• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.21-31
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• 2016

Purpose - With globalization, medical tourism has developed as a new industry, which attracts practitioners and academics to have more interest in researches on customers' behavior. This research was to investigate empirically WOM effects on the intention of Chinese customers when they select an international medical tourism destination. Interestingly, WOM effects on their choice and decision process may vary by the extent of their severity of illness. Research design, data, and methodology - The data was collected from 1,747 potential Chinese residents in main districts of China. Moderated regression analysis was used to estimate WOM effects on Chinese customers' choice intention. Results - Results imply that WOM determinants of tie strength, credibility, and vividness do interact with medical tourism information and affect customers' intention for health care abroad. Results also reveal that the severity of illness plays a critical moderating role in customers' decision process. Conclusions - WOM and the severity of illness are important moderators for Chinese customers to make a decision for medical tourism. It provides some implications for service organizations for developing and implementing marketing strategies in international health care markets.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.25-33
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• 2019

Purpose - With the economic development in China, the lifestyle of Chinese customers has changed dramatically. Chinese customers are more likely to have coffee in a shop with the ability to make them happy than those with high quality coffee in a nice physical environment. Happiness becomes a critical driver of customers' intention to purchase a cup of coffee in a specific coffee shop again and again. As a result, happiness becomes an important factor for managers to make strategies for attracting customers. Although managers and scholars pay more attention to emphasize the importance of happiness in customers' consumption, little research has been conducted to investigate the relationship between happiness and coffee shop's continuous usage intention in the Chinese coffee industry. Research design, data, and methodology - A research model is made to explain the impact of happiness on customer's behavior. To understand the influence of happiness better, we consider two dimensions of happiness which are subjective well-being and psychological well-being. In order to confirm the relationships of the variables in the research model, the online survey is constructed in China. Customers who have experienced the services in a coffee shop are asked to do the questionnaire. With 453 reliable questionnaires, structural equation modeling is used to analyze the causal relationships of the coffee quality, physical environment, subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and continuous usage intention. Results - Results indicate that coffee quality and physical environment are not the direct factors that influence customers' continuous usage intention. However, good coffee quality and physical environment are the significant predictors of Chinese customers' happiness associated with subjective well-being and psychological well-being, which in turn affects customers' continuous usage intention. Conclusions - In this study, it is proposed that coffee quality and physical environment may be the key factors influencing customers' happiness. Happiness, including subjective well-being and psychological well-being matters in decision making process. More importantly, happiness increases the continuous usage intention when the coffee shop can serve customers with higher quality coffee at a good atmospheric place. Managers should consider happiness as an important factor in making marketing strategies to compete in this industry.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2021

Purpose: This study investigates causal relationships among brand experience, perceived value and brand support behavior in both Chinese and Korean consumers, and also examines the moderating effects of interaction with customers in the relationships between brand experience and perceived value. Research design, data and methodology: Three research were presented and examined empirically in this study. First research question is about relationships among brand experience, perceived value and brand support behavior. Second is about the moderating role of interaction with customers and third is about the differences in the causal relationships between China consumers and Korean consumers. A total of 377 samples who had visited theme parks in China and Korea were surveyed. Results: Sensory experience, emotional experience, and cognitive experience have significant causal relationships with perceived value in Both Chinese and Korean consumers. Perceived value has a positive effect on brand support behavior and interaction with customer has a moderating effect between brand experience variables and perceived value in Both Chinese and Korean consumers. Second, the causal relationship between behavioral experience and perceived value is not significant in Both Chinese and Korean consumers. Third, there were significant differences in the effects of emotional experience and cognitive experience on perceived value between Chinese consumers and Korean consumers. Conclusions: Managers of theme park industry should design experience programs considering various brand experience variables for both Chines consumers and Korean consumers. Second, it is necessary to raise the level of customer interaction between employees and customers.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.92-107
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate how food-related lifestyle of Chinese customers affect purchase intention for Korean Ramen and to verify the moderator effects of food neophobia and Korean attitude to food safety between them using hierarchical regression analysis suggested by Baron & Kenny. The findings and implications can be summarized as follows. First, while food-explorer or convenience-oriented traits in Chinese customers have significant and positive effects, the health-oriented trait has a negative effect on purchase intention of Chinese customers for Korean Ramen. Second, there is negative moderating effect between the trait of convenience-oriented and purchase intention of Chinese customers for Korean Ramen. Third, there is a positive moderating effect between the trait of food-explorer or convenience-oriented, and purchase intention of Chinese customers for Korean Ramen.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.9-18
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• 2024

