• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.45 no.3
• /
• pp.292-303
• /
• 2021

This study identifies the terms frequently used together with energy in online science news articles and topics of the news reports to find out how the term energy is used in everyday life and to draw implications for science curriculum and instruction about energy. A total of 2,171 online news articles in science category published by 11 major newspaper companies in Korea for one year from March 1, 2018 were selected by using energy as a search term. As a result of natural language processing, a total of 51,224 sentences consisting of 507,901 words were compiled for analysis. Using the R program, term frequency analysis, semantic network analysis, and structural topic modeling were performed. The results show that the terms with exceptionally high frequencies were technology, research, and development, which reflected the characteristics of news articles that report new findings. On the other hand, terms used more than once per two articles were industry-related terms (industry, product, system, production, market) and terms that were sufficiently expected as energy-related terms such as 'electricity' and 'environment.' Meanwhile, 'sun', 'heat', 'temperature', and 'power generation', which are frequently used in energy-related science classes, also appeared as terms belonging to the highest frequency. From a network analysis, two clusters were found including terms related to industry and technology and terms related to basic science and research. From the analysis of terms paired with energy, it was also found that terms related to the use of energy such as 'energy efficiency,' 'energy saving,' and 'energy consumption' were the most frequently used. Out of 16 topics found, four contexts of energy were drawn including 'high-tech industry,' 'industry,' 'basic science,' and 'environment and health.' The results suggest that the introduction of the concept of energy degradation as a starting point for energy classes can be effective. It also shows the need to introduce high-tech industries or the context of environment and health into energy learning.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.32 no.12
• /
• pp.919-928
• /
• 2022

As seen in the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpected emergence of new viruses presents serious concern on public health. Especially, the absence of effective vaccines or antiviral drugs against emerging viruses significantly increases the severity of disease and duration of viral circulation among population. Natural products have served as a major source for safe and effective antiviral drugs. In this study, we examined the virucidal activity of medical herb extracts with a view to discover novel antiviral agents with desired levels of safety and antiviral efficacy. Ethanol extracts of ten selected medical herbs were tested for antioxidant activity and in-vitro cytotoxicity in various animal cell lines. Of note, the herbal extracts showed broad and potent virucidal activities against rotavirus, hepatitis A virus, and influenza A virus. The extracts of Sorbus commixta and Glycyrrhiza uralensis showed strong virucidal activities against influenza A virus. We also examined whether the extracts of Sorbus commixta and Glycyrrhiza uralensis can be used as inactivating agents to prepare an inactivated viral vaccine. In a mouse model, influenza A virus inactivated by the extracts elicited high levels of neutralizing antibodies, and the vaccination provided complete protection against lethal challenge. These results suggest that herb-derived natural products can be developed to antiviral drugs as well as inactivating agents for preparation of inactivated viral vaccines.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.186-200
• /
• 2023

This study aims to improve the usability of the white cane, which is walking equipment that most local visually impaired people use and carry when going out, and to contribute to the prevention of safety accidents and the walking rights of visually impaired people by providing improvement and resolution measures for the problems identified. Also, this study is a study on the visually impaired, primarily targeting the 1st to 2nd degree visually impaired people, who cannot go out on their own without walking equipment such as a white cane, corresponding to 20% among approximately 250,000 blind and low vision people in the Korean population. In the study process, the concept has been developed from the user's point of view in order that the white cane becomes a real help in the walking step of the visually impaired and the improvement of usability of the white cane, the main walking equipment for the visually impaired, are done by problem identification through the Double Diamond Model of Design Thinking (Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test (verify)). As a result of the investigation in the process of Empathy, a total of five issues was synthesized, including an increase in the proportion of the visually impaired people, an insufficient workforce situation to help all the visually impaired, an improvement and advancement of assistive devices essential for the visually impaired, problems of damage, illegal occupation, demolition, maintenance about braille blocks, making braille block paradigms for the visually impaired and for everyone. In Ideate and Prototype steps, situations derived from brainstorming were grouped and the relationship were made through the KJ method, and specific situations and major causes were organized to establish the direction of the concept. The derived solutions and major functions are defined in four categories, and representative situations requiring solutions and major functions are organized into two user scenarios. Ideas were visualized by arranging the virtual Persona and Customer Journey Map according to the situation and producing a prototype through 3D modeling. Finally, in the evaluation, the final concept derived is a device such a smart cane for guidance for the visually impaired as ① a smart cane emphasizing portability + ② compatibility with other electronic devices + ③ a product with safety and convenience.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.53-81
• /
• 2010

