• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.76-87
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• 2012

This study examined Korean and the U.S.A..'s television anti-smoking advertisements that were coined to discourage adults and teens smoking. A content analysis of 71 television advertisements listed in the "Smoking Guidance Program" operated by Korea Health Promotion Foundation. This study evaluated to detect whether the advertising content reflected core health communication theories such as health belief model, theory of reasoned action, and social cognitive theory used in the designing of anti-smoking ad message to change behavior and attitudes toward smoking unfavorably. The results showed that Korean anti-smoking ads mostly relied on social norm messages, followed by smoking attitude. The message of modeling and self-efficacy was least used; while, the U.S.A. ads focused more on modeling and self efficacy. This difference comes from the cultural difference. Namely, Korea focused more on collectivism rather than individualism. The anti-smoking ads of Korea and the U.S.A. most frequently adopted horror and humor rather than sadness, no appeal, and angry. The ads targeted more on adults rather than teens. The research identifies the types of advertisements that are most likely to utilized and underutilize in the Korea and U.S.A. anti-smoking ads and contribute to further understandings of anti-smoking ads theoretically.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.303-327
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• 2020

Previous studies have examined the relationship between domain satisfaction and life satisfaction. However, a comprehensive investigation of satisfaction with multiple domains and their relative contributions to life satisfaction and hedonic balance are missing in the literature. And most studies were conducted in English speaking countries and only a few cross-cultural studies have been conducted. In the current research, we compared Korean and European Canadian university students to examine how domain satisfactions (satisfaction with healthy lifestyles, family relationships, appearance, financial situation, academic performance) are associated with life satisfaction and hedonic balance. We then examined the relative contributions of people's satisfaction ratings on the life domains to their life satisfaction and hedonic balance. Positive correlations were observed between satisfaction with each of the five life domains, and life satisfaction and hedonic balance across the two cultural groups. Interestingly, satisfactions with healthy lifestyles was the dominant predictor of Koreans' life satisfaction and hedonic balance. Satisfaction with appearance was the dominant predictor of European Canadians' life satisfaction and hedonic balance followed by satisfaction with healthy lifestyles. Overall, these results suggest that there are common life domains that contribute to subjective well-being and that there are specific life domains that may contribute more to subjective well-being depending on the culture.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.393-417
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• 2022

The current study analyzes the usage of social network services(SNS) according to one's collectivistic and individualistic tendency and the relationship with addiction. Additionally, the study attempted to controll intrapersonal variables such as gender, personalitly, and age, which affect SNS the usage. Also, Collectivistic-individualistic tendency in SNS and offline environment may not correspond to one another. Therefore, the study measured the collectivistic-individualistic tendency regarding of the two environment separately. For this purpose, we designed a new measurement scale to measure collectivistic-individualistic tendencies in for the SNS by involving a kin vs nonkin context. The sample consisted of 253 adolescents ranging from 13 to 15 years old and 246 adults ranging from 18 to 25 years old, which sums up to 499 samples in total. Results indicated that individualistic tendency within SNS showed a positive relationship with the amount of SNS usage and SNS addiction. Furthermore, female users spent more time on SNS and showed a higher level addiction than males. While adults had longer experience with SNS and spent more time on it daily than adolescents, they did not show a significant difference in regards to SNS addiction. The correlation analysis indicated that collectivistic-individualistic tendencies in SNS were weakly correlated to that of offline environments. The kin individualistic tendency in SNS significantly predicted SNS addiction after controlling for the effect of age, personality, gender, and offline collectivistic-individualistic tendency. Taken together, these findings indicate the need for an appropriate collectivistic-individualist tendency scale that correspond to the SNS context. The results also suggest that kin individualistic tendency in the SNS environment can be the main factor for SNS addiction.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.191-201
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• 2023

The provision of onboard Internet services is recognized as one of the measures to enhance the appeal of seafarers and improve seafarer welfare. This study aims to investigate the influence of seafarers' leisure activities using the Internet on shipboard culture. Shipboard culture was examined using Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. An empirical analysis was conducted on crewmembers regarding their Internet-based leisure activities and the shipboard culture. As a result, it was observed that sociability activities through the Internet while onboard significantly influenced power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. The investigation of shipboard culture revealed uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation, along with low power distance and individualism cultures. In addition, an analysis of shipboard culture according to seafarers' characteristics showed significant differences in certain shipboard cultures based on seafarers' attributes.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Against the backdrop of the increasing trend towards economic globalisation, many international firms are indicating that decisions on how to enter foreign markets remains one of the key strategic challenges confronting them. Despite the rich body of literature on the topic, the fact that these challenges have continued to dominate global marketing strategy discourses point to someevident lacunae. Accordingly, this paper considers the variables, categorised in terms of firm contexts (standardisation, market research, competition, structure, competitive advantage) and host country-contexts (economic development, cultural differences, regulation and political risk), which influence the degree of involvement of UK companies in overseas markets. Following hypotheses were drawn from literature review: H1: The greater the level of competition, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H2: The more centralised the firm's organisation structure, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H3a: The adoption of a low cost-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3b: The adoption of an innovation-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3c: The adoption of a market research approach to competitive advantages will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3d: The adoption of a breadth of strategic target-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a lower degree of involvement. H4: The higher the degree of standardisation of the international marketing mix the higher the degree of involvement. H5: The greater the degree of economic development in the host market, the higher the degree of involvement. H6: The greater the cultural differences between home and host countries, the lower the degree of involvement. H7: The greater the difference in regulations between the home country and the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. H8: The higher the political risk in the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. A questionnaire instrument was constructed using, wherever possible, validated measures of the concepts to serve the aims of this study. Following two sets of mailings, 112 usable completed questionnaires were returned. Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. Statistically, the paper suggests that factors relating to the level of competition, competitive advantages and economic development are strong in influencing foreign market involvements. On the other hand, unexpectedly, cultural factors (especially individualism/collectivism and low and high power distance dimensions) proved to have weak moderating effects. The reason for this, in part, is due to the pervading forces of globalisation and the attendant effect on global marketing. This paper has contributed to the general literature in a way that point to two mainimplications. First, with respect to research on national systems, the study may hold out some important lessons especially for developing nations. Most of these nations are known to be actively seeking to understand what it takes to attract foreign direct investment, expand domestic market and move their economies from the margin to the mainstream global economy. Second, it should be realised that competitive conditions remain in constant flux (even in mature industries and mature economies). This implies that a range of home country factors may be as important as host country factors in explaining firms' strategic moves and the degree of foreign market involvement. Further research can consider the impact of the home country environment on foreign market involvement decisions. Such an investigation will potentially provide further perspectives not only on the influence of national origin but also how home country effects are confounded with industry effects.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.113-145
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• 2009

