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This study examines the effect of contextual perceived value activated by contextual marketing offers and information privacy concerns on consumer loyalty in mobile commerce.

The survey was conducted through 340 mobile users in Morocco and the collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study's results show that contextual marketing and information privacy concerns are key determinants in improving customer loyalty in the m-commerce context. Perceived ubiquity has a positive impact on perceived trust, which also impacts consumer loyalty. Information privacy concerns also have a positive impact on customer satisfaction, yet it does not impact perceived trust, which is contrary to the results of other researchers. It can also be concluded that customer satisfaction and trust are important antecedents of consumer loyalty.

This research gives rise to some important managerial and strategic implications in order to integrate contextual marketing strategies, as well as theoretical implications that concern this field of study.

This research makes a significant contribution to knowledge by examining the role of contextual marketing and information privacy concerns in the m-commerce context. These results will be considered useful for marketers and for businesses in general who wish to integrate a marketing strategy that is based on a customer-centric approach. It also contributes to the related literature, as there are few studies focused on m-commerce and contextual marketing within the context of Morocco.

An increasing amount of attention is being paid to three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. The technology itself is based on diverse technologies such as laser beams and materials. Hence, 3D printing technology is a converging technology that produces 3D objects using a 3D printer. To become technologically competitive, many companies and nations are developing technologies for 3D printing. So to know its technological evolution is meaningful for developing 3D printing in the future. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To get technological competitiveness of 3D printing, the authors should know the most important and essential technology for 3D printing. An understanding of the technological evolution of 3D printing is needed to forecast its future technologies and build the R & D planning needed for 3D printing. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology to analyze the technological evolution of 3D printing. The authors analyze entire patent documents related to 3D printing to construct a technological evolution model. The authors use the statistical methods such as time series regression, association analysis based on graph theory, and principal component analysis for patent analysis of 3D printing technology.

Using the proposed methodology, the authors show the technological analysis results of 3D printing and predict its future aspects. Though many and diverse technologies are developed and involved in 3D printing, the authors know only a few technologies take lead the technological evolution of 3D printing. In this paper, the authors find this evolution of technology management for 3D printing.

If not all, most people would agree that 3D printing technology is one of the leading technologies to improve the quality of life. So, many companies have developed a number of technologies if they were related to 3D printing. But, most of them have not been considered practical. These were not effective research and development for 3D printing technology. In the study, the authors serve a methodology to select the specific technologies for practical used of 3D printing.

Diverse predictions for 3D printing technology have been introduced in many academic and industrial fields. Most of them were made by subjective approaches depended on the knowledge and experience of the experts concerning 3D printing technology. So, they could be fluctuated according to the congregated expert groups, and be unstable for efficient R & D planning. To solve this problem, the authors study on more objective approach to predict the future state of 3D printing by analyzing the patent data of the developed results so far achieved. The contribution of this research is to take a new departure for understanding 3D printing technology using objective and quantitative methods.

This paper examines global imbalance and rebalancing issues from the viewpoint of Korea. As IMF (2009) notes, the unwinding of global imbalance seems inevitable and, in fact, it is in progress. We illustrate that Korea, with a flexible exchange rate system and relatively balanced current accounts, has little direct linkage to global imbalance. However, we also find that Korea is not immune to the costly adjustment process of imbalance due to the triangular trade between Korea, China and the U.S. The fact that Korea is ‘indirectly’ linked to global imbalance limits Korea’s ability to cope with the situation. Boosting domestic demand, often mentioned recommendation for East Asia, is not an appropriate solution for Korea with low personal savings rate. A lot depends on China’s policy. If China reduces its dependence on U.S. market and increases domestic consumption despite unemployment risk in export manufacturing sector, it will provide Korea with an opportunity for more stable growth based on China’s final demand. Korea can also make efforts to increase economic integration and expand monetary cooperation in Asia that would help to increase consumption demands and final goods trade in the region.

Using the Social Network Analysis(SNA) method, this paper examines inter-country relationships between countries that may be part of the New Silk Road. Based on bilateral-trade data from more than 70 countries, the paper provides a more vivid understanding of overall features and effects of the New Silk Road policy. According to the results, India, Turkey, and Russia have the highest degree centrality, indicating that the success of the New Silk Road policy depends mainly on the ability of the Chinese government to incorporate these countries. Among European countries, only Germany can be successfully incorporated into the New Silk Road network. In addition, Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan show no potential as hubs in the network. Most importantly, China has a dominant position in the New Silk Road network. China's focal and dominating status is also supported by the fact that there is no change in the clustering coefficient in the network, which implies that the Chinese government has to absorb into the system those countries that are less likely to benefit from the policy.

Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), this paper examines the inter-country airline logistics relationships in East Asia. Based on the flight schedule data, which has been gathered by the authors, the overall features of airline logistics structure and the specific roles of each airport could be more clearly examined.

The main results of this paper are as follows: Beijing has the highest Degree Centrality, but excluding the domestic lines, Incheon has the highest Degree Centrality, which would imply that a relatively high Centrality of logistics for China’s airports is due to the greater number of domestic lines. The focal hub status of Incheon airport is also supported by the fact that Incheon contains the highest Betweenness Centrality.