Brand experience has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume and use brands, they are exposed to various specific brand-related stimuli. These brand-related stimuli include brand identity and brand communications(e.g., colors, shapes, designs, slogans, mascots, brand characters) components. Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello(2009) conceptualized brand experience as subjective and internal consumer responses evoked by brand-related stimuli. They demonstrated that brand experience can be broken down into four dimensions(sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral). Because experiences result from stimulations and lead to pleasurable outcomes, we expect consumers to want to repeat theses experiences. That is, brand experiences, stored in consumer memory, should affect brand loyalty. Consumers with positive experiences should be more likely to buy a brand again and less likely to buy an alternative brand(Fournier 1998; Oliver 1997). Brand attachment, one of dimensions of the consumer-brand relationship, is defined as an emotional bond to the specific brand(Thomson, MacInnis, and Park 2005). Brand attachment is target-specific bond between the consumer and the specific brand. Thus, strong attachment is attended by a rich set of schema that link the brand to the consumer. Previous researches propose that brand attachments should affect consumers' commitment to the brand. Brand experience differs from affective construct such as brand attachment. Brand attachment is based on interaction between a consumer and the brand. In contrast, brand experience occurs whenever there is a direct and indirect interaction with the brand. Furthermore, brand experience is not an emotional relationship concept. Brakus et al.(2009) suggest that brand experience may result in brand attachment. This study aims to distinguish brand experience dimensions and investigate the effects of brand experience on brand attachment and brand commitment. We test research problems with data from 265 customers having brand experiences in various product categories by using multiple regression and structural equation model. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. First, the paths from affective, behavior, and intellectual experience to the brand attachment were found to be positively significant whereas the effect of sensory experience to brand attachment was not supported. In the consumer literature, sensory experiences for consumers are often equated with aesthetic pleasure. Over time, these pleasure experiences can affect consumer satisfaction. However, sensory pleasures are not linked to attachment such as consumers' strong emotional bond(i.e., hot affect). These empirical results confirms the results of previous studies. Second, brand attachment including passion and connection influences brand commitment positively but affection does not influence brand commitment. In marketing context, consumers with brand attachment have intention to have a willingness to stay with the relationship. The results also imply that consumers' emotional attachment is characterized by a set of brand experience dimensions and consumers who are emotionally attached to the brand are committed. The findings of this research contribute to develop differences between brand experience and brand attachment and to provide practical implications on the brand experience management. Recently, many brand managers have focused on short-term view. According to this study, we suggest that effective brand experience management requires taking a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.217-240
• /
• 2023

For a while, Functional cosmetics, Cosmeceutical cosmetics, and Derma cosmetics have gained trust and become popular due to the consumers' strong interest in ingredients & efficacy. It's remarkable that Clean or Vegan brands are growing fast because they are emphasizing on different values from the other cosmetic brands. It's needed to attempt to analyze the influence relationship between consumer lifestyle and social value in these changes, and to find out whether the consumption of vegan cosmetics is related to satisfying the need for self-expression in a social atmosphere where ESG is emphasized on. This study analyzed the effect of lifestyle types and self-expression needs on the purchase intention of vegan cosmetics by mediating social values for cosmetics consumers. Lifestyle types were classified into appearance-oriented, health-oriented, and fashion-oriented. For empirical analysis, 321 questionnaires collected from cosmetics consumers living across the country were used. SPSS v26.0 and PROCESS macro v4.2 were used to analyze based on a single mediating model as a single mediator. As a result of the analysis, first, lifestyle types and self-expression needs, excluding appearance-oriented types, were found to have a positive (+) effect on social values. Second, it was found that social value had a positive (+) significant effect on the purchase intention of vegan cosmetics. Third, appearance-oriented, health-oriented, trend-seeking lifestyle types and self-expression needs were all found to have a positive (+) effect on the purchase intention of vegan cosmetics. Fourth, social values were found to mediate lifestyle types, self-expression needs, and purchase intentions, except for appearance-oriented types. Appearance-oriented consumers do not directly affect social values but affect purchase intentions, suggesting that appearance-oriented consumers may not be significantly affected by product-related social values. In a comparison of the relative influence size using standardization coefficients, self-expression needs had the greatest impact on the purchase intention of vegan cosmetics when mediating social values, and health-oriented ones had the least impact. The academic implications of this study include contributing to consumer behavior research by providing insights, mediation mechanisms, and consideration of the niche consumer sector, and directing further research into the cosmetics industry beyond forming marketing strategies and sustainable business practices.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.1-20
• /
• 2023

