• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.13-22
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• 2022

Purpose: Brand hearsay refers to information that can be acquired from advertisement, media publicity, and word-of-mouth prior to experiencing products or services of brands. Previous information about brands obtained through brand hearsay affects consumer behavior in choosing brands. Moreover, brand hearsay is an effective communication method in promoting brands to consumers. Thus, bakery franchises need to improve strengths and differentiate characteristics of their brand, thereby attracting more consumers. Therefore, this study investigates relationships the effect of brand hearsay on consumers' brand attitude and brand loyalty in the context of franchised bakery brands. Research design, data, and methodology: A research model was proposed to examine structural relationships between brand hearsay (advertising, publicity, word-of-mouth), brand attitude, and brand loyalty. An online survey was conducted to consumers who had an experience of visiting a franchise bakery. A total of 513 responses were used for data analysis. SPSS 22.0 was used for analyzing general demographics, and SmartPLS 4.0 was used to test validity and reliability of the proposed model. Result: Among attributes of brand hearsay, advertisement and word-of-mouth had positively significant effects on brand attitude, but no significant effect was found between publicity and attitude. Advertisement had a positively significant impact on brand loyalty, while publicity had a negative effect on brand loyalty opposite to hypothesis. Moreover, brand attitude had a statistically significant effect on brand loyalty. Conclusions: In the context of franchise bakeries, brand hearsay contents may change consumers' attitude toward brands but does not increase brand loyalty. Though media publicity does not affect consumers' attitude toward brands, it may decrease brand loyalty when consumers are too exposed to it. In addition, it is necessary to enhance brand attitude to increase brand loyalty of customers. This study provides bakery franchisors and franchisees information about which type of brand hearsay (e.g., advertisement, word-of-mouth, media, publicity) is effective in enhancing brand attitudes and loyalty of consumers. Further studies may include other variables (e.g., trust) in addition to attitude and loyalty, or compare findings based on brand characteristics (e.g., low-to-medium/high prices, store size).

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.19-29
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• 2018

Purpose - Due to the increase in coffee consumption and competition, domestic coffee franchise companies are currently entering the overseas market. Therefore, coffee franchise companies are pursuing a variety of marketing strategies to meet customer needs and gain competitive advantage in overseas markets. From this perspective, overseas franchise companies need to ensure that their servicescapes meet the needs of their overseas customers. For these purposes, the study is to identify the impact servicescapes on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty focused on Global Coffee Franchise Company "C", which extended its business worldwide in Mongolia. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected from customers who had visited the stores of 'C' company in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 435 valid questionnaires collected through online survey coded and analyzed using frequency, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations analysis, and structural equation modeling with SPSS 24 and SmartPLS 3.0. Result - Firstly, seating comfort, facility aesthetics, and cleanliness, ambient conditions among servicescapes influenced customer satisfaction. Secondly, servicescapes didn't affect the loyalty directly. Third, customer satisfaction had positive effect on loyalty. Fourthly, cleanliness which was ranked lower in Korea had a great effect on customer satisfaction in Mongolia. Fifthly, IPMA(Importance-performance map analysis) shows that the importance of servicescapes is higher for women than for men, and facility aesthetics for female and cleanliness is the most important for male. Conclusions - The results of this study show that there is a positive (+) effect on customer satisfaction in order of cleanliness, ambient conditions, aesthetics, and seating comfort. Therefore, franchise companies considering or advancing into Mongolia should consider importance in order of cleanliness, ambient conditions and aesthetics when entering Mongolia market. For example, franchise managers should select Monday as a "clean day," and all merchants should spend all of their open hours and keep their stores clean in accordance with the head office manual. In addition, franchise managers need to hire a VMD (visual merchandising) experts to build up a physical environment that will effectively highlight the space-specific display of the store so that Mongolian local customers can have a satisfactory climate and aesthetics. And, the IMPA analysis between servicescapes and customer satisfaction shows that women are more susceptible to servicescapes than men. Especially, in the case of women, the importance of esthetics is high, but the performance is low. Thus, if the aesthetics are actively improved, customer satisfaction can be effectively increased.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.119-135
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• 2012