Recently, due to the globalization of the IT(Information Technology) market, devices and systems designed in one country are used in other countries as well. This phenomenon is becoming the key factor for increased interest on cross-cultural, or cross-national, research within the IT area. However, as the IT market is becoming bigger and more globalized, a great number of IT practitioners are having difficulty in designing and developing devices or systems which can provide optimal experience. This is because not only tangible factors such as language and a country's economic or industrial power affect the user experience of a certain device or system but also invisible and intangible factors as well. Among such invisible and intangible factors, the cultural characteristics of users from different countries may affect the user experience of certain devices or systems because cultural characteristics affect how they understand and interpret the devices or systems. In other words, when users evaluate the quality of overall user experience, the cultural characteristics of each user act as a perceptual lens that leads the user to focus on a certain elements of experience. Therefore, there is a need within the IT field to consider cultural characteristics when designing or developing certain devices or systems and plan a strategy for localization. In such an environment, existing IS studies identify the culture with the country, emphasize the importance of culture in a national level perspective, and hypothesize that users within the same country have same cultural characteristics. Under such assumptions, these studies focus on the moderating effects of cultural characteristics on a national level within a certain theoretical framework. This has already been suggested by cross-cultural studies conducted by scholars such as Hofstede(1980) in providing numerical research results and measurement items for cultural characteristics and using such results or items as they increase the efficiency of studies. However, such national level culture has its limitations in forecasting and explaining individual-level behaviors such as voluntary device or system usage. This is because individual cultural characteristics are the outcome of not only the national culture but also the culture of a race, company, local area, family, and other groups that are formulated through interaction within the group. Therefore, national or nationally dominant cultural characteristics may have its limitations in forecasting and explaining the cultural characteristics of an individual. Moreover, past studies in psychology suggest a possibility that there exist different cultural characteristics within a single individual depending on the subject being measured or its context. For example, in relation to individual vs. collective characteristics, which is one of the major cultural characteristics, an individual may show collectivistic characteristics when he or she is with family or friends but show individualistic characteristics in his or her workplace. Therefore, this study acknowledged such limitations of past studies and conducted a research within the framework of 'theoretically integrated model of user satisfaction and emotional attachment', which was developed through a former study, on how the effects of different experience elements on emotional attachment or user satisfaction are differentiated depending on the individual cultural characteristics related to a system or device usage. In order to do this, this study hypothesized the moderating effects of four cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs, collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and power distance) as suggested by Hofstede(1980) within the theoretically integrated model of emotional attachment and user satisfaction. Statistical tests were then implemented on these moderating effects through conducting surveys with users of four digital devices (mobile phone, MP3 player, LCD TV, and refrigerator) in three countries (US, Germany, and Russia). In order to explain and forecast the behavior of personal device or system users, individual cultural characteristics must be measured, and depending on the target device or system, measurements must be measured independently. Through this suggestion, this study hopes to provide new and useful perspectives for future IS research.

• Journal of Consumption Culture
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.143-169
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• 2012

Consumption is the most important cultural keyword in the modern society. This study tried an exploratory comparison of consumer culture of Korea, USA and Sweden in response to the needs on cultural comparison research perspective. Triandis's cultural dimensions were adopted to explore each country's cultural characteristics. A qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted to consumers who lived both in Korea and USA, or in Korea and Sweden, which enabled them to get familiar with each country's consumer culture. The research found that the culture is projected to the consumer culture in a micro domain. The individualism allowed consumers in USA and Sweden to be unconscious of other's eyes. But collectivism in Korea made Korean consumers locked in other's judgement. In contrast, in a macro domain of consumer culture such as donation and pro-environmental consumption, consumption practices were in a dissonance with their cultural orientation, where includes interaction with society and environment. In addition, in a post-materialistic society, symbolism of consumption goods gets weakened and experiential consumption evolves with a transition from mass consumption society to plural culture society. Lastly, consumer culture functions as a creative mechanism of new culture by consumer's reflexive planning, which is one of the clues of an autonomous consumer culture. This study tried to explore the consumer culture of Korea, USA and Sweden as an exploratory trial for the comparison of consumer cultures. To increase empirical consumer culture study, refined questionnaire item pool is to be extracted through various exploratory researches, which can be utilized commonly in various cultures. Moreover, an additional research is in need about a consumer culture in a macro domain and experiential consumer culture in a post-materialism society.