This study attempted to identify the relationship between the investment determinants of accelerators and investment performance through empirical analysis. Through literature review, four dimensions and 12 measurement items were extracted for investment determinants, which are independent variables, and investment performance was adjusted to the cumulative amount of subsequent investment based on previous studies. Performance data from 594 companies selected by TIPS from 2017 to 2019, which are relatively reliable and easy to secure data, were collected, and the subsequent investment cumulative attraction amount, which is a dependent variable, was hypothesized through multiple regression analysis three years after the investment. As a result of the study, 'industrial experience years' in the characteristics of founders, 'market size', 'market growth', 'competitive strength', and 'number of patents' in the characteristics of products and services had a significant positive (+) effect. The impact of independent variables on dependent variables was most influenced by the competitive strength of market characteristics, followed by the number of years of industrial experience, the number of patents, the size of the market, and market growth. This was different from the results of previous studies conducted mainly on qualitative research methods, and in most previous studies, the characteristics of founders were the most important, but the empirical analysis results were market characteristics. As a sub-factor, the intensity of competition, which was the subordinate to the importance of previous studies, had the greatest influence in empirical analysis. The academic significance of this study is that it presented a specific methodology to collect and build 594 empirical samples in the absence of empirical research on accelerator investment determinants, and created an opportunity to expand the theoretical discussion of investment determinants through causal research. In practice, the information asymmetry and uncertainty of startups that accelerators have can help them make effective investment decisions by establishing a systematic model of experience-dependent investment determinants.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
• /
• v.66
• /
• pp.416-423
• /
• 2023

Figs has known to have antioxidant, whitening, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial effects in their leaves, roots, stems, latex, and fruits. In order to develop cosmetic materials based on natural products, we have studied on the skin activity of the ficin in latex as well as the whitening function of the fruit extract with 70% ethanol, and used it as a raw material for released cosmetic product. However, there is little research on the demand for the development of new eutectic solvent extraction methods and its ability to control skin inflammation and psoriasis regulation. Thus, in this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of fig fruit extracts and fractions using eutectic solvent extraction for skin inflammation control and psoriasis. First, fig fruits were extracted under optimal eutectic solvent conditions and fractionated with n-hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and butanol. First, the antioxidant activity and inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) production were confirmed in mouse macrophage RAW264.7 cells. In addition, as a result of observing the mRNA expression through RT-PCR, pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL1α, and IL-1β were suppressed significantly in the hexane, dichloromethane, and ethyl acetate fractions. In addition, it was confirmed in TNF-α stimulated HaCaT keratinocyte model. Finally, chemokine CC motif ligand 20 (CCL20), marker gene of human psoriasis skin disease, was significantly suppressed in the hexane, dichloromethane, and ethyl acetate fractions. These results suggested its anti-inflammatory and skin soothing effect and the possibility of development as an excellent skin soothing natural cosmetic material in the future through future clinical trials.

• Journal of Distribution Research
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.65-93
• /
• 2011

