• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.487-496
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• 2022

This study attempts to discover a differentiated service strategy for the hotpot restaurant industry from the perspective of Chinese Generation Z customers, as well as to further explore the inner needs of Chinese Generation Z to make practical implications for discovering the method of gaining their satisfaction and loyalty. This paper employs questionnaires to collect analytical data and through a case study to produce company strategies. Smith's Marketing Ethics Sequential System Model (SMESSM) is introduced in this paper for the decision of whether the case study company Haidilao Hot Pot should make a new strategy on service based on Generation Z's consuming behavior. The findings of this study demonstrate that hotpot restaurant must differentiate their services for Generation Z from older generation customers to gain a sustainable development of the hotpot business. Proper differentiated service will not only improve Generation Z's dining experience but also reduce costs. This paper is the first to discuss differentiated service strategy in the hotpot restaurant business from the perspective of Generation Z customers. And a Chinese experience of SMESSM for practical use is introduced in this paper, which enriches the relevant implications for future research on business strategy.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.55-71
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• 2015

The purpose of current study is to identify moderator effects of a number of use in terms of the influences of selection properties as perceived by college foodservice. This study was collected 297 survey from college students in Busan and Gyeongnam using the statistics program SPSS (18.0). Result shown that the selection properties of the institutional food service were analyzed with four elements: physical environments, service of worker, diversity of menu, and quality of food. All of the selection properties were found to have significant effects on satisfaction. Although there was no significant effect on the second stage, partial moderating effects were found in the third stage only when the interaction term of physical environments ${\times}$ the number of use is applied. Considering these results, it can be considered that a number of use of foodservice facilities are moderated by physical environments. Therefore, it implies that institutional foodservice operators should improve physical environments including interior, tableware, and cleanliness. In addition, satisfaction and preference were found to be closely related each other, which indicates that preference is improved as satisfaction increases.

• Journal of Information Management
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.85-104
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• 2010

This study tries to survey general behaviors of the users and their's perceptions on the service quality, with the staff members' expectations, of the Information Commons in the National Digital Library of Korea. 'Computer Cluster,' 'User guide service' and 'Internet information' are most used and general facilities, services, and contents are most satisfied. The comparative analysis shows that the customers' perceptions of overall satisfaction, customer loyalty, and service quality and overall satisfaction of each three primary dimensions(library staff, resources and services, facility and physical environment) are higher than those of staff members' expectations.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.155-175
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• 2010

