• Title/Summary/Keyword: Empirical Test

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A Study on the Effect of Residential Environment Characteristics on Residential Satisfaction, Residential Ownership Consciousness, and Housing Movement: Focusing on MZ Generation in the COVID-19 Period (주거환경특성이 주거만족도, 주거보유의식과 주거이동에 미치는 영향 연구: 코로나19 시기의 MZ세대를 중심으로)

  • Yun-Hui, Hwang;Jaeho, Chung
    • Land and Housing Review
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.47-66
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    • 2023
  • This study reviews prior studies on the residential environment characteristics, residential satisfaction, residential ownership consciousness and housing movement of MZ generation and analyze the structural equation models using the 2020 Korea Housing Survey data. Using 14 residential characteristics based on three classifications, we explore the effects on residential satisfaction, residential ownership consciousness, and housing movement. The empirical results are summarized as follows. First, based on factor analysis with Varimax of principal component analysis, parking facility items were excluded from the analysis by hindering validity, and as a result, KMO was 0.925 and Bartlett's test result showed a significant probability of less than 0.01. This indicates that the factor analysis model was suitable. Second, the results of the structural equation analysis for the MZ generation show that the surrounding environment, which is a potential variable of the residential environment characteristics, was statistically significant, but the accessibility and convenience were not statistically significant. Third, we find that the higher the satisfaction with the accessibility of commercial facilities, the more significant the sense of housing ownership appears. This suggests that the younger generation such as the MZ generation has a stronger desire for consumption. Fourth, the overall housing satisfaction of the MZ generation was significant for housing movement, but not for housing ownership. Compared to the industrialized generation, the baby boom generation, and the X generation, MZ generation shows distinct factors for housing satisfaction, housing ownership, and housing movement. Therefore, the residential environment characteristics of the residential survey should be improved and supplemented following the trend of the times. In addition, the government and local governments should prioritize actively participating in the housing market that suits the environment and characteristics of the target generation. Finally, our study provides implications regarding the need for housing-related research on how differ in special temporal situations such as COVID-19 in the future.

The Study on the Factors of film's Processing Fluency Inducing Film's Preference Fluency (영화의 선호도 유창성에 영향을 미치는 영화의 처리 유창성 요인에 관한 연구)

  • Choi, Nak Hwan;Lim, Ahyoung
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.29-54
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    • 2012
  • Recently, as film has been admitted as the artistic merit and higher value-added business, the past studies on film have been lively carried on various fields. Especially, the film business is thought to be value-added business and has explored the causes of influencing spectators. However, there are no researches enough to explain what induces the choice and diffusion of the film. The film is not only hedonic products but also typical example of experiential products. So how to process film formation plays important roles in explaining the procedures of forming preference on the film and the movies spread more widely. But the great part of study of films has been concentrated on exploring hedonic factors of influencing spectator's choice. Until now there is not enough study for the relationship between experiential information processing and film preference. To explain film's preference, our study focuses on preference fluency and processing fluency that can provide an insight for our question about the relationship. In this article, to explain the procedures of processing experiential information and forming preference on the film, our study focuses on finding the relationship between film's processing fluency and film's preference fluency and explores the factors that affect film's processing fluency. To achieve the goal of this study, we distinguish factors of film's conceptual fluency from factors of film's perceptual fluency and explore the paths from the factors to film's preference fluency. The factors which have effects on perceptual fluency are hypothesized to be distinction of image expression, distinction of sound expression, correspondence between actors' image and their role. The factors which have effect on conceptual fluency are supposed to be well-organized story, suitability of lines expression. The experiments in which students were sampled at 'C' university were conducted in 2010 (december). Data collection was proceeded through questionnaires. We test the hypothesized model by using structural equation modeling(Amos 17.0). The fit indices for the model are as follows : x2=416.266(df=213, p=0.00), GFI=0.855, AGFI=0.812, RMSEA =0.069, IFI=O.925, CFI=0.920, TLI=0.905. According to the guidelines, there is evidence that our measurement model fits data. The results of empirical study are as follows. The path from film's perceptual fluency to film's preference fluency is supported(estimate: 0.223, C.R: 2.641). The path from film's conceptual fluency to film's preference fluency is supported(estimate: 0.397, C.R: 4.863). The path from distinction of image expression to film's perceptual fluency is not supported(estimate: 0.113, C.R: 1.665). The path from distinction of sound expression to film's perceptual fluency is supported (estimate: 0.190, C.R: 2.042). The path from correspondence between actors' image and their role to film's perceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.686, C.R: 5.566). The path from well-organized story to film's conceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.396, C.R: 4.023). The path from suitability of lines expression to film's conceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.536, C.R: 5.441). Concludingly, our study explored the influencing factors of film's processing fluency inducing film's Preference fluency. First, film's perceptual fluency and film's conceptual fluency have positive effects on film's preference fluency. Second, distinction of image expression is not significant on film's perceptual fluency, but distinction of sound expression and image's correspondence of actors' image and their role have positive effects on film's perceptual fluency. Lastly, well-organized story and suitability of lines expression have positive effects on film's conceptual fluency.

