• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.55
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• pp.209-240
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• 2012

Since the age of Lord Mansfield, who laid the foundation of the modern English insurance contract law in the second part of the 18th century, English insurance law has developed a unique rule of warranty. Lord Mansfield adopted very different approach and afforded such a strict legal character to insurance warranty, because the promise, given by the insured, played an important role for the insurer to assess the scope of the risk insured at that time. It is still important that the insured keep his promises strictly to the insurer under the insurance contract, but legal environments have changed dramatically since the times of Lord Mansfield. English Law Commission proposed some proposals for reforming the warranty regime to reflect the changes of legal environment in CP 2007. This article is, therefore, designed to examine the proposals and consider their legal and practical implications. The proposals of Law Commission is summarized as following. First, in CP 2007, Law Commission made two principal proposals for reform of the law on warranty. The first is that the insurer should not be entitled to rely on a breach of warranty unless the insured has been provided with a witten statement of what they have undertaken under warranty. The second is that the insurer should not be entitled to reject a claim on the ground that the insured has breached a warranty unless there was a causal connection between the breach and the loss. Secondly, for consumer insurance, the rule requiring a causal connection would be mandatory, whereas for business insurance, it would be possible for the parties to agree on the effect a breach of warranty should have, provided they use clear language to express their intentions. Thirdly, where the insured contracted on the insurer's written standard terms of business, some statutory controls would be afforded to the contract to ensure that the cover was not substantially different from what the insured reasonably expected. Finally, Law Commission propose that a breach of warranty give the insurer the right to terminate the contract, rather than automatically discharging it from liability, but (unless otherwise agreed) only if the breach has sufficiently serious consequences to justify termination under the general law of contract. Having evaluated the proposals of the Law Commission and considered their legal and practical implications, it is quite clear that the proposed rule interfere with freedom of contract and create legal uncertainty. But change can not made without any victims, so Law Commission's attempt to change severe and injust aspects of the warranty regime would be very welcomed and respected.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2023

Due to the progress of the 4th industrial revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic, the subscription economy was rapidly expanding. In particular, the subscription economy was expected to expand further as the servicing of products(servitization) rapidly progresses. In this study, we tried to empirically analyze the factors that promote and hinder the spread of the subscription economy from the consumer's point of view. To this end, based on the Service Profit Chain (SPC) model, which identified mechanisms leading from quality to satisfaction, loyalty, and performance, a research model was established by combining the framework of the Value-based Adoption Model (VAM), which covers both benefit and sacrifice factors. Usefulness and convenience were derived as benefit factors, and perceived risks and perceived costs were derived as sacrifice factors. The effects of these factors on satisfaction and continuous use intention were analyzed. For empirical analysis, a survey was conducted targeting people who have experience in subscription economy, and 300 effective samples were analyzed. The analysis was performed as a structural equation model using AMOS 24. As a result of the empirical study, it was found that convenience had a significant positive (+) effect on satisfaction. Perceived risk and perceived cost were analyzed to have a negative (-) effect on satisfaction. On the other hand, usefulness was found to have no significant effect on satisfaction. The influences affecting satisfaction were in the order of perceived cost, convenience, and perceived risk. Satisfaction was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on continuous use intention. The results of this study were considered meaningful in that they broadened the horizons of research by combining existing validated models at the academic level and testing their validity, and found that perceived cost was still an important factor at the practical level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-177
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• 2011

