• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.100-110
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• 2010

The main roots of CM service contracts include existing customer repurchases and those made by new customers by existing ones. The study on customers and loyalty can be factors to strengthen CM's competitiveness. However, there have been little attempt to study customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Construction Management (CM), the advanced construction management method, was introduced 15 years ago in the mid 1990's in the domestic market. The aim of this research is to build a model that can predict customer loyalty based on how much customers are satisfied with CM service. To measure customer satisfaction and loyalty, this research surveyed 135 decision-makers who have experienced CM services. Customer satisfaction was tested and analyzed according to different phases: planning, designing, procurement, construction, and post construction. Referral intention was tested based on NPS theory. Customer types were divided into detractors, passively satisfied and promoters according to the tested measurement and multinomial logistic regression between the satisfaction by construction phases and customer types. This research resulted to a model that can predict customer types: detractors, passively satisfied and promoters, which were determined according to satisfaction level. The initial planning phase also revealed which factor is most influential for a customer to become promoter. These results can be used to acquire customer loyalty by managing the satisfaction of customers through a project under an Internet-based environment. Such can provide the needed information in quickly exploring positive and negative word-of-mouth feedbacks.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.131-154
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• 2013

New internet technologies have created a revolutionary new platform which allows consumers to make decision about product price and quality quickly and provides information about themselves through the transcript of online reviews. By expressing their feelings toward products or services on virtual opinion platforms, users extend their influence into cyberspace as electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Existing research indicates that an impact of eWOM on the consumer decision process is influential. For both academic researchers and practitioners, investigating this phenomenon of information sharing in online website is essential given the increasing number of consumers using them as sources of purchase decisions. It is worthwhile to examine the extent to which opinion seekers are willing to accept and adopt online reviews and which factors encourage adoption. Discerning the most motivating aspects of information adoption in particular, could help electronic marketers better promote their brand and presence on the internet. The objectives of this study are to investigate how online WOM influences a persons' purchase decision by discovering which factors encourage information adoption. Especially focused on the self-efficacy, this research investigates how self-efficacy affects on information usefulness and adoption of online information. Although people are exposed to same review or comment about product or service, some accept the reviews while others do not. We notice that accepting online reviews mainly depends on the person's preference or personal characteristics. This study empirically examines this issue by using cognitive dissonance theory. Specifically, in the movie industry, we address few questions-is always positive WOM generating positive effect? What if the movie isn't the person's favorite genre? What if the person who is very self-assertive so doesn't take other's opinion easily? In these cases of cognitive dissonance, is always WOM generating same result? While many studies have focused on one direct of WOM which indicates positive (or negative) informative reviews or comments generate positive (or negative) results and more (or less) profits, this study investigates not only directional properties of WOM but also how people change their opinion towards product or service positive to negative, negative to positive through the online WOM. An experiment was conducted quantitatively by using a sample of 168 users who have experience within the online movie review site, 'Naver Movie'. Users were required to complete a survey regarding reviews and comments taken from the real movie page. The data reflected user's perceptions of online WOM information that determined users' adoption level. Analysis results provide empirical support for the proposed theoretical perspective. When user can't agree with the opinion of online WOM information, in other words, when cognitive dissonance between online WOM information and users' preference occurs, perceived self-efficacy significantly decreases customers' perception of usefulness. And this perception of usefulness plays an important role in determining users' intention to adopt online WOM information. Most of researches have been concentrated on characteristics of online WOM itself such as quality or vividness of information, credibility of source and direction of online WOM, etc. for describing effect of online WOM, but our results suggest that users' personal character (e.g., self-efficacy) plays decisive role for acceptance of online WOM information. Higher self-efficacy means lower possibility to accept the information that represents counter opinion because of cognitive dissonance, whereas the people that have lower self-efficacy are willing to accept the online WOM information as true and refer to purchase decision. This study suggests a model for understanding role of direction of online WOM information. Also, our result implicates the importance of online review supervision and personalized information service by confirming switching opinion negative to positive is more difficult than positive to negative through the online WOM information. This implication would help marketers to manage online reviews of their products or services.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.56
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• pp.145-163
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• 2018

