• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.199-207
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• 2010

For us, there is virtually no distinction between being a responsible citizen and a successful business... they are one and the same for Wal-Mart today." ~ Lee Scott, al-Mart CEO after the 2005 Katrina disaster; cited in Green to Gold (Esty and Winston 2006). Lee Scott's statement signaled a new era in sustainability as manufacturers and retailers around the globe watched the world's largest mass merchandiser confirm its intentions with respect to sustainability. For decades, the environmental movement has grown, slowly bleeding over into the corporate world. Companies have been born, products have been created, academic journals have been launched, and government initiatives have been undertaken - all in the pursuit of sustainability (Peattie and Crane 2005). While progress has been admittedly slower than some may desire, the emergence and entrance of environmentally concerned mass merchandisers has done much to help with sustainable efforts. To better understand this movement, we incorporate the perspectives of both executives and consumers involved in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. This research relies on three underlying themes: (1) Conceptual and anecdotal evidence suggests that companies undertake sustainability initiatives for a plethora of reasons, (2) The number of sustainability initiatives continues to increase in the consumer packaged goods industries, and (3) That it is, therefore, necessary to explore the role that sustainability plays in the minds of consumers. In light of these themes, surveys were administered to and completed by 143 college students and 101 business executives to assess a number of variables in regards to sustainability including willingness-to-pay, behavioral intentions, attitudes, willingness-to-pay, and preferences. Survey results indicate that the top three reasons why executives believe sustainability to be important include (1) the opportunity for profitability, (2) the fulfillment of an obligation to the environment, and (3) a responsibility to customers and shareholders. College students identified the top three reasons as (1) a responsibility to the environment, (2) an indebtedness to future generations, and (3) an effective management of resources. While the rationale for supporting sustainability efforts differed between college students and executives, the executives and consumers reported similar responses for the majority of the remaining sustainability issues. Furthermore, when we asked consumers to assess the importance of six key issues (healthcare, economy, education, crime, government spending, and environment) previously identified as important to consumers by Gallup Poll, protecting the environment only ranked fourth out of the six (Carlson 2005). While all six of these issues were identified as important, the top three that emerged as most important were (1) improvements in education, (2) the economy, and (3) health care. As the pursuit and incorporation of sustainability continues to evolve, so too will the expected outcomes. New definitions of performance that reflect the social/business benefits as well as the lengthened implementation period are relevant and warranted (Ehrenfeld 2005; Hitchcock and Willard 2006). We identified three primary categories of outcomes based on a literature review of both anecdotal and conceptual expectations of sustainability: (1) improvements in constituent satisfaction, (2) differentiation opportunities, and (3) financial rewards. Within each of these categories, several specific outcomes were identified resulting in eleven different outcomes arising from sustainability initiatives. Our survey results indicate that the top five most likely outcomes for companies that pursue sustainability are: (1) green consumers will be more satisfied, (2) company image will be better, (3) corporate responsibility will be enhanced, (4) energy costs will be reduced, and (5) products will be more innovative. Additionally, to better understand the interesting intersection between the environmental "identity" of a consumer and the willingness to manifest that identity with marketplace purchases, we extended prior research developed by Experian Research (2008). Accordingly, respondents were categorized as one of four types of green consumers (Behavioral Greens, Think Greens, Potential Greens, or True Browns) to garner a better understanding of the green consumer in addition to assisting with a more effective interpretation of results. We assessed these consumers' willingness to engage in eco-friendly behavior by evaluating three options: (1) shopping at retailers that support environmental initiatives, (2) paying more for products that protect the environment, and (3) paying higher taxes so the government can support environmental initiatives. Think Greens expressed the greatest willingness to change, followed by Behavioral Greens, Potential Greens, and True Browns. These differences were all significant at p<.01. Further Conclusions and Implications We have undertaken a descriptive study which seeks to enhance our understanding of the strategic domain of sustainability. Specifically, this research fills a gap in the literature by comparing and contrasting the sustainability views of business executives and consumers with specific regard to preferences, intentions, willingness-to-pay, behavior, and attitudes. For practitioners, much can be gained from a strategic standpoint. In addition to the many results already reported, respondents also reported than willing to pay more for products that protect the environment. Other specific results indicate that female respondents consistently communicate a stronger willingness than males to pay more for these products and to shop at eco-friendly retailers. Knowing this additional information, practitioners can now have a more specific market in which to target and communicate their sustainability efforts. While this research is only an initial step towards understanding similarities and differences among practitioners and consumers regarding sustainability, it presents original findings that contribute to both practice and research. Future research should be directed toward examining other variables affecting this relationship, as well as other specific industries.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.141-156