Most of the service industries including finance and telecommunications have become matured and saturated. The competitions have become severe while the differences among brands become smaller. Therefore maintaining good relationships with customers has been critical for the service providers. In case of credit card and debit card, the similar patterns are shown. It is important for them to maintain good relationships with customers, and therefore, they have used marketing program which provides customized services to customers and utilizes the membership programs. Not only do they build and maintain good relationships, but also highlight their brands from the emotional aspects. For example, KB Card or Hyundai Card uses well-known designers' works for their credit card design. As well, they differentiate the designs of credit cards to stress on their brand personalities. BC Card introduced the credit card with perfume that a customer would like. Even though the credit card is small and not shown to public easily, it becomes more important for those companies to touch the customers' feelings with the brand personalities and their images. This is partly because of changes in consumers' lifestyles. Y-generations becomes highly likely to express themselves in many different ways and more emotional than X-generations. For the Y-generations, therefore, even credit cards in the wallet should be personalized and well-designed. In line with it, credit cards with good design can be seen as an example of brand identity, where different design for each customer can be used to recognize the membership groups that customers want to belong. On the other hand, these credit card companies offer the special treatment benefits for those customers who are heavy users for the cards. For example, those customers who love sports will receive some special discounts when they use their credit cards for sports related products. Therefore this study attempted to explore the relationships between relational benefits, brand identification and loyalty. It has been well known that relational benefits and brand identification lead to loyalty independently from many other studies, but there has been few study to review all the three variables all together in a research model. Furthermore, as reviewed above, in the card industry, many companies attempt to associate the brand image with their products to fit their customers' lifestyles while relational benefits are still playing an important role for their business. Therefore in our research model, relational benefits, brand identification, and loyalty are all included. We focus on the mediating effect of brand identification. From the relational benefits perspective, only special treatment benefit and confidence benefit are included. Social benefit is not applicable for this credit card industry because not many cases of face-to-face interaction can be found. From the brand identification perspective, personal brand identity and social brand identity are reviewed and included in the model. Overall, the research model emphasizes that the relationships between relational benefits and loyalty will be mediated by the effect of brand identification. The effects of relational benefits which are confidence benefit and special treatment benefits on loyalty will be realized when they fit to the personal brand identity and social brand identity. In the research model, therefore, the relationships between confidence benefit and social brand identity, and between confidence benefit and personal identity are hypothesized while the effects of special treatment benefit on social brand identity and personal brand identity are hypothesized. Loyalty, then, is hypothesized to have positive relationships with personal brand identity and social brand identity. In addition, confidence benefit among the relational benefits is expected to have a direct, positive relationship with loyalty because confidence benefit has been recognized as a critical factor for good relationships and satisfaction. Data were collected from college students who have been using either credit cards or debit cards. College students were regarded good subjects because they are in Y-generation cohorts and have tendency to express themselves more. Total sample size was two hundred three at the beginning, but after deleting those data with many missing values, one hundred ninety-seven data points were remained and used for the model testing. Measurement items were brought from the previous literatures and modified for this research. To test the reliability, using SPSS 14, chronbach's α was examined and all the values were from .874 to .928 exceeding over .7. Using AMOS 7.0, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the measurement model. The measurement model was found good fit with χ²(67)=188.388 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=.821, CFI=.941, RMSEA=.096. Using AMOS 7.0, structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. Overall, the research model fit were χ²(68)=188.670 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=,824 CFI=.942, RMSEA=.095 indicating good fit. In details, all the paths hypothesized in the research model were found significant except for the path from social brand identity to loyalty. Personal brand identity leads to loyalty while both confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive relationships with personal and social identities. As well, confidence benefit has a direct positive effect on loyalty. The results indicates the followings. First, personal brand identity plays an important role for credit/debit card usage. Therefore even for the products which are not shown to public easy, design and emotional aspect can be important to fit the customers' lifestyles. Second, confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive effects on personal brand identity. Therefore it will be needed for marketers to associate the special treatment and trust and confidence benefits with personal image, personality and personal identity. Third, this study found again the importance of confidence and trust. However interestingly enough, social brand identity was not found to be significantly related to loyalty. It can be explained that the main sample of this study consists of college students. Those strategies to facilitate social brand identity are focused on high social status groups while college students have not been established their status yet.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.245-276
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• 2008

Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

• CRM연구
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.23-48
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• 2006

Internet B2C marketplace such as 'Auction', 'G Market', 'Daum onket' etc.(called open market) has grown sharply in sales about yearly 100% rate increase in recent 1-2 years in Korea. Although Open marketplace has much reputation and the customer loyalty, almost of merchants participated in open market, which size in sales are medium/small, has poor reputation and trust. Consumers, who have to get in touch with untrustworthy merchants for trade in openmarket, perceive high trade risk which undergo the monetary damages such as 'merchandise never received'. This examines what factors consumer trust develop in online marketplace. This study explores several perceived risk factors in an open market by factor analysis and multi-regression to prove the relationships between the degree of trust for the merchants and the perceived trade risk. 133 data collected from the open market user data in this survey. In this study, the consumer's trade satisfaction in open market is low by 4.2 point degree of 7 point likert scale. and perceives 4 trade risk factors such as (1) 'failure to honor warranty or guarantee' (2) 'defective/poor goods in quality' (3) 'merchandise never received or received late' (4) 'poor information'. the degree of merchant's trust has significant relationship with the degree of perceived risk(sig. = 0.0000, $R^2=.327$) We find that the open market has to enhance the relationship marketing of trust by developing the strategies.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.353-362
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• 2012

The purpose of this study tried to find ways to improve service quality for customers and effective program of organizational support to increase the hotel employees' job satisfaction to empirically analyze causatively impacted relationship between the perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, and service quality in the hotel industry staff recognize. Data were collected from 217 and surveyed from 1 to 30 in November 2011 in hotel. To summarize the results of the study, first, satisfaction of individual job environment, satisfaction of work environment support concerned in support for personal values both was not affected significantly. Second, support for work environment was also affecting more than support for personal worth to improve the quality of customer service and in support for the organization Third, satisfaction of the individual's work environment affected adaptability, conviction, and corporality in job satisfaction variables while support satisfaction for working conditions effected conviction and adaptability without corporality. In order to enhance adaptability to customers who employees serve, it should be created work environment to make employees feel satisfaction in individual's work environment. Therefore, hotel managers have to entertain feelings of loyalty for their hotel and make employees satisfaction with their job and their duty by enhancing support for work environment of hotel employees in order to increase business performance by improving service quality for customers.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.15-39
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• 2015

