An analysis of prediction error for new prime-time television programmes: a comparative study between the USA and Korea

This study investigates possible factors in prediction error for audience share for new prime-time television programmes in the USA and Korea. While previous studies have focused on the factors affecting the size of a programme's actual audience, little attention has been paid to the accuracy of audience share prediction. A total of 193 new prime-time TV programmes from 1994 to 1997 for the USA and from 1998 to 2001 for Korea were examined. Advertising industry forecasters' predicted audience share, and actual share data were accumulated from Broadcasting & Cable and Weekly Nielsen Reports. Findings show that the ‘Programme Type’, ‘Returning Lead-Ins’ and ‘Returning Lead-Outs’ worked as significant factors for estimating error in audience share in the USA, and ‘Programme Type’ and ‘Programme Length’ played major roles in forecasting error in Korea. The degrees of relationship with forecasting error are consistent with previous studies' findings. Similarities and dissimilarities in prediction error in both countries were found and are discussed in this study.     

Terrorism and crisis management: The Rangoon bombing incident of 1983

The Rangoon bombing incident represents one of the major crisis events for examination if one is to understand the process of crisis management of Chun Doo Hwan's government within the context of the ROK‐U.S. Combined Forces Command. Moreover, the Rangoon bombing was the first grave terrorist act on the international scene, and North Korea's involvement was not immediately revealed. This case clearly illustrated how South Korea's resolve in restraining punitive military action against North Korea could resolve a crisis without escalating it, and facilitate a favourable outcome. Indeed, in order to protect or to minimize the damage to its interests and without triggering an unwanted escalation of crisis, South Korea made vigorous efforts to pressure North Korea into softening its belligerent stance through the use of diplomatic sanctions.     

Is the Internet a primary source for consumer information search?: Group comparison for channel choices

A recent report estimates that 79% of American Internet consumers have searched online for health information [Fox, S., 2005. Health Information Online. Pew Internet & American Life Project, Washington, DC]. Currently, little information exists about consumers’ usage of the Internet as a channel of health information. As more consumers are relying on the Internet as a medical and health information search medium, relevant implicative research that provides insights into consumers’ online information searching behavior should be conducted. The present research attempted to reveal factors that drive consumers to adopt the Internet as their main channel of health information. Specifically, multiple facets, such as consumers’ psychological factors (i.e., personal characteristics) and perceived quality dimensions, were explored. Two Internet user groups were selected by their primary channel when searching for health information. Structural equation modeling was utilized to compare the two groups and identified significant differences of personal characteristics and perceived quality.     

Moderating effect of personal innovativeness on mobile-RFID services: Based on Warshaw's purchase intention model

As telecommunication market becomes more competitive and the customers' expectations regarding services or products increases, understanding customer or market needs is at the center of successful telecommunication business.In this study, we attempt to explore the intention of using mobile services based on the Warshaw's purchase intention model. We also focus on a personal innovativeness in the domain of IT (PIIT) because we assumed that as characteristics of telecommunication services become increasingly sophisticated, personal innovativeness could be a key factor of telecommunication services usage. In this study, we examine whether PIIT has the moderating effect on purchasing mobile-RFID services.The result shows that both purchasability and perceived need collectively explain purchase intention of mobile-RFID services, as well as PIIT serves to moderate the relationship between perceived need and purchase intention of mobile-RFID services. The study findings also indicate that IT knowledge, responsiveness to IT news and ability to use mobile phone of customers are positively related with PIIT.     

Branding Potentials of Keyword Search Ads: The Effects of Ad Rankings on Brand Recognition and Evaluations

From the long-term branding perspective, this study examined the effects of ad rankings in search engine result pages on memory and evaluations, particularly for unknown brands. Subjects’ topic knowledge (TK) and persuasion knowledge (PK) about keyword search ads were examined as moderators. Holding click-through rates constant, the results of an experiment, in general, suggest that top-ranked keyword search ads for the unknown brand may generate greater recognition and more favorable brand evaluations along the primed attribute than ones ranked lower than well-known brands. Online users’ TK and PK about keyword search ads are working together to enhance or attenuate such ranking effects on brand recognition and evaluations. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Effect of Health and Wellness Values on Festival Visit Motivation

