• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.209-237
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• 2012

1. Research Purpose Consumers rely on various clues to evaluate their decision to patronize a retail store, and store brand is one of them (Dodds 1991; Grewal et al. 1998). As consumers find ever increasing variety of contact points connecting them to specific store, the value of experiential shopping as a means of increasing store's brand equity warrants greater attention from scholars of retail management. Retail shopping values are credited for creating not only cognitive experiences like brand knowledge but also emotional experiences such as shopping pleasure and pride (Schmitt 1999). This may be because today's consumers place emphasis on emotional values associated with shopping pleasure, lifestyle brought to life, brand relationship, and store atmosphere more than utilitarian values such as product quality and price. Many previous literature found this to be true (Ahn and Lee 2011; Mathwick et al. 2001). This brings forth important research issues and questions regarding the roles of shopping experiential values and brand equity with regard to consumer's retail patronage choice. However, despite this importance, research on this area remains quite inadequate (Hwang 2010). For this reason, this study aims to verify the relationships among experiential shopping values, retail store brand equity and tries to link that with customer loyalty by surveying large-scale discount store shoppers in Korea and China. 2. Research Contents In order to carry out the research objective, this study conducted comprehensive literature survey on previous literature by discussing major findings and implications with regard to shopping values and retail brand equity and store loyalty. For data collection, researcher employed survey-based research method where data were collected in two major cities of Korea (Seoul) and China (Bejing) and sampling frame was based on patrons of large discount stores in both countries. Specific research questions raised in this study are as follows; RQ1: How do Korean and Chinese consumers differently perceive of shopping values regarding shopping at large-sclae discount stores? RQ2: Are there differences in consumers' emotional consumption propensities? RQ3: Do Korean and Chinese consumers display different perceptions of brand equity towards large-scale discount stores? RQ4: Are there differences in relationships between shopping values and brand equity for Korean and Chinese consumers? For statistical analysis, SPSS17.0, AMOS17.0 and SmartPLS were employed. 3. Research Results The data collected through face-to-face survey conducted in Seoul and Bejing revealed appropriate data validity and reliability as a result of exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests, andh SEM model yielding satisfactory model fitness. The result of the study may be summarized by three main points. First, as a result of testing differences in consumption dispositions, Chinese consumers showed higher scores in aesthetic and symbolic dispositions, whereas Korean consumers scored higher in hedonic disposition. Second, testing on perceptions toward brand equity of large discount stores showed that Korean consumers exhibited more positive perceptions of brand awareness and brand image than Chinese counterparts. Third, the result of exploratory factor analysis on the experiential shopping values revealed different factors for each country. On Korean side, consumer interest value, aesthetic value, and hedonic value were prominent, whereas on Chinese side, hedonic value, aesthetic value, consumer interest value, and service excellence value were found salient. 4. Research Implications While many previous studies on inter-country differences in retailing area mainly focused on cultural dispositions or orientations to explain the differences, this study sets itself apart by specifically targeting individual consumer's shopping values from an experiential viewpoint. The study result provides important theoretical as well as practical implications for large-scale discount store, especially the impotance of fully exploring the linkage between shopping values and brand equity, which has significant influence on loyalty. Therefore, the specific implications deriving from the result shed some important insights upon the consumption values based on shopping experiences and brand equity. The differences found in store shoppers between the two countries may also provide useful insights for Korean and Chinese retailers who plan to expand their operations globally. Related strategic implications derived from this study is the importance of localizing retail strategy which is based on the differences found in experiential shopping values between the two country groups. Especially the finding that Chinese consumers value consumer interest and service excellence, whereas Koreans place importance on hedonic or aesthetic values indicates the need to differentiate the consumer's psychographical profiles when it comes to expanding retail operations globally. Particularly important will be to pursue price-orienated strategy in China in consideration of the high emphasis on consumer interests and service excellence, but to emphasize the symbolic aspects of brand equity in Korea by maximizing the brand equity associated with aesthetic values and hedonic orientations. 5. Recommendations This study focused on generic retail branded discount stores in both countries, thus making it difficult to tease out store-specific strategies based on specific retail brands. Future studies may benefit fro employing actual brand names in survey questionnaire to verify relationship between shopping values and brand-based store strategy. As with other studies of this nature, this study needs to strengthen the result's generalizability by selecting respondents from a wider spectrum of respondents.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.208-218