Purpose: This study compares Korean and Chinese consumers on the impact of customer equity on trust. Although there have been many studies regarding the impact of customer equity, most of them are limited to the retail and banking industry and mostly compare East and West cultures. Therefore, this study compares Korea and China within East Asia in the hotel industry. Research design, data and methodology: Based on reviews in the literature, this study explores different effects of customer equity on brand trust between Korea and China. To confirm the hypotheses, the research collected survey data from 186 Korean and 155 Chinese respondents. After confirming reliability and validity of measures, this study conducted a multiple regression to test proposed hypotheses. Results: The results of the study showed that all of three customer equities influences on trust positively in the hotel industry. Regarding comparing Korea and China, brand equity has stronger impact on trust in Chinese customers than South Korean customers, on the other hand, value equity and relationship equity had a slightly stronger positive effect in South Korea than in China. Conclusions: This study found significant differences between Korean and Chinese customers in the hotel industry. These results show that even two countries in the same region of East Asia, South Korea and China, are different. Also, this finding suggests that hotel management level should consider differentiating their marketing strategies for Korean and Chinese customers.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2018

Purpose - With the worldwide aging problem and the development of globalization, customers prefer to seek affordable medical services with the higher quality overseas. This new trend has urged some destination countries to improve their services for the more competitive advantages over other countries. Literature research indicate that medical quality and cost may be the key factors influencing global patients' decisions. In the international environment, however, medical tourism destinations are selected due to cultural similarity between the hosting country and the customers' own country. The more similarity perceived between the two countries leads foreign patients to choose the considering country as the destination for medical tourism. However, little research has been conducted on this topic. Thus, we empirically investigate how cultural similarity influences Chinese medical customers' choice of the destinations. We also consider the factors related to medical competency and travel attribute which might affect customers' decisions along with some moderating roles of disease types. Research design, data, and methodology - We proposed a research model in order to confirm the relations among different variables of cultural similarity, medical competency, travel attractiveness, disease types, and destination choice. The questionnaire survey is processed in the more economically developed regions of China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. Conditional logit regression is applied to analyze the data of 881. Results - Results indicate that cultural similarity is the important predictor of Chinese customers' decision to select a medical country. However, the effects of cultural similarity vary according to the disease types. We also find that medical competency and travel attractiveness influence their decisions with the moderating role of disease types. Conclusions - Cultural similarity is the important factor that influences Chinese potential medical tourists' decisions to select a destination. Marketing managers should consider the effects of cultural similarity when developing strategies for attracting Chinese medical tourists. Since medical competency and travel attractiveness are still the critical key elements for them to evaluate the destination countries, it is necessary to continuously improve medical service quality and facilities. The results also recommend that medical managers should sharpen their marketing strategies by segmenting Chinese potential customers in terms of disease types.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.126-136
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate Chinese customers' perceptions of Korean foods and their satisfaction toward Korean cuisine restaurants. The subjects of this study were 202 Chinese individuals who visited Korean cuisine restaurants in Shanghai, China. The subjects viewed Korean foods as favorite foods and perceived them as fresh and seasonal, and mostly composed of cereals and vegetables however they did not view Korean cuisine as good for health. As compared to customers visiting a Korean restaurant for the first time, those who had visited Korean restaurants previously agreed more strongly with the following items: 'Korean food has a beautiful color', 'Korean food is familiar', 'Korean food smells good', 'Korean food is healthy', 'Korean food is nutritious', and 'Korean food is salty and spicy'. In addition, as compared to occasional visitors, frequent visitors of Korean cuisine restaurants more strongly agreed with the followings: 'Korean food has a beautiful color', 'Korean food is expensive', 'Korean food is healthy', 'Korean food is nutritious', 'Korean food is salty and spicy', and 'Korean food includes many fermented foods'. The subjects considered 'appearance of menu', 'variety of menu', 'nutrition of menu', and 'Chinese characters for menu and ingredients' as the most important attributes when choosing Korean cuisine restaurants. The frequent customers of Korean cuisine restaurants considered 'kind service', 'employee knowledge of Korean foods', 'operation hours of restaurant', and 'cleanliness of restaurant' as the most important restaurant attributes. In addition, the frequent customers of Korean cuisine restaurants were more satisfied than the occasional customers with the followings: 'nutritional quality of menu', 'quick service', 'cleanliness of restaurant', 'appearance and signboard of restaurant', and 'image of restaurant'. The implications of the data are discussed.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.105-113
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• 2016