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A Study on Consumers' Intention to Continue Use of Unmanned Stores in the Non-face-to-face Era : Focusing on the Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Social Risk (비대면시대 소비자의 무인점포 지속적이용의도에 관한 연구: COVID-19 사회적 위험의 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Oh, Jong-chul
    • Journal of Venture Innovation
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    • v.3 no.2
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    • pp.1-21
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    • 2020
  • Recently, the emergence of new technologies caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution caused a great change not only in the overall society but also in the retail industry. In the retail industry, unmanned stores based on new technologies have emerged, changing the consumption behavior of consumers. In particular, the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, which appeared in December 2019, raised social risks, and as a result of this, the beginning of the non-face-to-face era, interest in unmanned stores is increasing. In this study, the effects of benefits factors (perceived usefulness, perceived economics, perceived enjoyment, relative advantages) and sacrifice factors (perceived risk, technicality) perceived by unmanned store users on continuous use intention through perceived value. In addition, it is a study to test through empirical analysis what role the social risk from COVID-19 plays in the process of consumption through unmanned stores. The purpose of this study is to provide strategic implications for the activation of unmanned stores in the non-face-to-face era. In this study, a total of 293 copies of data were collected for users of unmanned stores for hypothesis testing. In addition, the collected data was analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 statistical programs. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, it was found that the perceived benefits (perceived usefulness, perceived economics, perceived playfulness, and relative advantages) of unmanned stores all had a significant positive effect on perceived value. Second, it was found that all perceived sacrifices (perceived risk, technicality) of unmanned stores had a significant negative effect on perceived value. Third, it was found that the perceived value of unmanned stores had a significant positive effect on the intention to continue use. Finally, the social risk from COVID-19 has been shown to play a moderating role when the perceived sacrifice of unmanned stores affects the perceived value.

A Study on the Effect of Healing Experience Program on Satisfaction: Focused on Experience Cost and Experience Time (치유체험프로그램이 만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 체험비용과 체험시간을 중심으로)

  • An, Hye-Jung;Kan, Soon-Ah
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.183-200
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    • 2022
  • This study is a study on the effect of a healing experience program on satisfaction in the field of healing agriculture. In the development of a rural experience program, what factors constituting the healing experience program affect satisfaction, and how much time and participation cost affect the satisfaction of the healing experience program from the marketing point of view of the healing experience program. I want to analyze By researching the effect of experience cost and experience time on satisfaction of the healing experience program, I would like to suggest the development direction of the healing experience program. To this end, by empirically analyzing the effect of a healing experience program using experience cost and experience time as parameters on satisfaction, we present a theoretical basis for priority considerations when developing a rural experience program. There are entertainment experience, educational experience, deviant experience, and aesthetic experience as sub-factors of the experience program, experience time and experience cost as parameters, and satisfaction as a dependent variable. In addition, the reliability of the research results was secured by setting the demographic variables of the survey subjects as control variables. The empirical analysis was conducted on 314 valid questionnaires from the unspecified majority who were interested in or aware of the healing experience program. SPSS v22.0 was used, and to test the mediating effect, the three-step verification method of Baron & Kenny(1986) and the SPSS PROCESS Macro Model No. of Andrew F. Hayes(2018). 4 The reliability of the mediating effect was secured by applying the verification method and comparing the analysis resul. As a result of the study, it was found that educational experience (𝛽=.134, t=1.759*) had a positive (+) effect on experience cost, and aesthetic experience (𝛽=.144 t=1.684*) had a positive (+) effect on experience time. +) was found to have an effect. Also, educational experience (𝛽=.239, t=4.112***) was found to have a positive (+) effect on satisfaction, and aesthetic experience (𝛽=.330 t=4.921***) had a positive effect on satisfaction. It has been shown to have a (+) effect. Experience time was found to have a negative (-) inconsistent mediating effect between aesthetic experience and satisfaction. That is, it is the total effect (𝛽=.330 t=4.921***), and the direct effect (𝛽=.349 t=5.241***) increased by 𝛽=.019 compared to the total effect when the experience time was input, while the indirect effect (𝛽=-.019), which was shown to exert a negative (-) mediating effect.

