• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.165-187
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• 2011

This paper investigates on the legal doctrine of "voluntary, knowing, and intelligent" (VKI Doctrine). The main points that were discussed include the history of the VKI doctrine and the US courts' attitudes toward the doctrine. It was also discussed how the VKI doctrine influenced the protection of consumer who agreed to arbitrate with businesses. The US courts' attitudes have shown to be split in application of the VKI doctrine to disputes in the enforceability of arbitration agreement between the consumers and the businesses. In order for the arbitration agreement to be invalidated, the state legislature cannot enact law that are directly targeted toward the validity of arbitration agreement. Rather the contract law in each of the state should be applied to the evaluation of the validity of an arbitration agreement. As the more and more consumers become familiar with the arbitration, the need for the VKI doctrine to protect the individual consumers in arbitration is expected to be diminished in future disputes.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.79-93
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• 2017

The image of Korean products in the US market and attitudes toward Korean companies and brands have very high purchasing value, but there are many doubts about the image of Korea. However, previous studies have shown that national image, product image, and brand attitude have a positive effect on consumers' purchase intention. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of Korean image and Korean brand image on purchasing Korean products in North Texas area. As a result of this study, the effect of the national image on Korean corporate image was not significant, and the effect of the national image on Korean brand image was not significant. However, the effect of the corporate image, purchase intention, brand image, and purchase intention is significant. In this study, US consumers do not perceive the correlation between Korean national image, Korean corporate image and brand image, and it is analyzed that Korean products are purchased mostly because of corporate image and brand image.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.590-598
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was conducted to compare the food involvement scale (FIS) of American and Japanese consumers. In addition, the effects of familiarity, likability, and expectations on willingness to use intentions for block type sauce by nationality were evaluated. Methods: A total of 149 and 112 American and Japanese consumers, respectively, completed the survey. Consumers were asked about familiarity, likability, expectation, willing to use intention, and usage frequency of block type sauce, food involvement scale (FIS), and demographic information. Results: There were differences in the using frequency of block type sauce according to nationality, with consumers in Japan showing significantly higher frequency of using block type sauce than those in the United States (US) (p < 0.001). According to the FIS, US consumers were more focused on how to provide food than food, such as cooking process, table setting, and food shopping, compared to Japanese consumers. In addition, 'expectation' and 'likability' among US consumers and 'expectation' and 'familiarity' among Japanese consumers were positive attributes for willing to use intention (p < 0.01). Conclusion: In the case of the US consumers, 'familiarity' was not significant because the using frequency of the block type sauce was lower than that of Japanese consumers. In the case of the Japanese consumers, 'likability' was not significant because they enjoy cooking itself according to the FIS. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize positive attributes as a key factor for block type sauce, as well as to search for ways to apply marketing strategies based on attributes by nationality.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.3-35
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• 2017

For recent years, several disputes between Korean consumers and multinational companies have arisen. Since the disputes were big and material that children's safety was at issue, a question started if Korean law properly has protected consumers' rights against multinational companies. While the Korean legal society tried to legislate punitive compensation with this concern, the U.S. Supreme Court reached an interesting case law regarding consumer contracts. A recent trend on consumer contracts in the United States shows that general terms have arbitration clause with class action waiver. As much as international arbitration has worked as the most effective resolution in international commercial disputes, the concept is still foreign and the experts are not approachable to lay individual consumers. However, class action in arbitration can hugely help for lay individual consumers to bring a case before arbitration tribunal. California courts consistently showed the analysis that the practical impact of prohibiting class action in arbitration clause is to ban lay individual consumers from fighting for their rights. However, the Supreme Court held that the arbitration clause shall be enforced as parties agree even if consumers practically cannot fight for their rights in the end. Even though consumer contracts are a typical example of lack of parity and of adhesive contract, the Supreme Court still applies liberalism that parties are equal in power and free to agree. This case law has a crucial implication since Korean consumers buy goods and services from the U.S. and other countries in everyday life. Accordingly, they are deemed to agree on the dispute resolution clauses, which might violate their constitutional right to bring their cases before the adjudication tribunal. This issue could be more important than adopting punitive compensation because consumers' rights are not necessarily governed by Korean law but by the governing law of the general terms and conditions chosen and written by the multinational companies. Thus this paper studies and analyzes the practical reality of international arbitration and influence of arbitration clause with class action waiver with the U.S. Supreme Court and California case laws.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.82-94
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• 2009

In this study, I suggest dyed-Glued laminated woods by using birch woods which are relatively cheaper than others. Since the dyed-Glued laminated woods which have the various colors to satisfy people's tastes and the dignified grains in the old woods enable us to product freely, these can provide us with stability of supply through replacing rare materials. The making wooden furniture designed with dyed-Glued laminated woods has these following characteristics. (1) This method which uses various colored woods can fulfill consumers' tastes through dyeing wooden plates, instead of using domestic woods which have limited colors-white, yellow and black. (2) Gathering wooden plates made by setting them into various frames enables us to get in large quantities of the materials with good grains, which we can only take from old woods. (3) Producing culture products using various colors and grains has enabled us to satisfy consumers and to create pro-environmental pieces. In conclusion, this study can be an alternative idea to forest resources which have been decreasing, and be an application method of using cheaper birch woods as well. Gathering and dyeing wooden plates might bring about the economic effect and be of much help to the expansion as furniture materials as well as interior ones.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.39-50
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• 2010

