• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.63-104
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• 2011

The study examines the relationships among employee's goal orientation, IT personnel competency, personal effectiveness. The goal orientation includes learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Personal effectiveness consists of personal work satisfaction and personal work performance. In general, IT personnel competency refers to IT expert's skills, expertise, and knowledge required to perform IT activities in organizations. However, due to the advent of the internet and the generalization of IT, IT personnel competency turns out to be an important competency of technological experts as well as employees in organizations. While the competency of IT itself is important, the appropriate harmony between IT personnel's business capability and technological capability enhances the value of human resources and thus provides organizations with sustainable competitive advantages. The rapid pace of organization change places increased pressure on employees to continually update their skills and adapt their behavior to new organizational realities. This challenge raises a number of important questions concerning organizational behavior? Why do some employees display remarkable flexibility in their behavioral responses to changes in the organization, whereas others firmly resist change or experience great stress when faced with the need to alter behavior? Why do some employees continually strive to improve themselves over their life span, whereas others are content to forge through life using the same basic knowledge and skills? Why do some employees throw themselves enthusiastically into challenging tasks, whereas others avoid challenging tasks? The goal orientation proposed by organizational psychology provides at least a partial answer to these questions. Goal orientations refer to stable personally characteristics fostered by "self-theories" about the nature and development of attributes (such as intelligence, personality, abilities, and skills) people have. Self-theories are one's beliefs and goal orientations are achievement motivation revealed in seeking goals in accordance with one's beliefs. The goal orientations include learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Specifically, a learning goal orientation refers to a preference to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations, and improving one's competence. A performance approach goal orientation refers to a preference to demonstrate and validate the adequacy of one's competence by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments. A performance avoid goal orientation refers to a preference to avoid the disproving of one's competence and to avoid negative judgements about it, while focusing on performance. And the study also examines the moderating role of work career of employees to investigate the difference in the relationship between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness. The study analyzes the collected data using PASW 18.0 and and PLS(Partial Least Square). The study also uses PLS bootstrapping algorithm (sample size: 500) to test research hypotheses. The result shows that the influences of both a learning goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.301, t = 3.822, P < 0.000) and a performance approach goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.224, t = 2.710, P < 0.01) on IT personnel competency are positively significant, while the influence of a performance avoid goal orientation(${\beta}$ = -0.142, t = 2.398, p < 0.05) on IT personnel competency is negatively significant. The result indicates that employees differ in their psychological and behavioral responses according to the goal orientation of employees. The result also shows that the impact of a IT personnel competency on both personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.395, t = 4.897, P < 0.000) and personal work performance(${\beta}$ = 0.575, t = 12.800, P < 0.000) is positively significant. And the impact of personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.148, t = 2.432, p < 0.05) on personal work performance is positively significant. Finally, the impacts of control variables (gender, age, type of industry, position, work career) on the relationships between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness(personal work satisfaction work performance) are partly significant. In addition, the study uses PLS algorithm to find out a GoF(global criterion of goodness of fit) of the exploratory research model which includes a mediating variable, IT personnel competency. The result of analysis shows that the value of GoF is 0.45 above GoFlarge(0.36). Therefore, the research model turns out be good. In addition, the study performs a Sobel Test to find out the statistical significance of the mediating variable, IT personnel competency, which is already turned out to have the mediating effect in the research model using PLS. The result of a Sobel Test shows that the values of Z are all significant statistically (above 1.96 and below -1.96) and indicates that IT personnel competency plays a mediating role in the research model. At the present day, most employees are universally afraid of organizational changes and resistant to them in organizations in which the acceptance and learning of a new information technology or information system is particularly required. The problem is due' to increasing a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty in improving past practices in accordance with new organizational changes. It is not always possible for employees with positive attitudes to perform their works suitable to organizational goals. Therefore, organizations need to identify what kinds of goal-oriented minds employees have, motivate them to do self-directed learning, and provide them with organizational environment to enhance positive aspects in their works. Thus, the study provides researchers and practitioners with a matter of primary interest in goal orientation and IT personnel competency, of which they have been unaware until very recently. Some academic and practical implications and limitations arisen in the course of the research, and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.

