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A Study on the Proposal for Extension of Local Autonomy and Financial Atonomy of Local Education

  • Park, Jong-Ryeol;Noe, Sang-Ouk
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.155-165
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    • 2021
  • The measures to extend local education autonomy are as follows: First, it is necessary to correct the confusion of the legal system of the local education autonomy system. For this, Article 12, Paragraph 2 and 4 of the 「Special Act on Local Autonomy and Decentralization, and Restructuring of Local Administrative Systems」 which state that "The State shall endeavor to consolidate systems for autonomy in education and local government" and "The implementation of autonomy in education and the autonomous police system shall be prescribed separately by Acts" should be deleted. Second, it is necessary to clarify unnecessary legal matters and regulatory measures for unification at the national level and to proactively consider the introduction of the legal trust system, in which education affairs are designated as local governments' own work and the state carries out specific affairs. The decentralization of local education finance is a key factor for the development of local education autonomy, and it requires the transfer of authority and resources to the region, and the enhancement of local autonomy and corresponding responsibility. First, the ratio of special grants must be adjusted further (from 3% to 2%) or the ratio of national policy projects must be lowered. Second, the provision that requires a consultation with a mayor/governor when making a budget covered by transfers from general accounts should be deleted. Third, it is necessary to remove the elements that limit the authority of city and provincial councils. Fourth, it is necessary to integrate the national education tax and the local education tax to create the education autonomy tax (tentative name) for only one independent purpose. Fifth, it is necessary to strengthen the distribution of the total amount of grants and abolish the settlement regulations for the measurement items of standard financial demand. Sixth is the expansion of the participation of stakeholders and experts in the grant distribution process. Seventh, it is necessary to establish a long-term employment system by designating the education finance field as a special field. Eight is the expansion of cooperative governance.

A Checklist to Improve the Fairness in AI Financial Service: Focused on the AI-based Credit Scoring Service (인공지능 기반 금융서비스의 공정성 확보를 위한 체크리스트 제안: 인공지능 기반 개인신용평가를 중심으로)

  • Kim, HaYeong;Heo, JeongYun;Kwon, Hochang
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.259-278
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    • 2022
  • With the spread of Artificial Intelligence (AI), various AI-based services are expanding in the financial sector such as service recommendation, automated customer response, fraud detection system(FDS), credit scoring services, etc. At the same time, problems related to reliability and unexpected social controversy are also occurring due to the nature of data-based machine learning. The need Based on this background, this study aimed to contribute to improving trust in AI-based financial services by proposing a checklist to secure fairness in AI-based credit scoring services which directly affects consumers' financial life. Among the key elements of trustworthy AI like transparency, safety, accountability, and fairness, fairness was selected as the subject of the study so that everyone could enjoy the benefits of automated algorithms from the perspective of inclusive finance without social discrimination. We divided the entire fairness related operation process into three areas like data, algorithms, and user areas through literature research. For each area, we constructed four detailed considerations for evaluation resulting in 12 checklists. The relative importance and priority of the categories were evaluated through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). We use three different groups: financial field workers, artificial intelligence field workers, and general users which represent entire financial stakeholders. According to the importance of each stakeholder, three groups were classified and analyzed, and from a practical perspective, specific checks such as feasibility verification for using learning data and non-financial information and monitoring new inflow data were identified. Moreover, financial consumers in general were found to be highly considerate of the accuracy of result analysis and bias checks. We expect this result could contribute to the design and operation of fair AI-based financial services.

Popularization of Marathon through Social Network Big Data Analysis : Focusing on JTBC Marathon (소셜 네트워크 빅데이터 분석을 통한 마라톤 대중화 : JTBC 마라톤대회를 중심으로)

  • Lee, Ji-Su;Kim, Chi-Young
    • Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.27-40
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    • 2020
  • The marathon has long been established as a representative lifestyle for all ages. With the recent expansion of the Work and Life Balance trend across the society, marathon with a relatively low barrier to entry is gaining popularity among young people in their 20s and 30s. By analyzing the issues and related words of the marathon event, we will analyze the spottainment elements of the marathon event that is popular among young people through keywords, and suggest a development plan for the differentiated event. In order to analyze keywords and related words, blogs, cafes and news provided by Naver and Daum were selected as analysis channels, and 'JTBC Marathon' and 'Culture' were extracted as key words for data search. The data analysis period was limited to a three-month period from August 13, 2019 to November 13, 2019, when the application for participation in the 2019 JTBC Marathon was started. For data collection and analysis, frequency and matrix data were extracted through social matrix program Textom. In addition, the degree of the relationship was quantified by analyzing the connection structure and the centrality of the degree of connection between the words. Although the marathon is a personal movement, young people share a common denominator of "running" and form a new cultural group called "running crew" with other young people. Through this, it was found that a marathon competition culture was formed as a festival venue where people could train together, participate together, and escape from the image of a marathon run alone and fight with themselves.

