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An Exploratory Study on the Components of Visual Merchandising of Internet Shopping Mall (인터넷쇼핑몰의 VMD 구성요인에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Kim, Kwang-Seok;Shin, Jong-Kuk;Koo, Dong-Mo
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.19-45
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    • 2008
  • This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

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Time Course Change of Phagocytes and Proinflammatory Activities in BALF in Endotoxin-induced Acute Lung Injury (시간별 내독소 정맥주입으로 유발된 급성폐손상의 변화양상에 대한 고찰)

  • Moon, Seung-Hyug;Oh, Je-Ho;Park, Sung-Woo;NamGung, Eun-Kyung;Ki, Shin-Young;Im, Gun-Il;Jung, Sung-Whan;Kim, Hyeon-Tae;Uh, Soo-Tack;Kim, Yong-Hoon;Park, Choon-Sik;Jin, Byeng-Weon
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.44 no.2
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    • pp.360-378
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    • 1997
  • Background : Severe acute lung injury(ALI), also known as the adult respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS), is a heterogenous nature of dynamic and explosive clinical synrome that exacts a mortality of approximately 50%. Endotoxin(ETX) is an abundant component of the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria capable of inducing severe lung injury in gram-negative sepsis and gram-negative bacterial pneumonia, which are among the most common predisposing causes of ARDS. The influx of PMNs into airway tissue is a pathological hallmark of LPS-induced lung injury. And there is a substantial evidence suggesting that cytokines are important mediators of lung injury in gram-negative sepsis. However, the kinetics of phagocytes and cytokines by an exact time sequence and their respective pathogenic importance remain to be elucidated. This study was performed to investigate the role of phagocytes and proinflammatory cytokines in ETX-induced ALI through a time course of changes in the concentration of protein, $TNF{\alpha}$ and IL-6, and counts of total and its differential cells in BALF. The consecutive histologic findings were also evaluated. Method : The experimental animals, healthy male Sprague-Dawley, weighted $200{\pm}50g$, were divided into control- and ALI- group. ALI was induced by an intravenous administration of ETX, 5mg/kg. Above mentioned all parameters were examined at 0(control), 3, 6, 24, 72 h after administration of ETX. $TNF{\alpha}$ and IL-6 cone. in BALF were measured by a bioassay. Results : The protein concentration and total leukocyte count(TC) in BALF was significantly increased at 3h compared to controls(p < 0.05). The protein conc. was significantly elavated during observation period, but TC was significantly decreased at 72h(p < 0.05 vs. 24h). There was a close relationship between TC and protein cone. in BALF(r = 0.65, p < 0.001). The PMN and monocyte count was well correlated with TC in BALF, and the correlation of PMN(r = 0.97, p < 0.001) appeared to be more meaningful than that of monocyte(r = 0.61, p < 0.001). There was also a significant correlation between protein cone. and PMN or monocyte count in BALF(PMN vs. monocyte : r = 0.55, p < 0.005 vs. r = 0.64, p < 0.001). The count of monocyte was significantly elavated during observation period though a meaningful reduction of PMN count in BALF at 72h, this observation suggested that monocyte may, at least, partipate in the process of lung injury steadly. In this study, there was no relationship between IL-6 and $TNF{\alpha}$ cone., and $TNF{\alpha}$ but not IL-6 was correlated with TC(r = 0.61, p < 0.05) and monocyte(r = 0.67, p < 0.05) in BALF only at 3, 6h after ETX introduced. In particular, the IL-6 cone. increased earlier and rapidly peaked than $TNF{\alpha}$ cone. in BALF. In histologic findings, the cell counts of lung slices were increased from 3 to 72h(p < 0.001 vs. NC). Alveolar wall-thickness was increased from 6 to 24h(p < 0.001 vs. NC). There was a significant correlation between the cell counts of lung slices and alveolar wall-thickness(r= 0.61, p < 0.001). This result suggested that the cellular infiltrations might be followed by the alterations of interstitium, and the edematous change of alveolar wall might be most rapidly recovered to its normal condition in the process of repair. Conclusion : We concluded that although the role of PMN is partly certain in ETX-induced ALI, it is somewhat inadequate to its known major impact on ALL Alveolar macrophage and/or non-immune cells such as pulmonary endothelial or epithelial cells, may be more importantly contributed to the initiation and perpetual progression of ETX-induced ALI. The IL-6 in ETX-induced ALI was independent to $TNF{\alpha}$, measured by a bioassay in BALF. The early rise in IL-6 in BALF implies multiple origins of the IL-6.