Recently, security behavior of members of organizations has been recognized as a critical part of information security at the corporate level. Leakage of customers' information brings more attention to information security behavior of organizations and the importance of a task force. Research on information breach and information security is actively conducted of personal behavior toward security threats or members of organizations who use security technology. This study aims to identify factors of influence on information security behavior of members of organizations and to empirically find out how these factors affect information security behavior through behavior toward attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavior control. On the basis of the research, this study will present effective and efficient ways to foster information security activities of members of organizations. To this end, the study presented a research model that applied significant variables based on integration of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Theory of Protection Motivation (TPM). To empirically verify this research model, the study conducted a survey of members of organizations who had security-related work experience at companies. So, it is critical for members of organizations to encourage positive word of mouth (WOM) about information security behavior. Results show that based on the integration of TPM and TPB, perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, perceived efficiency and perceived barriers of information security behavior of members of organizations had significant influences on mediating variables such as behavior toward attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control and intention. They also had significant influences on organization information security behavior which is a dependent variable. This study indicates companies should introduce various security solutions so that members of the organizations can prevent and respond to potential internal and external security risks. In addition, they will have to take actions to inspect vulnerability of information system and to meet security requirements such as security patches.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.241-250
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• 2012

Low birth rate is a persisting national challenge that causes a decrease in productive population and an increase in encumbrances by ever rising insurance premiums, eventually threatening the existence of the country. This study investigated the effectiveness of the current government's undergoing economic support of the child-birth promotion policy, "go-un-mam card", and suggested improvement plans about the problems derived on the basis of the perceptions of the card users. Multi-response analysis was used to find out the preference of the policy, and chi-square test was conducted to discover the user satisfaction rate and intent of re-parturition. Also, descriptive analysis was performed to identify the degree of the policy recognition. The results illustrated that a significant association exists between the satisfaction rate and the intention of re-parturition. In addition, pregnant women gained information about the policy from governmental agencies and medical institution as well as by word of mouth; then, applied to the policy. Also, the card users only took an advantage of discounts in the hospitals within the supported monetary amounts. Moreover, the card users expressed their dissatisfaction at the monetary amounts. For instance, the users were dissatisfied with the limit on the amount to be used in a day and requested upgrade on the monetary amounts. Based on the result, the government will improve and develop the go-un-mam card for the ultimate purpose of policy, increasing birth-rate.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.73-84
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• 2015

Purpose - Various social issues have arisen since the beginning of the 21st century therefore, enterprises that disregarded social issues have become unsustainable, and social enterprises have appeared to address these issues. A social enterprise is a social mission-focused organization that uses a market-based strategy and has a vulnerable business structure. To be self-sustainable, a social enterprise should make consumers aware of the value that it provides and secure its profitability through consumer consumption. From this perspective, this study investigates the relationship between perceived value (utilitarian and hedonic) and loyalty, and examines how memory and attitudes play mediating roles between perceived value and loyalty. For these purposes, the author developed a structural model consisting of several variables. In this model, perceived value, which was utilitarian and hedonic, was proposed to affect the memory and attitudes toward social enterprise products, thus increasing loyalty. Therefore, memory and attitudes were proposed as core mediating variables between perceived value and loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - To analyze the proposed model, data were collected from 582 respondents and analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0. To test unidimensionality and the nomological validity of the measures of each construct, we employed a scale refinement procedure. The results of the reliability test with Cronbach's α and confirmatory factor analysis warranted the unidimensionality of the measures for each construct. In addition, the nomological validity of the measures was warranted from the results of the correlation analysis. The result of the overall model analysis demonstrated a good fit (χ²=529.881, df=144, χ²/df=3.680, p-value=0.000, GFI=0.905, NFI=0.948, CFI=0.961, RMR=0.036, RMSEA=0.068). Results - The findings are summarized as follows. First, the hedonic and utilitarian value of social enterprise products had positive effects on memory and attitudes. Second, the hedonic value of social enterprise products more strongly affects memory and attitudes than utilitarian value. Third, memory and attitudes had positive effects on loyalty. Lastly, memory had a stronger effect on loyalty than attitudes. Conclusions - The purchase rate of social enterprises' products increases only if the products are included in the "information search" and "alternative evaluation" processes in consumers' purchase decision-making processes. Therefore, a social enterprise must actively promote the fact that it pursues a social value, and shares both the hedonic and utilitarian values of its products. Accordingly, because hedonic value has a more significant impact on a company and attitudes, a social enterprise should develop hedonic values for product consumption, thereby leading consumers who care about value consumption to purchase its products. Moreover, a social enterprise must maintain good memories and attitudes for consumers because memory does not change over time, although attitude does. The limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are as follows. This study viewed "consumer loyalty" as the success factor of social enterprises, thereby considers an "increase in sales" as the success factor. Therefore, in future studies, diverse factors, including social contribution and word-of-mouth intention, should be regarded. In addition, future studies need to thoroughly review and make assurances about the relationship between memory and attitude.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.7
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• pp.353-374
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• 2001

