• 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.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.99-130
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• 2012

Service failure and a poor service recovery may lead loyal customers to try to aggressively punish the service firm. We use perceived betrayal and desire for vengeance as the key constructs to understand customer retaliation. Perceived betrayal is defined as a customer's belief that a firm has intentionally violated what is normative in the context of their relationship. And the desire for vengeance is defined as the retaliatory feelings that consumers feel toward a firm, such as the desire to exert harm on the firm. The perceived betrayal and the desire for vengeance are key antecedents of retaliatory behaviors such as vindictive complaining, negative WOM and third-party complaining for publicity. The empirical results suggest that betrayal is a key motivational factor that lead customers to restore fairness by making use of all means, including retaliation. We also find that relationship quality has effect on a customer's response to a failure in service recovery. As the levels of relationship increases, a violation of the proper fairness has a stronger effect on the sense of betrayal experienced by customers. Considerable research has investigated consumer responses to dissatisfaction. But our study examine the response of outraged and highly frustrated consumers. We focus on emotional and behavioral processes that have not been covered by previous dissatisfaction researches and which are unique to outraged consumers caused by extremely dissatisfied purchase experience. It has recently been pointed out by various mass media that the customers not only have positive effects on the company performance but also put the company in crisis. It has often been reported that one customer's dissatisfaction, for example, never ends as it is, and it tends to grow for retaliating upon the company, depending on the level of seriousness of the dissatisfaction. This sometimes leads to a lawsuit against the company. Our study focuses on the customers' emotional and behavioral responses induced by their extreme dissatisfactions. We divided the customer groups into the customers with high relationship quality and the customers with low relationship quality, and the difference between two groups is examined. The objective of this study is to comprehend the causal relationship between the feeling of betrayal caused by the service failure and the retaliatory behavior triggered by the desire of revenge. Our study is divided into three parts. First, a causal relationship between perceived unfairness and the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge. Second, the effect of the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge on the retaliatory behavior is investigated. Finally, the moderating role of relationship quality in the causal relationship between the unfairness in service recovery and the perceived betrayal is analyzed. This study finds the following empirical results. The distributive unfairness, procedural unfairness and interactional unfairness had significant effects on the perceived betrayal. Especially, the perceived distributive unfairness results in the highest perceived betrayal. When the service company does not provide customers proper and sufficient compensation for the failure, they feel the strong sense of betrayal. And in the causal relationship between the perceived betrayal, desire for revenge and retaliatory behavior, the perceived betrayal has significant effects on e desire for revenge. In addition desire for revenge has significant effects on negative word of mouth, retaliatory complaining behavior and publicity of complaints through third group. Therefore the perceived unfairness has effects on retaliatory behavior through the mediation of the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge. Finally the moderating role of relationship quality was examined in the relationship between the unfairness and perceived betrayal. If the customers experienced the perceived unfairness in the process of service recovery, the customers with high relationship quality feel the stronger perceived betrayal than the customers with low relationship quality do. When they experience the double service failure, the customer group with high relationship quality accumulating the sense of trust feel the more perceived betrayal than the customer with low relationship quality who do not have strong trust. The contribution of this study is to find the effect of the service failure on the retaliatory behavior with the moderating roles of relationship quality. The dimensions of unfairness in service recovery is found to have differential effects on the perceived betrayal, desire for revenge. And these differential effect is moderated by the level of relationship quality.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.165-171
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• 2006

For several thousand years, Korean ginseng has been used as a medicinal herb in the oriental countries. Korea is the ginseng suzerain and, for that reason, the ginseng as a special crop in Korea has been exported to the world market since the era of the three Kingdoms. Hong Kong is the pivot of ginseng import from all of the world. In 1970s, Korea ginseng had a high market share (about 30%) in Hong Kong. However, recently, the market share of Korean ginseng in Hong Kong has been significantly reduced due to the mass production from China and Canada. Besides, America with aggressive marketing strategy takes the leadership in the international ginseng market in Hong Kong. Therefore, it is necessary for Korea to know and understand world ginseng market condition and situation in Hong Kong. The objective of this study is to identify the actual import situation at international ginseng market in Hong Kong. This study analyzed the ginseng import demand model which effected by several price variables from major importing countries at the international ginseng market in Hong Kong. The findings of this study show that the import price of Korean ginseng has an effect on the quantity of ginseng imported from other countries in Hong Kong. In addition, the quantity of ginseng imported from Korea in Hong Kong is influenced by the import price of ginseng from other countries. In conclusion, Korean ginseng plays an important role at the international ginseng market in Hong Kong.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.443-450
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• 2016

