• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.44 no.5
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2019

Although brand love is a major interest in global business, very little is known about how the effects of brand love are affected by relevant constructs. This study examines how the brand love-loyalty link is moderated by shopping value (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and how the moderated moderation effect of gender difference influences the consumer-brand relationship. Based on a unique dataset of 254 Chinese consumers of Korean cosmetic brands in China, we tested our proposed hypotheses using Regression PROCESS macro (model = 3). One of our novel findings is that brand love has a positive influence on brand loyalty. However, this relationship is sensitive to moderators. Regarding the brand love-loyalty linkage, consumers who seek hedonic shopping value is higher than consumers who seek utilitarian shopping value. In particular, female consumers are more passionate and loyal than male consumers. Finally, male consumers seeking hedonic shopping value feature greater brand love-loyal linkage than other consumers; however, this effect is very limited.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.413-429
• /
• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of consumers' inflation expectations using consumers' inflation perceptions and the sub-components of consumer price index (CPI) basket in South Korea based on a consumer survey conducted by the Bank of Korea (BOK). Design/methodology/approach - Using Carroll's (2003) epidemiological model, we analyzed data from January 2013 to January 2023, resulting in a data set of 121 observations for both inflation perceptions and inflation expectations. This study focuses only on aggregate inflation expectations and perceptions because of data availability from the BOK. Findings - Professionals' forecasts play a major role in forming consumers' inflation expectations, whereas the actual headline CPI and consumers' inflation perceptions do not. These results remain robust when including the sub-components of the CPI basket in the analysis. Research implications or Originality - It would be the most efficient way to suppress professionals' expected inflation in fighting against a substantial spike in consumers' inflation expectations. To guide consumers' inflation expectations based on BOK's inflation targeting, the bank needs to consider professionals' forecasts in devising monetary policies.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.345-362
• /
• 2010

It is necessary to develop new competitive products under the world economic downturn. The medical tourism industry a good example and it has grown rapidly for last couple of years. This paper aims to investigate socio-demographic proxies of inbound medical tourists in Korea. In particular, the medical tourist behaviors are modeled by considering the factors such as acquisition process of medical tourism information, service level of medical tourism industry and the choice attributes. The results of this study are summarized that: 1) Moot inbound medical tourists are over 40-years old with professional occupation accompanied with families; 2) The information resources are mainly acquired from travel agents and WOM(Word of Mouth) such as friends and relatives; 3) Current problems are lack of various promotion channels and the competitiveness of medical coots; 4) The inbound medical tourists are not homogeneous but vary in different segments. The study suggests that various marketing strategies should be implemented for target market segments to promote Korea as a medical tourism hub.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.11
• /
• pp.89-99
• /
• 2013

Purpose - The purpose of this research was to examine the regulation and distribution channel of second-hand goods in cross-border trade in order to propose methods of protecting consumers through the international standardization of the intensifying second-hand trade and resource recycling. Research design, data, methodology - This study first defines several concepts relevant to research in international second-hand goods. Second, a questionnaire and interviews were conducted with manufacturers of second-hand toner cartridges and automobile parts to identify the current status of export and manufacturing. Results - The study proposes the international standardization of second-hand goods and waste to protect consumers and promote efficient resource recycling. Conclusions - The results of the study reveal that second-hand goods (except automobiles) do not have an HSK code to use for import/export data collection. Though used car exports are declining, used cars are increasing. Collecting data on used car parts is impossible because the buyers purchase and ship the second-hand parts.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.7
• /
• pp.47-56
• /
• 2013

Purpose - In the academic literature, the researches on a comparative study on purchase behaviors of the consumers from emerging and mature markets remain limited. Therefore, this empirical study is attempted to examine the effects of country of origin (COO), brand image and corporate image on the purchase behavior of Chinese consumers (as from emerging market) and Korean consumers (as from mature market). Research Design, data, methodology - In total, 615 valid questionnaires were collected from the main cities of China and Korea respectively, and a multiple group analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses with SPSS 16.0 and AMOS18.0. Results - Chinese consumers are not influenced by country-of-origin effect, whereas Korean consumers are sensitive to it. Both Chinese and Korean consumers are sensitive to brand image, whereas corporate image does appear to influence Chinese consumers but not Korean consumers. The effects of country-of-origin are not more influential in less developed market (China) than more developed market (Korea). Conclusions - According to the results of this empirical study, the country-of-origin effect does impact Korean consumers but not Chinese consumers' purchase behavior. Therefore, multinational companies are relatively free to make the decision, if Chinese consumers are the marketing targets, when choosing manufacturing sites.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
• /
• v.29 no.5
• /
• pp.617-624
• /
• 2013

