Purpose: This study was undertaken to identify the alcohol drinking status of industrial workers, their health care practice, and dietary behavior, as well as their nutrient intake. Methods: In July 2019, 220 male subjects working in the Chungnam area were enrolled in the study. Their alcohol drinking status was evaluated by applying the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification-K (AUDIT-K) system. Demographic characteristics, status of health care practice, and dietary behaviors were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire; nutrient intakes were analyzed using 24-hour recalls. Data were analyzed by applying χ2-test, ANOVA, Duncan test, and Pearson's correlation analysis with SPSS v. 25.0. Results: Workers were classified by their alcohol drinking status as 'normal' (84, 38.2%), 'problem drinker' (45, 20.5%), 'alcohol dependence I' (60, 27.3%), and 'alcohol dependence II' (31, 16.0%). The alcohol drinking status showed significant differences with age (p < 0.05), monthly income (p < 0.05), smoking status (p < 0.05), and need for weight control (p < 0.05). Moreover, increased alcohol intake resulted in significantly decreased levels of health care practice and dietary behaviors (p < 0.05, p < 0.01, respectively). The energy intake was highest in the 'alcohol dependence I' group, followed by 'alcohol dependence II', 'problem drinker', and 'normal drinker' (p < 0.05). Intakes of vitamin E, vitamin C, and niacin in the 'alcohol dependence I' group were found to be higher than the other groups (p < 0.05). A negative correlation was obtained between alcohol drinking status, health care practice, and dietary behaviors, whereas a positive correlation was determined between alcohol drinking status, energy and water intakes. Conclusion: Considering these results, we conclude the necessity to consider nutritional and alcoholic education programs for improving the quality of work life of industrial workers, based on their alcohol drinking status.
The purpose of study is to examine the effectiveness of exhibition sales promotions and purchase intention for reasonable visitors. Perceived behavior control determining moderating effects on the relationship among their sales promotions and purchase intention is used as a predictive variable of unexpected impulsive purchases or negative purchase intention contrary to business intention. A total of 315 visitors who experienced the sales promotions of G-Star 2016 in Busan respond to the questionnaire and 259 forms are used to analyze the data. The main results of this study were as follows. First, except to value-added sales promotion, all of sales promotions positively impact on visitors' purchase intention. Second, as a result of analyzing the moderating effects of the perceived behavioral control consisting of control belief and perceived power on the relationships among the sales promotions and purchase intention, the control belief moderated the sales promotions such as price-off and education on purchase intention. In addition, the perceived power moderated the sales promotions such as escape and entertainment on purchase intention. In a nutshell, the degree of perceived behavior control makes critically impact on the effectiveness of exhibition sales promotions. Based on this results, it yields new insights into the way of developing various sales promotion strategies according to different features of visitors.
This study aims to confirm that consumers' satisfaction with online shopping websites has changed to a phenomenon different from the past. In other words, in a situation where the use of e-commerce is expanding worldwide after the pandemic and various types of commerce such as mobile commerce and social commerce are formed, the consumer's information processing and decision-making process are meaningful in examining the behavior that has been changed based on the perceived motivation level of consumers by the new environment according to the consumption value and personal characteristics perceived by the consumer. In other words, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of consumption value and need for cognition on the satisfaction toward online websites as a mediating role in the trust of the website. As a result of testing Hypothesis 1, not only the hedonic value of the consumer for the website but also the utilitarian value had a positive influence on the satisfaction toward the website, and in particular, the utilitarian value showed a relatively greater influence than the hedonic value. However, the negative relationship between the need for cognition and satisfaction was found to be at a significant level under one-sided verification. In Hypothesis 2, only the utilitarian value among the consumption values of 2-1 showed a positive effect on satisfaction through a mediating role of trust. It was confirmed that the utilitarian value among the consumption values was an important factor in the satisfaction toward the website. The significance of this study is that, unlike previous research results, not only consumption value based on senses and emotions but also utilitarian value has a greater influence. Therefore, utilitarian value and need for cognition have a stronger influence on satisfaction if they play a mediating role based on the trust of the website used by consumers. These findings reflect the current market trend of online consumption, and they are helpful in the management and strategy of online websites based on consumer behavior understanding and major factors.
