• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.89-111
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• 2008

Due to the development of digital technology, studies regarding smart wear integrating daily life have rapidly increased. However, consumer research about perception and attitude toward smart clothing hardly could find. The purpose of this study was to identify innovative characteristics and perceived risk of smart clothing and to analyze the influences of theses factors on product attitudes and intention to adopt. Specifically, five hypotheses were established. H1: Perceived attributes of smart clothing except for complexity would have positive relations to product attitude or purchase intention, while complexity would be opposite. H2: Product attitude would have positive relation to purchase intention. H3: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention. H4: Perceived risks of smart clothing would have negative relations to perceived attributes except for complexity, and positive relations to complexity. H5: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. After pretest, the data were collected during September, 2006, from university students in Korea who were relatively sensitive to innovative products. A total of 300 final useful questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 program. About 60.3% were male with the mean age of 21.3 years old. About 59.3% reported that they were aware of smart clothing, but only 9 respondents purchased it. The mean of attitudes toward smart clothing and purchase intention was 2.96 (SD=.56) and 2.63 (SD=.65) respectively. Factor analysis using principal components with varimax rotation was conducted to identify perceived attribute and perceived risk dimensions. Perceived attributes of smart wear were categorized into relative advantage (including compatibility), observability (including triability), and complexity. Perceived risks were identified into physical/performance risk, social psychological risk, time loss risk, and economic risk. Regression analysis was conducted to test five hypotheses. Relative advantage and observability were significant predictors of product attitude (adj $R^2$=.223) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.221). Complexity showed negative influence on product attitude. Product attitude presented significant relation to purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.692) and partial mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.698). Therefore hypothesis one to three were accepted. In order to test hypothesis four, four dimensions of perceived risk and demographic variables (age, gender, monthly household income, awareness of smart clothing, and purchase experience) were entered as independent variables in the regression models. Social psychological risk, economic risk, and gender (female) were significant to predict relative advantage (adj $R^2$=.276). When perceived observability was a dependent variable, social psychological risk, time loss risk, physical/performance risk, and age (younger) were significant in order (adj $R^2$=.144). However, physical/performance risk was positively related to observability. The more Koreans seemed to be observable of smart clothing, the more increased the probability of physical harm or performance problems received. Complexity was predicted by product awareness, social psychological risk, economic risk, and purchase experience in order (adj $R^2$=.114). Product awareness was negatively related to complexity, meaning high level of product awareness would reduce complexity of smart clothing. However, purchase experience presented positive relation with complexity. It appears that consumers can perceive high level of complexity when they are actually consuming smart clothing in real life. Risk variables were positively related with complexity. That is, in order to decrease complexity, it is also necessary to consider minimizing anxiety factors about social psychological wound or loss of money. Thus, hypothesis 4 was partially accepted. Finally, in testing hypothesis 5, social psychological risk and economic risk were significant predictors for product attitude (adj $R^2$=.122) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.099) respectively. When attitude variable was included with risk variables as independent variables in the regression model to predict purchase intention, only attitude variable was significant (adj $R^2$=.691). Thus attitude variable presented full mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention, and hypothesis 5 was accepted. Findings would provide guidelines for fashion and electronic businesses who aim to create and strengthen positive attitude toward smart clothing. Marketers need to consider not only functional feature of smart clothing, but also practical and aesthetic attributes, since appropriateness for social norm or self image would reduce uncertainty of psychological or social risk, which increase relative advantage of smart clothing. Actually social psychological risk was significantly associated to relative advantage. Economic risk is negatively associated with product attitudes as well as purchase intention, suggesting that smart-wear developers have to reflect on price ranges of potential adopters. It will be effective to utilize the findings associated with complexity when marketers in US plan communication strategy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.182-191
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• 1999

Product liability(PL) and product safety(PS) is one of the most costly and confusing problems facing manufacturing today. Accordingly, this paper presents an integral process for product safety and product liability resulting from a defective product and proposes countermeasures of PL and PS for the four types of risk based on severity and frequency. Finally, we have presented a framework and practical procedure to provide the manufacturer with useful way of analyzing the risk potential of consumer products.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.101-112