As relationship between buyer and seller has been brought closer and long-term relationship has been more important in B2B markets, the importance of service and service convenience increases as well as product. In homogeneous markets, where service offerings are similar and therefore not key competitive differentiator, providing greater convenience may enable a competitive advantage. Service convenience, as conceptualized by Berry et al. (2002), is defined as the consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. For this reason, B2B customers are interested in how fast the service is provided and how much save non-monetary cost like time or effort by the service convenience along with service quality. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of service convenience on relationship factors such as relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The purpose of this study is to find out whether service convenience can be a new antecedent of relationship quality and relationship performance. In addition, this study tries to examine how five-dimensional service convenience constructs (decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affect customers' relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The service convenience comprises five fundamental components - decision convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with service purchase or use decisions), access convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with initiating service delivery), transaction convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with finalizing the transaction), benefit convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with experiencing the core benefits of the offering) and post-benefit convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with reestablishing subsequent contact with the firm). Earlier studies of perceived service convenience in the industrial market are none. The conventional studies that have dealt with service convenience have usually been made in the consumer market, or they have dealt with convenience aspects in the service process. This service convenience measure for consumer market can be useful tool to estimate service quality in B2B market. The conceptualization developed by Berry et al. (2002) reflects a multistage, experiential consumption process in which evaluations of convenience vary at each stage. For this reason, the service convenience measure is good for B2B service environment which has complex processes and various types. Especially when categorizing B2B service as sequential stage of service delivery like Kumar and Kumar (2004), the Berry's service convenience measure which reflect sequential flow of service deliveries suitable to establish B2B service convenience. For this study, data were gathered from respondents who often buy business service and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study is 119. Composite reliability values and average variance extracted values were examined for each variable to have reliability. We determine whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity by CFA, and discriminant validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix of the constructs. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the Smart PLS 2.0 and we calculated the PLS path values and followed with a bootstrap re-sampling method to test the hypotheses. Among the five dimensional service convenience constructs, four constructs (decision convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affected customers' positive relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. This result means that service convenience is important cue to improve relationship between buyer and seller. One of the five service convenience dimensions, access convenience, does not affect relationship quality and performance, which implies that the dimension of service convenience is not important factor of cumulative satisfaction. The Cumulative satisfaction can be distinguished from transaction-specific customer satisfaction, which is an immediate post-purchase evaluative judgment or an affective reaction to the most recent transactional experience with the firm. Because access convenience minimizes the physical effort associated with initiating an exchange, the effect on relationship satisfaction similar to cumulative satisfaction may be relatively low in terms of importance than transaction-specific customer satisfaction. Also, B2B firms focus on service quality, price, benefit, follow-up service and so on than convenience of time or place in service because it is relatively difficult to change existing transaction partners in B2B market compared to consumer market. In addition, this study using partial least squares methods reveals that customers' satisfaction and commitment toward relationship has mediating role between the service convenience and relationship performance. The result shows that management and investment to improve service convenience make customers' positive relationship satisfaction, and then the positive relationship satisfaction can enhance the relationship commitment and relationship performance. And to conclude, service convenience management is an important part of successful relationship performance management, and the service convenience is an important antecedent of relationship between buyer and seller such as the relationship commitment and relationship performance. Therefore, it has more important to improve relationship performance that service providers enhance service convenience although competitive service development or service quality improvement is important. Given the pressure to provide increased convenience, it is not surprising that organizations have made significant investments in enhancing the convenience aspect of their product and service offering.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2010