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• 2010

Internet has grown fast and become one of the most important retail channels now. Various types of Internet retailers, hereafter etailers, have been introduced so far and as one type of Internet shopping mall, 'surrogate Internet shopping mall' has been prosperous and attracting consumers in the domestic market. Surrogate Internet shopping mall is a unique type of etailer that globally purchases well-known brand goods that are not imported in the market, completes delivery in the favor of individual buyers, and collects fees for these specific services. The consumers, who are usually interested in purchasing high-end and unique but not eligible brands, have difficulties to purchase these items overseas directly from the retailers or brands in other countries due to worries of payment failure and no address available for their usually domestic only delivery. In Korea, both numbers of surrogate Internet shopping malls and the magnitude of sales have been growing rapidly up to more than 430 active malls and 500 billion Korean won in 2008 since the population of consumers who want this agent shopping service is also expending. This etail business concept is originated from 'surrogate-mediated purchase' and this type of shopping agent has existed in many different forms and also in wide ranges of context level for quite a long time. As marketers face their individual buyers' representatives instead of a direct contact with them in many occasions, the impact of surrogate shoppers on consumer's decision making has been enormously important and many scholars have explored various range of agent's impact on consumer's purchase decisions in marketing and psychology field. However, not much rigorous research in the Internet commerce has been conveyed yet. Moreover, since as one of the shopping agent surrogate Internet shopping malls specifically connect overseas brands or retailers to domestic consumers, one specific character of the mall's, image of surrogate buying country, where surrogate purchases are conducted in, may play an important role to form consumers' attitude and purchase intention toward products. Furthermore it also possibly affects various dimensions of perceived risk in consumer's information processing. However, though tremendous researches have been carried exploring the effects of diverse dimensions of country of origin, related studies in Internet context has been rarely executed. There have been some studies that prove the positive impact of country of origin on consumer's evaluations as one of information clues in product manufacture descriptions, yet studies detecting the relationship between country image of surrogate buying origin and product evaluations rarely undertaken regarding this specific mall type. Thus, the authors have found it well-worth investigating in this specific retail channel and explored systematic relationships among focal constructs and elaborated their different paths. The authors have proven that country image of surrogate buying origin in the mall, where surrogate malls purchase products in and brings them from for buyers, not only has a positive effect on consumers' product evaluations including attitude and purchase intention but also has a negative effect on all three dimensions of perceived risk: product-related risk, shipping-related risk, and post-purchase risk. Specifically among all the perceived risk, product-related risk which is arisen from high uncertainty of product performance is most affected (${\beta}$= -.30) by negative country image of surrogate buying origin, and also shipping-related risk (${\beta}$= -.18) and post-purchase risk (${\beta}$= -.15) get influenced in order. Its direct effects on product attitude (${\beta}$= .10) and purchase intention (${\beta}$= .14) are also secured. Each of perceived risk dimension is proven to have a negative effect on purchase intention through product attitude as a mediator (${\beta}$= -.57: product-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.24: shipping-related risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude; ${\beta}$= -.44: post-purchase risk ${\rightarrow}$ product attitude) as well. From the additional analysis, the paths of consumers' information processing are shown to be different based on their levels of product knowledge. While novice consumers with low level of knowledge consider only perceived risk important, expert consumers with high level of knowledge take both the country image, where surrogate services are conducted in, and perceived risk seriously to build their attitudes and formulate decisions toward products more delicately and systematically, which is in line with previous studies. This study suggests several pieces of academic and practical advice. Precisely, country image of surrogate buying origin does affect on consumer's risk perceptions and behavioral consequences. Therefore a careful selection of surrogate buying origin is recommended. Furthermore, reducing consumers' risk level is required to blossom this new type of retail business whether its consumer are novices or experts. Additionally, since consumer take different paths of elaborating information based on their knowledge levels, sophisticated marketing approaches to each group of consumers are required. For novice buyers strong devices for risk mitigation are needed to induce them to form better attitudes and for experts selections of better and advanced countries as surrogate buying origins are advised while endorsement strategy for the site might work as a reliable information clue to all consumers to mitigate the barriers to purchase goods online. The authors have also explained that the study suffers from some limitations, including generalizability. In future studies, tests of and comparisons among different types of etailers with relevant constructs are recommended to broaden the findings.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.67-88