Derivation of Constraint Factors Affecting Passenger's In-Vehicle Activity of Urban Air Mobility's Personal Air Vehicle and Design Criteria According to the Level of Human Impact (도심항공모빌리티 비행체 PAV 탑승자 실내행위에 영향을 미치는 제약 요소 도출 및 인체 영향 수준에 따른 설계 기준)

  • Jin, Seok-Jun;Oh, Young-Hoon;Ju, Da Young
    • Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.3-20
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    • 2022
  • Recently, prior to the commercialization of urban air mobility (UAM), the importance of R&D for air transportation-related industries in urban areas has significantly increased. To create a UAM environment, research is being conducted on personal air vehicles (PAVs). They are key means of air transportation, but research on the physical factors influencing their passengers is relatively insufficient. In particular, because the PAV is expected to be used as a living space for the passengers, research on the effects of the physical elements generated in the PAV on the human body is essential to design an interior space that supports the in-vehicle activities of the passengers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to derive the constraint factors that affect the human body due to the air navigation characteristics of the PAV and to understand the impact of these constraint factors on the bodies of the passengers performing in-vehicle activities. The results of this study indicate that when the PAV was operated at less than 4,000 ft, which is the operating standard, the constraint factors were noise, vibration, and motion sickness caused by low-frequency motion. These constraint factors affect in-vehicle activity; thus, the in-vehicle activities that can be performed in a PAV were derived using autonomous cars, airplanes, and PAV concept cases. Furthermore, considering the impact of the constraint factors and their levels on the human body, recommended constraint factor criteria to support in-vehicle activities were established. To reduce the level of impact of the constraint factors on the human body and to support in-vehicle activity, the seat's shape and built-in functions of the seat (vibration reduction function, temperature control, LED lighting, etc.) and external noise reduction using a directional speaker for each individual seat were recommended. Moreover, it was suggested that interior materials for noise and vibration reduction should be used in the design of the interior space. The contributions of this study are the determination of the constraint factors affecting the in-vehicle PAV activity and the confirmation of the level of impact of the factors on the human body; in the future, these findings can be used as basic data for suitable PAV interior design.

The Practice of 'Liberated-ness': An Education Model for Protestant Spiritual Practice (개신교 '자유케 됨'의 영성에 기초한 기독교 영성교육 모형: '자유케 됨'의 실천)

  • Hwang, In-Hae
    • Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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    • v.68
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    • pp.375-415
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    • 2021
  • Although the interest in Christian education of spirituality has increased recently, the practice of the education of spirituality in the Korean Church has been fragmented in the contents and methods without any clear educational purpose of the Protestant tradition. This requires a creative study to seek out the contents and method best suited to realizing the educational purpose of the Protestant tradition, through a rigorous academic methodology. This study proposes just such a creative model for the education of spirituality with an educational purpose based on the core ethos of the Protestant spirituality, integrating the long tradition of spiritual practices of Christianity. First, I survey the teachings on 'the life of faith' of the main leaders of the Protestant church, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley. Through this process, I reveal 'liberated-ness' to be the common purpose of the Protestant leaders, and the core of the practices for that purpose are 'the means of grace,' which has a different meaning from that of the Roman Catholic tradition. I construct the meaning of 'liberated-ness' in a dynamic manner, which begins with the 'liberating will' of God, and is followed by the 'self-giving will' of the believer as the response to the 'grace' of the 'liberating will.' The contact point of these two 'wills' is what I call 'the living membrane of faith.' As a creative synthesis of the above discussions, I propose a model of 'the practice of liberated-ness' for an education in spiritual practice. The purpose of this education is for the learner to become a person who continuously experiences ever-increasing 'liberated-ness' through continuous personal 'encounters' with God, and to become ever more faithful in carrying out practices for the 'liberated-ness' of her or his neighbors. The relationship between the teacher and the learner is that of personal 'encounter' as put forth by Sherrill, and also incorporates elements of 'co-authorship' as conceptualized by Kim. I transform and rename major practices of spiritual discipline according to a principle of 'liberated-ness' based on the Protestant tradition, and these comprise the main content of my spirituality education model. They include: 'lectio divina of encounter,' 'prayer facing the Lord,' 'service in liberation,' 'reflection of liberated-ness,' and 'mutual spiritual direction.' The teaching and learning process draws on Dykstra's methods of coaching and mentoring. The key environment is that of a 'sacramental community' as defined by Moore. Evaluation can be performed only by the learner her/himself. The significance of this model is that it creatively inherits and succeeds the tradition of Christian spiritual discipline from the early church onwards by transforming it through a Protestant spirituality of 'liberated-ness.'