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The Effects of Online Service Quality on Consumer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention -About Booking and Issuing Air Tickets on Website- (온라인 서비스 품질이 고객만족 및 충성의도에 미치는 영향 -항공권 예약.발권 웹사이트를 중심으로-)

  • Park, Jong-Gee;Ko, Do-Eun;Lee, Seung-Chang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.71-110
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    • 2010
  • 1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is

    . 3.2 Hypotheses 3.2.1 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Quality and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality I-1. Efficiency of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-2. System availability of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-3. Fulfillment of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-4. Privacy of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.2 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Recovery and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service recovery and overall service quality II-1. Responsiveness of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-2. Compensation of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-3. Contact of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.3 The Hypothesis of Overall Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction The relation between overall service quality and customer satisfaction III-1. Overall service quality may have a significant effect on customer satisfaction. 3.2.4 The Hypothesis of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention The relation between customer satisfaction and loyalty intention IV-1. Customer satisfaction may have a significant effect on loyalty intention. 3.2.5 The Hypothesis of a Mediation Variable Wolfinbarger & Gilly(2003) and Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra(2005) had made clear that each dimension of service quality has a significant effect on overall service quality. Add to this, the authors analyzed empirically that each dimension of on-line service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. With that viewpoint, this study would examine if overall service quality mediates between on-line service quality and each dimension of customer satisfaction, keeping on looking into the relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality, overall service quality and customer satisfaction. And as this study understands that each dimension of on-line service recovery also has an effect on overall service quality, this would examine if overall service quality also mediates between on-line service recovery and each dimension of customer satisfaction. Therefore these hypotheses followed are set up to examine if overall service quality plays its role as the mediation variable. The relation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction V-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of efficiency of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of system availability of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of fulfillment of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-4. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of privacy of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. The relation between on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction VI-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of responsiveness of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of compensation of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of contact of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. 4. Empirical Analysis 4.1 Research design and the characters of data This empirical study aimed at customers who ever purchased air ticket at the Web sites for reservation and issue. Total 430 questionnaires were distributed, and 400 were collected. After surveying with the final questionnaire, the frequency test was performed about variables of sex, age which is demographic factors for analyzing general characters of sample data. Sex of data is consist of 146 of male(42.7%) and 196 of female(57.3%), so portion of female is a little higher. Age is composed of 11 of 10s(3.2%), 199 of 20s(58.2%), 105 of 30s(30.7%), 22 of 40s(6.4%), 5 of 50s(1.5%). The reason that portions of 20s and 30s are higher can be supposed that they use the Internet frequently and purchase air ticket directly. 4.2 Assessment of measuring scales This study used the internal consistency analysis to measure reliability, and then used the Cronbach'$\alpha$ to assess this. As a result of reliability test, Cronbach'$\alpha$ value of every component shows more than 0.6, it is found that reliance of the measured variables are ensured. After reliability test, the explorative factor analysis was performed. the factor sampling was performed by the Principal Component Analysis(PCA), the factor rotation was performed by the Varimax which is good for verifying mutual independence between factors. By the result of the initial factor analysis, items blocking construct validity were removed, and the result of the final factor analysis performed for verifying construct validity is followed above. 4.3 Hypothesis Testing 4.3.1 Hypothesis Testing by the Regression Analysis(SPSS) 4.3.2 Analysis of Mediation Effect To verify mediation effect of overall service quality of and , this study used the phased analysis method proposed by Baron & Kenny(1986) generally used. As shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.164, system availability=.074, fulfillment=.108, privacy=.107) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.409, system availability=.227, fulfillment=.386, privacy=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and satisfaction. As
    shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.164, compensation=.117, contact=.113) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.409, compensation=.386, contact=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service recovery and satisfaction. Verified results on the basis of empirical analysis are followed. First, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service quality has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially fulfillment of overall service quality has the most effect, and then efficiency, system availability, privacy in order. Second, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service recovery has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially responsiveness of overall service quality has the most effect, and then contact, compensation in order. Third, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty intention. Fourth, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction, on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction. 5. Conclusion This study measured and analyzed service quality and service recovery of the Web sites that customers made a reservation and issued their air tickets, and by improving customer satisfaction through the result, this study put its final goal to grope how to keep loyalty customers. On the basis of the result of empirical analysis, suggestion points of this study are followed. First, this study regarded E-S-QUAL that measures on-line service quality and E-RecS-QUAL that measures on-line service recovery as variables, so it overcame the limit of existing studies that used modified SERVQUAL to measure service quality of the Web sites. Second, it shows that fulfillment and efficiency of on-line service quality have the most significant effect on overall service quality. Therefore the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets should try harder to elevate efficiency and fulfillment. Third, privacy of on-line service quality has the least significant effect on overall service quality, but this may be caused by un-assurance of customers whether the Web sites protect safely their confidential information or not. So they need to notify customers of this fact clearly. Fourth, there are many cases that customers don't recognize the importance of on-line service recovery, but if they would think that On-line service recovery has an effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, as its importance is very significant they should prepare for that. Fifth, because overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, they should try harder to elevate service quality and service recovery of the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets to maximize customer satisfaction and to secure loyalty customers. Sixth, it is found that overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation, but now there are rarely existing studies about this, so there need to be more studies about this.

