• Title/Summary/Keyword: exploratory research

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An Exploratory Study on the Competition Patterns Between Internet Sites in Korea (한국 인터넷사이트들의 산업별 경쟁유형에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Park, Yoonseo;Kim, Yongsik
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.79-111
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    • 2011
  • Digital economy has grown rapidly so that the new business area called 'Internet business' has been dramatically extended as time goes on. However, in the case of Internet business, market shares of individual companies seem to fluctuate very extremely. Thus marketing managers who operate the Internet sites have seriously observed the competition structure of the Internet business market and carefully analyzed the competitors' behavior in order to achieve their own business goals in the market. The newly created Internet business might differ from the offline ones in management styles, because it has totally different business circumstances when compared with the existing offline businesses. Thus, there should be a lot of researches for finding the solutions about what the features of Internet business are and how the management style of those Internet business companies should be changed. Most marketing literatures related to the Internet business have focused on individual business markets. Specifically, many researchers have studied the Internet portal sites and the Internet shopping mall sites, which are the most general forms of Internet business. On the other hand, this study focuses on the entire Internet business industry to understand the competitive circumstance of online market. This approach makes it possible not only to have a broader view to comprehend overall e-business industry, but also to understand the differences in competition structures among Internet business markets. We used time-series data of Internet connection rates by consumers as the basic data to figure out the competition patterns in the Internet business markets. Specifically, the data for this research was obtained from one of Internet ranking sites, 'Fian'. The Internet business ranking data is obtained based on web surfing record of some pre-selected sample group where the possibility of double-count for page-views is controlled by method of same IP check. The ranking site offers several data which are very useful for comparison and analysis of competitive sites. The Fian site divides the Internet business areas into 34 area and offers market shares of big 5 sites which are on high rank in each category daily. We collected the daily market share data about Internet sites on each area from April 22, 2008 to August 5, 2008, where some errors of data was found and 30 business area data were finally used for our research after the data purification. This study performed several empirical analyses in focusing on market shares of each site to understand the competition among sites in Internet business of Korea. We tried to perform more statistically precise analysis for looking into business fields with similar competitive structures by applying the cluster analysis to the data. The research results are as follows. First, the leading sites in each area were classified into three groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The first group includes the sites with the lowest market shares, which give more increased convenience to consumers by offering the Internet sites as complimentary services for existing offline services. The second group includes sites with medium level of market shares, where the site users are limited to specific small group. The third group includes sites with the highest market shares, which usually require online registration in advance and have difficulty in switching to another site. Second, we analyzed the second place sites in each business area because it may help us understand the competitive power of the strongest competitor against the leading site. The second place sites in each business area were classified into four groups based on averages and standard deviations of daily market shares. The four groups are the sites showing consistent inferiority compared to the leading sites, the sites with relatively high volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and medium level of shares, the sites with relatively low volatility and high level of shares whose gaps are not big compared to the leading sites. Except 'web agency' area, these second place sites show relatively stable shares below 0.1 point of standard deviation. Third, we also classified the types of relative strength between leading sites and the second place sites by applying the cluster analysis to the gap values of market shares between two sites. They were also classified into four groups, the sites with the relatively lowest gaps even though the values of standard deviation are various, the sites with under the average level of gaps, the sites with over the average level of gaps, the sites with the relatively higher gaps and lower volatility. Then we also found that while the areas with relatively bigger gap values usually have smaller standard deviation values, the areas with very small differences between the first and the second sites have a wider range of standard deviation values. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are as follows. First, the result of this study might provide the current market participants with the useful information to understand the competitive circumstance of the market and build the effective new business strategy for the market success. Also it might be useful to help new potential companies find a new business area and set up successful competitive strategies. Second, it might help Internet marketing researchers take a macro view of the overall Internet market so that make possible to begin the new studies on overall Internet market beyond individual Internet market studies.

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Developing a Scale for Measuring the Corporate Social Responsibility Activities of Korea Corporation: Focusing on the Consumers' Awareness (한국형 기업의 사회적 책임활동 측정을 위한 척도 개발 연구: 소비자 인식을 중심으로)

