• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.141-173
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• 2007

The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.709-718
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• 2010

The study was performed through questionnaire to determine purchase characteristics and consumers' satisfaction for Hanwoo beef for 400 residents in Busan, Gyeongsangnam-do, Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do. The results obtained from 363 consumers excluding 37 improperly answered ones were statistically analyzed. The properly answered consumers were classified according to gender, 107 (29.5%) male, 256 (70.5%) female, and ages, 70 (19.3%) twenties, 97 (26.7%) thirties, 131 (36.1%) forties, and 65 (17.9%) over fifties. Consumers having older ages purchased Hanwoo beef more frequently (p<0.05), and Hanwoo specialty shop operated by farmers cooperative was the most popular purchasing sources. Consumers' favorite retail cuts for Hanwoo beef were in the order of loin (43.5%), ribs (22.9%), tender loin (10.5%), brisket (9.9%), round, fore (4.7%), others (3.3%), chuck (2.8%), strip loin, rump (2.5%). For the experiences of purchasing imported beef, 24.55% and 22.3% of consumers answered for 'sometimes' and 'yes', respectively, for the reason of 'low price' (73.3%). Consumers answered 'sometimes' (69.1%) for the question of disguisement of imported beef to Hanwoo beef, and thought traceability (61.7%) and country of origin (17.1%) would be the most effective methods to prevent disguisement. Percentages of responses were 61.1% and 75.5% for traceability and country of origin, respectively, under the assumption of consumer's trustworthiness of above 70%. Prerequisites for Hanwoo beef to succeed as a brand were in the order of taste (3.90 points), consumers' satisfaction (3.28 points), consumers' trustworthiness (3.20 points), safety (3.03 points). Consumers' satisfaction is influenced by the age, academic background and the occupation (p<0.05). Safety is expected to show the difference by the educational background (p<0.05) and the occupation (p<0.01), whereas consumers trustworthiness is influenced by the educational background and income (p<0.05). From the results obtained in the current study, it is concluded that traceability and country of origin is essential to gain consumers' satisfaction and trustworthiness, and that the most important factors for branding Hanwoo beef would be taste and safety.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.541-551
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• 2012

In our previous work, we reported consumers' perceptions of body shape and weight control. In an ongoing effort, we analyzed the purchasing behavior, intake patterns, future purchasing decisions, and degree of satisfaction in individuals consuming dietary formula for weight control (DF) or heath/functional foods (HFFs) by using the same survey questions. Portfolio analysis for marketing strategy was also investigated. Subjects were divided into two groups according to consumption of DF or HFF during the previous year : DF group (n = 89) and HFF group (n = 110). Average intake frequency was $1.7{\pm}0.7$ per day for HFFs and $1.5{\pm}0.9$ per day for the DF, and the most prevalent form was pill (58.2%) for HFFs and bar (42.7%) for DF. Duration of intake was $3.1{\pm}2.3$ months for HFFs versus $3.9{\pm}3.5$ months for DF. The average degree of satisfaction was $3.6{\pm}0.6$ on a 5-point scale, meaning 'relatively satisfied'. For the weight control method to be used in the future, 44.5% of the HFF group selected 'HFFs' while 47.2% of the DF group selected 'DF', showing a tendency to use the current product type in the future. The average planned period for the intake was $3.8{\pm}3.7$ months for HFFs and $3.0{\pm}2.4$ months for DF (p < 0.05). The HFF group emphasized efficacy, functional ingredients of the products, reliable products, and higher satisfaction, whereas the DF group emphasized the added materials in addition to weight control effects.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.197-203
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• 2008

A total of one hundred and ninety five nutritionists selected based on population scale in high schools in Gyunggi Province were questioned about utilization of eggs in school meals. Almost half of those nutritionists have utilized eggs in school meals $3{\sim}5$ times per month. Most frequent cooking methods of eggs were boiled eggs. Eggs obtained from food distributors and egg distributors were 80.8% and 13.2%, respectively. Also, the nutritionists in middle population area prefer to purchase graded eggs. The most frequently occurring problems in cooking eggs were egg shell braking and related food safety. The present study revealed that egg is good for school meals, but various menus for easy cooking are yet to be developed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.377-390
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• 1995

