In this study, a survey was conducted to determine consumer perceptions and satisfaction for onion hot-water extracts. Among the study subjects, females (53.3%) were in greater number than males, and individuals in their 40s (35.1%) made up the largest group. Cocerning the detailed efficacy of onion hot-water extracts, most respondents (84.5%) were aware of their efficacy and females recognized this more than males (p<0.001). Most consumers (67.3%) purchased onion hot-water extracts from 'health food stores prepared using a double boiler', and many consumers (47.4%) received information on the extracts from families and relatives. Of the respondents, 51.8% said they purchased 'quantities for
This study was conducted twice to investigate egg purchase behavior and perception on animal welfare of Korean consumers. This study included women, who were the main decision makers and caretakers in the household, and men with one-person household. This survey was conducted with by the Computer Assisted Web Interview and Gang Survey methods. On the key considerations factor, the highest response rate was considered to be 'price', and the response rate of considering 'packing date' increased in the second survey. At a reasonable price based on 10 eggs, the response rate was the highest at 53.8% and 42.9% in both the first and second surveys and the appropriate price averages were 2,482 won and 2,132 won, respectively. The highest rate of purchase of egg consumers from 'Large Mart' followed by 'Medium sized supermarket' and 'Chain supermarket'. As for the awareness about animal welfare, the recognition ratio (73.5%) was higher in the result of the second survey than the first. The cognitive period of animal welfare was 59.0% before the insecticide egg crisis and 41.0% thereafter. Regarding whether or not they have ever seen an animal welfare certification mark and an animal welfare animal farm certification mark, 59.6% of respondents said that they saw it for the first time and 37.6% answered that they knew the animal welfare certification mark. On the animal welfare system, the 'free-range' response rate was the highest at 85.8%. The 'free-range' fit response decreased by 34.2%p, while the 'barn' and 'European type' fit response increased by 13.2%p and 24.1%p, respectively. The number of 'I have never seen' and 'I have ever eaten' responses to the recognition and eating experience of animal welfare certified eggs decreased while the number of those who answered 'Have ever seen' and 'Have eaten' increased. The answer of purchasing animal welfare certified eggs at department stores, organic farming cooperatives, and internet shopping malls was higher than that of buying conventional eggs. Of the total respondents, 92.0% were willing to purchase an animal welfare egg before the price was offered, but after offering the prices of animal welfare eggs, the intention to purchase was 62.7%, which was about 30%p lower than before. The reason for purchasing an animal welfare certified egg was the highest score of 71.0% for 'I think it is likely to be high in food safety', and 38.1% for 'I think the price is high' for lack of intention to purchase. In the sensory evaluation of animal welfare eggs, egg color and skin texture of conventional eggs were significantly higher than those of certified welfare eggs (P<0.05), and boiled eggs showed that egg whites of animal welfare certified eggs were more (P<0.05). As a result, the results of this study will contribute to the activation of the animal welfare certification system for laying hens by providing basic data on consumer awareness to animal welfare certified farmers.