  • Park, Jongchul;Kim, Kyungjin;Lee, Hanjoon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.27-52
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    • 2010
  • It is not new that today's business organizations are expected to exhibit ethical and moral management and to carry out social responsibility as a good corporate citizen. Since South Korea emerged as a newly industrialized country during the 1980s, Korean corporations have become active in carrying out their social responsibility as a good corporate citizen to society. In spite of the short history of corporate social responsibility, Korean companies have actively participated in corporate philanthropy. Corporations' significant donations to various social causes, no-lay-off policies, corporate volunteerism and green marketing are evidences of their commitment to corporate citizenship. Corporate social responsibility is now an essential management practice whereby corporation can strengthen its sustainable value creation processes by enhancing the trust assets underlying the relationships between the business and the stakeholders. Much of the conceptual work in the area of corporate social responsibility(CSR) has originated from researches conducted in the management field. Carroll(1979) proposed that corporations have four types of social responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. Most past research has investigated CSR and its impact on consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. Although there exists a large body of literature on how consumers perceive and respond to CSR, the majority of past studies were conducted in the United States. The stability and applicability of past findings need to be tested across different national/cultural settings, especially since corporate social responsibility is a reflection of implicit conformation with the expectations and criticism that society may have toward a corporation(Matten and Moon, 2004). In this study, we explored whether people in Korea perceive CSR of Korean corporations in the same four dimensions as done in the United States and what were the measurement items tapping each of these four dimensions. In order to investigate the dimensions of CSR and the measurement items for CSR perceived by Korean people, nine focus group interviews were conducted with several stakeholder groups(two with undergraduate students, two with graduate students, three with general consumers, and two with NGO groups). Scripts from the interviews revealed that the Korean stakeholders perceived four types of CSR which are the same as those proposed by Carroll(1979). However we found CSR issues unique to Korean corporations. For example for the economic responsibility, Korean people mentioned that the corporation needed to contribute to the economic development of the country by generating corporate profits. For the legal responsibility, Koreans included the "corporation need to follow the consumer protection law." For the ethical responsibility, they considered that the corporation needed to not promote false advertisement. In addition, Koreans thought that an ethical company should do transparent management. For the philanthropic responsibility, people in Korea thought that a corporation needed to return parts of its profits to the society for the betterment of society. The 28 items were developed based on the results of the nine focus group interviews, while considering the scale developed by Maignan and Ferrell(2001). Following the procedure proposed by Churchill(1979), we started by developing an item poll consisting of 28 items and purified the initial pool of items through exploratory, confirmatory factor analyses. 176 samples were sued for this analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the 28 items in order to verify the underlying four factor structure. Study 1 provided new measurement items for tapping the Korean CSR dimensions, which can be useful for the future studies exploring the effects of CSR on Korean consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. And we found the CSR scale(17 items) has good reliability, discriminant validity and nomological validity. Economic Responsibility: "XYZ company continuously improves the quality of our products", "XYZ company has a procedure in place to respond to customer complaint", "XYZ company contributes to the economic development of our country by generating profits", "XYZ company is eager to hire people". Legal Responsibility: "XYZ company's products meet legal standards", "XYZ company seeks to comply with all laws regulating hiring and employee benefits", "XYZ company honors contractual obligations to its suppliers", "XYZ company's managers try to comply with the law related to the business operation". Ethical Responsibility: "XYZ company has a comprehensive code of conduct", "XYZ company does not promote a false or misleading advertisement", "XYZ company seems to conduct a transparent business", "XYZ company does a fair business with its suppliers or sub-contractors". Philanthropic Responsibility: "XYZ company encourages partnerships with local businesses and schools", "XYZ company supports sports and cultural activities", "XYZ company gives adequate contributions to charities considering its business size", "XYZ company encourages employees to support our community". Study 2 was condusted for comprehensive validity. 655 samples were used for this anlysis. Collected samples were tested by factor analysis and Crnbach's Alpha coefficiednts and were found to be satisfactory in terms of validity and reliability. Furthermore, fitness of the measurement model was tested by using conformatory factor analysis. χ2=880.73(df=160), GFI=0.891, AGFI=0.854, NFI=0.908, NNFI=0.913, RMR=0.059, RMESA=0.070. We hope that CSR scale could greatly facilitate research on Corporate social resposibility, it is by no means the final answer.

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Qualitative Inquiry on Ways to Improve Science Instruction and Assessment for Raising High School Students' Positive Experiences on Science (고등학생의 과학긍정경험 향상을 위한 교수학습 및 평가 개선 방안에 대한 질적 탐구)