This study was to investigate the consumption pattern and nutrition knowledge about vegetables of 184 housewives attending the school of adult and continuing education attached to DukSung Women's University. The results were summarized as follows; the average vegetable expenses were $10,000{\sim}20,000$ won per week. The frequency of purchasing vegetables was $2{\sim}3$ times a week. Respondents usually bought the vegetables at local markets and supermarkets. As for buying vegetables, all of respondents kept in mind all the time the organic vegetables were better. The price was the most important factor of their purchase in the low income households. In the family, the vegetable dishes were favored by housewives most and by sons least. Among the vegetable cooking methods, Kimchi was the most frequently used and salad was the least. Forty four percent of the respondents experienced purchasing ready made vegetable dishes in the market. The reason they bought ready made ones was the special taste of the dishes. The rest of respondents never bought cooked vegetable dishes because they thought the dishes unsanitary. Twenty seven percent of the respondents experienced purchasing. The reason for not purchasing Kimchi was the housewives' traditional prejudice of buying Kimchi in the market. Respondents have a considerable knowledge that 42 kinds of vegetables could be good for certain disease and 10 kinds of vegetables might be harmful for certain disease.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.355-372
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to provide baseline data for establishing a sugar reduction policy at coffee shops by analyzing the factors that affect a coffee shop user's perception and behavioral intention of reducing sugar intake. Methods: An online survey was conducted involving 1,274 Daegu citizens aged 19-49 years, who had visited coffee shops within the last month. Results: When visiting a coffee shop, the purchase of sweet drinks was higher in the younger age group, and the addition of syrup or sugar was higher in the older age group. Of the total respondents, 42.1% were aware that some coffee shops accommodate reduced sugar requests, 57.9% perceived the need to reduce sugar in coffee shop beverages and 22.3% had purchased beverages intending to reduce their sugar intake. In addition, 59.7% knew about sugar nutrition labeling, and 68.8% perceived the need for nutrition labeling for sugar. When purchasing beverages, 35.6% checked the nutrition labeling, and 77.2% purchased alternative drinks when the sugar content was high. Guiding the choice of sweetness levels in coffee shop orders was seen to have the highest effectiveness and intention to reduce sugar intake. Moreover, the perceived need to reduce sugar intake had the most positive effect on the behavioral intention to reduce sugars in coffee shop beverages (β = 0.558, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Although the overall awareness and practice of reducing the sugar intake in coffee shop users were low, the behavioral intention to reduce sugars was positive, and this was most affected by the perception of the need to reduce sugars. Therefore, there is a need for differentiated education and promotion for each age group for recognizing the necessity and outlining methods for reducing sugar intake. Furthermore, coffee shops should reflect customer's sugar reduction needs.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.466-476
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• 2006

The objective of this study was to compare and analyze the acceptability and consumption attitude for soy foods between Korean and Canadian university students as young consumers. This survey was carried out by questionnaire and the subjects were n=516 in Korea and n=502 in Canada. Opinions for soy foods in terms of general knowledge were that soy foods are healthy (86.5% in Korean and 53.4% in Canadian) or neutral (11.6% in Korean and 42.8% in Canadian), dairy foods can be substituted by soy foods (51.9% in Korean and 41.8% in Canadian), and soy foods are not only for vegetarians and milk allergy Patients but also for ordinary People (94.2% in Korean and 87.6% in Canadian). In main sources of information about soy foods, the rate by commercials on TV, radio or magazine was the highest (58.0%) for Korean students and the rate by family or friend was the highest(35.7%) for Canadian students. In consumption attitude, all of Korean students have purchased soy foods but only 55.4% of Canadian students have purchased soy foods, and soymilk was remarkably recognized and consumed then soy beverage and margarine in order. 76.4% of Korean students and 65.1% of Canadian students think soy foods are general and popular and can purchase easily, otherwise, in terms of price, soy foods were expensively recognized as 'more expensive than dairy foods' was 59.1% (Korean) and 54.7% (Canadian), and 'similar to dairy foods' was 36.8% (Korean) and 39.9% (Canadian). Major reasons for the rare consumption were 'I am not interested in soy foods' in Korean students (27.3%) and 'I prefer dairy foods to soy foods' in Canadian students (51.7%). However, consumption of soy foods in both countries are very positive and it will be increased.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.21-35
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• 2016

Recently, there has been a rapid increase in the sale and purchase of an array of organic products. In particular, organic milk has grown in popularity. This growth could lead to expensive, premium retail prices for various organic cow's milk products. In fact, most consumers believe that (1) dairy farming to produce organic milk is beneficial for human health and (2) organic milk products are made without the use of various antibiotics, synthetic chemicals, genetic modification, extra hormones, and so on. Several factors, including breed, diet, and stage of lactation, are known to influence the composition of milk. Therefore, this review (1) presents a research outline to compare organic and conventional milk and (2) provides a summary of individual elements that affect the composition of milk.