This study was carried out to identify the difference between nursing needs and levels of satisfaction of primiparae during the early postpartum period. The goal of the study was to obtain data needed to develope maternal education programs and to improve the nursing quality for primipara. The subjects were 111 primiparae who had normal delivery at 2 general hospitals in the Seoul area. The data was gathered using an 81 items questionnaire which was developed by the researcher from Nov. 30, 1995 to Feb. 5, 1996. Results found are as follows : 1. The characteristics of subjects : The majority of subjects were aged 26-30yrs(60.4%), high school graduated(49.5%), jobless(52.3%), had no religion(49.5%), no antenatal(74.5%), and postnatal education on self and infant care(55.9%). A large proportion of primiparae intended to feed breast milk(49.5%) but in fact only 7.2% fed breast milk while in the hospital. Many subjects perceived that they had reasonable self confidence about self care(46.8%), and infant care(36%). 2. The level of nursing needs of overall nursing care was relatively high(Mn 3.98) but the level of satisfaction was of average level(Mn 3.09). Therefore, difference between the level of nursing needs and satisfaction was significant(p=0.0001). 3. The nursing needs by category of nursing care the highest need was on the education of infant care(4.29), the lowest was on physical care(3.80). The level of satisfaction was higher on environmental care(3.40) and physical care(3.32). But the category that showed the lowest satisfaction was education of infant care(2.67). Hence, difference of categories between the level of nursing needs and satisfaction was significant(p=0.0001). 4. Among items of physical care, observation of primiparas' conditions(4.21), accurate medication and treatment(4.18), care of breast engorgement(4.07) and control of postpartal hemorrage(4.01) showed high nursing needs. On the other hand, only the level of satisfaction was higher on accurate medication and treatment(3.82). The rest of items revealed only average level of satisfactions. Difference of items between the level of nursing needs and satisfaction was significant(p=0.0001) except items of dietary care. 5. Among items of psychological care, 8 items of nursing needs were high(3.72-4.29), expecially detailed explanation on which mothers want to know(4.29), treatment and nursing care they receive(4.23), kind and faithful care(4.22), early contacts with their baby(4.20), and adequate draping during the care and treatment(4.18). Among items of psychological care higher satisfactions were shown on items of kind and faithful care(3.80), personal treatment(3.70), and detailed explanation to mothers, but the least satisfied items was early contact with baby(2.13). Difference between the level of nursing needs and satisfaction was significant(p=0.0001). 6. Among items of environmental care, the highest level of need and satisfaction was on the items of neat bedding and pajamas(3.54). The difference was significant (p=0.0001). 7. Among the items of educational needs on self care, all of 22 items revealed higher educational needs(3.50-4.33) but the levels of satisfaction varied with a range of 2.63-3.42. Among the items the satisfactions were high on items of breast care including massages(3.42), perineal care(3.36) and expression of breast milk(3.32). Less satisfied items were drugs not be taken by breast milk feeder(2.63), maintenance of breast figure(2.76) and postpartum exercise(2.80) and so on. The difference was significant(p=0.0001). maintain 8. Among the items of educational needs on infant care, 19 items revealed higher educational needs(3.28-4.54). And the highest need were on the 3 items of normal growth and development of infant, safety and emergency care, symptoms of sick(4.45) and the meaning of crying of the baby(4.52). The level of satisfaction among items of education of infant care ranged from 2.47 to 3.16. Most satisfied items were buriping(3.16), bathing(3.11) and diapering(3.09). The items of which the mother's needs were high revealed the lowest satisfaction level. The difference was significant (p=0.0001). 9. Relationship between nursing needs and levels of satisfaction among primiparae of different characteristics were as follows : 1) Nursing needs of physical and psychological areas were significantly different among different age levels but no relationship was found on other categories regardless of the level of satisfaction. 2) With regard to different levels of education, some relationship was found in nursing needs of psychological area(p=0.007), educational needs on infant care(p=0.04) and environmental care(p=0.01). Also, the difference of satisfaction level was significant. 3) Working mothers had higher nursing needs and were more satisfied on items of physical care(p=0.05), education on self care and infant care. Difference were significant between nursing needs and level of satisfaction. 4) With regards to different religion a moderate relation was found between nursing needs of environmental care infant care education but no relationship was found on levels of satisfaction. 5) With regards to antenatal education, the mothers who have had no antenatal education revealed higher nursing needs on physical care but those who had antenatal education were more satisfied with education on self care and infant care. The difference was significant. (p=0.0001). 6) With regards to postpartum education, the mothers who have had some sort of postpartum education revealed higher nursing needs on physical and self care. And they were more satisfied with nursing of every category except infant care than mothers who had not any postpartum education. Differences was significant between the nursing needs and levels of satisfaction.(p=0.0001). 7) With regards to breast feeding experience during the hospitalization, those who had no experience of breast feeding revealed higher nursing needs on physical care in contrast to breast feeders, who had higher educational needs on infant care. And breast feeder were more satisfied with all categories. Differences was significant(p=0.0001). 8) With regards to perception of self confidence on self care and infant care, no relationship was found on nursing needs and level of satisfaction in every category of nursing.
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
The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.