Assessment of Methane Production Rate Based on Factors of Contaminated Sediments (오염퇴적물의 주요 영향인자에 따른 메탄발생 생성률 평가)

  • Dong Hyun Kim;Hyung Jun Park;Young Jun Bang;Seung Oh Lee
    • Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.45-59
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    • 2023
  • The global focus on mitigating climate change has traditionally centered on carbon dioxide, but recent attention has shifted towards methane as a crucial factor in climate change adaptation. Natural settings, particularly aquatic environments such as wetlands, reservoirs, and lakes, play a significant role as sources of greenhouse gases. The accumulation of organic contaminants on the lake and reservoir beds can lead to the microbial decomposition of sedimentary material, generating greenhouse gases, notably methane, under anaerobic conditions. The escalation of methane emissions in freshwater is attributed to the growing impact of non-point sources, alterations in water bodies for diverse purposes, and the introduction of structures such as river crossings that disrupt natural flow patterns. Furthermore, the effects of climate change, including rising water temperatures and ensuing hydrological and water quality challenges, contribute to an acceleration in methane emissions into the atmosphere. Methane emissions occur through various pathways, with ebullition fluxes-where methane bubbles are formed and released from bed sediments-recognized as a major mechanism. This study employs Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) tests to analyze and quantify the factors influencing methane gas emissions. Methane production rates are measured under diverse conditions, including temperature, substrate type (glucose), shear velocity, and sediment properties. Additionally, numerical simulations are conducted to analyze the relationship between fluid shear stress on the sand bed and methane ebullition rates. The findings reveal that biochemical factors significantly influence methane production, whereas shear velocity primarily affects methane ebullition. Sediment properties are identified as influential factors impacting both methane production and ebullition. Overall, this study establishes empirical relationships between bubble dynamics, the Weber number, and methane emissions, presenting a formula to estimate methane ebullition flux. Future research, incorporating specific conditions such as water depth, effective shear stress beneath the sediment's tensile strength, and organic matter, is expected to contribute to the development of biogeochemical and hydro-environmental impact assessment methods suitable for in-situ applications.

A Study on the Continuous Usage Intention Factors of O2O Service (O2O 서비스의 지속사용의도에 미치는 영향요인 연구)

  • Sung Yong Jung;Jin Soo Kim
    • Information Systems Review
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.1-23
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    • 2018
  • A smart phone has been widely spread around world and makes people enjoy online shopping in any time and any place. Recently it also changes the distribution environment. O2O (Online-to-Offline) service becomes new normal due to its convenience of ease shopping of product and services. O2O service market shows steady and steep growth, It is reported that, however, 80% of the businesses has been discontinued within the first year because of unstable business models, customer dissatisfaction and distrust of service. Therefore, it is very important research issue to find out influential factors promoting continuous usage intention of O2O service. Previous study shows that it only considers online characteristics and lack of analysis about offline characteristics and social impact factors. The purpose of this paper is to find out continuous usage intention factors of O2O services by literature review, case analysis, and empirical test. A comprehensive research model and related hypothesis are developed and tested by using a structural equation, Survey was carried out among users who have used O2O service including payment service for at least once. Finally 611 samples are selected out of total 813 surveys. The result shows that the model is theoretically proved and 12 out of 17 hypotheses are accepted. The contribution of this paper is that it provides a new theoretical research model about continuous usage intention factors as well as practical guidelines about promoting continuous usage and growth strategies of O2O service.

An Exploratory Study on the Components of Visual Merchandising of Internet Shopping Mall (인터넷쇼핑몰의 VMD 구성요인에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Kim, Kwang-Seok;Shin, Jong-Kuk;Koo, Dong-Mo
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.19-45
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    • 2008
  • This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

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A Study on Interactions of Competitive Promotions Between the New and Used Cars (신차와 중고차간 프로모션의 상호작용에 대한 연구)