Korean biopharmaceutical industry is a high value-added industries of the country as a key business strategy of the country. The overseas market is accelerating rapidly due to drug demand according to population aging, new drug R&D investment performance visualization, changes in biopharmaceutical R&D center, strategic foreign technology exports, and the active support of government. Therefore, the domestic pharmaceutical companies also should enhance the competitiveness as global pharmaceutical companies and need to build the image of their own company that can be trusted by consumers. This study compared and analyzed visual characteristics shown in the CI symbol mark and age-specific preferences of domestic pharmaceutical companies recognizing the importance of CI as a marketing tool. As a result, preference for the symbol mark had been shown to be significantly higher preference of the old logotype as the age group is higher being proportional to awareness. In addition, the picture-type symbol mark was totally preferred rather than the word mark. Among the picture-type symbol mark, the form of the nature was strongly preferred rather than abstract form. The company also requires a sense of responsibility for recognizing changes in the mass to the globalization. It is hoped that this study will help to develop symbol mark direction as the basis for the identity strategies to improve the image of domestic pharmaceutical companies with global competitiveness.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-30
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• 2003

The recent experience about self-employment shows three main trends: first, its share out of the total workers has steadily increased, recording 37.6% in 2001, implying its prevalence and importance; second, its share out of male workers has caught up female workers', implying its importance to males as well as females; and finally, during the recent Economic Crisis when there was mass layoff and large scale bankruptcy, its share rapidly increased, reflecting its role of a buffer to economic fluctuation. However, there have been few studies on self-employment, mainly focusing on what makes someone choose it as an alternative to being employed. This study analyzes the determinants of the duration to terminate self-employment, by applying the proportional hazard model to the Korea Labor and Income Panel Survey(KLIPS) by the Korea Labor Institute. The KLIPS started the first wave in 1998 with the 5,000 household sample (and about 12,000 individual sample of household members aged 15 and more). In this study, the first four waves are used for analysis. The average duration of 5,357 spells of self-employment is 130 months. It shows slight difference between males(124 months) and females(138 months) while it widely ranges over industries (296 months for agriculture industry while 50 months for restaurant and hotel industry). Estimates of the proportional hazard model of the self-employment duration show that females are more likely to terminate self-employment while it is not statistically significant. The effect of age at starting self-employment on the hazard shows the inverse V-shape, which implies that, until a certain age(47 years), the hazard become higher as aging while, since then, it become lower as aging. The level of education has a positive effect on the hazard, implying that more education is related to the higher probability to be employed. The measures of economic performances, annual sales and earnings, are positively related to continuing self-employment while hardship at the start of self-employment measured by several ways has a negative effect. Training before opening business has a positive effect on keeping on self-employment and its effects are different over its providers, significantly positive for public providers while insignificant for private providers. More and further research on self-employment is urgent in the rapidly ageing society. To help workers to be self-employed, more public assistance is necessary for education, training, financing, marketing, management, and human resource management in order to make the olders consider self-employment as a good alternative rather than an inevitable one.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.1-18
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• 2011

Publication Industry of scientific technology is showing tendency of decreasing in sales, which clearly draws down curve since 2000. The printing culture is declining whether it is because of trend avoiding pure science or technological science and engineering, advancement of mass media or increasing frequency of using internet. Nevertheless, researcher considered car industry in publication industry as a life-long purpose for study. For this reason, the researcher tried to find the variables of the marketing which give impact on the customers such as student group and consumer who buys cars, when buying professional books. The found variables are expected to have a huge impact on the publication industry of professional books. As a result of research, in the area of the vision and motive, most said that they have "chosen a major in car because they liked car in usual base." In the stage of recognizing the problem, they buy the books when it is inevitably necessary. In the stage of searching for the information, they get information from advertisements, friends, professors, internet or sales clerk in book stores. In the stage of evaluation, they look for the title and the publication date of the books. In addition, in the stage of deciding purchase, "buy immediately" was the most frequent answer while impulsive purchase is the least frequent answer. In the stage of evaluating after purchase, many of them mostly are satisfied with their purchase.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 2000