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• 2013

Social media is a representative form of the Web 2.0 that shapes the change of a user's information behavior by allowing users to produce their own contents without any expert skills. In particular, as a new communication medium, it has a profound impact on the social change by enabling users to communicate with the masses and acquaintances their opinions and thoughts. Social media data plays a significant role in an emerging Big Data arena. A variety of research areas such as social network analysis, opinion mining, and so on, therefore, have paid attention to discover meaningful information from vast amounts of data buried in social media. Social media has recently become main foci to the field of Information Retrieval and Text Mining because not only it produces massive unstructured textual data in real-time but also it serves as an influential channel for opinion leading. But most of the previous studies have adopted broad-brush and limited approaches. These approaches have made it difficult to find and analyze new information. To overcome these limitations, we developed a real-time Twitter trend mining system to capture the trend in real-time processing big stream datasets of Twitter. The system offers the functions of term co-occurrence retrieval, visualization of Twitter users by query, similarity calculation between two users, topic modeling to keep track of changes of topical trend, and mention-based user network analysis. In addition, we conducted a case study on the 2012 Korean presidential election. We collected 1,737,969 tweets which contain candidates' name and election on Twitter in Korea (http://www.twitter.com/) for one month in 2012 (October 1 to October 31). The case study shows that the system provides useful information and detects the trend of society effectively. The system also retrieves the list of terms co-occurred by given query terms. We compare the results of term co-occurrence retrieval by giving influential candidates' name, 'Geun Hae Park', 'Jae In Moon', and 'Chul Su Ahn' as query terms. General terms which are related to presidential election such as 'Presidential Election', 'Proclamation in Support', Public opinion poll' appear frequently. Also the results show specific terms that differentiate each candidate's feature such as 'Park Jung Hee' and 'Yuk Young Su' from the query 'Guen Hae Park', 'a single candidacy agreement' and 'Time of voting extension' from the query 'Jae In Moon' and 'a single candidacy agreement' and 'down contract' from the query 'Chul Su Ahn'. Our system not only extracts 10 topics along with related terms but also shows topics' dynamic changes over time by employing the multinomial Latent Dirichlet Allocation technique. Each topic can show one of two types of patterns-Rising tendency and Falling tendencydepending on the change of the probability distribution. To determine the relationship between topic trends in Twitter and social issues in the real world, we compare topic trends with related news articles. We are able to identify that Twitter can track the issue faster than the other media, newspapers. The user network in Twitter is different from those of other social media because of distinctive characteristics of making relationships in Twitter. Twitter users can make their relationships by exchanging mentions. We visualize and analyze mention based networks of 136,754 users. We put three candidates' name as query terms-Geun Hae Park', 'Jae In Moon', and 'Chul Su Ahn'. The results show that Twitter users mention all candidates' name regardless of their political tendencies. This case study discloses that Twitter could be an effective tool to detect and predict dynamic changes of social issues, and mention-based user networks could show different aspects of user behavior as a unique network that is uniquely found in Twitter.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-27
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• 2011

As the world becomes more globalized, business competition becomes fiercer, while consumers' needs for less expensive quality products are on the increase. Business operations make an effort to secure a competitive edge in costs and services, and the logistics industry, that is, the industry operating the storing and transporting of goods, once thought to be an expense, begins to be considered as the third cash cow, a source of new income. Logistics centers are central to storage, loading and unloading of deliveries, packaging operations, and dispensing goods' information. As hubs for various deliveries, they also serve as a core infrastructure to smoothly coordinate manufacturing and selling, using varied information and operation systems. Logistics centers are increasingly on the rise as centers of business supply activities, growing beyond their previous role of primarily storing goods. They are no longer just facilities; they have become logistics strongholds that encompass various features from demand forecast to the regulation of supply, manufacturing, and sales by realizing SCM, taking into account marketability and the operation of service and products. However, despite these changes in logistics operations, some centers have been unable to shed their past roles as warehouses. For the continuous development of logistics centers, various measures would be needed, including a revision of current supporting policies, formulating effective management plans, and establishing systematic standards for founding, managing, and controlling logistics centers. To this end, the research explored previous studies on the use and effectiveness of logistics centers. From a theoretical perspective, an evaluation of the overall introduction, purposes, and transitions in the use of logistics centers found issues to ponder and suggested measures to promote and further advance logistics centers. First, a fact-finding survey to establish demand forecast and standardization is needed. As logistics newspapers predicted that after 2012 supply would exceed demand, causing rents to fall, the business environment for logistics centers has faltered. However, since there is a shortage of fact-finding surveys regarding actual demand for domestic logistic centers, it is hard to predict what the future holds for this industry. Accordingly, the first priority