This paper compares a cross-cultural and gender differences and similarities about consumer ethical perceptions and behaviors, and ethical ideologies between Korean and the US college students. It also examines the relationships between consumers' ethical perceptions and behaviors, and the relationships between consumer ethics and ethical ideologies. This research provides some evidence that supports the premise that consumer ethics is influenced to an extent by consumers' nationality and gender. The differences are not universal, however, and could perhaps be described as situational. The American college consumers were found to be more idealistic and relativistic than the Korean college consumers. But the differences were minor The American male college consumers were found to be more idealistic than the American female college consumers. The ethical consumer groups were found to be more idealistic and less relativistic than were the unethical consumer groups. Perceptions were positively related to behaviors in the consumer ethics. But the magnitude of impacts is different between the nations and in the dimensions of consumer ethics.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.663-674
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the preference for apparel brands and country of origin, (2) to evaluate the brand equity for domestic and imported apparels as perceived by Korean and American consumers, and (3) to analyze the effects of country of origin and brand equity on consumers' apparel purchase behavior. The sample included 151 Korean and 114 American consumers. The data were collected from respondents by using the mall-intercept method. In addition, the path analysis based on multiple regression analysis was applied to analyze the data. The major findings in this study were as followings; (1) Both of all Korean and US consumers preferred domestic apparel brands to imported brands but the latter preferred apparels made in home country to the former comparatively, (2) Korean consumers evaluated more favorably the brand equity for imported apparels than that for domestic apparels, but American consumers were quite the reverse, (3) To Korean consumers, the direct variable to influence the purchase intention of apparels was the perceived quality and indirect variables were the brand equity and country of origin. On the other hand, to American consumers, the perceived quality and the brand equity for domestics apparel had directly influence on the purchase intention and the brand equity for imported apparels did indirectly. Finally, implications for managerial and marketing strategies were discussed in regard to building an international apparel brand equity and improving exports with high quality apparels.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.165-175
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• 2004

Food is very important for human being. It is not easy for us to enjoy good life because the situation of food is not good in Korea. The self-sufficient food rate is very low and most of food which we take was produced by industrial agriculture. Food of this kind has some problems with respect to the health of consumer, agriculture, environment and community. In order to secure the true food which is safe and environmentally sound, producers, consumers and community have to work together. Producers must engage in environmental agriculture. They must produce the true food and need to know regional consumers. Consumers must pay attention to the regional agriculture and must participate the production of true food. Local government must open farmers' markets for direct marketing between farmers and consumers. NGOs should educate and organize the producers and consumers.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.79-94
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• 2007

Previous studies showed that traditional attitudes toward consumer credit and the accumulation of debtare declining, especially among younger life stage groups. The social stigma of high debt levels has largely gone. However, only a few researchers have studied and changes in consumers' attitudes toward credit and its determinants. This study investigates factors related to the probability of respondents having favorable or unfavorable attitudes using the 1992-2004 U.S. Surveys of Consumer Finances. A logistic analysis was used since the dependent variables were binary. All other things equal, respondents in 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2004 were significantly less likely to have favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward credit than otherwise similar respondents in 1992, but the patterns did not correspond well to the changes in the bankruptcy rate. Black and Hispanic respondents were more likely to have favorable attitudes and less likely to have unfavorable attitudes than were otherwise similar white respondents, but those in the Other group, mostly Asians, were not significantly different from whites. Respondents with college degrees were less likely to have a positive attitude and more likely to have a negative attitude than those without a college degree. Respondents who took risks with investments were more likely to have a positive attitude and less likely to have a negative attitude than those unwilling to take risks. Implications for understanding of credit use are discussed. This publication was made possible by a generous grant from the NASD Investor Education Foundation.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.15-36
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• 2010

This study aims to examine if a consumer's evaluations of and purchase intentions towards textiles and apparel-related cultural products are influenced by their culture, as indicated by their nationalities. Additionally, several psychological variables, such as novelty-seeking tendency, world-mindedness, and familiarity with Northeast Asian culture were included in the analyses to compare the relative importance of cultural influences with the importance of individual characteristics. To conduct a quantitative analysis, we collected data from 400 female consumers in two countries: 200 from the USA and 200 from China. Key findings showed that, nationality and novelty-seeking were found to have a strong influence on purchase intention when product evaluation variables were not included. Evaluation of appearance and Northeast Asian design emerged highly significant predictors of purchase intention for Korean cultural products, regardless of the product type. Cross cultural comparative research on cultural product evaluations is extremely rare. This study focused on groups of consumers residing in the US and China and asked them to evaluate a series of textiles and apparel-related cultural products produced in Korea.