Secondly, evaluated by the types of brokerage role, Incheon has a remarkably strong role as a liaison, which means Incheon airport functions as a transfer hub between two different regions outside of Korea. However, considering only the to/from China airline links, Hong Kong has the highest score as a liaison. These conflicting results imply that as China’s airline transportation continuously increases, Hong Kong will become a strong rival to Incheon.

Thirdly, in the analysis of Structural Hole which functions the broker and acts as a hub by linking unconnected airports, Incheon has the highest possibilities as a hub airport. However, only considering to/from China airlines, Hong Kong would dominate Incheon.

Using Social Network Analysis (SNA), this paper examines the inter-provincial logistics relationships in China. Based on the annual data of inter-provincial railway logistics quantity during the period 1998-2009, the degree of interconnection between regions could imply intensified trends of regional economic integration.

The main results of the logistic relationships in China are as follows: the regional logistic interconnection, especially between western and eastern China has increased continuously, which would imply a rising national economic integration. However, the increased centralization index and the average Degree Centrality level imply that a logistics bottleneck has intensified in several hub provinces.

Secondly, logistic center provinces evaluated by the Degree Centrality have changed. In 2009, Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Sichuan provinces revealed the highest inward Degree Centrality. Sichuan Province is the region that most surprisingly increased its centrality.

Thirdly, the number of logistic hub provinces, evaluated by the Degree Betweenness Centrality, has increased. In 2008, Henan province was only a focal hub but in 2009, Shandong, Hubei, Sichuan provinces became logistic hubs.

Lastly, the Community Modularity which analyzed grouping structures shows that there are three time-consistent communities. This means that even though there is enhanced between-region integration, the inter-regional inter-connection is more important in explaining the regional logistic relationship.

Using the methodologies of text mining, this paper examines the implications of US and Chinese policies on bilateral trade. Official speeches by political leaders of the U.S. and China on the issues of trade were collected and analytically examined for US-China gaps in major foreign policies, such as bilateral trade and the Belt and Road Initiative. In this paper, a term frequency-inverse document frequency word cloud, a network similarities index, machine learning-processed latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), and structural equivalence are applied to examine the meanings of the speeches. The main arguments in this paper are as follows. First, the document similarity between the speeches of Chinese and US leaders appears to be completely different. Also, while the documents from Chinese leaders are considerably similar, the documents from US leaders differ by far. Secondly, LDA topic analysis indicates that China concentrates more on international and collaborative relationships, while the U.S. has more focus on domestic and economic interests. Third, from a word hierarchy analysis, the basic words used by American and Chinese leaders are also completely different. Agriculture, farmers, automobiles, and negotiations are the basic words for American leaders, but for Chinese leaders, the basic words are planning, markets, and education.

This paper examined the future prospects of China’s economic development and its impact on the East Asian Economy and the economic integration of the region. The key issue to China’s economic growth is the contradiction between the socialist political system and a market-based economy. The overall assessment is that China will be able to manage the transformation of the nation into a steadily growing market economy.

We also found that China is the key country forming a triangular trading block which has implemented the international division of labor in the North-East Asian region. China’s rapid export growth and increased market share in the world economy is not a threat but a new opportunity for the East Asian countries. The rise of China will certainly be accompanied by an expansion of a consumer market, which will also broaden business opportunities for East Asian.

Despite the interdependence between East Asian countries, a regional trading bloc embracing East Asia has not been created yet. The future prospects for realizing the vision of a regional free trade agreement in East Asia in the foreseeable future is not bright, either.

Convertible instruments are financial instruments embedded with conversion rights such as convertible bonds or convertible preferred stocks. Under the Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS), the embedded conversion rights with certain conditions (i.e., a refixing clause) are recognized as derivative liabilities and are recognized at fair value in issuer’s financial statements. Since the value of convertible rights varies with the underlying stock value, an increase in the issuers’ stock price causes the issuers of convertible instruments to announce large derivative valuation losses. Using disclosures under the title of ‘Loss from Derivatives Trading’ from the KOREA EXCHANGE (KRX) during January 2016 through December 2019, this study examines market reactions to the disclosure of valuation losses on conversion rights embedded in convertible instruments. We find the following results. First, abnormal stock returns on the loss announcement date are significantly negative. Second, abnormal trading volumes peak on the loss announcement date. Third, abnormal stock returns persist in the long-term. Collectively, our findings suggest that investors perceive the loss disclosures as negative news, but fail to impound the information into issuer’s stock prices effectively. This study emphasizes the importance of education on convertible instruments and improvement in the disclosure requirements on valuation losses of conversion rights embedded in convertible instruments by providing evidence that investors face difficulty in understanding the related disclosures.

This editorial proposes three fundamental issues in the international economic field evoked by the US-China trade war. The first is the intensifying conflict between protectionism measures and the coherence with relevant global trade rules. The second is decoupling between the US and China and subsequent evolution in the global production network. The third is the digression in the trade flow between the US and China and the resulting change in innovative capabilities and manufacturing competitiveness among major industrial countries. This editorial also offers the long-term perspective of the current global trade war and how the world encounters repercussion of openness and protectionism as well as times of prosperity and uncertainty.