next is to measure the effects of relevant observable individual socioeconomic variables on adoption. A Heckman selection model allows for estimating the impact of gender, age, education, digital skills, habitat, and income. The article also measures the effects of Covid-19 in 2020 on different population groups. The drivers and impediments have the expected signs and plausible sizes. The paper concludes with policy recommendations and suggestions for further research.     

Estimating consumer surplus in the mobile telecommunications market: The case of Korea

This paper estimates consumer surplus in the Korean mobile telephone services (MTS) market. The Korean mobile telecommunications market has grown rapidly since 1997 when competition was introduced and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology was commercialized. Because consumer surplus is relevant to the controversy over establishing an appropriate price level between consumers and service providers, the need for a robust measurement of benefit from MTS is increasing. The measured net consumer surplus estimated by means of elasticities of demand reached about US$48.8 billion in the period 1996–2004 and the changes amounted to about US$8.8 billion during the same period. In particular, after competition was introduced into the market with an accompanying price decrease and increase in the number of subscribers, consumers have benefited greatly. Therefore, it can be inferred that a facility-based competition policy and the reduction in price of access such as handset subsidies all played a positive role in the early diffusion of MTS in Korea. The estimated consumer surplus in this paper does not include network externality (option externality); if this were considered, the total social welfare of the consumer would be larger.     

Valuing Retail Shopping Center Lease Contracts

In this article we set up a real option model of retail shopping center leases. The model incorporates the effects of stochastic sales externalities and the possibility of tenant default, and in the presence of these effects, we derive and solve a partial differential equation that can be used to price a lease transaction. The model then sums across all tenants to determine the value of the shopping center. The model generates a number of new predictions, including why a Jorgensonian user cost of capital may overestimate shopping center values, why the general industry practice is to ignore percentage rent payments and tenant default risk in commercial mortgage underwriting and why shopping center owners may not act opportunistically as most observers seem to think they do.     

Value-focused thinking about strategic management of radio spectrum for mobile communications in Korea

Radio spectrum has become an increasingly vital part of the telecommunications infrastructure and economy of a country. As spectrum management grapples with increasingly complex decisions in the 1990s, clarifying the basic values of the spectrum management will become more important. This study uses multiattribute utility theory as a basis for obtaining value judgments regarding strategic management of radio spectrum for mobile communications and applies it to a specific case study of Korea. To structure and quantify the basic values of spectrum management, we elicited strategic objectives, then refined and structured them into a hierarchy. We developed attributes and derived a utility function to illustrate value trade-offs at the strategic level. The implications of the results for addressing a range of strategic issues are also discussed. We found that the work and results can provide valuable insights and decision opportunities for virtually all major decision making in spectrum management for mobile communications in Korea.     

Global political economy of technology standardization: A case of the Korean mobile telecommunications market

This paper examines empirical cases of standardization in the Korean mobile market as vehicles for approaching the broader political and institutional context of standardization in telecommunications. A consideration of Korean standardization in the mobile telecommunications market is particularly interesting because it reveals how the state's political interests influence standards decisions, which are primarily driven by market and technological changes in telecommunications. Judged from the social construction of technology perspective which sheds light not only on technology itself but also on political, social and economic interests that surround transformations in technology, this paper highlights power relations among the major actors that have made technology standards decisions in Korea regarding second (2G) and third-generation (3G) mobile telephony. The paper also attempts to show how the Korean government has dealt with the diverse interests of various market actors while pursuing its own policy agenda.     

激活电商APP

对电商APP而言,这是个最好的时代,也是最坏的时代。张志坚的行程排得很紧,上午与银泰网CEO廖斌讨论如何优化银泰的APP,下午作为嘉宾参加一个APP创业融资研讨会,直到晚上七点才得闲与记者碰面,第二天又要从北京飞回上海。两年前他创立了上海耶客网络科技,     

From the wired to wireless generation? Investigating teens’ Internet use through the mobile phone

Scholars have an enduring interest in investigating whether a new medium displaces or complements existing media whenever a new medium is introduced to the society. In this study, it is sought to investigate the extent to which the mobile phone would replace or reinforce teens’ traditional Internet use through computers. Surveys were conducted on 1875 youths between 12 to 17 years old in 5 digital cities in East Asia: Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo. The findings profile a digital generation that is highly connected in the 21st century. Ninety percent of all respondents used the Internet. Almost 90% of the teens in this study used the mobile phone, and two-thirds of them ever surfed the Web via their mobile devices. Through a factor analysis, three dimensions of teens’ use of mobile Internet were identified, namely, task-based activities, information seeking and communication activities, and recreational activities. In general, the teens tend to use the mobile phone for recreation and entertainment purposes, especially playing games and listening to music. They are less likely to use the mobile phone for more sophisticated purposes, such as petitioning, voting, or shopping. Drawing upon the niche theory, the patterns between teens' mobile Internet and PC Internet use were further compared. Our analysis shows that mobile Internet primarily serves as an extension of teens’ Internet activities via PC, rather than as a replacement. Such positive relationships are quadratic and non-linear.     