Understanding the motivation to visit particular tourist destinations and festivals is important for building effective tourism marketing strategies. This paper explores the effect of existing health and wellness values on the motivation to visit a festival using a field survey at the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival, a typical Australian festival which uses the natural environment, traditions and local produce to provide 21 events during the festival. The study focused on establishing the relationship between health and wellness values and festival attendees' motivation. Qualitative research with random sampling was selected to collect the data. The results revealed high levels of health and wellness values among the participants as well as social interaction, family togetherness, cultural exploration, novelty, natural environment, relaxation, previous food festival experience and food as motivations. Findings of this paper can contribute to festival tourism marketing especially to demonstrate that health-related interests can be significant catalysts for attracting festival attendees.     

Can capacity markets be designed by democracy?

In the United States, Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) operate the power grid serving nearly 70% of electricity customers and are critical organizations for ensuring reliable system operations and facilitating the integration of new technologies and market participants. RTOs are designed to be stakeholder-driven organizations, with rules and policies crafted through a highly participatory process. While the decisions that RTOs make have implications for industry, society and the environment, their decision processes have not been modeled in any systematic way. In this paper, we develop a modeling framework for the stakeholder process of PJM, an RTO serving thirteen states plus the District of Columbia, adapting some of the seminal literature from political science and political economy on the theory of voting systems. This modeling framework can generate predictions of stakeholder process outcomes, identify strong coalitions among stakeholders and identify shifts in political power in the formulation of RTO market rules. We illustrate this analysis framework using a detailed data set from stakeholder deliberations of capacity market reform in PJM. Our model predicts that the current structure of the stakeholder process in PJM makes the passage of capacity market reforms through the stakeholder process virtually impossible because it creates strong coalitions that would favor or oppose changes to capacity market rules. In the capacity market case, we also identify a small subset of voters that act as swing voters and confirm that political power is shifted to these voters by deviations from otherwise strong coalitions and abstentions from the voting process altogether. Our framework represents the first attempt to model the decision-making behavior of RTOs in any systematic way, and points towards emerging research needs in evaluating the governance structure of RTOs.     

Voluntarily Disclosing Prosocial Behaviors in Korean Firms

Instrumental CSR perspectives suggest that selective investments in prosocial, voluntary behaviors are largely profit-driven, whereas institutional theory emphasizes legitimacy-seeking as a significant mechanism for explicit CSR disclosure. We test both profit-seeking and legitimacy-seeking mechanisms, derived from empirical findings of Western-oriented firms, in a unique setting to understand voluntary CSR disclosure in an Eastern context: South Korea. By examining voluntary disclosure of the 500 largest South Korean firms’ social contributions from 2006 to 2012, a time period purposefully encompassing the global financial crisis (GFC), we highlight the limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) theorizing when East meets West. Our findings suggest profitability is not significantly related to voluntary disclosure as predicted by Western, instrumental CSR literature. Overall, we found support for legitimacy-seeking mechanisms as the likelihood of disclosure increased for publicly listed firms and those employing a larger number of workers for all years between 2006 and 2012. Further, firms affiliated with chaebols (Korean business groups) are more likely to disclose prosocial behaviors prior to, and after, the GFC compared to firms that are not affiliated with chaebols regardless of profitability further suggesting that legitimacy-seeking mechanisms may underlie CSR reporting in Korean firms.     

Same or different? How distance and variation affect similarity judgments

The effects of distance and variation on product‐category similarity judgments are examined in two studies. Distance between product categories is characterized as the mean difference in the average scores of all brands in one category with all brands in another on a comparison attribute. Variation is characterized as a degree of spread of brands along that comparison attribute. Study 1 finds that both distance and variation influence the perceived similarity of two product categories. An interaction between distance and variation is also observed. Study 2 is designed to replicate and extend these results, determining if distance and variation also affect similarity judgments when brands in the two product categories are not described by the same attribute—but instead where a comparison attribute must be abstracted. The results confirm the main effects of distance and variation. However, the interaction effects between distance and variation disappear, suggesting that subjects lose some information about distribution knowledge in the abstraction process. Both studies support consumers' use of distribution knowledge about brands (distance and variation) in product‐category similarly judgment tasks. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.