• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.70-79
• /
• 2010

There has been some research conducted that addressed immoral consumer behaviors in Korea; however, most of this research focused on purchasing counterfeits or shoplifting. High return rates of apparel and used apparel returns have been acknowledged as problem areas within the fashion industry. However, very few researchers have addressed this issue. Therefore, the goal of this research was to explore consumer's retail borrowing experience using a mixed methods approach. In study 1 Korean consumer's retail borrowing experiences was explored through focus group interviews. Findings informed study 2 an examination of apparel consumers' attitudes toward retail borrowing behavior via an online survey. Findings assist both researchers' and practitioners' understanding of retail borrowing behaviors and provide insight into retail borrowing issues in the apparel retail industry. For study 1, five focus-group interviews were conducted with seven panels of individuals that had retail borrowing experience within the past year. Thirty-five Korean consumers who lived in a metropolitan area participated in the focus group interviews. Most of consumers were in their 20's (n=21) and were women (n=24). Most participants purchased apparel items from a retail store and returned the worn items for either a full refund or exchanged the worn item for another item. Motives underlying retail borrowing behavior included social needs, job-related needs, fashion needs, and "smart shopping." Similar to existing research findings from other countries, social needs were the most frequently mentioned cause of retail borrowing in fashion stores. Consumers' moral values, attitude toward large corporations, and prior retail borrowing experience were mentioned as possible factors affecting consumers' retail borrowing behavior. For study 2, the questionnaire used to gather the data was developed based on the findings of part I and existing research. Questions concerning consumers' moral beliefs, sensation seeking tendencies, self-worth, past retail job experience, retail borrowing experience, and some demographic characteristics were included in the questionnaire. The data were collected via an online survey using an online panel provided by a commercial online research company located in Seoul, Korea. In order to obtain various consumers, a quota sample was (male: female=1:1, 20's:30's:40's=1:1:1, retail experience: no retail experience=1:3) obtained from the company. A total of 401 consumers who had shopped for apparel items during the prior 6 months participated in the online survey. The results indicated that 19.7% of the respondents reported they had experience borrowing fashion merchandise. Among these individuals, male borrowers (57%) outnumbered female borrowers. In terms of age distribution, x2 revealed that there was a statistical difference between respondents with and without retail borrowing experiences: 41.8% of the respondents with retail borrowing experience were in their 40's, while respondents without retail borrowing experience were evenly distributed between their 20's to 40's. There was also a significant difference between respondents with and without retail borrowing experience in terms of income: respondents with retail borrowing experience tended to have higher incomes than those without retail borrowing experience. T-tests were performed to compare respondents' fashion shopping behavior, moral beliefs, sensation-seeking tendencies, and attitudes toward retail borrowing behavior between participants with and without retail borrowing experience. As compared to those with no borrowing experience, respondents with experience tended to shop for fashion items more frequently and spent more on shopping for fashion items. Consumers with experience borrowing tended to have higher sensation-seeking tendencies than consumers without retail borrowing experience. A regression analysis revealed that attitudes toward fashion retail borrowing were negatively related to consumers' moral beliefs, but positively related to monthly fashion shopping frequency, sensation-seeking tendencies, and past fashion retail borrowing experience. Among these variables, past retail borrowing experience was the most significant predictor, followed by moral beliefs. This research serves as an initial attempt to address the motives that underlie retail borrowing behaviors and the factors affecting those behaviors. The findings of this study may facilitate an understanding of the consumer's retail borrowing, which will provide a basis for approaches that may help decrease retail borrowing and inappropriate returns at fashion retail stores. The findings may also provide materials for consumer education over the long term. In order to better understand fashion retail borrowing behavior, more research is needed in the future.