Tariff structures and access substitution of mobile cellular for fixed line in South Africa

The phenomenal growth of mobile cellular relative to fixed line phone ownership in Africa has been attributed to a wide range of factors, including institutional factors (such as competition and private foreign ownership), ease of access (low waiting times and no credit history for prepaid access) and of course the mobility. What has not received any attention is how the tariff structures in mobile have influenced consumer preferences. This paper examines how the difference in tariff structures between fixed line and mobile have accounted for the relative popularity of cellular in South Africa. It finds that the balance between fixed monthly and usage fees makes mobile both affordable and cheaper than fixed line for the bottom 50–60% of households that spend relatively little on communication. This is reflected in household behaviour where lower-income households treat cellular as a substitute for fixed line (owning only one or the other), while higher-income households treat the two as complements (owning both).     

Manufacturing environments in South Korea,Japan and the United States of America: A note

This paper reports a comparative analysis of the manufacturing facilities and the degree of automation of major manufacturing corporations in South Korea, Japan and the United States. We suggest that South Korea is behind Japan and the United States in manufacturing technology, but is aggressively incorporating automated equipment or processes into the manufacturing system.This project has been supported by a grant from the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.     

Solving the startup problem in Western mobile Internet markets

This paper describes the evolution of the mobile Internet in terms of three concepts: the startup problem, standard setting, and mental models. Products in which there is little or no value to the first users due to the existence of strong direct (e.g., telephone) or indirect (complementary products) network effects face a large startup problem. This paper divides the startup problem for the mobile Internet into two stages. Japanese and later other service providers solved the first startup problem with entertainment content that was supported by a micro-payment system (service providers collect and pass on content fees to content providers) and custom phones that displayed this content in a consistent manner.     

Mobile targeting in industrial marketing: Connecting with the right businesses

Although the existing literature has acknowledged the importance of mobile marketing, few scholars have examined the efficacy of mobile targeting. This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on mobile targeting by investigating the effects of customer mobile habits and social capital on firm sales. Leveraging unique customer mobile browsing data from a major telecom service provider in China, we use a Bayesian SEM (structural equation modeling) approach to show that customer mobile habits and social capital exert significant influences on customers' purchase intentions. Specifically, customers who engage in more hedonic mobile behaviors, such as social networking, video browsing, and gaming are associated with a higher probability of purchasing, controlling for the usage of communications apps including messaging and emailing apps, and the usage of functional apps, such as maps, living services, and app market apps. Additionally, our research results reveal a significant positive effect of social capital on firms' sales performance. These findings offer important insights that are often missing from organizational targeting campaign designs in terms of targeting both the right customers and the right business alliance partners and enable a better understanding of managerial and decision-making implications in the context of the B2B market in general.     

Entering the mobile service market via mobile platforms: Qualcomm's BREW platform and Nokia's Preminet platform

The mobile telecommunication market has evolved from simple voice to multimedia services. In the past, the primary players in mobile services were local operators in different countries; international telecommunication vendors, such as Qualcomm and Nokia, were seldom involved in the mobile service market. In order to enter this market, Qualcomm and Nokia have separately introduced their mobile application platforms, called respectively BREW and Preminet. This paper examines how the two companies attempt to share the mobile service market through their mobile platforms and internationalized business models. This paper also analyzes their mobile platforms’ business models and their strategic implications.     

Percentage Rent in Retail Leasing: The Alignment of Landlord–Tenant Interests

Only retail tenants pay their landlord a percentage of revenue in addition to the traditional fixed rent. The latter has often been shown to vary widely across stores–inverse to the sales externalities generated by the store. This paper demonstrates that revenue percentages vary widely as well, and positively with fixed rent (sales externalities). It is then argued that existing theoretical explanations for percentage rent (involving generic risk sharing and tenant effort issues) are not specific to the retail sector and apply to all tenant–landlord relationships. Instead, a model is proposed where percentage rent gives the correct incentive to landlords–rather than to tenants. In this model, percentage rent ensures that with sales externalities, landlords do not act opportunistically and always have the interest of existing tenants in mind when expanding, altering or reletting space in a shopping center.     

Consumer behavior in the Italian mobile telecommunication market

This paper investigates the characteristics of Italian cell phone users. A multidimensional segmentation approach was adopted, using concurrently three sets of variables: consumer/user lifestyles, use motivations and product/service attributes. Data on a national sample (1067 individuals) were collected and factor and cluster analysis were then performed on the database. The study led to the identification of three user segments, each with a diverse combination of the segmentation variables. Findings provide implications for the mobile telecommunication industry and could suggest strategic choices to mobile operators—especially cell phone producers—and constitute the basis for their strategic positioning.