This paper investigates the determinants of port service quality from a resources-based approach. The research model is derived from the relevant literature in port management, service quality, and resource-based theory. It is hypothesized that tangible and intangible resources contribute to port service quality, which in turn leads to the enhancement of reputation and loyalty to ports. To test this, a questionnaire survey is undertaken on three major ports in Korea: Busan, Incheon, and Gwangyang; the collected data are then analyzed using partial least squares. It is suggested that both tangible resources and intangible resources have a positive influence on general service quality and that general service quality has a positive influence on customer satisfaction, thus improving port reputation and loyalty. The contribution to the literature is that resource-based theory is applied to a port service quality model and the model is verified. In addition, an augmented model is adopted to examine the effect of individual resources on service quality. It is also possible for port managers to use the constructs to monitor their resources and develop more specific strategies to gain reputation and loyalty from customers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.43-72
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• 2007

The recent development of industrial marketing explains the near absence of research on brand equity in business-to-business markets. With recent change, industrial companies have shifted from a production focus to a customer focus. Industrial brand concept is rapidly developing. The basic purpose of this study is to investigate industrial brand equity affecting the result of business relationship between industrial buyers and suppliers. This research presented a comprehensive constructive model consisting of components of industrial brand equity, and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of industrial brand equity. Data were gathered from respondents who work in industrial buying center. For this study, Data were analyzed by SPSS 11.0 and AMOS 5.0. The results of this research analysis were as fallow. Industrial brand loyalty was positively related with perceived value, perceived quality, brand awareness, relationship satisfaction, switching cost, relationship commitment. Also, Industrial corporate performance and purchasing value was positively related with brand loyalty and relationship commitment.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.23-30
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• 2014

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency of retail businesses by dividing domestic retailers into discount stores, super supermarkets (SSMs), and department stores. It suggests retail-business investment strategies by using data environment analysis (DEA) to analyze how input elements such as store area, parking lot area, number of employees, and sales management expenses for the convenience of customers positively affect business performance measurements such as sales and visiting customers per day. Research Design, Data, and Methodology - The DEA model calculates a ratio of the weighted mean of various inputs to the weighted mean of various outputs and measures the efficiency of a specific decision making unit (DMU). The study included 19 companies (five discount store DMUs, ten SSM DMUs, and four department store DMUs). Because the business elements and sizes of retail store DMUs used in this analysis are different, average per-store input and output variables were used. Data were collected from "The Yearbook of Retail Industry in Korea (2012)." DEA analysis was used to determine differences in efficiency among discount stores, SSMs, and department stores in terms of the business elements of each retail business. It was also used to determine what business elements were excessively invested in by comparing and analyzing efficiency by business elements using SPSS software's ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). Results - The CCR and BCC efficiency analysis found that the efficiency of discount stores is low. We believe that the saturation state of discount stores is a major factor. The ANOVA analysis confirms the VRS hypothesis with a statistically significant difference among the three groups, based on an analysis confidence interval of 95%. CRS and SE were not found to be significantly different among the three groups. As for the post hoc test, which concretely shows differences by group, the Scheffe's multiple comparison analysis test found the average differences between group 1 (discount stores) and group 2 (SSM) to be statistically significant. Conclusions - The DEA efficiency analysis implies that investment in input elements, including store area, parking lot area, and sales management expenses, were excessive in the case of discount stores, while SSMs need to invest more in promotion activities such as gifts, events, and coupons for customer management. Department stores have found that small companies invest excessively in input elements. Department stores need to invest in differentiated shopping mall complexes. This study was limited in acquiring statistical data; various input variables which might have shown more secure customer management and promotional expenses could not be applied. As the study was limited in various aspects of the efficiency analyses because financial analyses of the companies and of causal relationships, including satisfaction and loyalty of visiting customers, were not done, these aspects will be examined in the next study.