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of the product display type on the consumers' purchase intention, attitude toward store, and revisit intention in the various mobile shopping situations. To test the hypothesis, between-subjects experiment with 3 mobile shopping situations (outdoor place, public transportation, commercial facilities) by 3 product display types (search, category, product) was conducted, and analyzed with ANCOVA (analysis of covariance). The result of the experiment shows there are no main effects of the mobile shopping situations and the product display types, but the interaction effects of the product display type and the mobile shopping situation on the purchase intention and the revisit intention are statistically significant. However the attitude toward the store is not affected by the treatments. Experiment results suggest that the positive consumer responses in terms of the purchase and revisit intention can be achieved when the product display is matched with the situation in the mobile shopping setting. Controlling consumers' evaluation on the product information and their experience of online shopping, we can take these effect as the results of match-up between the product display type and the situational factors surrounding mobile shopping. The result provides strong support for the location-based service in mobile shopping. Most of the mobile device can utilize the consumers' location which can be easily interpreted as the situational factors. With regard of the level of the external stimulation, the shopping service providers can offer the main interface with the right match with the consumers' situations. When the external stimulation level is high, they should provide the category display or product display in the target promotion in their mobile shopping apps. However if the target is on the way with the low external stimulation level, they should provide the search format as the main interface in their apps. More interestingly, this kind of manipulation does not affect the consumers' attitude toward the store according to our research result. Future research direction is discussed.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.33-51
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• 2022

Purpose: The online market is growing the most in history due to the expansion of non-face-to-face commerce. In addition, as consumers' interest in health, food safety, and environment increases, interest in and consumption of eco-friendly agricultural products is also increasing. Therefore, in the case of a specialty store that sells eco-friendly organic agricultural products, a marketing strategy that can increase customer loyalty by reflecting these consumer needs is necessary. In this study, the store attributes of eco-friendly food stores are classified into location, assortment, price, quality, and employee service, and the effect of each store attribute on utilitarian and hedonic value is investigated. Research design, data, and methodology: The subjects of this study were customers who visited an eco-friendly food store. Of the 511 survey responses, 311 were used for statistical verification, excluding 200 who had not visited within the last 3 months. For statistical analysis, Smart PLS 3.0 was used, and after checking the validity and reliability of the items, hypothesis testing was performed. Result: As a result of the study, it was found that assortment, quality, and employee service among store attributes had a positive (+) effect on utilitarian and hedonic value. Second, location had no significant effect on utilitarian and hedonic value. Third, price did not appear to have a positive (+) effect on the utilitarian value, and it was found to have a positive (+) effect on the hedonic value. Fourth, It was investigated whether the presence or absence of delivery service had an effect on store attributes between utilitarian and hedonic value, and it was found that there was a significant effect between employee service and hedonic value. Conclusions: Among eco-friendly food store environment management will be required in order to provide food that meets the tastes and needs of consumers by diversifying the taste, standard, and quality grade of food, and to maintain or improve the quality. In order to unlike other stores, eco-friendly food stores have high price resistance from the point of view of consumers, so it is necessary to diversify promotional media such as YouTube and SNS to raise awareness of eco-friendly organic food.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.19-29
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• 2020