Price and brand are two major attributes of products that consumer purchases. Price is important because it is often a measure of worth and quality. Some consumers purchase only well-known national brands. However, By reason of the price competition on account of new business condition and depressions, and consumers practical and rational purchasing tendency, consumers tend to purchase private brands(PB hereafter) because as consumers they expect that producers have reasonable and acceptable quality. Accordingly, The study, with intrinsic cue, extrinsic cue, familiarity anything like these cues from the study of Richardson et aI(1994, 1996), intends to present current topics we guide in retailer's promotion strategy for PB. As for investigating how quality evaluation has on effect on the private brands purchasing behavior of discount store grocery items. This study establishes a hypotheses on the basis of the quality evaluation cues of PB and literature review for purchasing behavior and collects materials for consumers about 196, and also analyzes them using a variety of SPSS/PC+package program. Therefore, the findings of this study provide the following managerial implications. 1) Retailer will successful in increasing private brand market share through dramatic improvement in package design, labeling, advertising, and branding strategies. 2) Planned Purchasers have high intention to repurchase PB because they buy them reasonably in accordance with the estimate therefore, they might have word-of-mouth effect for the evaluation of quality and recognition. They need to acknowledge benefits for PB purchases to maintain purchase like that. 3) The main consumers are housewives in their thirties and forties and they something reasonably because they have a lot of family and retailer will work out.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.91-124
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• 2009

With the intensity of competition and the standardization of technical attributes in telecommunications service market increasing, differentiated activity and customer experience in service encounter is regarded as an important means for creating customer value, however, there is a dearth of good literature examining what MOT activity is composed of according to consumption chain, and how service quality of MOT has influenced customer performance. Especially there exist various services across different phase of Product life cycle(PLC) in household telecommunication service market, customer requirement for MOT might depend on whether its phase is introduction-growth stage or maturity-decline stage, the empirical study is completely lacking. This study classified household telecommunication services into two types by PLC, VOIP and IPTV as Introduction-growth stage services, Internet and PSTN as maturity-decline stage service, and investigated whether there exists a gap between service types in how consumer have experienced MOT, what they consider as important and the relative importance of quality dimension how service quality of MOT has influence on consumer performance. The empirical result from 858 participants shows that there is a difference in consumer experience and requirements across different phases of the PLC, tangibles and assurance are regarded as the most important service quality factors which have a positive influence on customer performance (consumer satisfaction, repurchase intention and word of mouth) at the introduction-growth stage, whereas, reliability, empathy and interactivity are at the maturity-decline stage. Finally, managerial implication is made, limitation is clarified and a direction for further studies is suggested.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.377-388
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• 2016

The purposes of this study are; first, to supply useful suggestions for the market segmentation of the Chinese market according to individual psychological variables(self-congruence) of customers. Second, it figures out the relative importance of actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence. Lastly, it reveals whether there are any differences in the preference of attributes according to the popular cultural involvement. According to the results, actual self-congruence had a positive influence on the contents factor evaluation while ideal self-congruence had positive effect on the human and cultural factors evaluation. Also, the human and cultural factor had a positive influence on the purchase intention, as well as content factor and cultural factor had the influence on the word-of-mouth. In addition, the group of highly interested in the involvement at the popular culture was significantly higher in the evaluation on the human and contents factor than the low group.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-28
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• 2012