  • Chang, Kwangpil
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.83-98
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    • 2012
  • In a market where new and used cars are competing with each other, we would run the risk of obtaining biased estimates of cross elasticity between them if we focus on only new cars or on only used cars. Unfortunately, most of previous studies on the automobile industry have focused on only new car models without taking into account the effect of used cars' pricing policy on new cars' market shares and vice versa, resulting in inadequate prediction of reactive pricing in response to competitors' rebate or price discount. However, there are some exceptions. Purohit (1992) and Sullivan (1990) looked into both new and used car markets at the same time to examine the effect of new car model launching on the used car prices. But their studies have some limitations in that they employed the average used car prices reported in NADA Used Car Guide instead of actual transaction prices. Some of the conflicting results may be due to this problem in the data. Park (1998) recognized this problem and used the actual prices in his study. His work is notable in that he investigated the qualitative effect of new car model launching on the pricing policy of the used car in terms of reinforcement of brand equity. The current work also used the actual price like Park (1998) but the quantitative aspect of competitive price promotion between new and used cars of the same model was explored. In this study, I develop a model that assumes that the cross elasticity between new and used cars of the same model is higher than those amongst new cars and used cars of the different model. Specifically, I apply the nested logit model that assumes the car model choice at the first stage and the choice between new and used cars at the second stage. This proposed model is compared to the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model that assumes that there is no decision hierarchy but that new and used cars of the different model are all substitutable at the first stage. The data for this study are drawn from Power Information Network (PIN), an affiliate of J.D. Power and Associates. PIN collects sales transaction data from a sample of dealerships in the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. These are retail transactions, i.e., sales or leases to final consumers, excluding fleet sales and including both new car and used car sales. Each observation in the PIN database contains the transaction date, the manufacturer, model year, make, model, trim and other car information, the transaction price, consumer rebates, the interest rate, term, amount financed (when the vehicle is financed or leased), etc. I used data for the compact cars sold during the period January 2009- June 2009. The new and used cars of the top nine selling models are included in the study: Mazda 3, Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cobalt, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus, Volkswagen Jetta, Nissan Sentra, and Kia Spectra. These models in the study accounted for 87% of category unit sales. Empirical application of the nested logit model showed that the proposed model outperformed the IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) model in both calibration and holdout samples. The other comparison model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and car model choice at the second stage turned out to be mis-specfied since the dissimilarity parameter (i.e., inclusive or categroy value parameter) was estimated to be greater than 1. Post hoc analysis based on estimated parameters was conducted employing the modified Lanczo's iterative method. This method is intuitively appealing. For example, suppose a new car offers a certain amount of rebate and gains market share at first. In response to this rebate, a used car of the same model keeps decreasing price until it regains the lost market share to maintain the status quo. The new car settle down to a lowered market share due to the used car's reaction. The method enables us to find the amount of price discount to main the status quo and equilibrium market shares of the new and used cars. In the first simulation, I used Jetta as a focal brand to see how its new and used cars set prices, rebates or APR interactively assuming that reactive cars respond to price promotion to maintain the status quo. The simulation results showed that the IIA model underestimates cross elasticities, resulting in suggesting less aggressive used car price discount in response to new cars' rebate than the proposed nested logit model. In the second simulation, I used Elantra to reconfirm the result for Jetta and came to the same conclusion. In the third simulation, I had Corolla offer $1,000 rebate to see what could be the best response for Elantra's new and used cars. Interestingly, Elantra's used car could maintain the status quo by offering lower price discount ($160) than the new car ($205). In the future research, we might want to explore the plausibility of the alternative nested logit model. For example, the NUB model that assumes choice between new and used cars at the first stage and brand choice at the second stage could be a possibility even though it was rejected in the current study because of mis-specification (A dissimilarity parameter turned out to be higher than 1). The NUB model may have been rejected due to true mis-specification or data structure transmitted from a typical car dealership. In a typical car dealership, both new and used cars of the same model are displayed. Because of this fact, the BNU model that assumes brand choice at the first stage and choice between new and used cars at the second stage may have been favored in the current study since customers first choose a dealership (brand) then choose between new and used cars given this market environment. However, suppose there are dealerships that carry both new and used cars of various models, then the NUB model might fit the data as well as the BNU model. Which model is a better description of the data is an empirical question. In addition, it would be interesting to test a probabilistic mixture model of the BNU and NUB on a new data set.

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Consumer's Negative Brand Rumor Acceptance and Rumor Diffusion (소비자의 부정적 브랜드 루머의 수용과 확산)

  • Lee, Won-jun;Lee, Han-Suk
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.65-96
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    • 2012
  • Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R2 of adoption of rumor is .476 and R2 of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

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A Study on Perceived Quality affecting the Service Personal Value in the On-off line Channel - Focusing on the moderate effect of the need for cognition - (온.오프라인 채널에서 지각된 품질이 서비스의 개인가치에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 -인지욕구의 조정효과를 중심으로-)

  • Sung, Hyung-Suk
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.111-137
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    • 2010
  • The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.

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