The Private-Initiated Park Development Project in Terms of Securing Publicity Operation Characteristics Analysis - Busan Metropolitan City as a Case - (공공성 확보측면에서 민간공원특례사업 운영특성분석 - "부산광역시를 사례로" -)

  • Gweon, Young-Dal;Park, Hyun-Bin;Kim, Dong-Pil
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.51 no.1
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    • pp.13-28
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    • 2023
  • This study examines the process of project promotion in Busan, which introduced the private participation-type consultative body for the first time in the country in the promotion stage of the private-initiated park development project, and introduced flexible application of the system and differentiated policy elements in the implementation process, and examines the operational characteristics and we tried to analyze performance, etc. As a result of the analysis, first, the preferred bidder was selected by introducing a mixed method in the project method, which is an independent project method that cannot be seen in other local governments. Second, by specifying guidelines considering the characteristics of each park and detailed guidelines such as the location, area, and maximum height of non-park facilities, criteria for establishing a rational development plan utilizing regional identity and the basis of evaluation standards were laid. Third, in the project process, transparency was secured through the delegation-type roundtable, in which the private sector performs the functions and roles of key actors, thereby preventing disputes such as suspicion of preferential treatment. Fourth, in order to improve the quality of park facilities to be donated and to secure design adequacy, after approval of the implementation plan, a general planner was introduced and construction project management (design stage) services were performed to promote efficient implementation and specialization of luxury parks in the region. As a result, the city of Busan carried out the project efficiently by conserving 5 parks from sunset, a park area of 2.25km2, and reducing land compensation and park construction costs by KRW 740 billion. Reinforcement of the public nature of the private-initiated park development project was suggested. However, due to the application of these systems and verification procedures, the project period is prolonged, and park services are delayed along with the financial burden on private operators.

A Case Study of Shanghai Tang: How to Build a Chinese Luxury Brand

  • Heine, Klaus;Phan, Michel
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.1-22
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    • 2013
  • This case focuses on Shanghai Tang, the first truly Chinese luxury brand that appeals to both Westerners and, more recently, to Chinese consumers worldwide. A visionary and wealthy businessman Sir David Tang created this company from scratch in 1994 in Hong Kong. Its story, spanned over almost two decades, has been fascinating. It went from what best a Chinese brand could be in the eyes of Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a nearly-bankrupted company in 1998, before being acquired by Richemont, the second largest luxury group in the world. Since then, its turnaround has been spectacular with a growing appeal among Chinese luxury consumers who represent the core segment of the luxury industry today. The main objective of this case study is to formally examine how Shanghai Tang overcame its downfall and re-emerged as one the very few well- known Chinese luxury brands. More specifically, this case highlights the ways with which Shanghai Tang made a transitional change from a brand for Westerners who love the Chinese culture, to a brand for both, Westerners who love the Chinese culture and Chinese who love luxury. A close examination reveals that Shanghai Tang has followed the brand identity concept that consists of two major components: functional and emotional. The functional component for developing a luxury brand concerns all product characteristics that will make a product 'luxurious' in the eyes of the consumer, such as premium quality of cachemire from Mongolia, Chinese silk, lacquer, finest leather, porcelain, and jade in the case of Shanghai Tang. The emotional component consists of non-functional symbolic meanings of a brand. The symbolic meaning marks the major difference between a premium and a luxury brand. In the case of Shanghai Tang, its symbolic meaning refers to the Chinese culture and the brand aims to represent the best of Chinese traditions and establish itself as "the ambassador of modern Chinese style". It touches the Chinese heritage and emotions. Shanghai Tang has reinvented the modern Chinese chic by drawing back to the stylish decadence of Shanghai in the 1930s, which was then called the "Paris of the East", and this is where the brand finds inspiration to create its own myth. Once the functional and emotional components assured, Shanghai Tang has gone through a four-stage development to become the first global Chinese luxury brand: introduction, deepening, expansion, and revitalization. Introduction: David Tang discovered a market gap and had a vision to launch the first Chinese luxury brand to the world. The key success drivers for the introduction and management of a Chinese luxury brand are a solid brand identity and, above all, a creative mind, an inspired person. This was David Tang then, and this is now Raphael Le Masne de Chermont, the current Executive Chairman. Shanghai Tang combines Chinese and Western elements, which it finds to be the most sustainable platform for drawing consumers. Deepening: A major objective of the next phase is to become recognized as a luxury brand and a fashion or design authority. For this purpose, Shanghai Tang has cooperated with other well-regarded luxury and lifestyle brands such as Puma and Swarovski. It also expanded its product lines from high-end custom-made garments to music CDs and restaurant. Expansion: After the opening of his first store in Hong Kong in 1994, David Tang went on to open his second store in New York City three years later. However this New York retail operation was a financial disaster. Barely nineteen months after the opening, the store was shut down and quietly relocated to a cheaper location of Madison Avenue. Despite this failure, Shanghai Tang products found numerous followers especially among Western tourists and became "souvenir-like" must-haves. However, despite its strong brand DNA, the brand did not generate enough repeated sales and over the years the company cumulated heavy debts and became unprofitable. Revitalizing: After its purchase by Richemont in 1998, Le Masne de Chermont was appointed to lead the company, reposition the brand and undertake some major strategic changes such as revising the "Shanghai Tang" designs to appeal not only to Westerners but also to Chinese consumers, and to open new stores around the world. Since then, Shanghai Tang has become synonymous to a modern Chinese luxury lifestyle brand.