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  • The Influence of Store Environment on Service Brand Personality and Repurchase Intention (점포의 물리적 환경이 서비스 브랜드 개성과 재구매의도에 미치는 영향)

    • Kim, Hyoung-Gil;Kim, Jung-Hee;Kim, Youn-Jeong
      • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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      • v.17 no.4
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      • pp.141-173
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      • 2007
    • The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

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    Ecological Changes of Insect-damaged Pinus densiflora Stands in the Southern Temperate Forest Zone of Korea (I) (솔잎혹파리 피해적송림(被害赤松林)의 생태학적(生態学的) 연구(研究) (I))

    • Yim, Kyong Bin;Lee, Kyong Jae;Kim, Yong Shik
      • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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      • v.52 no.1
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      • pp.58-71
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      • 1981
    • Thecodiplosis japonesis is sweeping the Pinus densiflora forests from south-west to north-east direction, destroying almost all the aged large trees as well as even the young ones. The front line of infestation is moving slowly but ceaselessly norhwards as a long bottle front. Estimation is that more than 40 percent of the area of P. densiflora forest has been damaged already, however some individuals could escapes from the damage and contribute to restore the site to the previous vegetation composition. When the stands were attacked by this insect, the drastic openings of the upper story of tree canopy formed by exclusively P. densiflora are usually resulted and some environmental factors such as light, temperature, litter accumulation, soil moisture and offers were naturally modified. With these changes after insect invasion, as the time passes, phytosociologic changes of the vegetation are gradually proceeding. If we select the forest according to four categories concerning the history of the insect outbreak, namely, non-attacked (healthy forest), recently damaged (the outbreak occured about 1-2 years ago), severely damaged (occured 5-6 years ago), damage prolonged (occured 10 years ago) and restored (occured about 20 years ago), any directional changes of vegetation composition could be traced these in line with four progressive stages. To elucidate these changes, three survey districts; (1) "Gongju" where the damage was severe and it was outbroken in 1977, (2) "Buyeo" where damage prolonged and (3) "Gochang" as restored, were set, (See Tab. 1). All these were located in the south temperate forest zone which was delimited mainly due to the temporature factor and generally accepted without any opposition at present. In view of temperature, the amount and distribution of precipitation and various soil factor, the overall homogeneity of environmental conditions between survey districts might be accepted. However this did not mean that small changes of edaphic and topographic conditions and microclimates can induce any alteration of vegetation patterns. Again four survey plots were set in each district and inter plot distance was 3 to 4 km. And again four subplots were set within a survey plot. The size of a subplot was $10m{\times}10m$ for woody vegetation and $5m{\times}5m$ for ground cover vegetation which was less than 2 m high. The nested quadrat method was adopted. In sampling survey plots, the followings were taken into account: (1) Natural growth having more than 80 percent of crown density of upper canopy and more than 5 hectares of area. (2) Was not affected by both natural and artificial disturbances such as fire and thinning operation for the past three decades. (3) Lower than 500 m of altitude (4) Less than 20 degrees of slope, and (5) Northerly sited aspect. An intensive vegetation survey was undertaken during the summer of 1980. The vegetation was devided into 3 categories for sampling; the upper layer (dominated mainly by the pine trees), the middle layer composed by oak species and other broad-leaved trees as well as the pine, and the ground layer or the lower layer (shrubby form of woody plants). In this study our survey was concentrated on woody species only. For the vegetation analysis, calculated were values of intensity, frequency, covers, relative importance, species diversity, dominance and similarity and dissimilasity index when importance values were calculated, different relative weights as score were arbitrarily given to each layer, i.e., 3 points for the upper layer, 2 for the middle layer and 1 for the ground layer. Then the formula becomes as follows; $$R.I.V.=\frac{3(IV\;upper\;L.)+2(IV.\;middle\;L.)+1(IV.\;ground\;L.)}{6}$$ The values of Similarity Index were calculated on the basis of the Relative Importance Value of trees (sum of relative density, frequency and cover). The formula used is; $$S.I.