The research conducted here focuses on the effect of factors that affect the behavior of UCC (User Created Content) website users, other than user's rational recognition of how useful a UCC website can be. Most discussions in the existing literature on information systems have focused on users' evaluation how a UCC website can help to attain the users' own goals. However, there are other factors and this research pays attention to an individual's 'personality,' which is stable and biological in nature. Specifically, I have noted here that 'extroversion' and 'neuroticism,' the two common personality factors presented in Eysenck's most representative 'EPQ Model' and 'Big Five Model,' are the two personality factors that affect a site's 'usefulness,' by this I mean how useful does the user consider the website and its content. How useful a site is considered by the user is the other factor that has been regarded as the antecedent factor that influences the adoption of information systems in the existing MIS (Management Information System) research. Secondly, as using or creating a UCC website does not guarantee the user's or the creator's extrinsic motivation, unlike when using the information system within an organization, there is a greater likelihood that the increase in user's activities in relation to a UCC website is motivated by emotional factors rather than rational factors. Thus, I have decided to include the relationship between an individual's personality and what they find pleasurable in the research model. Thirdly, when based on the S-O-R Paradigm of Mehrabian and Russell, the two cognitive factors and emotional factors are finally affected by stimulus, and thus these factors ultimately have an effect on an individual's respondent behavior. Therefore, this research has presented an assumption that the recognition of how useful the site and content is and what emotional pleasure it provides will finally affect the behavior of the UCC website users. Finally, the relationship between the recognition of how useful a site is and how pleasurable it is to useand UCC usage may differ depending on certain situational conditions. In other words, the relationship between the three factors may vary according to how much users are involved in the creation of the website content. Creation thus emerges as the keyword of UCC. I analyzed the above relationships through the moderating variable of the user's involvement in the creation of the site. The research result shows the following: When it comes to the relationship between an individual's personality and what they find pleasurable it is extroverted users who have a greater likelihood to feel pleasure when using a UCC website, as was expected in this research. This in turn leads to a more active usage of the UCC web site because a person who is an extrovert likes to spend time on activities with other people, is sensitive to new experiences and stimuli and thus actively responds to these. An extroverted person accepts new UCC activities as part of his/her social life, rather than getting away from this new UCC environment. This is represented by the term 'Foxonomy' where the users meet a variety of users from all over the world and contact new types of content created by these users. However, neuroticism creates the opposite situation to that created by extroversion. The representative symptoms of neuroticism are instability, stress, and tension. These dispositions are more closely related to stress caused by a new environment rather than this creatingcuriosity or pleasure. Thus, neurotic persons have an uneasy feeling and will eventually avoid the situation where their own or others' daily lives are frequently exposed to the open web environment, this eventually makes them have a negative attitude towards the web environment. When it comes to an individual's personality and how useful site is, the two personality factors of extroversion and neuroticism both have a positive relationship with the recognition of how useful the site and its content is. The positive, curious, and social dispositions of extroverted persons tend to make them consider the future usefulness and possibilities of a new type of information system, or website, based on their positive attitude, which has a significant influence on the recognition of how useful these UCC sites are. Neuroticism also favorably affects how useful a UCC website can be through a different mechanism from that of extroversion. As the neurotic persons tend to feel uneasy and have much doubt about a new type of information system, they actively explore its usefulness in order to relieve their uncomfortable feelings. In other words, neurotic persons seek out how useful a site can be in order to secure their own stable feelings. Meanwhile, extroverted persons explore how useful a site can be because of their positive attitude and curiosity. As a lot of MIS research has revealed that the recognition of how useful a site can be and how pleasurable it can be to use have been proven to have a significant effect on UCC activity. However, the relationship between these factors reveals different aspects based on the user's involvement in creation. This factor of creationgauges the interest of users in the creation of UCC contents. Involvement is a variable that shows the level of an individual's mental effort in creating UCC contents. When a user is highly involved in the creation process and makes an enormous effort to create UCC content (classed a part of a high-involvement group), their own pleasure and recognition of how useful the site is have a significantly higher effect on the future usage of the UCC contents, more significantly than the users who sit back and just retrieve the UCC content created by others. The cognitive and emotional response of those in the low-involvement group is unlikely to last long,even if they recognize the contents of a UCC website is pleasurable and useful to them. However, the high-involvement group tends to participate in the creation and the usage of UCC more favorably, connecting the experience with their own goals. In this respect, this research presents an answer to the question; why so many people are participating in the usage of UCC, the representative form of the Web 2.0 that has drastically involved more and more people in the creation of UCC, even if they cannot gain any monetary or social compensation. Neither information system nor a website can succeed unless it secures a certain level of user base. Moreover, it cannot be further developed when the reasons, or problems, for people's participation are not suitably explored, even if it has a certain user base. Thus, what is significant in this research is that it has studied users' respondent behavior based on an individual's innate personality, emotion, and cognitive interaction, unlike the existing research that has focused on 'compensation' to explain users' participation with the UCC website. There are also limitations in this research. Firstly, I divided an individual's personality into extroversion and neuroticism; however, there are many other personal factors such as neuro-psychiatricism, which also needs to be analyzed for its influence on UCC activities. Secondly, as a UCC website comes in many types such as multimedia, Wikis, and podcasting, these types need to be included as a sub-category of the UCC websites and their relationship with personality, emotion, cognition, and behavior also needs to be analyzed.
Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment (
A survey was made of 976 students who were selected among students of 5 middle schools at Taegu so that it could furnish basic knowledge about sex education of adolescents by analyzing students recognition of sex, acquaintance with the opposite-sex, sex-education, The survery took a month from Nov. 1, to Nov 30, 1991. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1. The general characteristics of the surveyed students. The survey consisted of 332 boys middle school student & 325 girls middle school students, 157 male & 162 female students of coeducational middle schools. 32.9% of them were from the first grade, 33.2% from the second grade & 33.9% from the third grade. 35.7% of them believed in Buddhism, 19% Christianism and the mode of their living standard, 86.7%, fell on 34.7% of their parents engaged in commerce and they were followed by salary man and public officals, 93.1 % of the students, parents were alive. 44.9% of their fathers were graduates of high school and 42.2% of their mothers middle school. 2. Sexual maturity 89.1 % of the surveyed girls had experienced menstruation. The mode of first menstruation, 48.2%, was at the age of 13 and the mean of it was 12.9, 3.7% the surveyed boys had exprienced a wet drem before. The mode of the first wet dream, 40.0%, was at the age of 14 and the mean was 13.4. 21.3% of surveyed students had the experience of masturbation but the number of girls fell far short of that boys. The mode of the first masturbation, 37.0%, was at the age of 14 and the mean was 13.4. 3. The acquaintance and sexual relations with the opposite sex 1) Analyzing the students actual conditions with the opposite, I found out that 52.3% of them wanted to have any kind of relations with the opposite and that 30.25 had already had some kind of relations. 73.2% of the students having relations with the opposite thought the other sex merely as a friend and the number of students who were thinking that way was distributed evenly among schools. 28.8% of the students had got acquainted with the other sex through their frieds and there were not much difference between boys and girls in the method of getting acquainated with the opposite. About 35.2% of the students having relations with the opposite came from the third grade. 47.8% of them answered that the meeting place was not fixed and 26.4% answered that they were meeting their parthers outdoors. 60.7% replyed that they were not disturbed in their studies by the relations with the other sex. 2) Most of the students 79.4%, answered that they had never had sexual relations and 16.3% of the rest said that thery were expressing their feelings by grasping each other's hand. 3) 16.6% of the surveyed students asid that they had the exprience of smoking, 1.1 % of an illusion caused by inhaling chemical addhesives, 44.0% of drinking and 41.4% of warching pornographic films. 4. The knowledge and attitude about the sex 1) The distribution and analysis according to schools and grades : 64.8% of the surveyed students answered correctly to the questions about mensturation, 49.3 % did so about wet dreams, 94.3 % did so about conception, 60.6% did so about child birth, 73.9% did so about AIDS and 50.1 % did so about sexual diseases. Roughly speaking, they had not much knowledge of sexual diseases. 2) The recognition of sex according to schools and grades : 39.0% of the students said that they had worries about sex. 33.1 % of what they worried was concerned with their bodies and 26.8% was about the acqaintance and relationship with the opposite sex. The girls were much more concerned about the former and the boys the latter. 51.1 % of the students asid that they had no specific opinion of masturbation but 19.2% said that's alright if self-restrained. About the sexual intercourse before marriage, 75.7% said negatively. 