Purpose - To understand the assessment basis of customers' coffee shop experience and give more practical advices to the franchised coffee shops which are poorly managed in the competitive market, this study identified factors to measure the quality of customer experience and explored the relationship between these factors and customer satisfaction and loyalty. Further, this study analyzed which role self-efficacy played in the structural relationship between the quality assessment factors, satisfaction and loyalty of franchised coffee shops. Research design, data, methodology - The data were collected from respondents who had visited franchised coffee shops within the previous month through online survey. The questionnaires were surveyed from February 11 to February 14, 2019. A total of 318 responses were collected after excluding four of incomplete or uncandid responses. A structural equation modeling approach was used to examine the proposed hypothesis and a confirmatory factor analysis was employed to verify the four dimensions of quality assessment. Results - The findings of this study are as follows. First, the three of quality assessment variables significantly influenced on satisfaction except environmental quality. Second, economic and service quality significantly influenced on self-efficacy but environmental and menu quality didn't. Third, satisfaction significantly influenced on loyalty but not on self-efficacy. Fourth, self-efficacy significantly influenced on Loyalty. Conclusions - This study identified the four dimensions to assess the franchised coffee shop service - menu, environment, service and economic quality and verified these four dimensions are valid as indicators to measure the quality of customers' coffee shop experience. Further, by empirically testing the structural relationships among these quality assessment dimensions, satisfaction, self-efficacy and loyalty, this study provided theoretical foundations to explore the relationship between customer and the franchised stores in restaurant businesses. For the industry, the study findings showed that customers highly appreciated menu and economic quality of the service rather than the stores' interior. This indicate that the franchised coffee shops need to focus more on the basics of coffee such as taste and menu variety and economic value than the decoration of the store, which are often over-invested nowadays.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.79-86
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• 2015

Purpose - The cosmetics industry is a traditional high value-added industry in terms of the domestic demand, small batch production systems, exclusive competition, and raw materials highly dependent on overseas countries as well as an oligopolistic market structure. However, new foreign brands and growing consumer awareness of inexpensive products, has triggered a shift. In line with changing lifestyles and the polarization of consumption, the industry faces a new market structure. Among its key characteristics is the cosmetics industry's numerous distribution channels (i.e., department stores, door-to-door sales, online shopping malls, brand shops, and discount stores). Therefore, the study of its distribution channels is essential. Research design, data, and methodology - The study analyzed channel distribution power divided into coercive and non-coercive power. The factors of coercive power included: unilateral request of an increase in commissions, interference in sales by taking advantage of a superior status, unilateral buck-passing at the time of a problem, unilateral request to stop sales activities, and a unilateral business contract; the factors of non-coercive power included favorable payment conditions, offers of various kinds of information, policy on commission reduction, pride in market entrance, and promotion support. In addition, the mediating variable "interdependence" was applied to the execution of department store (or mart) power and their shop conflicts and satisfaction to examine direct and indirect influential power. The methodology was a survey of managers of cosmetics shops in department stores (or marts). The questionnaire, based on a five-point Likert scale, included questions about basic personal information, execution of power, interdependence, conflict, and satisfaction. The study distributed 198 questionnaires and collected 131. Ten questionnaires with missing or hard to analyze data were excluded. Thus, 121 copies were analyzed. Results - According to the analysis, the execution of coercive power by department stores (or marts) did not affect interdependence, but the execution of non-coercive power did. Interdependence did not influence conflict, but did affect satisfaction. Additionally, the analysis revealed direct influential power: the execution of coercive power positively affected conflict and negatively influenced satisfaction; the execution of non-coercive power positively affected satisfaction. Conclusions - To offer suggestions for distribution business relations in the cosmetics industry, this study investigated how the execution of power by department stores (or marts) affected their shops. More specifically, it examined how much the execution of both coercive power and non-coercive power influenced conflict and satisfaction, and analyzed the mediating role of interdependence. In line with previous study results in various areas, coercive power was shown to be the source of conflict, leading to a decrease in satisfaction, whereas non-coercive power significantly positively influenced satisfaction. Moreover, non-coercive power increased interdependence, which led to greater satisfaction. As a result, interdependence had a mediating effect on non-coercive power and satisfaction. Based on the results, department stores (or marts) should look for improvements plans that increase interdependence. Such plans could alleviate conflict with the shops, increasing their satisfaction.