I. Research Objectives: Most of the previous studies on diffusion have concentrated on efficacy of WOM communication with the use of variables at individual level (Iacobucci 1996; Midgley et al. 1992). However, there is a paucity of studies which investigated network's structural properties as antecedents of WOM from the perspective of consumers' sociocultural propensities. Against this research backbone, this study attempted to link the network's structural properties and consumer' WOM behavior on cross-national basis. The major research objective of this study was to examine the relationship between network properties and WOM by comparing Korean and Chinese consumers. Specific objectives of this research are threefold; firstly, it sought to examine whether network properties (i.e., tie strength, centrality, range) affect WOM (WOM intention and quality of WOM). Secondly, it aimed to explore the moderating effects of cutural orientation (uncertainty avoidance and individuality) on the relationship between network properties and WOM. Thirdly, it substantiates the role of innovativeness as antecedents to both network properties and WOM. II. Research Hypotheses: Based on the above research objectives, the study put forth the following research hypotheses to validate. ${\cdot}$ H 1-1 : The Strength of tie between two counterparts within network will positively influence WOM effectivenes ${\cdot}$ H 1-2 : The network centrality will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 1-3 : The network range will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-1 : The consumer's uncertainty avoidance tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-2 : The consumer's individualism tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 3-1 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence the social network properties ${\cdot}$ H 3-2 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence WOM effectiveness III. Methodology: Through a pilot study and back-translation, two versions of questionnaire were prepared, one in Korean and the other in Chinese. The chinese data were collected from the chinese students enrolled in language schools in Suwon city in Korea, while Korean data were collected from students taking classes in a major university in Seoul. A total of 277 questionnaire were used for analysis of Korean data and 212 for Chinese data. The reason why Chinese students living in Korea rather than in China were selected was based on two factors: one was to neutralize the differences (ie, retail channel availability) that may arise from living in separate countries and the second was to minimize the difference in communication venues such as internet accessibility and cell phone usability. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used for analysis. IV. Results: Prior to hypothesis verification, mean differences between the two countries in terms of major constructs were performed with the following result; As for network properties (tie strength, centrality and range), Koreans showed higher scores in all three constructs. For cultural orientation traits, Koreans scored higher only on uncertainty avoidance trait than Chinese. As a result of verifying the first research objective, confirming the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness, on Korean side, tie strength(Beta=.116; t=1.785) and centrality (Beta=.499; t=6.776) significantly influenced on WOM intention, and similar finding was obtained for Chinese side, with tie strength (Beta=.246; t=3.544) and centrality (Beta=.247; t=3.538) being significant. However, with regard to WOM argument quality, Korean data yielded only centrality (Beta=.82; t=7.600) having a significant impact on WOM, whereas China showed both tie strength(Beat=.142; t=2.052) and centrality(Beta=.348; t=5.031) being influential. To answer for the second research objective addressing the moderating role of cultural orientation, moderated regression anaylsis was performed and the result showed that uncertainty avoidance moderated between network range and WOM intention for both Korea and China, But for Korea, the uncertainty avoidance moderated between tie strength and WOM quality, while for China it moderated between network range and WOM intention. And innovativeness moderated between tie strength and WOM intention for Korea but it moderated between network range and WOM intention for China. As a result of analysing for third research objective, we found that for Korea, innovativeness positively influenced centrality only (Beta=.546; t=10.808), while for China it influenced both tie strength (Beta=.203; t=2.998) and centrality(Beta=.518; t=8.782). But for both countries alike, the innovativeness influenced positively on WOM (WOM intention and WOM quality). V. Implications: The study yields the two practical implications. Firstly, the result suggests that companies targeting multinational customers need to identify segments which are susceptible to the positive WOM and WOM information based on individual traits such as uncertainty avoidance and individualism and based on that, develop marketing communication strategy. Secondly, the companies need to divide the market on Roger's five innovation stages and based on this information, enforce marketing strategy which utilizes social networking tools such as public media and WOM. For instance, innovator and early adopters, if provided with new product information, will be able to capitalize upon the network advantages and thus add informational value to network operations using SNS or corporate blog.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2013

With environmental pollution becoming a serious problem, recently there has been increased interest in the environment and health. In addition, the development of materials for environmentally friendly and functional clothing has increased. Environmentally friendly products that use bark fibers of the mulberry(dak) tree are expressed in terms of dak fiber and Hanji yarn. This research analyzed consumer's perceived images of Hanji and Hanji yarn infant clothing. The research results are as follows. Based on analyzing images of Hanji and Hanji yarn, Hanji was categorized into four images that can be described as natural, pure, decorative, and functional, and Hanji yarn infant clothing was categorized into three images that can be described as natural, decorative, and functional. Based on the analysis of well-being elements in subjects' lifestyles, the following four inclinations were found: environmental friendliness, pursuit of novelty, life care, and environmental protection. On this basis, the subjects were categorized into three groups: the trend-pursuing group, the life-care group, and the social responsibility group. Subjects' perceived images of Hanji and Hanji yarn infant clothing were investigated, and these products were found to have a strong image of being Korean, traditional, and natural, while being weakly perceived as comfortable, functional, and practical. Analyzing the correlation between images of Hanji and Hanji yarn infant clothing and lifestyle groups revealed that these products were not perceived differently according to group. This study showed that Hanji and Hanji yarn are terms that are commonly associated with positive clothing material. However, both Hanji and Hanji yarn are perceived negatively in terms of functional image, which is an important factor in clothing material. In addition, even among consumers who pursue a lifestyle based on well-being, the functional image of Hanji yarn was not perceived highly. Hence, it is necessary to further examine the effect of terms such as Hanji and Hanji yarn on consumer choices. Therefore, caution is considered needed when using such terms in the marketing of related products.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.187-209
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• 2017

Service industry performance and competitive advantage depend on the attitudes and behavior of customer service employees who produce and deliver services through contact with customers. Most studies on customer service employees so far have concentrated on kindness, attitudes, or benefits. This study focuses on the increasing importance of customer service employees and intends to study them from the viewpoint of human brands that recognize customer service employees as a brand. In addition to the role of the employee at the service contact point, the customer participation behavior affects the interaction process with the customer service employee. Ultimately, customers could no longer be excluded from control to improve service quality. This study based on theory that the human brand characteristics of the customer service employees lead the customer's participation, which has a positive effect on the relationship with the service brand and the service brand attitude surveyed and analyzed customers who use service brand. This study is summarized as follows. First, the relationship between the service brand and the customer is examined. Second, this study also expands prior studies by examining the human brand characteristics of customer service employees and customers' willingness to participate in providing information on the impact of the consumer-brand relationship. The results of the study indicate that among the customer service employees' human brand characteristics reliability, familiarity, and empathy were found to affect the relationship between customers, the service brand, and the attitude toward the service brand the most. This study provides important implications for theoretical and practical strategies by examining the qualities and characteristics of customer service employees, which are the most important agents of marketing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.30 no.12 s.159
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• pp.1747-1758
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• 2006