Korean Food Globalization has been launched as a tool of civil ambassador and the high value-oriented industry. According to department of statistics in 2012, the trend of Korean food globalization from international visitors of Chinese and Japanese has grown. Hence, this study is purposed to identify the level of satisfaction of Chinese and Japanese consumers based on their food-related lifestyle. The survey was conducted by interviewing 403 Chinese and Japanese visitors who have experienced Korean food. The survey questionnaire was composed of 3 parts of demographic information, food-related lifestyle, and satisfaction of Korean restaurant. As factor analysis results, 3 factors were yielded for the food-related lifestyle factors-a eat-out preferred group, a health preferred group, and a taste preferred group, and 3 factors were generated for Korean restaurant satisfaction-hygiene and service, menu, and food quality. For cluster analysis, 3 clusters were identified as follows: high interested in food itself, health interested, and taste interested. Female appears to be significantly different in terms of 3 clusters than male. Nationality shows that Chinese consumers showed a high interest in food itself whereas Japanese consumers were high interested in health. With regard to Korean restaurant satisfaction, service appeared to be important in Chinese consumers while Japanese consumers showed a higher mean value on serving size, price, and nutrition. The findings concluded that by understanding the nature of food-related lifestyle of international visitors, marketing strategies can better meet visitors' expectations and increase their satisfaction with Korean restaurants.

• International Area Studies Review
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.475-504
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and investigate why and how these 4 factors (the images of country of origin, imported luxury brand, objective products' characteristics and Projective consumer's peculiarity) impact product preferences & purchasing intention of consumers who plan to buy "Imported Luxury Branded goods". For this study the research directions are: 1. To find each impact of Country of Origin and Brand image which influence "the preference of imported luxury brand items". 2. To analyze the difference of "the effects of Country or Origin" which impacts product preference when consumers buy imported luxury branded goods, which have different purchasing risks. 3. To verify the difference of products' characteristics that have different purchasing risks through comparing the image of country of origin and brand. 4. To analyze and compare "the purchasing behavior of Korean consumers" for achieving research universality. In order to verify that those 4 factors (the images of country of origin, imported luxury brand, objective products' characteristics and prospective consumer's peculiarity) impact on product preferences & purchasing intention of consumers, the linear structural equation model was developed. According to this research model, 9 hypotheses were designed.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.163-181
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to review the major issues of trade facilitation that have been discussing in relevant international organization such as WTO, WCO, UN/ECE, and UNCTAD In recent years the term, trade facilitation, has become extremely popular and, therefore, applied to an ever-growing number of activities. Trade Facilitation encompasses the simplification, standardization, harmonization and elimination of the procedures, data requirements and administration involved in an international trade transaction. The facilitation of trade procedures is seen by all major international business as vital for economic development. Several factors are fuelling the need for trade facilitation of which two are the globalization of international trade and the rapid IT-development. Another important factor includes increased economic integration by an explosion of regional and bilateral free-trade agreement that often feature complex customs requirements. Technological progress has also introduced faster and cheaper forms of transportation and transportation management techniques, such as the increased use of e-business and JIT. The Internet is also fragmenting containers of goods that could have been custom cleared on a single entry into dozens of individual shipments that each require separate customs documents and clearance procedures. This creates a challenge for express couriers who anticipate exponential growth in small shipments by individual consumers, as compared to shipment by wholesalers or retailers. These consumers expect goods to be cleared immediately. It is no wonder that express couriers are actively promoting, and participating in the trade facilitation agenda.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.249-275
• /
• 2018

Today's Internet environment is growing rapidly, and transactions based on it are also rapidly increasing. E-commerce allows merchants and consumers in different countries to easily trade goods across borders. However, the increase in international consumer transactions through the Internet is accompanied by an increase in disputes. International consumer transactions are characterized by a distinction among long distance, small sum, and different jurisdictions. International consumer transactions cannot be solved only by way of resolving disputes in past international transactions. The best way to resolve disputes between international carriers and consumers is through the Internet. In this regard, UNCITRAL has been preparing to enact legislation on ODR as a solution to international electronic trade disputes and, as a result, UNCITRAL adopted guidelines for operating the ODR procedure for building the ODR platform. The European Union has also increased its disputes in the European Union, which is active in the intra-regional market. Institutional improvements were made to solve this problem; therefore, the European Union (EU) has enacted the ODR Regulations for EU consumer disputes. Based on such, this study constructed the ODR platform, which is used as a way to resolve consumer disputes in the regional market.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.11-14
• /
• 2014

In the smart grid, it will be possible to communicate with the consumers for the purposes of monitoring and controlling their power consumption without disturbing their business or comfort. This will bring easier administration capabilities for the utilities. On the other hand, consumers will require more advanced home automation tools which can be implemented by using advanced sensor technologies. For instance, consumers may need to adapt their consumption according to the dynamically varying electricity prices which necessitates home automation tools. This paper tries to combine neural network and nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous variable (NARX) class for next week electric load forecasting. The suitability of the proposed approach is illustrated through an application to electric load consumption data. The suggested system provides a useful and suitable tool especially for the load forecasting.