should be to get to the essence of the current market situation by conducting accurate domestic and international fact-finding surveys. Based on those, management and evaluation indicators should be developed to build the foundation for the consistent advancement of logistics centers. Second, many policies for logistics centers should be revised or developed. Above all, a guideline for fair trade between a shipper and a commercial logistics center should be enacted. Since there are no standards for fair trade between them, rampant unfair trades according to market practices have brought chaos to market orders, and now the logistics industry is confronting its own difficulties. Therefore, unfair trade cases that currently plague logistics centers should be gathered by the industry and fair trade guidelines should be established and implemented. In addition, restrictive employment regulations for foreign workers should be eased, and logistics centers should be charged industry rates for the use of electricity. Third, various measures should be taken to improve the management environment. First, we need to find out how to activate value-added logistics. Because the traditional purpose of logistics centers was storage and loading/unloading of goods, their profitability had a limit, and the need arose to find a new angle to create a value added service. Logistic centers have been perceived as support for a company's storage, manufacturing, and sales needs, not as creators of profits. The center's role in the company's economics has been lowering costs. However, as the logistics' management environment spiraled, along with its storage purpose, developing a new feature of profit creation should be a desirable goal, and to achieve that, value added logistics should be promoted. Logistics centers can also be improved through cost estimation. In the meantime, they have achieved some strides in facility development but have still fallen behind in others, particularly in management functioning. Lax management has been rampant because the industry has not developed a concept of cost estimation. The centers have since made an effort toward unification, standardization, and informatization while realizing cost reductions by establishing systems for effective management, but it has been hard to produce profits. Thus, there is an urgent need to estimate costs by determining a basic cost range for each division of work at logistics centers. This undertaking can be the first step to improving the ineffective aspects of how they operate. Ongoing research and constant efforts have been made to improve the level of effectiveness in the manufacturing industry, but studies on resource management in logistics centers are hardly enough. Thus, a plan to calculate the optimal level of resources necessary to operate a logistics center should be developed and implemented in management behavior, for example, by standardizing the hours of operation. If logistics centers, shippers, related trade groups, academic figures, and other experts could launch a committee to work with the government and maintain an ongoing relationship, the constraint and cooperation among members would help lead to coherent development plans for logistics centers. If the government continues its efforts to provide financial support, nurture professional workers, and maintain safety management, we can anticipate the continuous advancement of logistics centers.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.298-331
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• 1996

Recent improvements in living standard and development in medical care led to an increased interest in life expectancy and personal health, and also led to a more demand for higher quality of life. Thus, the problem of women's health draw a fresh interest nowadays. Since late-middle aged women experience various physical and socio-psychological changes and tend to have chronic illnesses, these women have to take initiatives for their health control by realizing their own responsibility. The basic elements for a healthy life of these women are understanding of their physical and psychological changes and acceptance of these changes. Health promoting behaviors of an individual or a group are actions toward increasing the level of well-being and self-actualization, and are affected by various variables. In Pender's health promoting model, variables are categorized into cognitive factors(individual perceptions), modifying factors, and variables affecting the likelihood for actions, and the model assumes the health promoting behaviors are affected by cognitive factors which are again affected by demographic factors. Since Pender's model was proposed based on a tool broad conceptual frame, many studies done afterwards have included only a limited number of variables of Pender's model. Furthermore, Pender's model did not precisely explain the possibilities of direct and indirect paths effects. The objectives of this study are to evaluate Pender's model and thus propose a model that explains health promoting behaviors among late-middle aged women in order to facilitate nursing intervention for this group of population. The hypothetical model was developed based on the Pender's health promoting model and the findings from past studies on women's health. Data were collected by self-reported questionnaires from 417 women living in Seoul, between July and November 1994. Questionnaires were developed based on instruments of Walker and others' health promotion lifestyle profile, Wallston and others' multidimensional health locus of control, Maoz's menopausal symptom check list and Speake and others' health self-rating scale. IN addition, items measuring self-efficacy were made by the present author based on past studies. In a pretest, the questionnaire items were reliable with Cronbach's alpha ranging from .786 to .934. The models for health promoting behaviors were tested by using structural equation modelling technique with LISREL 7.20. The results were summarized as follows : 1. The overall fit of the hypothetical model to the data was good (chi-square=4.42, df=5, p=.490, GFI=.995, AGFI=.962, RMSR=.024). 2. Paths of the model were modified by considering both its theoretical implication and statistical significance of the parameter estimates. Compared to the hypothetical model, the revised model has become parsimonious and had a better fit to the data (chi-square =4.55, df=6, p=.602, GFI=.995, AGFI=.967, RMSR=.024). 