At the initial stage of Internet advertising, banner advertising came into fashion. As the Internet developed into a central part of daily lives and the competition in the on-line advertising market was getting fierce, there was not enough space for banner advertising, which rushed to portal sites only. All these factors was responsible for an upsurge in advertising prices. Consequently, the high-cost and low-efficiency problems with banner advertising were raised, which led to an emergence of keyword advertising as a new type of Internet advertising to replace its predecessor. In the beginning of 2000s, when Internet advertising came to be activated, display advertisement including banner advertising dominated the Net. However, display advertising showed signs of gradual decline, and registered minus growth in the year 2009, whereas keyword advertising showed rapid growth and started to outdo display advertising as of the year 2005. Keyword advertising refers to the advertising technique that exposes relevant advertisements on the top of research sites when one searches for a keyword. Instead of exposing advertisements to unspecified individuals like banner advertising, keyword advertising, or targeted advertising technique, shows advertisements only when customers search for a desired keyword so that only highly prospective customers are given a chance to see them. In this context, it is also referred to as search advertising. It is regarded as more aggressive advertising with a high hit rate than previous advertising in that, instead of the seller discovering customers and running an advertisement for them like TV, radios or banner advertising, it exposes advertisements to visiting customers. Keyword advertising makes it possible for a company to seek publicity on line simply by making use of a single word and to achieve a maximum of efficiency at a minimum cost. The strong point of keyword advertising is that customers are allowed to directly contact the products in question through its more efficient advertising when compared to the advertisements of mass media such as TV and radio, etc. The weak point of keyword advertising is that a company should have its advertisement registered on each and every portal site and finds it hard to exercise substantial supervision over its advertisement, there being a possibility of its advertising expenses exceeding its profits. Keyword advertising severs as the most appropriate methods of advertising for the sales and publicity of small and medium enterprises which are in need of a maximum of advertising effect at a low advertising cost. At present, keyword advertising is divided into CPC advertising and CPM advertising. The former is known as the most efficient technique, which is also referred to as advertising based on the meter rate system; A company is supposed to pay for the number of clicks on a searched keyword which users have searched. This is representatively adopted by Overture, Google's Adwords, Naver's Clickchoice, and Daum's Clicks, etc. CPM advertising is dependent upon the flat rate payment system, making a company pay for its advertisement on the basis of the number of exposure, not on the basis of the number of clicks. This method fixes a price for advertisement on the basis of 1,000-time exposure, and is mainly adopted by Naver's Timechoice, Daum's Speciallink, and Nate's Speedup, etc, At present, the CPC method is most frequently adopted. The weak point of the CPC method is that advertising cost can rise through constant clicks from the same IP. If a company makes good use of strategies for maximizing the strong points of keyword advertising and complementing its weak points, it is highly likely to turn its visitors into prospective customers. Accordingly, an advertiser should make an analysis of customers' behavior and approach them in a variety of ways, trying hard to find out what they want. With this in mind, her or she has to put multiple keywords into use when running for ads. When he or she first runs an ad, he or she should first give priority to which keyword to select. The advertiser should consider how many individuals using a search engine will click the keyword in question and how much money he or she has to pay for the advertisement. As the popular keywords that the users of search engines are frequently using are expensive in terms of a unit cost per click, the advertisers without much money for advertising at the initial phrase should pay attention to detailed keywords suitable to their budget. Detailed keywords are also referred to as peripheral keywords or extension keywords, which can be called a combination of major keywords. Most keywords are in the form of texts. The biggest strong point of text-based advertising is that it looks like search results, causing little antipathy to it. But it fails to attract much attention because of the fact that most keyword advertising is in the form of texts. Image-embedded advertising is easy to notice due to images, but it is exposed on the lower part of a web page and regarded as an advertisement, which leads to a low click through rate. However, its strong point is that its prices are lower than those of text-based advertising. If a company owns a logo or a product that is easy enough for people to recognize, the company is well advised to make good use of image-embedded advertising so as to attract Internet users' attention. Advertisers should make an analysis of their logos and examine customers' responses based on the events of sites in question and the composition of products as a vehicle for monitoring their behavior in detail. Besides, keyword advertising allows them to analyze the advertising effects of exposed keywords through the analysis of logos. The logo analysis refers to a close analysis of the current situation of a site by making an analysis of information about visitors on the basis of the analysis of the number of visitors and page view, and that of cookie values. It is in the log files generated through each Web server that a user's IP, used pages, the time when he or she uses it, and cookie values are stored. The log files contain a huge amount of data. As it is almost impossible to make a direct analysis of these log files, one is supposed to make an analysis of them by using solutions for a log analysis. The generic information that can be extracted from tools for each logo analysis includes the number of viewing the total pages, the number of average page view per day, the number of basic page view, the number of page view per visit, the total number of hits, the number of average hits per day, the number of hits per visit, the number of visits, the number of average visits per day, the net number of visitors, average visitors per day, one-time visitors, visitors who have come more than twice, and average using hours, etc. These sites are deemed to be useful for utilizing data for the analysis of the situation and current status of rival companies as well as benchmarking. As keyword advertising exposes advertisements exclusively on search-result pages, competition among advertisers attempting to preoccupy popular keywords is very fierce. Some portal sites keep on giving priority to the existing advertisers, whereas others provide chances to purchase keywords in question to all the advertisers after the advertising contract is over. If an advertiser tries to rely on keywords sensitive to seasons and timeliness in case of sites providing priority to the established advertisers, he or she may as well make a purchase of a vacant place for advertising lest he or she should miss appropriate timing for advertising. However, Naver doesn't provide priority to the existing advertisers as far as all the keyword advertisements are concerned. In this case, one can preoccupy keywords if he or she enters into a contract after confirming the contract period for advertising. This study is designed to take a look at marketing for keyword advertising and to present effective strategies for keyword advertising marketing. At present, the Korean CPC advertising market is virtually monopolized by Overture. Its strong points are that Overture is based on the CPC charging model and that advertisements are registered on the top of the most representative portal sites in Korea. These advantages serve as the most appropriate medium for small and medium enterprises to use. However, the CPC method of Overture has its weak points, too. That is, the CPC method is not the only perfect advertising model among the search advertisements in the on-line market. So it is absolutely necessary that small and medium enterprises including independent shopping malls should complement the weaknesses of the CPC method and make good use of strategies for maximizing its strengths so as to increase their sales and to create a point of contact with customers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.209-237
• /
• 2012

