• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.25-51
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• 2012

Researches about the relationship between SST(Self Service Technology) and TRI(Technology Readiness Index) have been carried out after TRI was developed by Parasuraman and his colleagues(2000). We hypothesize Consumer Readiness can also influence consumer's motivation, attitude, and intent to use SST. Currently, there has been no research on this subject. In this study, we investigated the relationship between TR, Consumer Readiness and SST Core Attitudinal Model which Dabholkar & Bagozzi(1994) proposed. The researchers also investigated moderating effects of consumer traits and situational factors to verify the acceptance of such forms of service delivery by all kinds of consumers and under different situational contexts. Self consciousness, the need for interaction with an employee, and the technology anxiety were used as consumer trait variables. Perceived waiting time and perceived crowding were used as situational variables. 380 questionnaires were distributed to a sample group of people in their 20's and 30's, and the data were analyzed with structural equation model using AMOS 18.0 program. All of Cronbach's alpha values representing reliabilities were satisfactory. The values of Composite Reliability(CR) and Average Variance Extracted(AVE) also showed the above criteria, thus providing evidence of convergent validity. To confirm discriminant validity among the constructs, confirmatory factor analysis and correlations among all the variables were examined. The results were satisfactory. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1. Optimism and innovativeness of TR partially influenced the motivation to use SST. People who tend to be optimistic use SST because of ease of use and fun. The innovative however, usually use SST due to its performance. However, consumer readiness of role clarity, ability and self-efficacy influence all the components of motivation to use SST, ease of use, performance and fun. The relative effect of consumer readiness on the motivation to use SST was much stronger and more significant than that of TR. No other previous studies have examined the effects of Consumer Readiness on SST usage motivation, attitude and intention. It is academically meaningful that the researchers verified that Consumer Readiness is the important precedent construct influencing the self service technology core Attitudinal Model. Our findings suggest that marketers should consider fun and ease of use attributes to promote the use of self service technology. In addition, the SST usage frequency will rise rapidly when role clarity, ability, and self-efficacy which anybody can easily handle SST is assured. If the SST usage rate is increased, waiting times for customers could be decreased. Shorter waiting time could lead to higher customer satisfaction. It may also result in making a long-term profit owing to the reduced number of employees. Thus, presentation of using SST by employees or videos showing how to use it will promote the usage attitude and intent. 2. In SST core attitudinal model, performance and fun factors among SST usage motivation affected attitudes of using SST. The attitude of using SST highly influenced intent to use SST. This result is consistent with previous researches that dealt with the relationship between motivation, attitude and intention. Expectation of using SST could result in good performance just like the effect of ordering menu to service employees and to have fun since fun during its use could promote more SST usage rate. 3. In the relationship among motivation, attitude and intent in SST core attitudinal model, the moderating effect of consumer traits(self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees and technology anxiety) and situational factors(perceived crowding and perceived waiting time) were tested. The results also supported the hypothesized moderating effects except perceived crowding. The highly self-conscious tended to form attitudes to use SST because of its fun compared to those who were less self-conscious because of its performance. People who had a high need for interaction with service employees tended to use SST for its performance. This result indicates that if ordering results are assured, SST is easily accessible to even consumers who have a high need for interaction with a service employee. When SST is easy to use, attitudes strengthen intent among people who had a high level of anxiety of technology. People who had low technology anxiety formed attitudes to use SST because of its performance. Service firms must ensure their self service technology is designed to be easy to use for those who have a high level of technology anxiety. Shorter perceived waiting times strengthened the attitude to use self service technology because of its fun. If the fun aspect is assured, people willing to use self service technology even perceive waiting time to be shorter than it actually is. Greater perceived waiting times form higher level of intent to use self service technology than those of shorter perceived waiting times. This implies that people view self service technology as a faster alternative to ordering service employees. The fun aspect of self service technology will attract a higher rate of usage for self service technology. 4. It has been proven that ease of use, performance and fun aspects are very important factors in motivation to form attitudes and intent to use self service technology regardless of the amount of perceived waiting time, self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees, and technology anxiety. Service firms must consider these motivation aspects(ease of use, performance and fun)strongly in their promotion to use self service technology. Ease of use, assuring absolute performance compared to interaction with service employees', and adding a fun aspect will positively strengthen consumers' attitudes and intent to use self service technology. Summarizing the moderating effects, fun is the most valuable factor triggering SST usage attitude and intention. Therefore, designing self service technology to be fun will be the key to its success. This study focused on the touch screen self service technology in fast food restaurant. Although it has its limits due to the fact that it is hard to generalize the results to any other self service technology, the conceptual framework of this study can be applied to future research of any other service site.

