This study conducts two-group structural equation modeling for Japanese students and Chinese foreign-exchange students who work as employees in parttime jobs. There are few previous studies that treat role stressors and POS for temporary worker as variables. The cluster analysis of non-regular employees by Martin and Sinclair (2007) was applied for this study, and it shows the changes in value for the extracted groups. The following scales are used in this research: role stressors (quantitative overload, qualitative overload, role conflict, and role clarity), perceived organizational support (POS), turnover intention, overall job satisfaction, and affective commitment. The research objects are “students who continue working one part-time job in Japan for more than one month,” and the target parttime job is “one part-time job that the student is still working at in Japan (serving the longest tenure in comparison to others).” The total valid responses was 312 (Japanese = 205, Chinese = 107).

As a result of the analyses, role stressors except role clarity affect overall job satisfaction and a moderate effect of POS was confirmed between role conflict and overall job satisfaction. Overall job satisfaction influences affective commitment and turnover intention, and affective commitment does not affect turnover intention.

As proposals for all college students who work as part-time employees, the manager or organization should resolve discontent such as role ambiguity and role overload. The importance of POS was confirmed based on the analytical results for the Chinese students group. In addition, the manager should give employees clear, concise duties even if they are a foreign-exchange student.

The objectives of this research are to compare and analyze the consciousness and behaviors of two consumer types: Online-to-Offline (O2O)-type consumers who research goods and services online but make purchases offline (i.e., at physical stores) and N2N-type consumers who both research and make purchases online (i.e., at online shops). Thereafter, suggestions are made for inducing consumers to offline shopping. To achieve these objectives, six hypotheses on the differences between the two consumer types were proposed and a consumer research was undertaken to test these hypotheses. Sample data of 600 participants were taken with an even dispersion in age and gender. From the test results, the authors found that O2O-type consumers are more interested in goods and services, collect information on goods and services, and send information more often than N2N-type consumers. The authors also found that the O2O-type consumer uses a smart phone or a mobile phone for shopping information research more frequently. Furthermore, by constructing a purchasing process model using structural equation modeling (SEM), the authors found that the model proceeds as interest, attention, search, action and share (IASAS), with a stronger impact of smart phones on consumers who purchase goods and services offline. Lastly, based on the test results of the hypotheses and the SEM model, some helpful suggestions are offered to motivate consumers away from online shopping to offline shopping; for example, by making it possible to have in-store comparisons of similar items or by having a large stock for consumers who would like to take and test them at home.

In this paper, we study the effect of an optimal discount strategy on the total expected revenue for perishable foods. We use an algorithm proposed by Feng and Gallego (1994) to derive the optimal strategy. The parameters that need to obtain the strategy are estimated based on point-of-sale (POS) data. The optimal strategy is obtained so as to maximize the total expected revenue and is based on a threshold model. We show the discount strategy visually and compare the expected revenue under a traditional strategy with that under the optimal strategy proposed. The proposed approach results in an expected revenue increase of 17.4%.

We propose a method to determine future facility locations in consideration of maintaining present accessibility and reducing reconstruction costs by extending the previous method. In the previous method, the effectiveness was confirmed by applying the method to a fire station in the city of Iwaki, Japan. In this paper, firstly, 1) we extend the scope of application and confirm the effectiveness by applying the method to a junior high school in the city of Takayama, Japan. The population distribution in Takayama is different from that in Iwaki, and the junior high school is a facility where there is demand from a specific population. In the previous method, it was possible to determine the facility location while maintaining present accessibility. However, the possibility that all facilities have to be reallocated and/or rebuilt is high. One is easily reminded that reallocation and rebuilding are costly. Therefore, 2) we propose a method of determining future facility location in consideration of maintaining present accessibility and reducing reconstruction costs by considering substitution in existing facilities. Our proposed method 2) is similarly applied to the junior high school in Takayama. We evaluate the total floor area for rebuilding and increase/decrease construction in case of 1) reallocation of all facilities and 2) considering substitution in existing facilities. Our proposed method 2) was also applied for the fire station in Iwaki. As a result, it was determined that the total floor space can be reduced while maintaining the present accessibility.