This qualitative study identifies the perceptions of organic food from the top two largest demographic profiles in Malaysia, which are the Malay and Chinese consumers. A total of four factors have been identified in previous research which are the most influential factors in regards to organic food purchase intentions and are categorized thematically - (1) health consciousness, (2) taste, (3) willingness to pay, as well as (4) family and culture influences. The understanding of the preferences and influences is crucial for foodservice providers and/or operators to not only attract new individuals to try organic food but also to minimize the uncertainty that arises in the food industry and achieve higher goals by understanding customers' perceptions.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.542-557
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the foodservice employees' awareness and performance in sanitation and customers' satisfaction with sanitation in large sized restaurants in Korea. Sanitation inspections were carried out in 200 large Korean, Western, Chinese, and Japanese style restaurants, and in buffet-style restaurants in Daegu and Gyeongbuk province. Foodservice employees' awareness of sanitation and customers' satisfaction with sanitation were investigated by interviewing 317 foodservice employees and 205 customers. Results of the inspection of restaurants showed low performance in food handling, employees' hygiene (hygienic) practices, and in cleaning food processing equipment. Scores of the foodservice employees' awareness in Chinese style restaurants were significantly lower than scores of workers in western restaurants. Foodservice employees had low awareness of sanitation procedures used for food storage and cleaning of equipment in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese style restaurants. Foodservice employees had low awareness of equipment cleaning, inspection and food distribution in western style restaurants and of equipment cleaning and food handling in buffet-style restaurants. Foodservice employees at all restaurants had the lowest performance in terms of HACCP. This shows that HACCP application and recording have not yet been properly carried out at restaurants in Korea. Foodservice employees had low performance scores in food handling, vegetable disinfection and disinfection after hand washing. Research on customers' satisfaction with sanitation revealed a low rating of kitchens and foodservice employees at all restaurants. Customers had low satisfaction with servers and kitchen environments in Korean style restaurants with food, tableware, utensils and servers in western style restaurants; with food and kitchen environments in Chinese style restaurants with servers, tableware, and utensils in Japanese style restaurants and with kitchen environments and servers in buffet-style restaurants. Therefore, cleanliness of kitchen facilities and equipment, and hygienic food handling procedures by workers in restaurants are urgently needed.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.11-20
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• 2024

Purpose: This study focuses on the Chinese smartphone market to estimate product attributes influencing Chinese customers' preference for developing new smartphones through conjoint analysis. Research design, data and methodology: The online questionnaire survey is processed among Chinese potential smartphone customers. Conjoint analysis including traditional conjoint analysis (TCA) and choice-based conjoint analysis (CBCA), is used to analyze the useful data of 500. Results: Results indicate that price is the most important predictor while screen size is the least for Chinese customers' preference whether the method is TCA or CBCA. However, the importance of brand, capacity, CPU, and screen design is different. Moreover, based on each smartphone attribute level's utility, the new products with the best combinations are different compared with both methods. Finally, the predicted market shares of the top 3 products are the same with maximum utility rule model between TCA and CBCA. However, when considering with the new best combined product, they are significantly different. Conclusions: Managers should recognize the differences between TCA and CBCA and select the best method to develop new smartphones for sustainable business in the Chinese competitive market based on the important attributes of price, brand, capacity, CPU, screen design, and size.