• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2010

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.87-106
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• 2006

Today as the scale of e-commerce constantly expands, the number and the amount of the consumer frauds are also increasing very rapidly, without sufficient levels of systematic support to prevent them. Internet Escrow service is one of the promising payment mechanisms, which guarantees secure electronic trades and payments. Especially, if the real-time product delivery information is available via RFID-based track-and-trace environment, the security and efficiency of the Internet Escrow services would be improved a lot. In this research, proposed a novel approach to integrate EPCglobal Network, which is a de-facto standard for RFID-based information network model, with Internet Escrow services. The proposed service model was implemented in the form of "Integrated Financial Platform", which supports the contracts among trading partners and the payment via Escrow services by being fully integrated with bank systems. Using the implemented EPCglobal Network-based Escrow service system, we would be able not only to shorten the money-flow cycle and to develop new kinds of loan services, but also to overcome the problems of existing Escrow services including the lack of product-related information and the delay of purchasing decisions.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.75
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• pp.199-224
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• 2017

As Multi-National Enterprises expanded their investments to foreign countries, numerous controversies and disputes arose from their negative impacts, such as violations of human rights and damage to the environment of the host countries. In response, International Organizations such as the OECD have considered various ways to prevent these negative impacts and search for more efficient dispute resolution methods. It is recognized that the OECD Guideline is one of the tools they created for this purpose. The OECD Guideline is contrastable from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives which are regarded as a corporation's charity activities apart from their core business functions. However, Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) like the OECD Guideline can be understood as a concept moving forward from CSR, due to its requirements that corporations carry out their duties in a responsible manner within the field of their core business, such as tax, global supply chain or consumer protection. RBC which is binding in nature, has even been implemented through legislation in developed countries such as the USA, France, Switzerland, and the UK. The discussion in Korea, however, has not reached that level. Discussions for legislation center singularly on CSR efforts, with a dialogue only recently forming around the topic of legislation concerning RBC. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) who lack certain financial and other resources to adequately develop RBC initiatives may find this more obstacles to implementation through legislated RBC, than if it were presented in Korea through other means. It's necessary to admit that RBC is a critical issue in international business. However, time is required to consider its application directly to SMEs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.80-101
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• 1999

Self-sufficiency ratio of food crops in Korea is estimated under $20{\%}$ in 2010 because total food consumption including feed will be increased. but food grain production will be decreased. It is necessary to maintain the optimum level of food self-sufficiency rate to secure national food demand/supply balance and non-trade and multiple function of agriculture in Korea. It will be possible to produce more food grains having the acceptable quality if the appropriate policy and cropping techniques are developed and practised in future. Breeding for high yielding varieties should be the first target to raise the production potential of food crops . Number of varieties developed during last 30 years is counted as 353 in food crops. New varieties developed in 1990s showed the higher yield potential and the improved agronomic characteristics compared with 1970s and 1980s varieties. But number of varieties planted on the farmer's field over $5{\%}$ of national planting area is less than one third of total varieties developed Breeding efforts to maintain planting area of main food crops should be focussed on consumer's demand and farmer's need. They are the best quality variety in each field of crop utilization, the newly designed variety adapting to changes of natural, rural and cropping environment, and the higher yielding variety. It is also needed to develop new quality crop varieties for inducing more consumption of crop grain produced in Korea for direct food or processing. Development of barley varieties for animal feed. high income soybean varieties, high quality wheat variety. and super yielding rice and barley varieties are also needed to keep or maximize national food production potential. In order to establish the appropriate cropping technique for domestic food security, the strong and continuous interest and financial support on crop breeding are required, and the inter-disciplinary and inter-institutionary researches should be strengthened for successful crop breeding.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.310-320
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• 1998