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• 2014

In this study, a risk assessment method based on scenario for the product safety management in Korea has been developed and proposed. To this end, Korea's related regulations for product safety management should be analyzed first, and the risk assessment method necessary for the enforcement of the regulations is presented by itemizing the method into the case of general injury and toxic substances. The features of the method presented in this study are as follows: (i) It is a method based on the injury scenario which can occur during the use of product. (ii) It assesses a risk based on the probability of the scenario and the severity of injury. (iii) In the case of toxic substances, it assesses a risk considering the hazard of the toxic substances on the human body and the severity of injury. To determine the probability of the injury scenario, this study has decomposed the scenario into several configuration factors and estimates each factor's probability to calculate the whole scenario's probability. The results of risk assessment through the method of this study are presented and it is shown that the method can be applied to the product classification for the product safety management.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.42 no.9
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• pp.195-212
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to analyze consumers' perceived risk and information search behaviors in internet shopping. For this purpose, survey was conducted on 302 consumers in their 20s and 30s who had internet shopping experience. This study found that consumers' perceived risk was significantly related to their gender, educational level, income, credit card use, period of internet un, number of internet shopping experiences, and purchased product. Consumers' search behaviors were also significantly affected by gender, age, educational level, income, period of internet use, and purchased product. In addition, a higher level of consumers' perceived risk was significantly related to the amount of information search on product attributes themselves rather than on general information search such as the number of sites or the number of brands.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.301-314
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to determine the gender differences in the relationships between knowledge of, attachment with, and attitude toward a parent brand and perceived risk of, attitude toward, and purchase intension of an extended product in the case of brand extension. A total of 300 survey questionnaires were distributed to 150 male and 150 female college students, and 275 responses were used for the final analysis. The results showed that for male college students, knowledge of the parent brand had a positive relationship with brand attachment with the parent brand, which in turn had a positive relationship with brand attitude toward the parent brand. Knowledge of the parent brand had a negative relationship with perceived risk of the extended product, which again had a negative relationship with attitude toward the extended product. In addition, for male college students, knowledge of the parent brand had a positive relationship with attitude toward the extended product, which also had a positive relationship with purchase intension of the extended product. For female college students, brand attachment with the parent brand had a positive relationship with brand attitude toward the parent brand, which also had a positive relationship with attitude toward the extended product. Brand attachment with the parent brand showed a negative relationship with perceived risk of the extended product, which also had a negative relationship with attitude toward the extended product.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.496-511
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to create a theoretical structure for the concept of purchasing risks by identifying the structure of purchasing risks that lead to obstacles in the purchasing decisions of consumers in fashion consumption via online channels. This was a secondary research using books, articles, prior researches, and academic journals on the five topics of "characteristics of fashion consumption," "the concept of purchasing risks," "purchasing risks by product types," "purchasing risks by channel types," and "purchasing risks of fashion consumption on online shopping channels." According to the arguments of prior researches, the study divided the purchasing risks of fashion consumption through online shopping into four categories : (1) fundamental purchasing risks including financial risk and time loss risk pertaining to any product or channel, (2) online channel purchase risks, which include risks in payment, Information leaks, and delivery and return/exchange risk, (3) fashion product risk related to product quality or experience of other people, which includes social risks and risks associated with quality, and (4) the online channel${\times}$fashion product risks, which include the aesthetic and psychological hazards especially amplified in online channels. The four risk factors were then described with a concept map to systemize the multi-dimensional and stereoscopic psychological structure of purchasing risks. Of the four risk factors, consumers placed the most emphasis on the online channel${\times}$fashion product risks, hence, reducing this risk factor is of utmost priority for marketing of online shopping channels.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.208-218