5. The need for sex education most of the students, 99.4% said they needed sex education and there was not much difference in that thought among schools. And 49.7% answered that schools, families, and societies were equlally important in sex education. About half of the students, exactly 50.2%. considered it as the main reason of sex education to prevent accidents cauesd by ignorance of sex. 81.4% said that they had had some kind of sex education. Most of the educations, 87.0%, had taken place at schools but 5.2% said they were getting most of the knowledge about sex from therir friednds, juniors and seniors. 59.5% of the students who had ever had a sex education said "Just so, so" when asked of the level of their contentment but the number of students who said "satisfied" was only a few, 16.1 %. 20.7% of the survered answered that thery wanted sex education to be made in the course of home life, and 26.6 % of the students most wanted to know about the acquaintance and relationship with the oppostie sex, 29.0% preferred nurse teachers as proper councellors of sex education. The mode of their present councellors, 42.0%, was friends but only 7.6% answered they dicussed with teachers. 6. The correlation analysis between general characteristcs and sexual behaviors of the surveyed students revealed that sex had a signigicant(P<0.001) positive correlation with parents' love toward students(P<0.01), the experience of masturbation, smoking, an illusion caused by inhaling chemical adhesives and the experience of watching pornographic films. And the standard of living had a significant(P<0.01) positive correlation(P<0.01) with grade point average, parents' existence(P<0.01) and parents' love, but a significant(P<0.01) negative correlation with sexual worries. grade point average had a significant(P<0.01)negative correlation with the experience of an illusion caused by chemical adhesives(P<0.01) and smoking. Parents' existence had significant(P<0.01) positive correlations with parents' love and smoking but a significant(P<0.01) negative correlation with the experience of an illusion by chemical adhesives. There was a significant(P<0.01) negative correlations between parents' love and the experience of an illusion by chemical adhesives, and a significant(P<0.001) positive correlation among masturbation and sexual worries, smoking, an illusion by chemical adhesives and the experience of watching pornographic films. There was a significant(P<0.001) positive correlation among acquaintance with the opposite sex, smoking, the experience of an illusion by chemical adhesives and watching pornographic films. Sexual worries had significant(P<0.01) positive correlations with smoking, the experience of an illusion by chemical adhesives and watching pornographic films. smoking had a significant positive correlation with drinking the experirence of, an illusion by chemical adhesives and watching pornographic films. Finally, there was a significant(P<0.01) positive correlation between the drinking experience and the illusion experience by chemical adhesives. According to the results mentioned above, the fact is certain that there is a great need for sex education of adolescents. Therefore, it is desirable that the schools teach sexual physiology and normal positively and that sex education including hygien education be an independant course in the curriculums. Furthermore, it is essential that the schools should have enough nurse teachers to take up sex education, expand training opportunities for them and that they develop educational materials. Considering the unbalance of the level of sex educations between boys and girls, I want to suggest that all boys and girls have sex education evenly and lead happy lives by correction irrational thought about sex, that is to say, sex discrimination, Sex education programs, especially of middle school students, should be reexamined if it is to give the students effective and profitable knowledge about sex. In addition, the government should establish a policy of adolescents' sex education to have healthy opinions of sex settled nationwide.
In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.