3. The results of statistical testing were as follows : 1) Family function internal health locus of control, self-efficacy, and education level exerted significant effects on health promoting behaviors(${\gamma}_{43}$=.272, T=3.714; ${\beta}_[41}$=.211, T=2.797; ${\beta}_{42}$=.199, T=2.717; ${\gamma}_{41}$=.136, T=1.986). The effect of economic status, physical menopausal symptoms, and perceived health status on health promoting behavior were insignificant(${\gamma}_{42}$=.095, T=1.456; ${\gamma}_{44}$=.101, T=1.143; ${\gamma}_{43}$=.082, T=.967). 2) Family function had a significance direct effect on internal health locus of control (${\gamma}_{13}$=.307, T=3.784). The direct effect of education level on internal health locus of control was insignificant(${\gamma}_{11}$=-.006, T=-.081). 3) The directs effects of family functions & internal health locus of control on self-efficacy were significant(${\gamma}_{23}$=.208, T=2.607; ${\beta}_{21}$=.191, T=2.2693). But education level and economic status did not exert a significant effect on self-efficacy(${\gamma}_{21}$=.137, T=1.814; ${\beta}_{22}$=.137, T=1.814; ${\gamma}_{22}$=.112, T=1.499). 4) Education level had a direct and positive effect on perceived health status, but physical menopausal symptoms had a negative effect on perceived health status and these effects were all significant(${\gamma}_{31}$=.171, T=2.496; ${\gamma}_{34}$=.524, T=-7.120). Internal health locus and self-efficacy had an insignificant direct effect on perceived health status(${\beta}_{31}$=.028, T=.363; ${\beta}_{32}$=.041, T=.557). 5) All predictive variables of health promoting behaviors explained 51.8% of the total variance in the model. The above findings show that health promoting behaviors are explained by personal, environmental and perceptual factors : family function, internal health locus of control, self-efficacy, and education level had stronger effects on health promoting behaviors than predictors in the model. A significant effect of family function on health promoting behaviors reflects an important role of the Korean late-middle aged women in family relationships. Therefore, health professionals first need to have a proper evaluation of family function in order to reflect the family function style into nursing interventions and development of strategies. These interventions and strategies will enhance internal health locus of control and self-efficacy for promoting health behaviors. Possible strategies include management of health promoting programs, use of a health information booklets, and individual health counseling, which will enhance internal health locus of control and self-efficacy of the late-middle aged women by making them aware of health responsibilities and value for oneself. In this study, an insignificant effect of physical menopausal symptoms and perceived health status on health promoting behaviors implies that they are not motive factors for health promoting behaviors. Further analytic researches are required to clarify the influence of physical menopausal symptoms and perceived health status on health promoting behaviors with-middle aged women.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.131-157
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• 2012

Despite the voluminous research on switching barriers, the notion that they can generate negative responses has not been investigated. Further, a critical question is what determines the strength of such negative responses. To address this question, the classic theory of psychological reactance is briefly reviewed, and the idea of switching barrier is advanced. This study attempts to suggest a model on the negative effects of switching- frustrated situation, based on the studies on psychological reactance. According to psychological reactance theory(Brehm 1966), whenever a freedom is threatened or removed, individuals are motivated, at least temporarily, to restore their freedom. For example, if individuals think they are free to engage in behaviors .v, y, or z, then threatening their freedom to engage in x would cause psychological reactance. This reactance could be reduced by an increase in the perceived attractiveness of engaging in, the threatened behavior(Kivetz 2005). This investigation seeks to extend existing switching barrier research in three important ways. First, while the past research has emphasized only positive role of switching barrier, this study address negative role of it by applying psychological reactance theory. Second, to find negative results of switching barrier, I suggest negative psychological response including regret to the past choice, resentment to the present provider, and strong desire to the alternative provider. Third, I suggest the perceived severity of the switching barriers, the attractiveness of the alternative as switching-frustrated situation which can lead to negative results. And, in addition to these relationships, I added moderated effects of perceived justice for better explanation. So this study includes the following hypotheses. H1-1 ~ H1-3: The attractiveness of the alternative has a positive effect regret to the past choice (h1-1), resentment to the present provider (h1-2), and strong desire to the alternative provider (h1-3). H2-1 ~ H2-3 : The perceived severity of the switching barrier has a positive effect regret to the past choice (h2-1), resentment to the present provider (h2-2), and strong desire to the alternative provider (h2-3). H3-1 ~ H3-3 : The positive relationships between the attractiveness of the alternative and consumer' negative responses will be stronger at low level of perceived justice than at high level of perceived justice. H4-1 ~ H4-3 : The positive relationships between the perceived severity of the switching barrier and consumer' negative responses will be stronger at low level of perceived justice than at high level of perceived justice. Survey research is employed to test hypotheses involving perceived severity of the switching barrier(Hess 2008), attractiveness of the alternative(Anderson and Narus 1990; Ohanian 1990),regret(Glovich and Medvec 1995), resentment, strong desire(Alcohol Urge Questionaire: Bohn et al. 1995), perceived justice(Bies and Moag 1986; Clemmer 1993; Lind and Tyler 1998). Previous researches, such as reactance theory, emotion and service failure, have been referenced to measure constructs. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". We collected data involving various service field, and used 249 respondents to analyze these data using the moderated regression. The results of our analysis suggest, as expected, that the perceived severity of the switching barrier had positive effects on regret to the past choice(b = .197, p< .01), resentment to the present provider(b = .214, p< .01), and strong desire to the alternative provider(b = .254, p< .001). And the attractiveness of the alternative had positive effects on regret to the past choice(b = .353, p<.001), resentment to the present provider(b = .174, p< .01), and strong desire to the alternative provider(b = .265, p< .001). However, our findings indicate perceived justice partly moderates relationship between switching-frustrated situation and psychological negative response. The study has brought to light a number of insights between switching barriers and consumer' negative responses that have been subject to little prior research. In particular, this study adds to the existing understanding of the psychological responses to switching barriers in switching- frustrated situation. This research therefore has significance to marketers for strategic marketing programs, particularly in terms of customer retention and switching barrier strategies. Since consumers could exhibit negative responses to switching barrier, companies would be able to lose their customer when they thoughtlessly use switching barrier for remaining customer. Although the study has these contributions, there are several limitations including unsupported hypotheses and research method. So, we need to make up for these limitations in the future researches.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.97-125
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• 2012

Companies recently introduce art collaborated products incorporating culture into a product. Art collaborated products include incorporating famous movies and/or design of an artist into a newly launched product. The introduction of art collaborated products are gradually increasing. However, research for this trend is relatively scarce. Although research concerning design has discussed a number of different factors as playing a role in influencing responses to design including culture, fashion, innate preferences, etc.), only limited attention has been paid to the processes by which consumers generate responses to product designs. People with different characteristics may respond differently. When people encounter these art products, they may become curious, may think that these products are unique, novel and innovative. People tend to show different levels of curiosity when they encounter new and novel objects, which they have rarely seen or experienced. Curiosity is defined as a desire for acquiring new knowledge and new sensory experience. Previous studies demonstrated that curiosity motivates individuals to engage in exploratory behaviors. People also show different levels of need for uniqueness, which is defined as being different from others or becoming distinctive among a larger group. Individual's need for uniqueness results from signals conveyed by the material objects that individuals choose to display. Recently, researcher have developed the need for uniqueness with three distinct constructs. These three concepts include creative choice, unpopular choice, and avoidance of similarity. Creative choice is a trait tendency of an individual by expressing or differentiating himself from others through consumptions of unique products. Unpopular choice is related to an individual's tendency to consume products, which deviates from group norms. Avoidance of similarity is linked to the avoidance of consumption behavior of products that are not famous. Past research implies that people with different levels of need for uniqueness show different motivational processes. Previous research also demonstrates that different customer emotions may be derived when consumers are exposed to these art collaborated products. Research tradition has been investigated three different emotional responses such as pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Pleasure is defined as the degree to which a person feels good, joyful, happy, or satisfied in a situation. Arousal is defined as the extent to which a person feels stimulated, active, or excited. Dominance is defined as the extent that a person feels powerful vis-a-vis the environment that surrounds him/her. Previous research show that complex, speedy, and surprising stimuli may excite consumers and thus make them more pleased and engaged in their approach behavior. However, the current study identified these emotional responses as positive emotion, negative emotion, and arousal. These derived emotions may lead consumers to approach and/or avoidance behaviors. In addition, males and females tend to respond differently when they are exposed to art collaboration products. Building on this research tradition, the current study aims to investigate the inter-relationships between individual traits such as curiosity and need for uniqueness and individual's emotional responses including positive and negative emotion and arousal when people encounter various art collaborated products. Emotional responses are proposed to influence purchase intention. Additionally, previous studies show that male and females respond differently to similar stimuli. Accordingly, gender difference are proposed to moderate the links between individual traits and emotional responses. These research aims of the current study may contribute to extending our knowledge in terms of (1) which individual characteristics are related to different emotions, and (2) how these different emotional responses inter-connected to future purchase intention of arts collaborated products. In addition, (3) the different responses to these arts collaborated products by males and females will guide managers how to concoct different strategies to these segments. The questionnaire for the present study was adopted from the previous literature and validated with a pilot test. The survey was conducted in Daegu, a third largest city in South Korea, for three weeks during June and July 2011. Most respondents were in their twenties and thirties. 