  • Kwak, Youngsun;Shin, Youngjoon;Kang, Hunsik;Lee, Sunghee;Lee, Il;Lee, Soo-Young;Ha, Jihoon
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.40 no.3
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    • pp.337-346
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    • 2020
  • In this study, we investigated the characteristics of students participating in Science Core high schools classes and their relevance to Positive Experiences on Science (hereinafter, PES), and factors causing PES, presented by the students of Science Core high schools. A total of 20 students and five teachers in four regions across the country participated in the in-depth interview, which were conducted with the focus group of students first, and then in-depth interviews with teachers. Based on the interview results, we explored teaching and learning experiences helpful to the PES, assessment experiences resulting in the PES, and ways to support Science Core high schools to enhance their PES. Students and teachers of Science Core high schools argued that students' participation will increase only if they engage in classes while drawing attention within the range that students can understand, students' PES such as scientific interest can be improved through experiments in which students choose topics or design their own exploration process, science competencies such as science problem solving ability and scientific thinking ability should be developed through exploratory experiment activities that fit the nature of science, etc. In addition, regarding ways to improve and support Science Core high schools to enhance PES, securing science class hours, restructuring the contents of science elective courses, and necessity of maintaining Science Core high schools are suggested. Based on the research results of science high school students' PES, ways to improve the PES of general high school students are discussed.

A Study on Visitor Motivation and Satisfaction of Urban Open Space - In the Case of Waterfront Open Space in Seoul - (도시 오픈스페이스 방문동기 및 만족도 연구 - 서울시 하천변 오픈스페이스를 중심으로 -)

  • Zoh, Kyung-Jin;Kim, Yong-Gook;Kim, Young-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.27-40
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    • 2014
  • The functions of urban open space, which embraces community revitalization, are diverse. It is the means of public healthcare, learning centers for children, hub of arts and cultural programs, as well as promoter of urban tourism. However, in-depth discourse and research on the topic of urban open spaces has been limited so far. Hence, this study aims to investigate the motivations and satisfaction of visitation based on four representative waterfront open space in Seoul; Cheongyecheon Waterfront, Seoul Forest Park, Seonyudo Park and Banpo Hangang Park. The methods of study are literature review, observation investigation, and questionnaire survey. The findings are analyzed through the Exploratory Factor Analysis, Reliability Analysis, ANOVA Analysis and Regression Analysis by SPSS 18.0. The results of the study are as follows. First, urban waterfront open spaces in Seoul has 5 factors of visitor motivation; community amenity, nature access, cultural and educational assets, aesthetic enjoyment, and lastly means of escape. Second, factors of recognizing urban waterfront open spaces as community amenity and nature access indicate meaningful differences in visitor's perception by spatial characteristics. Third, distances between the destination and the visitor's residence influence significantly their perceived motivation. Close-range visitors perceived nature access as a principal factor, whilst medium to long-range visitors perceived visitation for aesthetic purposes more importantly. Lastly, the will to escape was shown as the influential factor in visitor satisfaction. Visiting open spaces for the enjoyment of nature and aesthetic purposes were factors that also closely relate to visitor satisfaction. In addition, it was found that there are different visitor motivations that influence visitor satisfaction in accordance with the spatial characteristics of each open space. In summary, it can be said that urban waterfront open space is a hybrid space connected to various types of urban contents beyond daily experiences. It was found that several visitor motivations including community development, design aesthetics, education and culture, entertainment, enjoyment of natural landscape, and relaxation, affect the overall satisfaction of the visiting experience. It is anticipated that the results of the study will be used by the local government in setting up strategies for the creation and management of successful urban waterfront open space, and for those involved in planning and design act as a starting point for spatial programming and amenities arrangement in accordance to the city's tourism and urban marketing approach.

A Study on the Effect of Perceived Usefulness Factors of Smart Farm on the Rural Entrepreneurial Intention (스마트팜의 지각된 유용성 요인이 농촌창업의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구)

  • Ahn, Mun Hyoung;Heo, Chul-Moo
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.161-173
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    • 2020
  • As ICT convergence technology has spread and applied to various industrial fields and society in general, interest in rural entrepreneurship using smart farm as a means for solving many pending problems in agriculture is increasing. In this context, this study is to look at the influential factors in terms of perceived usefulness associated with the rural entrepreneurial intention using smart farm and suggest a proposal for spreading smart farms. The subjects were 296 general adults over 20 years old who were selected by simple random sampling method. The research method was exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis using IBM SPSS 22.0. The perceived usefulness of smart farm, which are availability, reliability and economic efficiency were selected as independent variables to analyze the influential factors on rural entrepreneurial intention using smart farm and the moderating effect of personal innovation was observed. As a result, reliability and economic efficiency have a positive(+) influence on rural entrepreneurial intention using smart farm. And personal innovation moderates the relationship between the availability, reliability of smart farm and rural entrepreneurial intention using smart farm. The results of this study have significance in that we devised and empirically revealed factors affecting rural entrepreneurship intentions from the perspective of perceived usefulness of smart farms, away from studies of general entrepreneurship intention factors such as internal personal characteristics and external environmental factors. The implications of the study are expected to be utilized at the seeking direction of policy for potential entrepreneur using smart farm, the training and consulting in actual field of smart farm.