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• 2018

Until recently, as we recognize the significance of sustainable growth and competitiveness of small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), governmental support for tangible resources such as R&D, manpower, funds, etc. has been mainly provided. However, it is also true that the inefficiency of support systems such as underestimated or redundant support has been raised because there exist conflicting policies in terms of appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of business support. From the perspective of the government or a company, we believe that due to limited resources of SMEs technology development and capacity enhancement through collaboration with external sources is the basis for creating competitive advantage for companies, and also emphasize value creation activities for it. This is why value chain network analysis is necessary in order to analyze inter-company deal relationships from a series of value chains and visualize results through establishing knowledge ecosystems at the corporate level. There exist Technology Opportunity Discovery (TOD) system that provides information on relevant products or technology status of companies with patents through retrievals over patent, product, or company name, CRETOP and KISLINE which both allow to view company (financial) information and credit information, but there exists no online system that provides a list of similar (competitive) companies based on the analysis of value chain network or information on potential clients or demanders that can have business deals in future. Therefore, we focus on the "Value Chain Network System (VCNS)", a support partner for planning the corporate business strategy developed and managed by KISTI, and investigate the types of embedded network-based analysis modules, databases (D/Bs) to support them, and how to utilize the system efficiently. Further we explore the function of network visualization in intelligent value chain analysis system which becomes the core information to understand industrial structure ystem and to develop a company's new product development. In order for a company to have the competitive superiority over other companies, it is necessary to identify who are the competitors with patents or products currently being produced, and searching for similar companies or competitors by each type of industry is the key to securing competitiveness in the commercialization of the target company. In addition, transaction information, which becomes business activity between companies, plays an important role in providing information regarding potential customers when both parties enter similar fields together. Identifying a competitor at the enterprise or industry level by using a network map based on such inter-company sales information can be implemented as a core module of value chain analysis. The Value Chain Network System (VCNS) combines the concepts of value chain and industrial structure analysis with corporate information simply collected to date, so that it can grasp not only the market competition situation of individual companies but also the value chain relationship of a specific industry. Especially, it can be useful as an information analysis tool at the corporate level such as identification of industry structure, identification of competitor trends, analysis of competitors, locating suppliers (sellers) and demanders (buyers), industry trends by item, finding promising items, finding new entrants, finding core companies and items by value chain, and recognizing the patents with corresponding companies, etc. In addition, based on the objectivity and reliability of the analysis results from transaction deals information and financial data, it is expected that value chain network system will be utilized for various purposes such as information support for business evaluation, R&D decision support and mid-term or short-term demand forecasting, in particular to more than 15,000 member companies in Korea, employees in R&D service sectors government-funded research institutes and public organizations. In order to strengthen business competitiveness of companies, technology, patent and market information have been provided so far mainly by government agencies and private research-and-development service companies. This service has been presented in frames of patent analysis (mainly for rating, quantitative analysis) or market analysis (for market prediction and demand forecasting based on market reports). However, there was a limitation to solving the lack of information, which is one of the difficulties that firms in Korea often face in the stage of commercialization. In particular, it is much more difficult to obtain information about competitors and potential candidates. In this study, the real-time value chain analysis and visualization service module based on the proposed network map and the data in hands is compared with the expected market share, estimated sales volume, contact information (which implies potential suppliers for raw material / parts, and potential demanders for complete products / modules). In future research, we intend to carry out the in-depth research for further investigating the indices of competitive factors through participation of research subjects and newly developing competitive indices for competitors or substitute items, and to additively promoting with data mining techniques and algorithms for improving the performance of VCNS.