• (The)Study of the Eastern Classic
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• no.73
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• pp.153-184
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• 2018

The aim of this thesis was to examine the circumstances that led up to successful coin use across the entire nation in 1678 (the $4^{th}$ year of King Sukjong's reign), during the Joseon Dynasty. To this end, this thesis analysed the Sa-Mouk(事目, Provisions) that contained the institutional protocol for coin circulation, implemented by King Hyojong and the statesman Kim Youk(金堉) who had practical experience in these matters over the ten years of King Hyojong's reign(1649-1659). To regulate the problematic wide circulation of coarse cotton cloth as currency in the market of 1650 (the $1^{st}$ year of King Hyojong's reign), prohibition measures were implemented. Besides the superficial justification given for these measures(i.e., that the market price was disturbed by the use of coarse cotton cloth), there was another purpose to prohibiting the circulation of cotton cloth as money, following the standard ruled by the government: the state aimed to ensure momentum for the upcoming coin circulation policy, by strengthening its control of the current economy. In 1651 (the $2^{nd}$ year of King Hyojong's reign), the government fully cracked down on the use of coarse cotton cloth as currency, and simultaneously implemented its coin circulation policy in the Pyeongan(平安) region. The pretext for this policy was to raise finances to support people who were starving as a result of poor harvests and famine. People who received coins from government officials could purchase food in the market, and the coin circulation policy was judged to be successful. Subsequently, to extend coin circulation further throughout the region, the Sa-Mouk for Seoul was established. The Sa-Mouk included stipulations regarding the use of coin in transactions and for government expenditure; it aimed thereby to enhance the national policy's market credit. The hasty implementation of the policy for the expansion of coin circulation caused some problems that required its modification. In 1652 (the $3^{rd}$ year of King Hyojong's reign), coin circulation was increased to encompass the Gyeonggi(京畿) region, and some of the tax that had been paid in rice was now paid in coin. However, coins were in short supply, since there was insufficient copper, the main material used in coin production, and the policy faced a significant limitation. Therefore, in 1655(the $6^{th}$ year of King Hyojong's reign), a new Sa-Mouk for coin circulation was established. This Sa-Mouk included specifications regarding the determination of coin values based on rice and silver, and mandated the wide spread installation of stores for exchanging spot goods for coins throughout the region in which coins were circulating. This policy's objective was to secure stability for the national economy by further regulating coin circulation. The sustained implementation of the coin circulation policy for ten years by King Hyojong and the statesman Kim Youk offered the government an opportunity to accumulate experience in coin circulation in the market, and also to learn from institutional trial and error. This may have been one of the contributing factors to the nation-wide coin circulation that was established in 1678. The objective of the policy implemented during King Hyojong's reign was not to meet the market's requirements, but rather to ensure the preservation of the national economy, and this misjudgement constituted the policy's key limitation. At this time, the government urgently needed to secure finances to cope with the war against China's Qing Dynasty.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.67-86
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• 2020

Recommender Systems have been huge influence users and business more and more. Recently the importance of E-commerce has been reached rapid growth greatly in world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. Recommender system is the center of E-commerce lively. Top ranked E-commerce managers mentioned that recommender systems have a major influence on customer's purchase such as about 50% of Netflix, Amazon sales from their recommender systems. Most algorithms have been focused on improving accuracy of recommender system regardless of novelty, diversity, serendipity etc. Recommender systems with only high accuracy cannot satisfy business long-term profit because of generating sales polarization. In addition, customers do not experience enjoyment of shopping from only focusing accuracy recommender system because customer's preference is changed constantly. Therefore, recommender systems with various values need to be developed for user's high satisfaction. Reranking is the most useful methodology to realize diversity of recommender system. In this paper, diversity of recommender system is represented through constructing high similarity with users who have different preference using each user's purchased item's category algorithm. It is distinguished from past research approach which is changing the algorithm of recommender system without user's diversity preference level. We tried to discover user's diversity preference level and observed the results how the effect was different according to user's diversity preference level. In addition, graph-based recommender system was used to show diversity through user's network, not collaborative filtering. In this paper, Amazon Grocery and Gourmet Food data was used because the low-involvement product, such as habitual product, foods, low-priced goods etc., had high probability to show customer's diversity. First, a bipartite graph with users and items simultaneously is constructed to make graph-based recommender system. However, each users and items unipartite graph also need to be established to show diversity of recommender system. The weight of each unipartite graph has played crucial role changing Jaccard Distance of item's category. We can observe two important results from the user's unipartite network. First, the user's diversity preference level is observed from the network and second, dissimilar users can be discovered in the user's network. Through the research process, diversity of recommender system is presented highly with small accuracy loss and optimalization for higher accuracy is possible controlling diversity ratio. This paper has three important theoretical points. First, this research expands recommender system research for user's satisfaction with various values. Second, the graph-based recommender system is developed newly. Third, the evaluation indicator of diversity is made for diversity. In addition, recommender systems are useful for corporate profit practically and this paper has contribution on business closely. Above all, business long-term profit can be improved using recommender system with diversity and the recommender system can provide right service according to user's diversity level. Lastly, the corporate selling low-involvement products have great effect based on the results.