350 questionnaires were distributed and among them 300 were proved to be valid (valid response rate of 85.7%). Survey questionnaires from valid 300 respondents are used to test hypotheses proposed. The structural equation model (SEM) was used to validate the research model. The measurement and structural model was tested using LISREL 8.7. The measurement model test demonstrated that consistency, convergent validity, and discriminat validity of the measurement items were acceptable. The results from the structural model demonstrate that curiosity has a positive impact on positive emotion, but not on negative emotion and arousal. Need for uniqueness has three different sub-concepts such as creative choice, unpopular choice, and avoidance of similarity. The results show that creative choice has a positive effect on arousal and positive emotion, but has a negative impact on negative emotion. Unpopular choice has a positive effect on arousal, but on neither positive nor negative emotions. Avoidance of similarity has no impact on neither emotions nor arousal. The results also demonstrated that gender has a moderating influence. Males show more negative emotion to creative and unpopular choices. Implications and future research directions are discussed in conclusion.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have been shown to be potential factors that can improve corporate image and increase the ability of corporations to compete. However, most previous studies related to CSR activities investigated how these activities influence product and corporate evaluation, as well as corporate image. In addition, some researchers treated consumers' perceptions of corporate motives as moderator variables in evaluating the relationship between corporate social responsibilities and consumer response. However, motive-based theories have some weaknesses. Corporate social responsibility activities cause two motives(egoistic vs. altruistic) for consumers, but recently, Vlachos et al. (2008) argued that these motives should be segmented. Thus, it is possible to transform the original theory into a modified theory model (persuasion knowledge model, PKM). Vlachos et al. (2008) segmented corporate social responsibility motives into four types and compared the effects of these motives on customer loyalty. Prior studies have proved that CSR activities with positive motives have positive influences on customer loyalty. However, the psychological reasons underlying this finding have not been determined empirically. Thus, the objectives of this research are twofold. First, we attempt to determine why most customers favor companies that they feel have positive motives for their corporate social responsibility activities. Second, we attempt to measure the effects of consumers' reciprocity when society benefits from corporate social responsibility activities. The following research hypotheses are constructed. H1: Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a positive influence on the perceived reciprocity. H2: Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on the perceived reciprocity. H3: Egoistic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H4: Strategic-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. H5: Perceived reciprocity for corporate social responsibility activities has a positive influence on consumer loyalty. A single company is selected as a research subject to understand how the motives behind corporate social responsibility influence consumers' perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty. A total sample of 200 respondents was selected for a pilot test. In addition, to ensure a consistent response, we ensured that the respondents were older than 20 years of age. The surveys of 172 respondents (males-82, females-90) were analyzed after 28 invalid questionnaires were excluded. Based on our cutoff criteria, the model fit the data reasonably well. Values-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities had a positive effect on perceived reciprocity (t = 6.75, p < .001), supporting H1. Morales (2005) also found that consumers appreciate a company's social responsibility efforts and the benefits provided by these efforts to society. Stakeholder-driven motives for corporate social responsibility activities did not affect perceived reciprocity (t = -.049, p > .05). Thus, H2 was rejected. Egoistic-driven motives (t = .3.11, p < .05) and strategic-driven (t = -4.65, p < .05) motives had a negative influence on perceived reciprocity, supporting H3 and H4, respectively. Furthermore, perceived reciprocity had a positive influence on consumer loyalty (t = 4.24, p < .05), supporting H5. Thus, compared with the general public, undergraduate students appear to be more influenced by egoistic-driven motives. We draw the following conclusions from our research findings. First, value-driven attributions have a positive influence on perceived reciprocity. However, stakeholder-driven attributions have no significant effects on perceived reciprocity. Moreover, both egoistic-driven attributions and strategic-driven attributions have a negative influence on perceived reciprocity. Second, when corporate social responsibility activities align with consumers' reciprocity, the efforts directed towards social responsibility activities have a positive influence on customer loyalty. In this study, we examine whether the type of motivation affects consumer responses to CSR, and in particular, we evaluate how CSR motives can influence a key internal factor (perceived reciprocity) and behavioral consumer outcome (customer loyalty). We demonstrate that perceived reciprocity plays a mediating role in the relationship between CSR motivation and customer loyalty. Our study extends the research on consumer CSR-inferred motivations, positing them as a direct indicator of consumer responses. Furthermore, we convincingly identify perceived reciprocity as a sub-process mediating the effect of CSR attributions on customer loyalty. Future research investigating the ultimate behavior and financial impact of CSR should consider that the impacts of CSR also stem from perceived reciprocity. The results of this study also have important managerial implications. First, the central role that reciprocity plays indicates that managers should routinely measure how much their socially responsible actions create perceived reciprocity. Second, understanding how consumers' perceptions of CSR corporate motives relate to perceived reciprocity and customer loyalty can help managers to monitor and enhance these consumer outcomes through marketing initiatives and management of CSR-induced attribution processes. The results of this study will help corporations to understand the relative importance of the four different motivations types in influencing perceived reciprocity.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.747-754