To compare the differences in the recognition on hospital utilization and satisfaction, 368 hospital employees and 485 patients were selected in four hospitals in Seoul and Kyung-gi do. The survey was done using a constructed form of checklist from Apr. 30 to May 10, 1999. And the results are as follows: l. Gaining knowledge of hospitals available among hospital employees differed from that of patients. When finding out about sources of information concerning hospitals, direct visit to the hospital was recognized to be the main factor for the hospital employees in contrast to the patients' recognition which were mass media, personal involvement of job related workplace and recommendations from other hospitals. There was no difference between university and general hospitals. 2. The factors that concern which hospital to choose there was a difference between hospital employees and patients. Hospital employees recommended their own hospital solely based on the reason that it was their work place. On the other hand, the patients made a choice based on the type of medical staff, transportation available and whether it was a university hospital or not. There was no difference between university and general hospitals. 3. The recognition of employees concerning hospital image of a hospital between hospital employees and patients was different. In university hospitals, the employees recognized the name value of university hospital and cooperation as most important, whereas the patients thought convenience, kindness were the main factors. Patients considered general hospitals to be more convenient. There was some difference between university and general hospitals. For university hospitals employees' recognition was higher and for the general hospital patients' recognition is higher on hospital image. 4. The recognition of employees was different from that of patients' on hospital satisfaction. The patients' satisfaction was higher than that of employees'. There was no difference between university and general hospitals. Based on the above findings, the employees' recognition on hospital utilization and satisfaction was different from that of the patients, but there was no difference between university and general hospitals. In both groups choice of hospital was associated with satisfaction. Results showing difference between employees' and patients' recognition can be applied to implement customer-oriented attitude and be used as a baseline data for internal-external marketing planning of hospital management. The study may be limited in that the results cannot be generalized due to its small sample size and not being able to reflect demographic variables and life style. Further studies to investigate the difference of hospital utilization and hospital satisfaction will be necessary to define demographic characteristics and recognition of employees which influences patients' hospital satisfaction.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.51-73
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• 2011

Companies are required to invest in numerous intial marketing costs for establishing brand power, thus, many companies in the foodservice industry are increasing their budgets on communication to strengthen their own brand equity components such as brand recognition, brand royalty, perceived quality and associated image using mass media that has not been used before. For this study, 617 samples were analyzed by such analytic methods as a frequency analysis, cross-tabulation, a factor analysis and a reliability analysis for validity, and a confirmatory factory analysis, a model adequacy evaluation, and a path analysis using AMOS 17.0. The hypothesis verification by the AMOS analysis has revealed that all hypotheses positively influenced contract foodservice brands, and the brand recognition of a university contract foodservice company has an impact on sincerity and refinement. Therefore, positive brand image formation encourages strong brand establishment between a university contract foodservice business and customers, and this study strongly suggests continuous further studies about constructing a positive brand image.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.75-80
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• 2019

Sales of the Korean clothing industry grew to 16.9 percent on-year in 2010, but the growth rate dropped to 3 percent from 2011 to 2016 and the overall market began to slump to 1.1.6 percent in 2017. The competitiveness of clothing companies is also a major sector in logistics capability, and the average logistics cost of domestic clothing companies is 8.3 percent of sales in 2011, higher than the average 8 percent of domestic industries, and 36.4 percent of the total storage cost in 2011, higher than the 28.8 percent share of the total storage cost of domestic companies. As domestic production conditions such as wage hikes and labor disputes worsened in the 1990s, production facilities were rapidly moved overseas, which led many clothing companies to have no production facilities or a minimal production base in Korea and focus on marketing and design capabilities. The total storage capacity and storage efficiency of the logistics center became very important as the products were changed to the form of mass warehousing and small-volume forwarding. Research shows that building column spacing, a model of this research, can affect the amount of hanger rack storage empirically, so for sustainable growth of clothing companies, it is necessary to improve competitiveness in the logistics market by reducing costs and improving efficiency to overcome difficulties in corporate management. Because logistics costs are 8.3 percent and operating profit to sales ratio is 2 percent, it is expected that operating profit will increase by 41.5 percent if logistics costs are reduced by 10 percent. If 10% of storage cost is saved based on storage cost, operating profit is expected to increase by 15% To strengthen the competitiveness of the clothing industry, a reduction in logistics costs is essential. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide hints that logistics experts can have empirically small amounts in reducing storage costs through column spacing adjustment of logistics centers that have not been dealt with statistically until now, and to contribute to the continued growth of clothing companies and the development of the domestic logistics industry.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.401-409
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• 2015

Defects generated in a railroad track that guides the railroad vehicle have the characteristic of growing fast; as such, the detection technology for railroad track defects is very important because defects can eventually cause mass disasters like derailments. In this study, a speed-up test facility was fabricated to investigate the feasibility of using magnetic flux leakage (MFL) technology for defect detection in a railroad track under speed-up condition; a test was conducted using a railroad track specimen with defects. For this purpose, an MFL sensor head dedicated to the configuration of the railroad was designed and test specimens with artificial defects on their surfaces were manufactured. Using the test facility, a speed-up test ranging from 4km/h to 12km/h was performed and defects including locations were successfully detected from MFL signals induced by defects with enhanced visibility by differentiating raw MFL signals. In the future, it should be possible to apply this system to a high-speed railroad inspection car by improving the lift-off stability that is necessary for speed-up of the developed MFL sensor system.