• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.7-16
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• 2018

Purpose - This research addresses the question of how an international retailer like Costco can succeed in a foreign mature market and satisfy the local consumers. Our study aims to promote our understanding of how foreign retailers influence local consumers in a mature market with differentiated business models. Research design, data, and methodology - Our study uses company publications, secondary sources of information and the results of a questionnaire survey consisting of 106 participants. Consumer responses were solicited through a questionnaire survey conducted in the city of Kobe in December of 2013. Results - Product differentiation from local retailers in a mature market like Japan gave Costco a competitive edge. Compared with local supermarkets, Costco was preferred by Japanese consumers for its variety of goods that it carries, as well as in-store promotion large package of selling units, in-store amenities, and customer services. Conclusions - First, a theoretical framework is proposed in this study that can aid in developing localization strategies in a mature market such as Japan. Second, it reveals that an international retailer can succeed in a foreign market by stimulating local consumers to change their purchasing behavior, without having to alter the prevailing format of operation.

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

• Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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• 1998.08a
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• pp.1-3
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• 1998

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.89-99
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• 2023

Purpose: This study explores the relationship between future time perspective and older consumers' masstige product consumption, specifically, their intention to purchase masstige brand products, with a focus on their motivational drives from an functional value and symbolic value perspective. Research design, data and methodology: Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 419 people aged 54 to 64 years in South Korea and the hypotheses were examined using structural equation modeling. Results: Our results indicated that middle-aged and older consumers who have expanded future time perspective have higher intention to purchase masstige brands and their functional value and symbolic value of masstige brands were found to mediate future time perspective and intention to purchase masstige brands. Conclusions: The findings offer insights into masstige brand consumption by older South Korean consumers that may be useful for both academics and marketers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.49
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• pp.65-72
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between body-calthexis and clothing image preferences in male college students. The sample included 28 male college students and an instrument was developed based on the previous studies. The statistical analyses used for this study were factor analysis cluster analysis and t-test. The result of factor analysis showed that body-cathexis consisted of four areas of body parts: face/head upper body middle body and lower/total body. Clothing image preferences consisted of 'strong vs weak' 'soft vs hard' 'young vs mature' 'mannis vs feminine' and 'distinguished vs undistinguished' images. Cluster analysis revealed that male college students are segmented into two groups. and the two groups differed in regard to clothing image preferences such as 'strong vs weak' 'young vs mature' and 'mannish vs feminine' images. In addition the two consumer segments were different concerning body-cathexis for middle body and all body areas combined. The consumers who preferred feminine weak and mature clothing images were more satisfied with their middle area of the bodies and all body areas combined.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.37-55
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• 2022

This paper takes the factors influencing consumers' purchase of organic agricultural products before and after the COVID-19 epidemic as the starting point, decomposes Chinese consumers' purchase behavior of organic agricultural products into questionnaire surveys before and after the COVID-19 epidemic with the help of the theory of planned behavior, and builds structural equation regression models to compare and analyze them respectively. The study investigates whether this change has any impact on consumers' purchasing behavior of organic agricultural products, and proposes rationalized countermeasures from different perspectives based on the results of the study. To this end, this study collected 219 valid questionnaires by combing through domestic and international literature and referring to scholars' mature scales for measurement. The results showed that consumers' attitudes, subjective norms and perceptual behavioral control of organic agricultural products before and after the COVID-19 epidemic had a significant positive effect on consumers' willingness to purchase; however, it can be seen that the intervention of the COVID-19 epidemic event has significantly improved consumers' attitudes, subjective norms and perceptual behavioral control of organic agricultural products.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.723-743
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• 2022

Beef muscles from mature cows and bulls, especially those originating from the extremities of the carcass, are considered as underutilized due to unsatisfactory palatability. However, beef from culled animals comprises a substantial proportion of the total slaughter in the US and globally. Modern consumers typically favor cuts suitable for fast, dry-heat cookery, thereby creating challenges for the industry to market inherently tough muscles. In general, cull cow beef would be categorized as having a lower extent of postmortem proteolysis compared to youthful carcasses, coupled with a high amount of background toughness. The extent of cross-linking and resulting insolubility of intramuscular connective tissues typically serves as the limiting factor for tenderness development of mature beef. Thus, numerous post-harvest strategies have been developed to improve the quality and palatability attributes, often aimed at overcoming deficiencies in tenderness through enhancing the degradation of myofibrillar and stromal proteins or physically disrupting the tissue structure. The aim of this review is to highlight existing and recent innovations in the field that have been demonstrated as effective to enhance the tenderness and palatability traits of mature beef during the chilling and postmortem aging processes, as well as the use of physical interventions and enhancement.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.175-197
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• 1998

High quality-oriented consumers, new rationalism and concept-oriented consumption followed by high sensitivity fashion market are embossing the importance of fashion M.D. This study has a purpose to make practical and general approach to consumers' taste, trend receptivity, the propensity to consume, and how they are practically connected with market strategy. As a results of this study, First niche market, targeting a new consumer group, is embossed as consumers have new fashion lifestyle. Second, we need a strategy to fractionize fashion by developing concepts suitable for consumers' each scene, not by following radical trends for mature consumers. Third, to satisfy consumers' propensity to originally, we need to establish the identity of Korean original goods which can compete with world-famous brands.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.151-171
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• 2010

This paper investigates the consumer arbitration practices In the U.S. The key issue in consumer arbitration is how to protect the individual consumers from the loss of their legal rights stemming from the arbitration agreement with the business. In the U.S., the major legal doctrines to protect individual consumer include the voluntary-knowing-intelligent doctrine, unconscionability doctrine, and void contract. Even though the US courts are favorable to the enforceability of arbitration agreement, they strictly apply the contract law theories in deciding the existence of arbitration agreement, providing a strong common law protection for the consumers in arbitration. However, the practices for protection of consumers in arbitration in Korea are not mature yet. If consumer arbitration is widely adopted into B to C contracts, a protective measure for individual consumer can be found in the Act of Clause Regulation providing that the business has duty to explain the relevant clause in the adhesive contracts.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.469-479
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• 2008

This study analyzes factors affecting the competitiveness of broadband over power line communication (BPLC) and predicts demand for the service, based on quantitative information about consumer preferences drawn from a survey of Korean consumers. Findings from the estimation suggest that, although consumers value some beneficial features of BPLC, to be competitive the speed and stability of its data transmission needs to be improved. Moreover, on the basis of a market simulation, we expect BPLC to occupy only a small portion of Korea's Internet access market in the future, a finding we expect would hold true for other developed countries whose Internet access markets are already mature.