This study is aimed at identifying the socio-economic effects of storage of ginger in artificial caves. The gingers stored in artificial caves in Seochun, 12 sampled areas, were surveyed to get information on the socio-economic effects. The surveyed data were processed by TSP, Qbasic and B/C Ratio computer programs and analyzed the decision making criteria such as B/C ratio, NPV and IRR. The socio-economic effects of the storages of the gingers are as follows. 1. The storage benefits per ton was showed as 184,050won. 2. Considering 10% of the opportunity cost of capital, the uper limits of investments for the cave storages was analyzed as 6,784 thousand won for ginger. 3. The investment of the natural cave storages was revealed economically feasible considering the decision making criteria as B/C ratio = 1.33, NPV = 35.059 thousand won and IRR = more than 100%. The other socio-economic effects of the ginger storages was expected as ; 1. The cave storages will contribute to increase consumer's and producer's welfare through the control of supply and demand and price stability. 2. Long-term storage of ginger without damaging quality and grades will be made on account of the storage conditions as relatively low temperature, high humidity and indifferent affects from the outside climate. 3. Utilization of the underground space, the caves, for storage will maximize the land use and the sustainable environment considering the mountainous area, two third of the total national land area. 4. Construction costs of the underground storage facilities as caves are cheaper than the ground storage facilities by 15 to 20% in general. In conclusion, the underground space like natural and artificial caves are considered the most suitable for storage of ginger on account of the storage conditions as temperature, humidity and blocking the sun light. Accordingly a study on convenient utilization of new development of artificial caves should be made considering transportation and input-output of the farms. Financial support of the government should be institutionally rearranged for the successful implementation of storing farm products like ginger in natural and man-made caves.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.275-284
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to provide useful insights into community-level support services for family caregivers in Korea by comparing them with the services in the United States. Similar to most developed countries, life expectancy has led to rapid population aging in Korea over the last several decades. However, despite increased social needs of long-term care for the elderly, many elderly Koreans are still dependent on their family for the long-term care. Yet, existing support programs for family caregivers are very limited. As a result, family caregivers often suffer from a lack of financial resources and emotional support. In this study, we comprehensively review the extensive literature, including relevant studies and documents of community-level support services for family caregivers of the elderly at home in Korea and the United States. One of the most important differences is that compared to Korea, diverse services based on the law of NFCSP to support the family caregivers, such as counseling, organization of support group, and educating have been available in the United States since 2000. Additionally, the legal definition of family caregivers in the United State is broader than that in Korea, where family caregivers are limited to those who are related by blood or marriage. Therefore, more caregivers are eligible for support programs and benefit from the programs in the United States. The findings of the study suggest that policy makers in Korea should legislate for diverse and comprehensive services for family caregivers. Further, it is necessary to define legal terms for family caregivers more broadly to extend beneficiaries of the programs.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.573-588
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• 2018

This study analyzed per capita consumption expenditure by the consumption quintile of Middle and Older Elderly Households and the variables that affected it. Sample of 2,983 households was collected from the 6th KLoSA in 2016. First, when comparing the HH's living expenses by the number of family members, two persons to a person ratio, more than six persons to a person ratio were 2.007 and 4.148, respectively. The ratio increased as the number of family member increased; however, the rate of ratio increase decreased. Second, the per capita living expenses for the first and fifth quintile were 5.11 million won and 16.93 million won at the per capita living expenses that applied the OECD's equivalence scale to the HH's living expenses. The per capita living expenses for the fifth quintile was 3.31 times higher than in the first quintile. Third, among the variables influencing per capita living expenses by the consumption quintile, the marital status was the significant for all consumption quintiles; however, HH's income, HH's total asset, HH's financial asset, pension, subjective perception of the economy class, home ownership, residence (metropolitan or small city), education (elementary school), participation groups were significant in some quintiles among all quintiles. Fourth, of the significant variables influencing per capita living expenses, the most influential variables were first quintile followed by second quintile, third quintile, fourth quintile, marital status, HH's income, home ownership, HH's total asset, participation groups, residence (metropolitan), subjective perception of the economy class, in order.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.45-56
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• 2018