• Strategy21
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• s.46
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• pp.239-276
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• 2020

The failure of early economic sanctions aimed at hurting the overall economies of targeted states called for a more sophisticated design of economic sanctions. This paved way for the advent of 'smart sanctions,' which target the supporters of the regime instead of the public mass. Despite controversies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a coercive tool to change the behavior of a targeted state, the transformation from 'comprehensive sanctions' to 'smart sanctions' is gaining the status of a legitimate method to impose punishment on states that do not conform to international norms, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this particular context of the paper. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council proved that it can come to an accord on imposing economic sanctions over adopting resolutions on waging military war with targeted states. The North Korean nuclear issue has been the biggest security threat to countries in the region, even for China out of fear that further developments of nuclear weapons in North Korea might lead to a 'domino-effect,' leading to nuclear proliferation in the Northeast Asia region. Economic sanctions had been adopted by the UNSC as early as 2006 after the first North Korean nuclear test and has continually strengthened sanctions measures at each stage of North Korean weapons development. While dubious of the effectiveness of early sanctions on North Korea, recent sanctions that limit North Korea's exports of coal and imports of oil seem to have an impact on the regime, inducing Kim Jong-un to commit to peaceful talks since 2018. The purpose of this paper is to add a variable to the factors determining the success of economic sanctions on North Korea: preventing North Korea's evasion efforts by conducting illegal transshipments at sea. I first analyze the cause of recent success in the economic sanctions that led Kim Jong-un to engage in talks and add the maritime element to the argument. There are three conditions for the success of the sanctions regime, and they are: (1) smart sanctions, targeting commodities and support groups (elites) vital to regime survival., (2) China's faithful participation in the sanctions regime, and finally, (3) preventing North Korea's maritime evasion efforts.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.89-114
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• 2008

Most of the extant studies on communication effects have been devoted to the typical issue, "what types of communication activities are more effective for brand awareness or brand attitudes?" However, little research has addressed another question on communication decisions, "what makes communication activities less effective?" Our study focuses on factors negatively influenced on the efficiency of communication activities, especially of Advertising. Some studies have introduced concepts closely related to our topic such as consumer confusion, brand confusion, or belief confusion. Studies on product belief confusion have found some factors misleading consumers to misunderstand the physical features of products. Studies on brand confusion have uncovered factors making consumers confused on brand names. Studies on advertising confusion have tested the effects of ad models' employed by many other firms for different products on communication efficiency. We address a new concept, Ad noises, which are any factors interfering with consumers exposed to a particular advertisement in understanding messages provided by advertisements. The objective of this study is to understand the effects of ad noises caused by ad models on brand awareness and brand attitude. There are many different types of AD noises. Particularly, we study the effects of AD noises generated from ad model selection decision. Many companies want to employ celebrities as AD models while the number of celebrities who command a high degree of public and media attention are limited. Inevitably, several firms have been adopting the same celebrities as their AD models for different products. If the same AD model is adopted for TV commercials for different products, consumers exposed to those TV commercials are likely to fail to be aware of the target brand due to interference of TV commercials, for other products, employing the same AD model. This is an ad noise caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements, which is the first type of ad noises studied in this research. Another type of AD noises is related to the decision of AD model replacement for the same product advertising. Firms sometimes launch another TV commercial for the same products. Some firms employ the same AD model for the new TV commercial for the same product and other firms employ new AD models for the new TV commercials for the same product. The typical problem with the replacement of AD models is the possibility of interfering with consumers in understanding messages of the TV commercial due to the dissimilarity of the old and new AD models. We studied the effects of these two types of ad noises, which are the typical factors influencing on the effect of communication: (1) ad noises caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements and (2) ad noises caused by changing ad models with different images for same products. First, we measure the negative influence of AD noises on brand awareness and attitudes, in order to provide the importance of studying AD noises. Furthermore, our study unveiled the mediating conditions(variables) which can increase or decrease the effects of ad noises on brand awareness and attitudes. We study the effects of three mediating variables for ad noises caused by employing ad models who have been exposed to consumers in other advertisements: (1) the fit between product image and AD model image, (2) similarity between AD model images in multiple TV commercials employing the same AD model, and (3) similarity between products of which TV commercial employed the same AD model. We analyze the effects of another three mediating variables for ad noises caused by changing ad models with different images for same products: (1) the fit of old and new AD models for the same product, (2) similarity between AD model images in old and new TV commercials for the same product, and (3) concept similarity between old and new TV commercials for the same product. We summarized the empirical results from a field survey as follows. The employment of ad models who have been used in advertisements for other products has negative effects on both brand awareness and attitudes. our empirical study shows that it is possible to reduce the negative effects of ad models used for other products by choosing ad models whose images are relevant to the images of target products for the advertisement, by requiring ad models of images which are different from those of ad models in other advertisements, or by choosing ad models who have been shown in advertisements for other products which are not similar to the target product. The change of ad models for the same product advertisement can positively influence on brand awareness but positively on brand attitudes. Furthermore, the effects of ad model change can be weakened or strengthened depending on the relevancy of new ad models, the similarity of previous and current ad models, and the consistency of the previous and current ad messages.