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• 2005

Nutritional regulation of gene expression associated with growth and feeding behavior in avian species can become an important technique to improve poultry production according to the supply of nutrients in the diet. Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) found in chickens has been characterized to be a 70 amino acid polypeptide and plays an important role in growth and metabolism. Although it is been well known that IGF-I is highly associated with embryonic development and post-hatching growth, changes in the distribution of IGF-I gene expression throughout early- to late-embryogenesis have not been studied so far. We revealed that the developmental pattern of IGF-I gene expression during embryogenesis differed among various tissues. No bands of IGF-I mRNA were detected in embryonic liver at 7 days of incubation, and thereafter the amount of hepatic IGF-I mRNA was increased from 14 to 20 days of incubation. In eyes, a peak in IGF-I mRNA levels occurred at mid-embryogenesis, but by contrast, IGF-I mRNA was barely detectable in the heart throughout all incubation periods. In the muscle, no significant difference in IGF-I gene expression was observed during different stages of embryogenesis. After hatching, hepatic IGF-I gene expression as well as plasma IGF-I concentration increases rapidly with age, reaches a peak before sexual maturity, and then declines. The IGF-I gene expression is very sensitive to changes in nutritional conditions. Food-restriction and fasting decreased hepatic IGF-I gene expression and refeeding restored IGF-I gene expression to the level of fed chickens. Dietary protein is also a very strong factor in changing hepatic IGF-I gene expression. Refeeding with dietary protein alone successfully restored hepatic IGF-I gene expression of fasted chickens to the level of fed controls. In most circumstances, IGF-I makes a complex with specific high-affinity IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs). So far, four different IGFBPs have been identified in avian species and the major IGFBP in chicken plasma has been reported to be IGFBP-2. We studied the relationship between nutritional status and IGFBP-2 gene expression in various tissues of young chickens. In the liver of fed chickens, almost no IGFBP-2 mRNA was detected. However, fasting markedly increased hepatic IGFBP-2 gene expression, and the level was reduced after refeeding. In the gizzard of well-fed young chickens, IGFBP-2 gene expression was detected and fasting significantly elevated gizzard IGFBP-2 mRNA levels to about double that of fed controls. After refeeding, gizzard IGFBP-2 gene expression decreased similar to hepatic IGFBP-2 gene expression. In the brain, IGFBP-2 mRNA was observed in fed chickens and had significantly decreased by fasting. In the kidney, IGFBP-2 gene expression was observed but not influenced by fasting and refeeding. Recently, we have demonstrated in vivo that gizzard and hepatic IGFBP-2 gene expression in fasted chickens was rapidly reduced by intravenous administration of insulin, as indicated that in young chickens the reduction in gizzard and hepatic IGFBP-2 gene expression in vivo stimulated by malnutrition may be, in part, regulated by means of the increase in plasma insulin concentration via an insulin-response element. The influence of dietary protein source (isolated soybean protein vs. casein) and the supplementation of essential amino acids on gizzard IGFBP-2 gene expression was examined. In both soybean protein and casein diet groups, the deficiency of essential amino acids stimulated chickens to increase gizzard IGFBP-2 gene expression. Although amino acid supplementation of a soybean protein diet significantly decreased gizzard IGFBP-2 mRNA levels, a similar reduction was not observed in chickens fed a casein diet supplemented with amino acids. This overview of nutritional regulation of IGF-I and IGFBP-2 gene expression in young chickens would serve for the establishment of the supply of nutrients to diets to improve poultry production.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.37
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• pp.253-273
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• 1998

The culture reflects the ideology of a particular period in time and such values change according to the needs and requests of that time which eventually becomes an important factorin forming the exterior. The clothing is part of a way that composes and expresses the inherent substance of society and culture. Also, the clothing itself manifests the artistic values and behavior of mankind as an external structure maintaining its place as a big part in culture. The purpose of this study are to elucidat the concept of naturalism, which is discussed in many facets in the modern era; I studied the concept as well as the history of naturalism in order to manifest the meaning of clothing in the context of culture and I explained the concept in terms of the modern era. On such ground, I explained the naturalism expressed through clothing and characterized the exter-nal form of clothing. Also, in order to know the stream of naturalism in the modern context, I referred to the Vogue magazine of the 90s, using Delong's ABC method. Naturalism, in the context of modern fashion is a way to express the nostalgia of nature's vi-ability and purity of ecology apart from the artificial and structural appearance that resulted form scientific enhancement and hence, the ecological crisis. Naturalism pursues the soft- ness and comfort of the natural silhouette, color and material of the human body and it can be said that naturalism emphasizes the mix-ture of three substances : human, nature and clothing. The naturalism can be characterized by the factors expressed in clothing as follows. First, the naturalism shown in the form it-self draws the beauty of the bodyline without any reduction