The Relationship Between Social Security Network and Security Life Satisfaction in Community Residents: Scale Development and Application of Social Security Network (사회안전망과 지역사회주민의 안전생활만족의 관계: 사회안전망 척도개발과 적용)

  • Kim, Chan-Sun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.14 no.6
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    • pp.108-118
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    • 2014
  • The purpose of this study is to develop a relationship of measuring method for the social security network and verify its validity and reliability and apply it to investigate the due to security life satisfaction. This study is based by setting general residents of Seoul in 2013 and using the stratified cluster random sampling method to analyze a total amount of 203 examples. The measuring methods for the social security network was developed through document research, conceptual definition and drafting the survey, experts' conference, preliminary inspection and original examination, verification of the validity and reliability of the survey. An experts' conference took pace to verify the validity of the survey, and 6 factors were extracted through exploratory factor analysis crime prevention design, street CCTV facilities, volunteer neighborhood patrol, local government security education, police public peace service, private security service. The conclusion are the following. Collected data was analyzed based on the aim of this study using SPSSWIN 18.0, and practice frequency analysis, F test, factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis. First, the validity of the social security network measurement is very high. Thus, the factors constituting the social security network were found to be crime prevention design, street CCTV facilities, volunteer neighborhood patrol, local government security education, police public peace services, and private security services, and the crime prevention design factor was found to be most explanatory. Second, the reliability of the social security network measurement is very high. Thus, the correlation between the questions and the sector, the questions and the social security net was very high, and the internal consistency showed a Cronbach's${\alpha}$ value of over 0.865. Third, the establishment of a social security network had the biggest effect on people in their forties. Thus, when the crime prevention design, street CCTV facilities, local government security education, police public peace services are systematically established, the social anxiety of citizens was reduced.

The influences of sustainability management at institutional foodservice on store image and behavioral intention (소비자가 인식하는 산업체 급식업체의 지속가능경영활동이 점포이미지와 행동의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Ahn, Jiyoon;Seo, Sunhee
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.48 no.2
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    • pp.199-210
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of sustainability management in institutional foodservice on store image and behavioral intention (revisit intention, word of mouth, willingness to pay a premium). Methods: Based on a total of 371 samples obtained from the empirical research, this study reviewed the reliability and fitness of the model. Results: According to results of exploratory factor analysis, sustainability management derived three factors, economic value, socially responsible, and environmentally sound. The structural equation modeling showed that social responsibility in sustainability management had a significant positive effect on store image and behavioral intention. In addition, customer's perceived store image in foodservice had a significant positive effect on behavioral intention. The relationship between sustainability management and behavioral intention was found to be a partially significant effect. Conclusion: The results of this study revealed the importance of sustainability management of foodservice to improve store image and behavioral intention.

Relationships among Brand Equity Components: An Exploratory Study of the Moderating Role of Product Type (품패자산조성부분간적상호관계(品牌资产组成部分间的相互关系): 관우산품충류조절작용적탐색연구(关于产品种类调节作用的探索研究))

  • Moon, Byeong-Joon;Park, Won-Kyu;Choi, Sang-Chul
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.98-109
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    • 2010
  • Research on the construction, measurement, and management of brand equity has been extensive since David A. Aaker(1991) and Kevin Lane Keller(1993) first advanced the concept. Recently, much attention has been devoted to the components of brand equity: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. This study explores the relationships among these components, focusing particularly on the moderating role of product type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) in their causal relationships. A model to study the relationship among components of brand equity, particularly the moderating role of product type, is featured in Figure 1. The hypotheses of the study are proposed as follows: that consumers' brand awareness has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' perceived quality has a positive influence on brand loyalty and brand image; that consumers' brand image influences brand loyalty positively; and that relationships among components of brand equity will be moderated by product type. That is, in the case of utilitarian products, the impact of perceived quality on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger, whereas with hedonic products the impact of brand image on brand loyalty will be relatively stronger. To determine the products for the study, a pre-test of 58 college students in the Seoul metropolitan area was conducted based on the product type scale. As a result, computers were selected as the utilitarian product and blue jeans became the hedonic product. For each product type, two brands were selected: Samsung and HP for computers, and Levis and Nix for blue jeans. In the main study, 237 college students in the metropolitan area were surveyed to measure their brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty toward the selected two brands of each product type. The subjects were divided into two groups: one group (121 subjects) for computers, the other (116 subjects) for blue jeans. The survey questionnaires for the study included four parts: five questions on brand awareness and four questions each on perceived quality, brand image, and brand loyalty. All questions were to be answered using 7-point Likert scales. The data collected by the survey were processed to assess reliability and validity, and the causal relationships were analyzed to verify the hypotheses using the AMOS 7 program, a tool for analyzing structural equation modeling. A confirmatory factor analysis assessed the appropriateness of the measurement model, and the fit indices denoted that the model was satisfactory. The relationships among the components of brand equity were also analyzed using AMOS 7. The fit indices of the structural model denoted that it was also satisfactory. The paths in the structural model as will be seen in Figure 2 show that perceived quality affects brand image positively, but that brand awareness does not affect brand image. Moreover, it shows that brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand image are positively related with brand loyalty, and that this relationship is moderated by product type. In the case of utilitarian products, perceived quality has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. Conversely, in the case of hedonic products, brand image has relatively more influence on brand loyalty. The results of this empirical study contribute toward the advancement of our understanding of the relationships among the components of brand equity and expand the theoretical underpinnings for brand equity measurement. It also helps further our understanding of the effect of product type on customer-based brand equity. In a marketing management practice perspective, these results may provide managerial implications for building and maintaining brand equity effectively.