=\frac{2C}{S_1+S_2}{\times}100=\frac{2C}{100+100}{\times}100=C(%)$$ Where: C = The sum of the lower of the two quantitative values for species shared by the two communities. $S_1$ = The sum of all values for the first community. $S_2$ = The sum of all values for the second community. In Tab. 3, the species composition of each plot by layer and by district is presented. Without exception, the species formed the upper layer of stands was Pinus densiflora. As seen from the table, the relative cover (%), density (number of tree per $500m^2$), the range of height and diameter at brest height and cone bearing tendency were given. For the middle layer, Quercus spp. (Q. aliena, serrata, mongolica, accutissina and variabilis) and Pinus densiflora were dominating ones. Genus Rhodedendron and Lespedeza were abundant in ground vegetation, but some oaks were involved also. (1) Gongju district The total of woody species appeared in this district was 26 and relative importance value of Pinus densiflora for the upper layer was 79.1%, but in the middle layer, the R.I.V. for Quercus acctissima, Pinus densiflora, and Quercus aliena, were 22.8%, 18.7% and 10.0%, respectively, and in ground vegetation Q. mongolica 17.0%, Q. serrata 16.8% Corylus heterophylla 11.8%, and Q. dentata 11.3% in order. (2) Buyeo district. The number of species enumerated in this district was 36 and the R.I.V. of Pinus densiflora for the uppper layer was 100%. In the middle layer, the R.I.V. of Q. variabilis and Q. serrata were 8.6% and 8.5% respectively. In the ground vegetative 24 species were counted which had no more than 5% of R.I.V. The mean R.I.V. of P.densiflora ( totaling three layers ) and averaging four plots was 57.7% in contrast to 46.9% for Gongju district. (3) Gochang-district The total number of woody species was 23 and the mean R.I.V. of Pinus densiflora was 66.0% showing greater value than those for two former districts. The next high value was 6.5% for Q. serrata. As the time passes since insect outbreak, the mean R.I.V. of P. densiflora increased as the following order, 46.9%, 57.7% and 66%. This implies that P. densiflora was getting back to its original dominat state again. The pooled importance of Genus Quercus was decreasing with the increase of that for Pinus densiflora. This trend was contradict to the facts which were surveyed at Kyonggi-do area (the central temperate forest zone) reported previously (Yim et al, 1980). Among Genus Quercus, Quercus acutissina, warm-loving species, was more abundant in the southern temperature zone to which the present research is concerned than the central temperate zone. But vice-versa was true with Q. mongolica, a cold-loving one. The species which are not common between the present survey and the previous report are Corpinus cordata, Beltala davurica, Wisturia floribunda, Weigela subsessilis, Gleditsia japonica var. koraiensis, Acer pseudosieboldianum, Euonymus japonica var. macrophylla, Ribes mandshuricum, Pyrus calleryana var. faruiei, Tilia amurensis and Pyrus pyrifolia. In Figure 4 and Table 5, Maximum species diversity (maximum H'), Species diversity (H') and Eveness (J') were presented. The Similarity indices between districts were shown in Tab. 5. Seeing Fig. 6, showing two-dimensional ordination of polts on the basis of X and Y coordinates, Ai plots aggregate at the left site, Bi plots at lower site, and Ci plots at upper-right site. The increasing and decreasing patterns as to Relative Density and Relative Importance Value by genus or species were given in Fig. 7. Some of the patterns presented here are not consistent with the previously reported ones (Yim, et al, 1980). The present authors would like to attribute this fact that two distinct types of the insect attack, one is the short war type occuring in the south temperate forest zone, which means that insect attack went for a few years only, the other one is a long-drawn was type observed at the temperate forest zone in which the insect damage went on continuously for several years. These different behaviours of infestation might have resulted the different ways of vegetational change. Analysing the similarity indices between districts, the very convincing results come out that the value of dissimilarity index between A and B was 30%, 27% between B and C and 35% between A and C (Table 6). The range of similarity index was obtained from the calculation of every possible combinations of plots between two districts. Longer time isolation between communities has brought the higher value of dissimilarity index. The main components of ground vegetation, 10 to 20 years after insect outbreak, become to be consisted of mainly Genus Lespedeza and Rhododendron. Genus Quercus which relate to the top dorminant state for a while after insect attack was giving its place to Pinus densiflora. It was implied that, provided that the soil fertility, soil moisture and soil depth were good enough, Genus Quercuss had never been so easily taken ever by the resistant speeies like Pinus densiflora which forms the edaphic climax at vast areas of forest land. Usually they refer Quercus to the representative component of the undisturbed natural forest in the central part of this country.

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