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• 2010

Internet has grown fast and become one of the most important retail channels now. Various types of Internet retailers, hereafter etailers, have been introduced so far and as one type of Internet shopping mall, 'surrogate Internet shopping mall' has been prosperous and attracting consumers in the domestic market. Surrogate Internet shopping mall is a unique type of etailer that globally purchases well-known brand goods that are not imported in the market, completes delivery in the favor of individual buyers, and collects fees for these specific services. The consumers, who are usually interested in purchasing high-end and unique but not eligible brands, have difficulties to purchase these items overseas directly from the retailers or brands in other countries due to worries of payment failure and no address available for their usually domestic only delivery. In Korea, both numbers of surrogate Internet shopping malls and the magnitude of sales have been growing rapidly up to more than 430 active malls and 500 billion Korean won in 2008 since the population of consumers who want this agent shopping service is also expending. This etail business concept is originated from 'surrogate-mediated purchase' and this type of shopping agent has existed in many different forms and also in wide ranges of context level for quite a long time. As marketers face their individual buyers' representatives instead of a direct contact with them in many occasions, the impact of surrogate shoppers on consumer's decision making has been enormously important and many scholars have explored various range of agent's impact on consumer's purchase decisions in marketing and psychology field. However, not much rigorous research in the Internet commerce has been conveyed yet. Moreover, since as one of the shopping agent surrogate Internet shopping malls specifically connect overseas brands or retailers to domestic consumers, one specific character of the mall's, image of surrogate buying country, where surrogate purchases are conducted in, may play an important role to form consumers' attitude and purchase intention toward products. Furthermore it also possibly affects various dimensions of perceived risk in consumer's information processing. However, though tremendous researches have been carried exploring the effects of diverse dimensions of country of origin, related studies in Internet context has been rarely executed. There have been some studies that prove the positive impact of country of origin on consumer's evaluations as one of information clues in product manufacture descriptions, yet studies detecting the relationship between country image of surrogate buying origin and product evaluations rarely undertaken regarding this specific mall type. Thus, the authors have found it well-worth investigating in this specific retail channel and explored systematic relationships among focal constructs and elaborated their different paths. The authors have proven that country image of surrogate buying origin in the mall, where surrogate malls purchase products in and brings them from for buyers, not only has a positive effect on consumers' product evaluations including attitude and purchase intention but also has a negative effect on all three dimensions of perceived risk: product-related risk, shipping-related risk, and post-purchase risk. Specifically among all the perceived risk, product-related risk which is arisen from high uncertainty of product performance is most affected (${\beta}$= -.30) by negative country image of surrogate buying origin, and also shipping-related risk (${\beta}$= -.18) and post-purchase risk (${\beta}$= -.15) get influenced in order. Its direct effects on product attitude (${\beta}$= .10) and purchase intention (${\beta}$= .14) are also secured. Each of perceived risk dimension is proven to have a negative effect on purchase intention through product attitude as a mediator (${\beta}$= -.57: product-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.24: shipping-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.44: post-purchase risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude) as well. From the additional analysis, the paths of consumers' information processing are shown to be different based on their levels of product knowledge. While novice consumers with low level of knowledge consider only perceived risk important, expert consumers with high level of knowledge take both the country image, where surrogate services are conducted in, and perceived risk seriously to build their attitudes and formulate decisions toward products more delicately and systematically, which is in line with previous studies. This study suggests several pieces of academic and practical advice. Precisely, country image of surrogate buying origin does affect on consumer's risk perceptions and behavioral consequences. Therefore a careful selection of surrogate buying origin is recommended. Furthermore, reducing consumers' risk level is required to blossom this new type of retail business whether its consumer are novices or experts. Additionally, since consumer take different paths of elaborating information based on their knowledge levels, sophisticated marketing approaches to each group of consumers are required. For novice buyers strong devices for risk mitigation are needed to induce them to form better attitudes and for experts selections of better and advanced countries as surrogate buying origins are advised while endorsement strategy for the site might work as a reliable information clue to all consumers to mitigate the barriers to purchase goods online. The authors have also explained that the study suffers from some limitations, including generalizability. In future studies, tests of and comparisons among different types of etailers with relevant constructs are recommended to broaden the findings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.141-148