An Exploratory Study on Determinants Affecting R Programming Acceptance (R 프로그래밍 수용 결정 요인에 대한 탐색 연구)

  • Rubianogroot, Jennifer;Namn, Su Hyeon
    • Management & Information Systems Review
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    • v.37 no.1
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    • pp.139-154
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    • 2018
  • R programming is free and open source system associated with a rich and ever-growing set of libraries of functions developed and submitted by independent end-users. It is recognized as a popular tool for handling big data sets and analyzing them. Reflecting these characteristics, R has been gaining popularity from data analysts. However, the antecedents of R technology acceptance has not been studied yet. In this study we identify and investigates cognitive factors contributing to build user acceptance toward R in education environment. We extend the existing technology acceptance model by incorporating social norms and software capability. It was found that the factors of subjective norm, perceived usefulness, ease of use affect positively on the intention of acceptance R programming. In addition, perceived usefulness is related to subjective norms, perceived ease of use, and software capability. The main difference of this research from the previous ones is that the target system is not a stand-alone. In addition, the system is not static in the sense that the system is not a final version. Instead, R system is evolving and open source system. We applied the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to the target system which is a platform where diverse applications such as statistical, big data analyses, and visual rendering can be performed. The model presented in this work can be useful for both colleges that plan to invest in new statistical software and for companies that need to pursue future installations of new technologies. In addition, we identified a modified version of the TAM model which is extended by the constructs such as subjective norm and software capability to the original TAM model. However one of the weak aspects that might inhibit the reliability and validity of the model is that small number of sample size.

가정 폭력 경험이 남자 범죄 청소년의 남성성에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

  • Kim, Kyung-Ho
    • 한국사회복지학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 2003.05a
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    • pp.282-309
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    • 2003
  • This exploratory qualitative study investigates the effects of experiencing domestic violence on male adolescent offenders' masculinities. Empirical and theoretical literature suggests that negative male role models in violent families result in male adolescents' experiencing conflict in constructing gender identities, especially masculinities. Moreover. criminologists argue that masculinities are often connected with crimes as a way to prove masculine competence. This study compares male adolescent offenders who have experienced domestic violence with those who have not experienced domestic violence and explores how domestic violence experiences influence the construction of gender identities among male adolescent offenders. The study used a secondary qualitative data analysis method. The data consisted of ethnographic in-depth interview transcripts, observational field notes, and formal facility records collected at a juvenile correctional facility in Minnesota. The process of data analysis was a "constant comparative method" that sought to understand differences and similarities in the expressed gender narratives and identity patterns between the two groups of offenders. This process also examined differences within each group. The qualitative data analysis revealed that domestic violence experiences in childhood may be related to the construction of gender identities during adolescence. The findings of this study showed that male adolescent offenders who had experienced domestic violence tended to attach themselves to oppressed mothers more readily than those who had not experienced domestic violence. Next, their attachment to mothers related to the construction of more relational gender identities although most participants, regardless of domestic violence experiences, had much in common regarding gender expression. Finally, despite these relational gender identities, male adolescent offenders who had experienced domestic violence tended to depend upon violence and crimes to show masculine competence, as did male adolescent offenders who had not experienced domestic violence. The study findings suggest a need for research to understand the construction of gender identities in the context of particular experiences and the importance of building theories that advance a comprehensive understanding of the construction of masculinities and youth crime. This study also discusses the development of social work programs that protect young men from adherence to exaggerated masculinity, which is often associated with crimes.

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