상권활성화에 있어서 상업자의 역할에 관한 연구

With the increasing interest in boosting conventional markets, many authors have paid considerable attention to the roles of shop owners, store image improvement, and how to attract or maintain customers. Nevertheless, it is not easy to find papers related to the relationship between shop owners and their contribution to trading areas, directly or indirectly, in the academic world. Accordingly, research for answering the following question has been initiated: what kind of roles do shopkeepers should play in revitalizing poor conventional markets? Based on the previous studies focusing on enhancing traditional markets, this research was approached from the new insights that have been obtained concerning how to boost conventional markets, that is, from the perspectives of a shop owner and a trader. Therefore, this research aims at identifying some resolutions associated with the roles of shop owners to enhance a shopping district in a specific area, classifying their business roles into a few categories, depending on the degree of their participation in improving the shopping environment. Compared with previous studies focusing on emphasizing the importance of improving customer services from a shopkeeper's perspective, this research provides a new insight as far as how to boost conventional markets. It is, furthermore, necessary to note how market participants, particularly shop owners as they are the key players, can contribute to rebuilding their business area together with their customers. As a research technique for effectively achieving the research goal, the authors adopted a documentation methodology based on a large amount of the existing literature for studying how to rebuild traditional markets. Concerned about the ways to revitalize conventional markets, many authors have proposed a variety of strategies, and have suggested more detailed action plans from a practitioner's perspective. By analyzing these research results, the authors will have accomplished the research aim. Rather than simply identifying the roles of shop owners, the author found that they had to understand their social contribution for enhancing their trading areas, as well as their functional roles, in forming a regional society. The conventional market should be, thus, regarded as the place to share regional culture. Consequently, the authors draw some conclusions from the research results. In order to answer the above question, it was found that the roles of shop owners have b