A Study of the Environmental Consciousness Influences on the Psychological Reaction of Forest Ecotourists (환경의식에 따른 산림생태관광객의 심리적 반응에 관한 연구)
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- Journal of Distribution Science
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- v.10 no.1
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- pp.43-52
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- 2012
With the slowdown in environmental issues and the change of environmental consciousness, ecotourism is being discussed in various social fields. Ecotourism is being popularized for environmental protection, and now it is becoming a mainstream product from one of mass tourism. Ecotourism's emphasis on sustainable development in the tourism destination's society, economy, and environment, through ecotourism study and education, enable people to understand the core value of the ecological environment. 2011 was nominated as "the Year of World Forest" by the UN. In the recent years, forests are becoming increasingly important with their own values and functions in environment, economy, society, and culture. In particular, the global environmental issues caused by climate change are becoming an international agenda. Forests are the only effective solution for the carbon dioxide that causes global warming. Moreover, forests constitute a major part of ecotourism, and are now most used by ecotourists. For example, Korea, wherein 60% of the land is forest, attracts ecotourists. With the increasing interests in environment, the number of tourists visiting the ecosystem forest, which is highly valued for its conservation, is increasing significantly every year and is receiving considerable attention from the government. However, poor facilities in the forest ecotourism sites and improper market strategies are the reasons for the poor running of these sites. Furthermore, tourists' environmental awareness affects ecology environmental pollution or the optimization of forest ecotourism. In order to verify the relationships among tourist attractiveness, environmental consciousness, charm degrees of the attractions, and attitudes after tours, we established some scales based on existing research achievement. Then, using these scales, the researcher completed the questionnaire survey. From December 20, 2010 to February 20, 2011, after conducting surveys for 12 weeks, we finally obtained 582 valid questionnaires, from a total of 700 questionnaires, that could be used in statistical analysis. First, for the method of research and analysis, the researcher initially applied the Cronbach's (Alpha) for verifying the reliability, and subsequently applied the Exploratory factor analysis for verifying the validity. Second, in order to analyze the demographics, the researcher makes use of the Frequency analysis for the AMOS, measurement model, structural equation model computing, and also utilizes construct validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity. Third, for the analysis of the ecotourists' environmental consciousness, impacts on tourist attractiveness, charm degrees of the attractions, and attitudes after the tour, the researcher uses AMOS 19, with the path analysis and equation of structure. After the research, researchers found that high awareness of natural protection lead to high tourist motivation and satisfaction and more positive attitude after the tour. Moreover, this research shows the psychological and behavioral reactions of the ecotourists to the ecotourist development. Accordingly, environmental consciousness does not affect the tourist attractiveness that has been interpreted as significant. Furthermore, people should focus on the change of natural protection consciousness and psychological reaction of ecotourists while ensuring the sustainable development of ecotourists and developing some ecotourist programs.
Franchising is one of the fastest growing types of business. It is already popular and well-known in the U.S., and has been growing in many other countries including Korea. Furthermore, many Korean franchising companies have expanded their business overseas actively. According to the data by the Ministry of Industry and Resource, 82 companies out of a sample of 500 franchising companies are already operating in many foreign countries and 48% of them have started their foreign business since 2006. This clearly indicates the fast growing current trend of foreign operation by Korean franchising companies. In spite of the fast growing trend of foreign expansion in the industry, academic research on internationalization of franchising companies is extremely difficult to find. Accordingly, academic research on the issue is necessary and urgent in Korea. Among the various research questions on internationalization of franchising business, this study intends to investigate the difference in organizational factors between the franchising companies doing foreign operation and those doing business only domestically. More specifically, this research has the following purposes. First, considering the lack of theoretical basis of previous studies, resource-based theory and agency theory are employed as the theoretical bases. Second, this study explains the difference in internationalization based on organizational factors such as company size, history and growth rate. Third, the five hypotheses regarding the difference in organizational factors are presented and tested empirically, which is the first attempt in the area of this topic. Finally, the study attempts to clarify the conflicting implications among theories regarding some organizational factos such as growth rate. As the theoretical background, resource-based theory and agency theory are discussed. According to resource-based theory, a firm can grow continuously when it has competence and resource, and also the ability to develop them. The competence and resource can include capital, human resource, management skill, market information, ability to manage risk, etc. Meanwhile, agency theory views the relationship between franchisor and franchisee as an agency relationship. In agency theory, bonding capability and monitoring capability are the two key factors which promote internationalization of franchising companies. Based on the two theories, a conceptual model is designed. The model consists of two groups of variables. One is organizational factors including size, history, growth rate, price bonding and geographic dispersion. The other is whether a franchising company is operating overseas or not. We developed the following five research hypotheses basically describing the relationship between organizational factors and internationalization of franchising companies. H1: The size of franchising companies operating overseas is larger than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H2: The history of franchising companies operating overseas is longer than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H3: The growth rate of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H4: The price bonding of franchising companies operating overseas is higher than that of franchising companies operating domestically. H5: The geographic dispersion of franchising companies operating overseas is wider than that of franchising companies operating domestically. Data for the analyses are obtained from 2005 Korea Franchise Survey data co-generated by Ministry of Industry and Resource, GS1 Korea, and Korea Franchise Association. Out of 2,804 population companies, 2,489 companies are excluded for various reasons and 315 companies are selected as the final sample. Prior to hypotheses tests, validity and reliability of the measures of size, history, growth rate and price bonding are examined for further analyses. Geographic dispersion is not validated since it is measured using nominal data. A series of independent sample T-tests is used to find out whether there exists any significant difference between the companies internationalized and those operating only domestically for each organizational factor. Among the five factors, size and geographic dispersion show significant difference, growth rate and price bonding do not reveal any difference and, finally, history factor shows conflicting results in the difference depending on how to measure it.