• Korean Journal of Cleft Lip And Palate
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2006

Korean Cleft Lip and Palate Association (KCLPA) was founded in 1996. The first overseas charity operation was in Karachi, Pakistan, 2002 and our association has visited fourteen times in six countries for the free cleft surgery: Pakistan, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Jordan and Vietnam. The cumulated number of operated patients reaches to 280. Before our association, many Korean oral and maxillofacial surgeons have performed charity operations individually since 1964. It was started from Vietnam but the activity is now carried on in Africa, middle-east Asia, south-east Asia, China, and Korea as an official team. LG electronics, a Korean company helped to propagate our team's activity to middle-east Asia to Africa. This paper is a report concerning about the results of our association's charity activities especially in Kenya, east Africa. We provided free cleft surgery for 30 patients in 2004 and 27 patients in 2005, in Nairobi. As the blood test for HIV of the cleft patients was not allowed before and during surgery, our surgeons and nurses were cautious about every movement during the surgeries. Thus the operation time for each patient was longer than any other time. The attitude of the local hospital and the doctors seemed to be accustomed to this situation. They helped us in case of needle injuries. Safety of medical staff and patients is more important than the number of the patients operated in charity operation. This belief should be approached being parallel and multidisciplinary as an international cooperation, focusing on international funding for medical support and continuous education for local doctors who are willing to devote to their people.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.207-221
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• 2012

Air temperature in Korea has increased by $1.5^{\circ}C$ over the last 100 years, which is nearly twice the global average rate during the same period. Moreover, it is projected that such change in temperature will continue in the 21st century. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential impacts of future climate change on the rice production and adaptation methods in Korea. Climate data for the baseline (1971~2000) and the three future climate (2011~2040, 2041~2070, and 2071~2100) at fifty six sites in South Korea under IPCC SRES A1B scenario were used as the input to the rice crop model ORYZA2000. Six experimental schemes were carried out to evaluate the combined effects of climatic warming, $CO_2$ fertilization, and cropping season on rice production. We found that the average production in 2071~2100 would decrease by 23%, 27%, and 29% for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were fixed. In contrast, predicted yield reduction was ~0%, 6%, and 7%, for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were changed. Analysis of variation suggested that climatic warming, $CO_2$ fertilization, cropping season, and rice maturing type contributed 60, 10, 12, and 2% of rice yield, respectively. In addition, regression analysis suggested 14~46 and 53~86% of variations in rice yield were explained by grain number and filled grain ratio, respectively, when cropping season was fixed. On the other hand, 46~78 and 22~53% of variations were explained respectively with changing cropping season. It was projected that sterility caused by high temperature would have no effect on rice yield. As a result, rice yield reduction in the future climate in Korea would resulted from low filled grain ratio due to high growing temperature during grain-filling period because the $CO_2$ fertilization was insufficient to negate the negative effect of climatic warming. However, adjusting cropping seasons to future climate change may alleviate the rice production reduction by minimizing negative effect of climatic warming without altering positive effect of $CO_2$ fertilization, which improves weather condition during the grain-filling period.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.1
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• pp.147-162
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• 1989

The current status of the application and interpretation of the Warsaw Convention and its subsequent Protocols in Asian countries is in its fredgling stages compared to the developed countries of Europe and North America, and there is thus little published information about the various Asian governments' treatment and courts' views of the Warsaw System. Due to that limitation, the accent of this paper will be on Korea and Japan. As one will be aware, the so-called 'Warsaw System' is made up of the Warsaw Convention of 1929, the Hague Protocol of 1955, the Guadalajara Convention of 1961, the Guatemala City Protocol of 1971 and the Montreal Additional Protocols Nos. 1,2,3 and 4 of 1975. Among these instruments, most of the countries in Asia are parties to both the Warsaw Convention and the Hague Protocol. However, the Republic of Korea and Mongolia are parties only to the Hague Protocol, while Burma, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are parties only to the Warsaw Convention. Thailand and Taiwan are not parties only to the convention or protocol. Among Asian states, Indonesia, the Phillipines and Pakistan are also parties to the Guadalajara Convention, but no country in Asia has signed the Guatemala City Protocol of 1971 or the Montreal Additional Protocols, which Protocols have not yet been put into force. The People's Republic of China has declared that the Warsaw Convention shall apply to the entire Chinese territory, including Taiwan. 'The application of the Warsaw Convention to one-way air carriage between a state which is a party only to the Warsaw Convention and a state which is a party only to the Hague Protocol' is of particular importance in Korea as it is a signatory only to the Hague Protocol, but it is involved in a great deal of air transportation to and from the united states, which in turn is a party only to the Warsaw Convention. The opinion of the Supreme Court of Korea appears to be, that parties to the Warsaw Convention were intended to be parties to the Hague Protocol, whether they actually signed it or not. The effect of this decision is that in Korea the United States and Korea will be considered by the courts to be in a treaty relationship, though neither State is a signatory to the same instrument as the other State. The first wrongful death claim in Korea related to international carriage by air under the Convention was made in Hyun-Mo Bang, et al v. Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd. case. In this case, the plaintiffs claimed for damages based upon breach of contract as well as upon tort under the Korean Civil Code. The issue in the case was whether the time limitation provisions of the Convention should be applicable to a claim based in tort as well as to a claim based in contract. The Appellate Court ruled on 29 August 1983 that 'however founded' in Article 24(1) of the Convention should be construed to mean that the Convention should be applicable to the claim regardless of whether the cause of action was based in tort or breach of contract, and that the plaintiffs' rights to damages had therefore extinguished because of the time limitation as set forth in Article 29(1) of the Convention. The difficult and often debated question of what exactly is meant by the words 'such default equivalent to wilful misconduct' in Article 25(1) of the Warsaw Convention, has also been litigated. The Supreme Court of Japan dealt with this issue in the Suzuki Shinjuten Co. v. Northwest Airlines Inc. case. The Supreme Court upheld the Appellate Court's ruling, and decided that 'such default equivalent to wilful misconduct' under Article 25(1) of the Convention was within the meaning of 'gross negligence' under the Japanese Commercial Code. The issue of the convention of the 'franc' into national currencies as provided in Article 22 of the Warsaw Convention as amended by the Hague Protocol has been raised in a court case in Korea, which is now before the District Court of Seoul. In this case, the plaintiff argues that the gold franc equivalent must be converted in Korean Won in accordance with the free market price of gold in Korea, as Korea has not enacted any law, order or regulation prescribing the proper method of calculating the equivalent in its national currency. while it is unclear if the court will accept this position, the last official price of gold of the United States as in the famous Franklin Mint case, Special Drawing Right(SDR) or the current French franc, Korean Air Lines has argued in favor of the last official price of gold of the United States by which the air lines converted such francs into us Dollars in their General Conditions of Carriage. It is my understanding that in India, an appellate court adopted the free market price valuation. There is a report as well saying that if a lawsuit concerning this issue were brought in Pakistan, the free market cost of gold would be applied there too. Speaking specifically about the future of the Warsaw System in Asia though I have been informed that Thailand is actively considering acceding to the Warsaw Convention, the attitudes of most Asian countries' governments towards the Warsaw System are still wnot ell known. There is little evidence that Asian countries are moving to deal concretely with the conversion of the franc into their own local currencies. So too it cannot be said that they are on the move to adhere to the Montreal Additional Protocols Nos. 3 & 4 which attempt to basically solve many of the current problems with the Warsaw System, by adopting the SDR as the unit of currency, by establishing the carrier's absolute liability and an unbreakable limit and by increasing the carrier's passenger limit of liability to SDR 100,000, as well as permiting the domestic introduction of supplemental compensation. To summarize my own sentiments regarding the future, I would say that given the fact that Asian air lines are now world leaders both in overall size and rate of growth, and the fact that both Asian individuals and governments are becoming more and more reliant on the global civil aviation networks as their economies become ever stronger, I am hopeful that Asian nations will henceforth play a bigger role in ensuring the orderly and hasty development of a workable unified system of rules governing international commercial air carriage.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.239-248
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• 2010

This paper describes a collaborative project between academia and industry which focused on improving the marketing and product development strategies for two private label apparel brands of a large regional department store chain in the southeastern United States. The goal of the project was to revitalize product lines of the two brands by incorporating student ideas for new solutions, thereby giving the students practical experience with a real-life industry situation. There were a number of key players involved in the project. A privately-owned department store chain based in the southeastern United States which was seeking an academic partner had recognized a need to update two existing private label brands. They targeted middle-aged consumers looking for casual, moderately priced merchandise. The company was seeking to change direction with both packaging and presentation, and possibly product design. The branding and product development divisions of the company contacted professors in an academic department of a large southeastern state university. Two of the professors agreed that the task would be a good fit for their classes - one was a junior-level Intermediate Brand Management class; the other was a senior-level Fashion Product Development class. The professors felt that by working collaboratively on the project, students would be exposed to a real world scenario, within the security of an academic learning environment. Collaboration within an interdisciplinary team has the advantage of providing experiences and resources beyond the capabilities of a single student and adds "brainpower" to problem-solving processes (Lowman 2000). This goal of improving the capabilities of students directed the instructors in each class to form interdisciplinary teams between the Branding and Product Development classes. In addition, many universities are employing industry partnerships in research and teaching, where collaboration within temporal (semester) and physical (classroom/lab) constraints help to increase students' knowledge and experience of a real-world situation. At the University of Tennessee, the Center of Industrial Services and UT-Knoxville's College of Engineering worked with a company to develop design improvements in its U.S. operations. In this study, Because should be lower case b with a private label retail brand, Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst's (1999) revised Retail Apparel Product Development Model was used by the product development and brand management teams. This framework was chosen because it addresses apparel product development from the concept to the retail stage. Two classes were involved in this project: a junior level Brand Management class and a senior level Fashion Product Development class. Seven teams were formed which included four students from Brand Management and two students from Product Development. The classes were taught the same semester, but not at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, each class was introduced to the industry partner and given the problem. Half the teams were assigned to the men's brand and half to the women's brand. The teams were responsible for devising approaches to the problem, formulating a timeline for their work, staying in touch with industry representatives and making sure that each member of the team contributed in a positive way. The objective for the teams was to plan, develop, and present a product line using merchandising processes (following the Wickett, Gaskill and Damhorst model) and develop new branding strategies for the proposed lines. The teams performed trend, color, fabrication and target market research; developed sketches for a line; edited the sketches and presented their line plans; wrote specifications; fitted prototypes on fit models, and developed final production samples for presentation to industry. The branding students developed a SWOT analysis, a Brand Measurement report, a mind-map for the brands and a fully integrated Marketing Report which was presented alongside the ideas for the new lines. In future if the opportunity arises to work in this collaborative way with an existing company who wishes to look both at branding and product development strategies, classes will be scheduled at the same time so that students have more time to meet and discuss timelines and assigned tasks. As it was, student groups had to meet outside of each class time and this proved to be a challenging though not uncommon part of teamwork (Pfaff and Huddleston, 2003). Although the logistics of this exercise were time-consuming to set up and administer, professors felt that the benefits to students were multiple. The most important benefit, according to student feedback from both classes, was the opportunity to work with industry professionals, follow their process, and see the results of their work evaluated by the people who made the decisions at the company level. Faculty members were grateful to have a "real-world" case to work with in the classroom to provide focus. Creative ideas and strategies were traded as plans were made, extending and strengthening the departmental links be tween the branding and product development areas. By working not only with students coming from a different knowledge base, but also having to keep in contact with the industry partner and follow the framework and timeline of industry practice, student teams were challenged to produce excellent and innovative work under new circumstances. Working on the product development and branding for "real-life" brands that are struggling gave students an opportunity to see how closely their coursework ties in with the real-world and how creativity, collaboration and flexibility are necessary components of both the design and business aspects of company operations. Industry personnel were impressed by (a) the level and depth of knowledge and execution in the student projects, and (b) the creativity of new ideas for the brands.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2010

The anthropomorphism of brands, defined as seeing human beings in brands (Puzakova, Kwak, and Rosereto, 2008) is the focus of this study. Specifically, the research objective is to understand the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike. By analyzing consumer readings of stories found on food product packages we intend to show how marketers and consumers humanize a spectrum of brands and create meanings. Our research question considers the possibility that a single brand may host multiple or single meanings, associations, and personalities for different consumers. We start by highlighting the theoretical and practical significance of our research, explain why we turn our attention to packages as vehicles of brand meaning transfer, then describe our qualitative methodology, discuss findings, and conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future studies. The study was designed to directly expose consumers to potential vehicles of brand meaning transfer and then engage these consumers in free verbal reflections on their perceived meanings. Specifically, we asked participants to read non-nutritional stories on selected branded food packages, in order to elicit data about received meanings. Packaging has yet to receive due attention in consumer research (Hine, 1995). Until now, attention has focused solely on its utilitarian function and has generated a body of research that has explored the impact of nutritional information and claims on consumer perceptions of products (e.g., Loureiro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer, 2002; Mazis and Raymond, 1997; Nayga, Lipinski and Savur, 1998; Wansik, 2003). An exception is a recent study that turns its attention to non-nutritional packaging narratives and treats them as cultural productions and vehicles for mythologizing the brand (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). The next step in this stream of research is to explore how such mythologizing activity affects brand personality perception and how these perceptions relate to consumers. These are the questions that our study aimed to address. We used in-depth interviews to help overcome the limitations of quantitative studies. Our convenience sample was formed with the objective of providing demographic and psychographic diversity in order to elicit variations in consumer reflections to food packaging stories. Our informants represent middle-class residents of the US and do not exhibit extreme alternative lifestyles described by Thompson as "cultural creatives" (2004). Nine people were individually interviewed on their food consumption preferences and behavior. Participants were asked to have a look at the twelve displayed food product packages and read all the textual information on the package, after which we continued with questions that focused on the consumer interpretations of the reading material (Scott and Batra, 2003). On average, each participant reflected on 4-5 packages. Our in-depth interviews lasted one to one and a half hours each. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, providing 140 pages of text. The products came from local grocery stores on the West Coast of the US and represented a basic range of food product categories, including snacks, canned foods, cereals, baby foods, and tea. The data were analyzed using procedures for developing grounded theory delineated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). As a result, our study does not support the notion of one brand/one personality as assumed by prior work. Thus, we reveal multiple brand personalities peacefully cohabiting in the same brand as seen by different consumers, despite marketer attempts to create more singular brand personalities. We extend Fournier's (1998) proposition, that one's life projects shape the intensity and nature of brand relationships. We find that these life projects also affect perceived brand personifications and meanings. While Fournier provides a conceptual framework that links together consumers’ life themes (Mick and Buhl, 1992) and relational roles assigned to anthropomorphized brands, we find that consumer life projects mold both the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike and the ways in which brands connect to consumers' existential concerns. We find two modes through which brands are anthropomorphized by our participants. First, brand personalities are created by seeing them through perceived demographic, psychographic, and social characteristics that are to some degree shared by consumers. Second, brands in our study further relate to consumers' existential concerns by either being blended with consumer personalities in order to connect to them (the brand as a friend, a family member, a next door neighbor) or by distancing themselves from the brand personalities and estranging them (the brand as a used car salesman, a "bunch of executives.") By focusing on food product packages, we illuminate a very specific, widely-used, but little-researched vehicle of marketing communication: brand storytelling. Recent work that has approached packages as mythmakers, finds it increasingly challenging for marketers to produce textual stories that link the personalities of products to the personalities of those consuming them, and suggests that "a multiplicity of building material for creating desired consumer myths is what a postmodern consumer arguably needs" (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). Used as vehicles for storytelling, food packages can exploit both rational and emotional approaches, offering consumers either a "lecture" or "drama" (Randazzo, 2006), myths (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007; Holt, 2004; Thompson, 2004), or meanings (McCracken, 2005) as necessary building blocks for anthropomorphizing their brands. The craft of giving birth to brand personalities is in the hands of writers/marketers and in the minds of readers/consumers who individually and sometimes idiosyncratically put a meaningful human face on a brand.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2010

Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty in the service industry is service quality. However, on the subject of whether service quality has a direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty, scholars' views apparently vary. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai and Liu, 2002). However, others have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, it also has an indirect impact on customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Currently, there are few domestic articles that specifically address the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry. Moreover, research has studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, rather than breaking it down further into multiple dimensions. Based on this analysis, this paper summarizes previous study results, establishes an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry, and presents a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data from Heilongjiang Mobile Company. It provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample comprised mobile users in Harbin city, and the survey was taken by random sampling. Out of a total of 300 questionnaires, 276 (92.9%) were recovered. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 remained, for an effective rate of 82.6 percent for the study. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was adapted to assess the scale reliability, and validity testing was conducted on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity. and convergent validity. The study tested for goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. From the hypothesis testing results, overall, four assumptions have not been supported. The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is demonstrated in Figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of the communication industry not only has a direct positive significant effect on customer loyalty, it also has an indirect positive significant effect on customer loyalty through service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different, and are influenced by each dimension of service quality. This study used the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad and tested them in empirical research, with all questions adapted to seven-point Likert scales. With the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), or PZB, as a reference point, service quality was divided into five dimensions-tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy-and the questions were simplified down to nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction was based mainly on Fornell (1992) and Wang and Han (2003), ending up with four questions. Based on the study’s three indicators of price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction were used to measure attitudinal loyalty, while repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation measured behavioral loyalty. The collection and collation of literature data produced a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in mobile communications, and China Mobile in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province was used for conducting an empirical test of the model and obtaining some useful conclusions. First, service quality in mobile communication is formed by the five factors mentioned earlier: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. On