Purpose - Consumers perceive various risks while using food service franchise stores. Food service franchise stores offer consumers not just menus, but services, physical environment, and prices, which can be perceived as risk to consumers. This means that consumer behavior in foos service franchise stores needs to be studied based on perceived risk theory. Perceived risk consists of performance risk, financial risk, social risk, psychological risk, and time risk. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of perceived risk on satisfaction and trust, and in turn affect loyalty. The results of this study will provide guidelines for marketers to develop strategies to reduce the perceived risk of consumers. Research design, data, methodology - In order to achieve research purposes, the authors developed several hypotheses. Data were through online survey through an online survey firm. A questionnaire survey was distributed to customers who have visited the restaurant in the past three months. The survey was conducted from March 5, 2017 to October 14, 2017. A total of 1,500 people were e-mailed and 260 were returned. A total of 245 items were used in the analysis except 15 of the questionnaire. Data was analyzed by using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0. Results - The findings of this study are as follows: First, performance risk, economic risk, and psychological risk had negative effects on satisfaction. Social and time risks did not affect on satisfaction. Performance risk and time risk had negative impact on trust. Second, economic, social, and psychological risks did not affect trust, but satisfaction had significant positive effect on trust and loyalty. Third, satisfaction had positive effect on loyalty. Conclusions - The implications of this study are as follows. First, food service franchise marketers should increase their customer loyalty by establishing a risk reduction strategy. Second, there are various risks to customers visiting the store. Therefore, marketers need to analyze the perceived risks of customers. Third, it is also necessary to eliminate the perceived risks of customers. In addition, a restaurant franchise company needs to find a reasonable way to reduce the material cost and present a reasonable menu price.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2018

Interest in Fintech is extremely growing as O2O which means the binding of online and offline appears. The scale of private consumption in South korea reached about 700 trillion won, however, the online trading is only about 60 trillion won, which means 640 trillion won is still trading in offline. The reason the Fintech industry comes into the spotlight is because the foundation of related industries such as the rise of mobile traffic and the fast growth of the financial transaction through the mobile channel is forming. Especially, the introduction of payment systems among these Fintech industries offers convenience to the consumer. Mobile payment has been generalized in daily life such as utility bills and taxi fares. Use of O2O service in various industrial fields in commerce gives convenience to consumers and increase in sales to business in recent commercial transaction which is moving to on-demand channel services. People in smartphone life are supposed to find more convenient services for saving time using their phone, and this kind of environment makes the ordering goods and services through Fintech payments increase. The emergence of O2O services influences the development of Fintech industry and the emergence of convenient and reliable Fintech service through the deregulation of Fintech also affects the activation of O2O services. The complementary relationships between O2O services and Fintech would contribute to economic activation. From the standpoint of the researchers, I would like to further study the methods that can lead to a new paradigm of the financial payments industry through the development of Fintech and the drafts for the market expansion of the current offline commerce making it online in the advent of O2O services in variety industries.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-42
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• 2005

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a corporate marketing strategy maintaining and managing customers. And with CRM companies maximize the customer's value through a series of processes of new customer retention, VIP customer retention, customer value increase, potential customer activation, and customers for lifetime by collecting the customer information and taking advantage of it effectively. In particular, as the competitive environment is changing rapidly and getting more intense, maintaining the customer retention through customer churn management becomes more important in order to increase the customer value for maximizing the company's profit and to build up the relationship with customers. For example, the financial industry has managed the customer churn with the concept of customer segmentation. Recently the customer retention and churn management is becoming increasingly important in all business fields as well as financial industry since the companies expect the effect of preventing the customer churn by identifying characteristics of customers. However, despite the increasing interest and importance of the management of the customer churn, not many of studies are systematically executed by analyzing the data of customer churn. In this study we analyze the actual data of CRM activities for the customer retention, specifically the data of TV home-shopping. By doing so, we hope to identify the differences of demographic attributes and transaction specific characteristics in consumer behaviors between the churning customer and the retained customers. In addition, we try to find out the variables which can impact the churning of the customers and to predict the churn rate of individual customer through our proposed model of customer churn. In the end, based on our findings we suggest the possible marketing strategies for TV home-shopping companies.