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Evolution of Relationship Marketing in the New Reality: Focused on the Pervasiveness of Digital New Media and the Enlargement of Customer Participation (21세기 새로운 현실에서 Relationship Marketing의 진화: 디지털 뉴미디어 환경의 보편화와 고객 참여의 고도화를 중심으로)

  • Lim, Jong Won;Cho, Ho Hyeon;Lee, Jeong Hoon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.105-137
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    • 2012
  • After relationship marketing emerged as a new approach in the marketing field in the 1980s, it has been widely studied in the United States, Europe and Asia. Rapid environmental changes and global competition has made it inevitable for companies to consider their relationships with the environment more closely. Under these circumstances, relationship marketing has held a position as a pivotal paradigm in the field of strategy as well as in marketing. In addition, relationship marketing has overcome the limitations of a traditional marketing research while providing richer implications in company's marketing activities. The paradigm shift to relationship marketing has brought fundamental changes in a marketing point of view. First, in philosophical aspects, unlike past research which focused solely on customer satisfaction, organizational relationship parameters which focuses on trust and commitment has become key elements of successful relationship marketing while shifts in thoughts naturally take place from adaptive marketing to strategic marketing. Second, in structural aspects, the relational mechanism of governance such as network structure with a variety of relational partners has emerged as a new marketing organization from the previous simple structure focusing on the micro-economic, marketbased trading between seller and customer. Third, in behavioral aspects, it proposed the strategic course of the action of gaining an advantage over the competition on the individual firm level by focusing on building long-term relationships and considering partnership with the components in the entire marketing system, rather than with one-time transaction-centric action between a seller and a customer. Fourth, in the aspects of marketing performance, marketing performance was sought through the long-term and cooperative relationship with various stakeholders, including customers in the marketing system, focusing on the overall competitive advantage based on relationship rather than individual performance of individual companies' marketing activities, such as market share and customer satisfaction. However, studies of relationship marketing were mostly centered in interorganizational relationships focusing on the relational structure and properties of commercial sector in the marketing system. Paradoxically, the circumstance of the consumer's side that must be considered is evolving again in relationship marketing. In structural aspects, a community, as the new relationship governance structure in the digital environment, and in behavioral aspects, the changing role of consumer participation demanding big changes in the digital environment engaged in the marketing system. The possibility of building a relationship marketing community for common value creation is presented in terms of organization of consumers with the focus on changing marketing environment and marketing system according to the new realities of the 21st century- the popularity of digital environments and the diffusion of customer participation. Therefore, future research of relationship marketing must seek for a truly integrated model including all of the existing structure and properties of the research oriented relationship from both the commercial and consumer sector.

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The Determination of Trust in Franchisor-Franchisee Relationships in China (중국 프랜차이즈 시스템에서의 본부와 가맹점간 신뢰의 영향요인)

  • Shin, Geon-Cheol;Ma, Yaokun
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.65-88
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    • 2008
  • Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

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Brand Equity and Purchase Intention in Fashion Products: A Cross-Cultural Study in Asia and Europe (상표자산과 구매의도와의 관계에 관한 국제비교연구 - 아시아와 유럽의 의류시장을 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Kyung-Hoon;Ko, Eun-Ju;Graham, Hooley;Lee, Nick;Lee, Dong-Hae;Jung, Hong-Seob;Jeon, Byung-Joo;Moon, Hak-Il
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.245-276
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    • 2008
  • Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

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