• 대한공업교육학회지
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.192-217
• /
• 2008

This paper investigated the perceived criticalities and patterns of Korean Professional Engineer's competency regarding the working activities of automative product development, manufacturing, etc by using questionnaires responded to the survey which were applied to the automotive professors, experts and professional engineers (vocational parties) by e/mail, etc. This research investigated the following questions: First, what are the characteristic patterns, relevancy and perceived criticalities of Korean Professional Engineer's competencies? Second, What are the ranked priority of the Korean Professional Engineers' competencies? Are there any differency for each item, sub group of job, intelectual criterior of the competencies between relevancy and perceived criticalities according to the types of vocational parties, etc.? Accoring to the results; first, Professor group showed highest points among 3 groups per each item of the competencies by vocational parties Second, Chassis design group ranked top position among the 8 sub groups by vocational parties and, third, Problem Solving Knowledge ranked highest points than any others. Korean Professional Engineers are found to be positioned as key members, leaders and managers on surveying market, product planning, designing product & components, developing component parts, establishing shop with production equipment, managing quality control & material handling, organizing relevant meetings, developing human resources by training and learning, to back up finance with law matters, cooperating with concerned parties to achieve organizational goals, and to coordinate projects. etc, identifying ethical issues and business skills in order to survive and win to be competitive in various kinds of the automotive industry battle fields.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.111-122
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study is to survey the successful cases of small and medium Business Systematization Cognition by examining their entrepreneurial characteristics and analysing the factors affecting their success. To that end, previous studies on the association types of small businesses were studied. A research model was developed, and research hypotheses for an empirical analysis were established upon it. Suh et al. (2010) insist on the importance of Small Business Systematization in Korea but also show that small business performance is suffering: they are too small to stand alone. That is why association is so crucial for them: they must stand together. Unfortunately, association is difficult, as they have few specific links and little motivation. Even in franchising networks, association tends to be initiated by big franchisers, not small ones. In that sense, association among small businesses is crucial for their long-term survival. With this in mind, this study examines how they think and feel about the issue of 'Industrial Classification', how important Industrial Classification is to their business success, and what kinds of problems it raises in the markets. This study seeks the different cognitions among the association types of small businesses from the perspectives of participation motivation, systematization expectation, policy demand level, and management performance. We assume that different industrial classification types of small businesses will have different cognitions concerning these factors. There are four basic industrial classification types of small businesses: retail sales, restaurant, service, and manufacturing. To date, most of the studies in this area have focused on collecting data on the external environments of small businesses or performing statistical analyses on their status. In this study, we surveyed 4 market areas in Busan, Masan, and Changwon in Korea, where business associations consist of merchants, shop owners, and traders. We surveyed 330 shops and merchants by sending a questionnaire or visiting. Finally, 268 questionnaires were collected and used for the analysis. An ANOVA, T-test, and regression analyses were conducted to test the research hypotheses. The results demonstrate that there are differences in cognition depending upon the industrial classification type. Restaurants generally have a higher cognition concerning job offer problems and a lower cognition concerning their competitiveness. Restaurants also depend more on systematization expectation than do the other industrial classification types. On the policy demand level, restaurants have a higher cognition. This study identifies several factors that are contributing to management performance through differences in cognition that depend upon association type: systematization expectation and policy demand level have positive effects on management performance; participation motivation has a negative effect on management performance. We confirm also that the image factors of different cognitions are linked to an awareness of the value of systematization and that these factors show sequential and continual patterns in the course of generating performances. In conclusion, this study carries significant implications in its classifying of small businesses into the four different associational types (retail sales, restaurant, services, and manufacturing). We believe our study to be the first one to conduct an empirical survey in this subject area. More studies in this area will likely use our research frameworks. The data show that regionally based industrial classification associations such as those in rural cities or less developed areas tend to suffer more problems than those in urban areas. Moreover, restaurants suffer more problems than the norm. Most of the problems raised in this study concern the act of 'associating itself'. Most associations have serious difficulties in associating. On the other hand, the area where they have the least policy demand is that of service types. This study contributes to the argument that associating, rather than financial assistance or management consulting, promotes the start-up and managerial performance of small businesses. This study also has some limitations. The main limitation is the number of questionnaires. We could not survey all the industrial classification types across the country because of budget and time limitations. If we had, we could have produced many more useful results and enhanced the precision of our analysis. The history of systemization is very short and the number of industrial classification associations is relatively low in Korea. We should keep in mind, though, that this is very crucial to systemization entrepreneurs starting their businesses, as it can heavily affect their chances of success. Being strongly associated with each other might be critical to the business success of industrial classification members. Thus, the government needs to put more effort and resources into supporting the drive of industrial classification members to become more strongly associated.