nor exaggeration. Without any distorttion of the human bodyline it shown the curve as one moves along, using the soft material. Second, the naturalism shown in color most-ly uses the natural tone with added white color and other color low in intensity and value like the receded colors of the earth that could be compared to the beauty of ecru. Third, the naturalism shown in the material is thin, light and soft in texture. In order to bring out the most natural curve of the human body, the natural fiber becomes the main material, sometimes, using crude materials. Due to the lindustrial improvement, softness and elasticity is added to the natural fibers giving them an important role as materials. Fourth, the naturalism shown in textile depicts the real natural objects in life. According to my study, the personality of naturalism in modern clothing was shown to be most strong in material and then in the order of form, texture and textile. The material com-posed of the natural silhouette and natural fibers were used to make soft color. In form, Paul Poiret made appearance expressing the natural beauty of the human body without the corset ; it continued with the inner lining making the clothing hard but in the 90s, lining-less, extremely exposed clothes and knit wear is used to emphasize the natural beauty of the body. In color and textile, the tendency spok-en above is not as strong but in color, instead of high intensity or value, the usage of neutral colors with added white color or ecru color, ear-th tone is increasing. In textile, the usage of flowers as natural material is seen frequently. As a whole, naturalistic trend in the 90s is increasing and the modern fashion is breaking out from the artificial and architectural form and conforming to a form that can realize the natural beauty of the human body. And the natural color and textile that conforms to such ideas are being used to pursue the human oriented trend that has appeared due to the increase in usage of soft natural fiber. Nowadays, the idea of returning to nature, defying the artificiality, desiring the leisure and psychological abundance that can be explained as naturalistic way of thinking is necessitated in this modern era as long as humans coexist with nature, this tendency will continue in clothing.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.105-130
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• 1981

This study was conducted to compare the characteristics of high performane areas for family planning with that of low performance areas and to find factors which strongly affected contraceptive practice behavior. For the study, eight areas were selected from 274 rural family planning canvassing areas of Korean Population Policy and Program Evaluation Study, which was an action study operated in all areas of Cheju Island from July 1, 1976 until December 31,1979. As a first step of the action study, Cheju Island was devided up 318 family planning canvasser areas Each area was consisted of 200 households in rural district and 300 households in urhan one Duriog the period of project, each canvassing area had been managed by a female family planning canvasser, selected by director of health center considering several individual conditions needed for family planning activities Basic activities of canvassers were to counsell all the eligihie couples in own charged area about family planning methods and also to distribute contraceptives such as condoms and oral pills. In case couples desire to accept sterilization including vasectomy and tubal-ligation, the canvassers played a linking role connecting potential client with family planning field workers. Canvassng areas shows significant differentce in performance for family planning, nevertheless they are supposed to have almost the same conditions regarding family planning distribution channel. Because the purpose of the Cheju project was to eliminate all the problems that existed in governmental distribution system, that is to remove geographic, economic, cognitive and administrative barriers Accumulated performances of family planning methods accepted by residents in each area were calculated by eligible women aged 14-49. And then canvassing areas were ranked according to performance score. Consequently, 4 areas in extremely high and low family planning performance areas were selected respectively. Major results were obtained by comparing characteristics of high performance area with that of low performance areas, which are as follows: 1. The mean number of living children was about the same both in high and low performance areas for family planning. But respondents' mean age (38.5) in high performance areas was higher than that (37.0) in low performance areas 2. Respondents' perception in the expectant educational level of others' children in high performance areas was higher than that in low performance areas, although respondents educational level, monthly expenditure and ratio of children in high school and above was not different. 3. Ratio of ownerships of TV and newspaper in high performance areas was highen than that in low performance areas 4. The duration of canvasser' charge in high performance areas was longer than that of low performance areas, showing the fact that canvassers didn't move cut in high performance areas 5. In high performance areas, canvassers' houses were relatively located in the center part of the village. And so villagers resided in near distances from the anvasser's house 6. 4H clubs' activities in high performance areas were more active than those in low performance areas Therefore it was assumed that cohesiveness of community in high performance areas were stronger than that in low areas. 7. Canvassers' family planning practice rate was higher than that in low performance areas, and also canvassers' human relationship was more sociable than that of canvassers in low performance areas. 8. Fourteen variables which showed relatively high significance level in $X^2$ and F test were selected as independent variables for stepwise regression analysis. According to the results of regression analysis. five of 14 variables-distributors education level ($R^2$=.4439), duration of distributor's charge ($R^2$=.6166), 4H club activities ($R^2$=.6697), canvasser's contraceptive practice ($R^2$=.7377) and location of distributions house ($R^2$=.8010) explained 80.1 percent of total variance.