Rapid development of the information technology has influenced on the changes in every sector of human environments. One prominent change in retail market is an increase of electronic stores, which has prompted practical and research interest in the product and store attributes that include consumer to purchase products from the electronic shopping. Therefore many marketers are paying much attention to the criteria of evaluating clothing and web service on internet shopping malls. The purpose of this study is to examine differences of clothing and web service criteria of consumer groups (High-Involvement & High-Ability, Low-Involvement & High-Ability, High-Involvement & Low-Ability, and Low-Involvement & Low-Ability) who are classified into consumer involvement and internet use ability. The subjects of this study were 305 people aged between 19 and 39s, living in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do area, and having experiences in buying products on the internet shopping. Statistical analyses used for this study were the frequency, percentage, factor analysis, ANOVA and Duncan test. The results of this study were as follows: Regarded on the criteria of evaluating clothing, the low different groups had significant differences in the esthetic, the quality performance and the extrinsic criterion. Both HIHA group and HILA group showed the similar results. They considered every criterion of evaluating clothing more important, compared with other groups. Regarded on the criteria of evaluating web service related to the low different groups, there were significant differences in the factors related to the shopping mall reliance, the product, the satisfaction after purchase, and the promotion and policy criterion. Both HIHA group and HILA group showed the similar results as well. They considered every criterion of evaluating web service more important, compared with other groups. In conclusion, HI groups perceive relatively more dangerous factors which can be occurred during internet shopping. Therefore, internet shopping malls need to provide clothing that can satisfy the HI groups as well as make efforts to remove the dangerous factors on the internet.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.184-193
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• 2019

With the development of the information and communication technology, tourism items or products based on new technology is created or developed for tourists. This study examines tourist's satisfaction about VR program, "Secret Wind Forest", which is the story of Gotjawal, one of famous Jeju eco-tourism attraction. In order to achieve the study goal, it identified a study model from the previous studies. It collected data using survey from visitors who used VR program. The total of 227 questionnaires was utilized for data analysis. Based on the study model, it accepted five hypotheses (H1~H5), which are as follows. Firstly, individual innovativeness has a significant effect on perceived usefulness. Secondly, individual innovativeness influenced perceived usefulness, and perceived usefulness and ease influenced usage satisfaction. These results have both theoretical and practical contribution in terms of the development to tourist products using VR program. Academics can provide basic theories such as tourism activities, behaviors, and attitudes to tourism consumer-related studies on VR tourism program in terms of content application. Practically, it can help tourist marketers who want to use VR tourism program and content developers who use VR devices to construct VR program stories using tourism resources and to plan and execute contents considering the target market.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.459-467
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• 2020

The number of SNS false and exaggerative advertising has been consistently increasing nowadays. Among others, millennials who use SNS most frequently and enjoy e-commerce have become victims of false and exaggerative advertising. Thus, this study is designed to examine millennial consumers' attitude toward SNS false and exaggerative advertising through in-depth interview. Study findings suggest that millennials have very negative attitude toward SNS false and exaggerative advertising regardless of if they are victims or not. In particular, millennials who are victims of SNS false and exaggerative advertising have negative attitude toward SNS companies as well as advertised brands on SNS. Millennial consumers think that SNS companies need to come up with guidelines to regulate SNS false and exaggerative advertising, and government also needs to apply proper measures. Since SNS false and exaggerative advertising may have negative impacts on millennials' purchase intentions as well as brand loyalty, companies need to consider millennial consumers' characteristics when it comes to launching SNS advertising targeting millennials. This finding provides practical implications for marketers.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.111-137
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• 2010

The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.

• Archives of design research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.203-213
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• 1998

The forthcoming twenty-first century is at the mercy of information and culture. A quality of humanlife is under the control of a cultural level. A nation's creative culture and a cultural level represent all things about the nation; and a national image, as a whole result of culture, is enormously influential. This new era of culturalism gives us a significant responsibility for getting ready for the late industrial society by practically harmonizing rationality of modem culture with conception of traditional culture. Industrializing culture and culturalizing industry will be the most important strategy for existence in these days of borderless international competitiveness. Cultural products which is containing a nation's own culture can not only enhance the national image, but also become high value-added industry. While general products are developed for the purpose of convenient and practical use, cultural products are created with the intention of informing international society about a nation or a region. In order to confront with a global market system and a change of cultural environment, it is necessary to create a proper design with cultural inheritance for modem likes and senses, to produce the design on a commercial scale, and to strengthen its competitiveness on international markets. In order that a commodity is born, distributed throughout markets, and delivered to a final consumer, it is essential to understand complicated process such as development, distribution and marketing of products and to systematize each part. Although we should not neglect any part, a political and systemical plan or a distributional and marketing idea will be beside the point in this article. This article presents importance of traditional patterns as a Korean cultural image, and it shows the process of designing and developing products in order for traditional patterns to be utilized for products effectively. I expect that concrete activation and systematization for those works can be carried out successively.