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• 2003

Since the introduction of The Product Liability Law, effective since July 2002, more and more companies and end-users have been giving their attention to the safety of products. A number of existing risk analysis techniques are being implemented to manufacturing sites. However, they have certain restrictions such as incurring different techniques that are to be implemented at each stage of the product development. This is due to their domain of the analysis differing from one to another. Moreover, the results of these analyses are not specific enough, and are subject to further revision. This study proceeds to look at various examinations undertaken on the existing risk analysis techniques. Through implementing them on certain products, investigations on the strengths and weaknesses were ascertained. This has allowed improvements on the existing techniques to be achieved as tell as the development of a new risk analysis technique, 'HuBRA(Human Behavior Risk Analysis)'. Finally the new technique was implemented on products to confirm its effectiveness.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.12 no.6 s.53
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• pp.984-998
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to analyze contents of clothing product evaluation statements in the internet shopping mall and to discover consumers' recognition and evaluation of it. The data were collected from 151 consumers' statements in the four internet apparel shopping malls and a questionnaire was developed to measure consumers' recognition of clothing product evaluation statements. The questionnaire was administrated 272 consumers over 18 years old. The results of this study were as follows; First, The contents of clothing product evaluation statements in the internet shopping blog, were divided into three categories which were product, service and consumer buying decision process. Product category include evaluation of clothing product, description of difference between real product and product on the screen, and advice of uses. Service category include quickness and kindness in delivery, store preference for good service. For consumer buying decision process, motivation of purchasing, perceived risk, expression of satisfaction from good buying and canvassing for purchasing were included. Second, consumer recognized that clothing product evaluation statements has function of furnishing information, confirmation of purchasing decision, risk reduction of internet shopping, and interesting entertainment. Consumers also were dependent on product evaluation statements for making purchasing decision. And it was trusted by consumers. This recognition & evaluation were correlated with consumer's clothing product knowledge, involvement, risk perception of internet shopping, experiences of internet shopping. Managerial implications are provided for internet shopping mall.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.77-85
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• 2020

Purpose: This study examined marketing value as online word-of-mouth media in the foodservice industry, and it did research on online word-of-mouth (e-WOM) communication marketing schemes using mass communication in the industry. The study is also intended to investigate the impact of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) information and communication on product awareness risks, benefits, and word-of-mouth (WOM) impacts on restaurant consumers. Research design, data, and methodology: The analysis was conducted on a valid questionnaire of 425 menu product consumers. The survey was conducted for two months in March 2019. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS and hierarchical regression analysis was applied. Results: It did empirical research on the reciprocal casual relations to online and the existing word-of-mouth communication that have to be preceded to understand characteristics of online word-of-mouth communication for the purpose of this study. The result is summarized as follows. First, the online word-of-mouth (e-WOM) effect on product recognition risk shows the statistically significant effect of information sender characteristics, information recipient characteristics, and online word-of-mouth (e-WOM) communication on product recognition risk. Second, the influence of online word-of-mouth (e-WOM) on product risk benefits shows that the information sender characteristics, the information receiver characteristics, and online communications have a statistically significant effect on product risk benefits. Third, online word of mouth risk recognition had a statistically significant effect on word of mouth acceptance. Fourth, online risk benefit had a statistically significant positive effect on word of mouth (WOM) effect. Conclusions: The communication between online word of mouth (e-WOM) sender and recipient had a positive influence on the product evaluation and attitude change in the foodservice industry, and the word-of-mouth (WOM) effect affected financial and non-financial performance. The results mentioned above indicated that the communication between the sender of the information and the receiver of the information had a positive effect on the product evaluation and attitude change of the menu consumer, and the word-of-mouth (WOM) result affected the financial. Therefore, the online word-of-mouth (e-WOM) effect has a positive effect on the word-of-mouth (WOM) effect of menu products when performed simultaneously and positively between the information sender and the information receiver.