I. Introduction : The purpose of this study is to test empirically hypothetical causality among constructs used in previous studies to build the model of relational market behavior on customers' participation and consumer-brand relationship after introducing theories of relationship marketing, loyalty program, consumer-brand relationship, customers' participation in service marketing as previous studies with regard to relational market behavior, which Bagozzi(1995) and Peterson(1995) commented on constructs and definition suggested by Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995). For this purpose, loyalty program by the service provider, customers' participation and consumer-brand relationship as preceding variables explain relational market behavior defined by Sheth and Parvatiyar(1995). This study proposes that loyalty program as a tool of relationship marketing will be effective in that consumers' participation in marketing relationship results in a narrow range of choice(Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995) because consumers think that their participation motive result in benefits(Peterson, 1995). Also, it is proposed that the quality of consumer-brand relationship explain the performance of relationship as well as the intermediary effect because the loyalty program could be evaluated based on relationship with customers. We reviewed the variables with regard to performance of relationship based on relation maintain in marketing literature, and then tested our hypotheses related to several performance variables including loyalty and intention of relation maintain based on the previous studies and constructs(Bendapudi and Berry, 1997 ; Bettencourt, 1997 ; Palmatier, Dant, Grewal and Evans, 2006 ; You Jae Yi and Soo Jin Lee, 2006). II. Study Model : Analyses about hypothetical causality were proceeded. The marketing effect of loyalty program on relational market behavior was empirically tested in study regarding a service provider. The research model in according to the path hypotheses (loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior and loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship, and loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior and customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship, and customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior) proceeded as an activity for customer relation management was suggested. The main purpose of study is to see if relational market behavior could be brought as a result of developing relationship between consumers and a corporate into being stronger and more valuable when a corporate or a service provider try aggressively to build the relationship with customers (Bettencourt, 1997; Palmatier, Dant, Grewal and Evans, 2006; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). III. Conclusion : The results of research into the membership fitness club, one of service areas with high level of customer participation (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert and Zeithaml, 1997; Chase, 1978; Kelley, Donnelly, Jr. and Skinner, 1990) are as follows: First, causalities in according to path hypotheses were tested, after the preceding variables affecting relational market behavior and conceptual frame were suggested. In study, all hypotheses were supported as expected. This result confirms the proposition suggested by Sheth and Parvatiyar(1995), who claimed that intention of consumer and corporate to participate in marketing relationship brings high level of marketing productivity. Also, as a corporate or a service provider try aggressively to build relationship with customers, the relationship between consumers and a corporate can be developed into stronger and more valuable one (Bettencourt, 1997; Palmatier, Dant, Grewal and Evans, 2006). This finding supports the logic of relationship marketing. Second, because the question regarding the path hypothesis of consumer-brand relationship ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior are still at issue, the further analyses were conducted. In particular, there existed the mediating effects of consumer-brand relationship toward relational market behavior. Also, multiple regressions were conducted to see if which one strongly influences relational market behavior among specific question items with regard to consumer-brand relationship. As a result, the influence between items composing consumer-brand relationship and ones composing relational market behavior was different. Among items composing consumer-brand relationship, intimacy was an influence of sustaining relationship, word of mouth, and recommendation, intimacy and interdependence were influences of loyalty, intimacy and self-connection were influences of tolerance and advice. Notably, commitment among items measuring consumer-brand relationship had the negative influence with relational market behavior. This means that bringing relational market behavior is not consumer-brand relationship without personal commitment, but effort to build customer relationship like intimacy, interdependence, and self-connection. This finding confirms the results of Breivik and Thorbjornsen(2008). They reported that six variables composing the quality of consumer-brand relationship have higher explanation in regression model directly affecting performance of consumer-brand relationship. As a result of empirical analysis, among the constructs with regard to consumer-brand relationship, intimacy(B=0.512), interdependence(B=0.196), and quality of partner(B=0.153) had the effects on relation maintain. On the contrary, self-connection, love and passion, and commitment had little effect and did not show the statistical significance(p<0.05). On the other hand, intimacy(B=0.668) and interdependence(B=0.181) had the high regression estimates on word of mouth and recommendation. Regarding the effect on loyalty, explanation level of the model was high(R2=0.515), intimacy(0.538), interdependence(0.223), and quality of partner(0.177) showed the statistical significance(p<0.05). Furthermore, intimacy(0.441) had the strong effect as well as self-connection(0.201) and interdependence (0.163) had the effect on tolerance and forgive. And these three variables showed effects even on advice and suggestion, intimacy(0.373), self-connection(0.270), interdependence (0.155) respectively. Third, in study with regard to the positive effect(loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ customers' participation, loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship, loyalty program ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior, customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship, customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior, consumer-brand relationship ${\rightarrow}$ relational market behavior), the path hypothesis of customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship, was supported. The fact that path hypothesis of customers' participation ${\rightarrow}$ consumer-brand relationship was supported confirms assertion by Bitner(1995), Fournier(1994), Sheth and Parvatiyar(1995) about consumer relationship to participate in marketing relationship.