the basis of PZB SERVQUAL, the study designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained these five factors through exploratory factor analysis. The factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for the mobile communications industry. Second, service quality in mobile communications has both direct and indirect positive effects on attitudinal loyalty, with the indirect effect being produced through the intermediary variable, customer satisfaction. There are also both direct and indirect positive effects on behavioral loyalty, with the indirect effect produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality and higher customer satisfaction will activate the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, indicating that improving service quality can boost customer satisfaction and make it easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers. Moreover, attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty, indicating that only attitudinally and behaviorally loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusions have some indications for Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. Two limitations to the study are also mentioned. First, all data were collected in the Heilongjiang area, so there might be a common method bias that skews the results. Second, the discussion addresses the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, setting customer satisfaction as mediator, but does not consider other factors, like customer value and consumer features, This research will be continued in the future.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.33-58
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• 2008

Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts. The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort. The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case. However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity. Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity. A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding, strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an experience of cosmetics. Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked. The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint. Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory. This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers, the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product failure.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.59-80
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• 2008

Recently, e-sports are growing with potentiality as a new industry with conspicuous profit model. But studies that dealing with e-sports are not enough. Hence, proposes of this paper are both to establish basic model that is for the design of e-sport marketing strategy and to contribute toward future studies which are related to e-sports. Recently, the researches to explain sports-sponsorship through the identification theory have been discovered. Many researches say that somewhat proper identification is a requirement for most sponsors to improve the their images which is essential to sponsorship activity. Consequently, the research for sponsorship associated with identification in the e-sports, not in the physical sports is the core sector of this study. We extracted the variables from online's major characteristics and existing sport sponsorship researches. First, because e-sports mean the tournaments or leagues in the use of online game, the main event of the game is likely to call it online game. Online media's attributes are distinguished from those of offline. Especially, interactivity, anonymity, and expandibility as a e-sport game attributes are able to be mentioned. So, these inherent online attributes are examined on the relationship with flow. Second, in physical sports games, Fisher(1998) revealed that team similarity and team attractivity were positively related to team identification. Wann(1996) said that the result of former game influenced the evaluation of the next game, then in turn has an effect on the identification of team supporters. Considering these results in the e-sports side, e-sports gamer' attractivity, similarity, and match result seem to be important precedent variables of the identification with a gamer. So, these e-sport gamer attributes are examined on the relationship with both flow and identification with a gamer. Csikszentmihalyi(1988) defined the term flow as feeling status for him to be making current positive experience optimally. Hoffman and Novak(1996) also said that if a user experienced the flow he would visit a website without any reward. Therefore flow might be positively associated with user's identification with a gamer. And, Swanson(2003) disclosed that team identification influenced the positive results of sponsorship, which included attitude toward sponsors, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with sponsors. That is, identification with a gamer expect to be connected with corporation identification significantly. According to the above, we can design the following research model. All variables used in this study(interactivity, anonymity, expandibility, attractivity, similarity, match result, flow, identification with a gamer, and identification with a sponsor) definitely were defined operationally underlying precedent researches. Sample collection was carried out to the person who has an experience to have enjoyed e-sports during June 2006. Much portion of samples is men because much more men than women enjoy e-sports in general. Two-step approach was used to test the hypotheses. First, confirmatory factor analysis was committed to guarantee the validity and reliability of variables. The results showed that all variables had not only intensive and discriminant validity, but also reliability. Then, research model was examined with fully structural equation using LISREL 8.3 version. The fitness of the suggested model mostly was at the acceptable level. Shortly speaking about the results, first of all, in e-sports game attributes, only interactivity which is called a basic feature in online situation affected flow positively. Secondly, in e-sports gamer's attributes, similarity with a gamer and match result influenced flow positively, but there was no significant effect in the relationship between the attractivity of a gamer and flow. And as expected, similarity had an effect on identification with a gamer significantly. But unexpectedly attractivity and match result did not influence identification with a gamer significantly. Just the same as the fact verified in the many precedent researches, flow greatly influenced identification with a gamer, and identification with a gamer continually had an influence on the identification with a sponsor significantly. There are some implications in these results. If the sponsor of e-sports supports the pro-game player who absolutely should have the superior ability to others and is similar to the user enjoying e-sports, many amateur gamers will feel much of the flow and identification with a pro-gamer, and then after all, feel the identification with a sponsor. Such identification with a sponsor leads people enjoying e-sports to have purchasing intention for products produced by the sponsor and to make a positive word-of-mouth for those products or the sponsor. For the future studies, we recommend a few ideas. Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to find new variables relating to the e-sports, which is not mentioned in this study. For this work to be possible, qualitative research seems to be needed to consider the inherent e-sport attributes. Finally, to generalize the results related to e-sports, a wide range of generations not a specific generation should be researched.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2008

Trust is central to human relationships, at all times and places. The importance of trust is fundamental in all areas of human life, not only in the area of business administration. 2,500 years ago in China, Confucius taught that the foundation of politics was the trust of the people, more important even than military strength or the supply of food. Shakespeare's play, "Much Ado about Nothing' is about trust and deception. These days, trust and transparency in a commercial organization's business culture form the basis of the 'social capital' by which that organization increases its productivity. A successful company raises productivity by the accumulation of social capital, derived from a trust relationship between business partners, and between the company and consumers. Trust is the crucial factor. At the national level, building trust determines a nation's competitiveness. For a company, long term trust relationships with customers are essential for its survival in a business environment of rapid change. Such relationships, based on trust, are important assets to ensure a company's competitive advantage, and need to be organic to that company's business culture. Because of this importance, trust relationships have been studied in diverse areas within business administration, and especially within marketing, where they form the basis of a successful relationship between producer and consumer. However, what has been lacking is a unified definition of trust. Research has been conducted on the basis of various definitions and models. The majority of researchers have not considered the multidimensional character of the concept of trust until now. Approaches based on a one dimensional model have undermined the value of research results. Furthermore, researchers have only considered trust and trustworthiness as a single component. The majority of research has explored the consequences of perceived trust for outcomes such as loyalty or cooperation, but has neglected the effects of trustworthiness upon the mechanisms of consumer trust. This study focuses on the dimension of trust from such a perspective. It seeks to verify the effect of trust on customer intentions by breaking it down into three separate components: 1) the salesperson, 2) the product/service, and 3) the company. The purposes of this paper are as follows: Firstly, we review the multidimensional nature of trust objects: the salesperson, the product/service, and the company. Secondly, we analyze the relationship between multidimensional trust and trustworthiness. Thirdly, we analyze the connection between trust and repeat purchase intentions for the maintenance of long term relationships. For these purposes the author has developed several hypotheses as follows: H1-1: The competence of a salesperson is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the salesperson. H1-2: The benevolence of a salesperson is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the salesperson. H2-1: The competence of product/service is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the product/service. H2-2: The benevolence of product/service is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the product/service. H3-1: The reputation of a company is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the company. H3-2: The physical environment of a company is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the company. H4-1: Trust in a salesperson is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. H4-2: Trust in a product/service is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. H4-3: Trust in a company is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. The data was compiled from 366 questionnaires. 500 questionnaires were collected, but some of the data was considered unsuitable and inappropriate. The subjects of the survey were male and female customers purchasing products at department stores in Seoul, Daegu and Gyeongbuk. It was carried out between Oct. 25 and 29, 2007. The data was analyzed by frequency analysis using SPSS 12.0 and structural equation modeling using LISREL 8.7. The result of the overall model analysis is as follows: Chi-Square=445.497, d.f.=185, p-value=0.0, GFI=.901, RMSEA=.0617, NNFI=.986, NFI=.981, CFI=.989, AGFI=.864, RMR=.0872. The results of the overall model analysis were coherent. It was found that trust is a multi-dimensional construct, that each of the dimensions of trust are meaningful influences on customer's repurchase intention. Trust in a company may be the most relevant, while trust in a product/service and a salesperson may be less relevant to repurchase intentions. The effective factors in determining trust in a salesperson and a company's product/service were found to be competence and benevolence. Factors in determining trust in a company were its reputation and physical environment, and the relationship of each effective trust factor has been verified in this research. As a result, it was found that competence and benevolence have a meaningful influence on trust in a salesperson and in product/service. It was also found that a company's reputation influences the overall trust in the company significantly but a company's physical environment does not have much effect.