1. Research Purpose Consumers rely on various clues to evaluate their decision to patronize a retail store, and store brand is one of them (Dodds 1991; Grewal et al. 1998). As consumers find ever increasing variety of contact points connecting them to specific store, the value of experiential shopping as a means of increasing store's brand equity warrants greater attention from scholars of retail management. Retail shopping values are credited for creating not only cognitive experiences like brand knowledge but also emotional experiences such as shopping pleasure and pride (Schmitt 1999). This may be because today's consumers place emphasis on emotional values associated with shopping pleasure, lifestyle brought to life, brand relationship, and store atmosphere more than utilitarian values such as product quality and price. Many previous literature found this to be true (Ahn and Lee 2011; Mathwick et al. 2001). This brings forth important research issues and questions regarding the roles of shopping experiential values and brand equity with regard to consumer's retail patronage choice. However, despite this importance, research on this area remains quite inadequate (Hwang 2010). For this reason, this study aims to verify the relationships among experiential shopping values, retail store brand equity and tries to link that with customer loyalty by surveying large-scale discount store shoppers in Korea and China. 2. Research Contents In order to carry out the research objective, this study conducted comprehensive literature survey on previous literature by discussing major findings and implications with regard to shopping values and retail brand equity and store loyalty. For data collection, researcher employed survey-based research method where data were collected in two major cities of Korea (Seoul) and China (Bejing) and sampling frame was based on patrons of large discount stores in both countries. Specific research questions raised in this study are as follows; RQ1: How do Korean and Chinese consumers differently perceive of shopping values regarding shopping at large-sclae discount stores? RQ2: Are there differences in consumers' emotional consumption propensities? RQ3: Do Korean and Chinese consumers display different perceptions of brand equity towards large-scale discount stores? RQ4: Are there differences in relationships between shopping values and brand equity for Korean and Chinese consumers? For statistical analysis, SPSS17.0, AMOS17.0 and SmartPLS were employed. 3. Research Results The data collected through face-to-face survey conducted in Seoul and Bejing revealed appropriate data validity and reliability as a result of exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests, andh SEM model yielding satisfactory model fitness. The result of the study may be summarized by three main points. First, as a result of testing differences in consumption dispositions, Chinese consumers showed higher scores in aesthetic and symbolic dispositions, whereas Korean consumers scored higher in hedonic disposition. Second, testing on perceptions toward brand equity of large discount stores showed that Korean consumers exhibited more positive perceptions of brand awareness and brand image than Chinese counterparts. Third, the result of exploratory factor analysis on the experiential shopping values revealed different factors for each country. On Korean side, consumer interest value, aesthetic value, and hedonic value were prominent, whereas on Chinese side, hedonic value, aesthetic value, consumer interest value, and service excellence value were found salient. 4. Research Implications While many previous studies on inter-country differences in retailing area mainly focused on cultural dispositions or orientations to explain the differences, this study sets itself apart by specifically targeting individual consumer's shopping values from an experiential viewpoint. The study result provides important theoretical as well as practical implications for large-scale discount store, especially the impotance of fully exploring the linkage between shopping values and brand equity, which has significant influence on loyalty. Therefore, the specific implications deriving from the result shed some important insights upon the consumption values based on shopping experiences and brand equity. The differences found in store shoppers between the two countries may also provide useful insights for Korean and Chinese retailers who plan to expand their operations globally. Related strategic implications derived from this study is the importance of localizing retail strategy which is based on the differences found in experiential shopping values between the two country groups. Especially the finding that Chinese consumers value consumer interest and service excellence, whereas Koreans place importance on hedonic or aesthetic values indicates the need to differentiate the consumer's psychographical profiles when it comes to expanding retail operations globally. Particularly important will be to pursue price-orienated strategy in China in consideration of the high emphasis on consumer interests and service excellence, but to emphasize the symbolic aspects of brand equity in Korea by maximizing the brand equity associated with aesthetic values and hedonic orientations. 5. Recommendations This study focused on generic retail branded discount stores in both countries, thus making it difficult to tease out store-specific strategies based on specific retail brands. Future studies may benefit fro employing actual brand names in survey questionnaire to verify relationship between shopping values and brand-based store strategy. As with other studies of this nature, this study needs to strengthen the result's generalizability by selecting respondents from a wider spectrum of respondents.