The purpose of this study is to learn both effects of the vocal psychotherapy on the self-consciousness and the variety of the self-consciousness on the vocal psychotherapy in return. The research for this study was performed to three subjects who were students of E university, Seoul, ten times for sixty minutes. The subjects were all volunteers for the advertisement on a music-therapy program searching for them on the web site of E university. The vocal psychotherapy program consists of four steps and each of them consists of two to four short terms again. Both before and after the experiment, examinations on self-consciousness were done to recognize the change of the subjects' self-consciousness which would be caused by the vocal psychotherapy activity. After every short term, the subjects were asked to write reports to closely analyze the change of self-consciousness according to the terms and the variety of the subjects. The effect of the vocal psychotherapy activity on the changes of scores in the self-consciousness examination is the first thing to point out on this study. There appeared some personal varieties on the total scores of the examination and scores of some sub-categories. Especially, there were different scores on the private self-consciousness, the public self-consciousness, and the social anxiety between before and after performing the vocal psychotherapy program. Subject A, who had got the best score of all on the scope of the private self-consciousness, showed the steepest decrease on the very scope. On the contrary, the subject showed decrease of scores of the public self-consciousness and the social anxiety in the relatively little rate. Subject B, who had got the highest score of the three on the public self-consciousness, showed the steepest decrease on that of all scopes and showed no difference on the social anxiety scope. In the case of the last one, subject C, who had relatively low scores on the private and public self-consciousness than the others, the private self-consciousness score increased but the public self-consciousness and the social anxiety scores decreased. The changes of the scores of each questions were examined in order to see possible other changes that had not been exposed on the changes of the total and sub-categories scores. As a result of that, of all twenty-eight questions, there were changes about one to two points. Subject A showed the difference with thirteen questions, subject B with sixteen and subject C with nineteen questions. The rate of change of subject C was relatively small but more questions changed and the change of score was wider than the others. Considering all those results, It can be possibly said that the vocal psychotherapy affects the changes of the scores of sub-categories in self-consciousness examination. The next thing to point out on this study is the change of recognition that was exposed on the subjects' report after every short term of the program. As a result of the close analyzing, according to the short terms and variety of self-consciousness, recognizing the way express subjects themselves by voice and recognizing their own voices appeared to be different. How much they cared about others and why they did so were also different. According to the self reports, subject A cared much about her inner thought and emotion and tended to concentrate herself as a social object. There appeared some positive emotional experiments such as emotional abundance and art curiosities on her reports but at the same time some negative emotions such as state-trait anxiety and neuroticism also appeared. Subject B, who showed high scores on the private and public self-consciousness like subject A, had a similar tendency that concentrates on herself as a social object but she showed more social anxiety than subject A. Subject C got relatively lower points in self-consciousness examination, tended to care about herself, and had less negative emotions such as state-trait anxiety than other subjects. Also, with terms going on, she showed changes in the way of caring about her own voice and others. This study has some unique significances in helping people who have problems caused by self-estimation activated with self-consciousness, using voices closely related to one's own self, performing the vocal skills discipline to solve the technical problems. Also, this study has a potentiality that the vocal psychotherapy activity can be effectively used as a way affects the mental health and developing personality.
The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.
The interplay between hedonic and utilitarian attributes has assumed special significance in recent years; it has been proposed that consumption offerings should be viewed as experiences that stimulate both cognitions and feelings rather than as mere products or services. This research builds on previous work on hedonic versus utilitarian benefits, regulatory focus theory, customer satisfaction to address two question: (1) Is the shopping goal at the point of purchase different from the shopping value? and (2) Is the customer loyalty after the use different from the shopping value and shopping goal? We surveyed 345 peoples those who have bought the electronic-goods within 6 months. This research dealt with the shopping value which is consisted of 2 types, hedonic and utilitarian. Those who pursue the hedonic shopping value may prefer the pleasure of purchasing experience to the product itself. They tend to prefer atmosphere, arousal of the shopping experience. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "hedonic" to refer to their aesthetic, experiential and enjoyment-related value. On the contrary, Those who pursue the utilitarian shopping value may prefer the reasonable buying. It may be more functional. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "utilitarian" to refer to the functional, instrumental, and practical value of consumption offerings. Holbrook(1999) notes that consumer value is an experience that results from the consumption of such benefits. In the context of cell phones for example, the phone's battery life and sound volume are utilitarian benefits, whereas aesthetic appeal from its shape and color are hedonic benefits. Likewise, in the case of a car, fuel economics and safety are utilitarian benefits whereas the sunroof and the luxurious interior are hedonic benefits. The shopping goals are consisted of the promotion focus goal and the prevention focus goal, based on the self-regulatory focus theory. The promotion focus is characterized into focusing ideal self because they are oriented to wishes and vision. The promotion focused individuals are tend to be more risk taking. They are more sensitive to hope and achievement. On the contrary, the prevention focused individuals are characterized into focusing the responsibilities because they are oriented to safety. The prevention focused individuals are tend to be more risk avoiding. We wanted to test the relation among the shopping value, shopping goal and customer loyalty. Customers show the positive or negative feelings comparing with the expectation level which customers have at the point of the purchase. If the result were bigger than the expectation, customers may feel positive feeling such as delight or satisfaction and they would want to share their feelings with other people. And they want to buy those products again in the future time. There is converging evidence that the types of goals consumers expect to be fulfilled by the utilitarian dimension of a product are different from those they seek from the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004). Specifically, whereas consumers expect the fulfillment of product prevention goals on the utilitarian dimension, they expect the fulfillment of promotion goals on the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan, and Majahan 2007; Higgins 1997, 2001) According to the regulatory focus theory, prevention goals are those that ought to be met. Fulfillment of prevention goals in the context of product consumption eliminates or significantly reduces the probability of a painful experience, thus making consumers experience emotions that result from fulfillment of prevention goals such as confidence and securities. On the contrary, fulfillment of promotion goals are those that a person aspires to meet, such as "looking cool" or "being sophisticated." Fulfillment of promotion goals in the context of product consumption significantly increases the probability of a pleasurable experience, thus enabling consumers to experience emotions that result from the fulfillment of promotion goals. The proposed conceptual framework captures that the relationships among hedonic versus utilitarian shopping values and promotion versus prevention shopping goals respectively. An analysis of the consequence of the fulfillment and frustration of utilitarian and hedonic value is theoretically worthwhile. It is also substantively relevant because it helps predict post-consumption behavior such as the promotion versus prevention shopping goals orientation. Because our primary goal is to understand how the post consumption feelings influence the variable customer loyalty: word of mouth (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978). This research result is that the utilitarian shopping value gives the positive influence to both of the promotion and prevention goal. However the influence to the prevention goal is stronger. On the contrary, hedonic shopping value gives influence to the promotion focus goal only. Additionally, both of the promotion and prevention goal show the positive relation with customer loyalty. However, the positive relation with promotion goal and customer loyalty is much stronger. The promotion focus goal gives the influence to the customer loyalty. On the contrary, the prevention focus goal relates at the low level of relation with customer loyalty than that of the promotion goal. It could be explained that it is apt to get framed the compliment of people into 'gain-non gain' situation. As the result, for those who have the promotion focus are motivated to deliver their own feeling to other people eagerly. Conversely the prevention focused individual are more sensitive to the 'loss-non loss' situation. The research result is consistent with pre-existent researches. There is a conceptual parallel between necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits and luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha 2007; Higginns 1997; Kivetz and Simonson 2002b). In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the precedence principle contends luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits higher than necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits. Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha (2007) show that consumers are focused more on the utilitarian benefits than on the hedonic benefits of a product until their minimum expectation of fulfilling prevention goals are met. Furthermore, a utilitarian benefit is a promise of a certain level of functionality by the manufacturer or the retailer. When the promise is not fulfilled, customers blame the retailer and/or the manufacturer. When negative feelings are attributable to an entity, customers feel angry. However in the case of hedonic benefit, the customer, not the manufacturer, determines at the time of purchase whether the product is stylish and attractive. Under such circumstances, customers are more likely to blame themselves than the manufacturer if their friends do not find the product stylish and attractive. Therefore, not meeting minimum utilitarian expectations of functionality generates a much more intense negative feelings, such as anger than a less intense feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfactions. The additional multi group analysis of this research shows the same result. Those who are unsatisfactory customers who have the prevention focused goal shows higher relation with WOM, comparing with satisfactory customers. The research findings in this article could have significant implication for the personal selling fields to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the sales such that they can develop the sales presentation strategy for the customers. For those who are the hedonic customers may be apt to show more interest to the promotion goal. Therefore it may work to strengthen the design, style or new technology of the products to the hedonic customers. On the contrary for the utilitarian customers, it may work to strengthen the price competitiveness. On the basis of the result from our studies, we demonstrated a correspondence among hedonic versus utilitarian and promotion versus prevention goal, WOM. Similarly, we also found evidence of the moderator effects of satisfaction after use, between the prevention goal and WOM. Even though the prevention goal has the low level of relation to WOM, those who are not satisfied show higher relation to WOM. The relation between the prevention goal and WOM is significantly different according to the satisfaction versus unsatisfaction. In addition, improving the promotion emotions of cheerfulness and excitement and the prevention emotion of confidence and security will further improve customer loyalty. A related potential further research could be to examine whether hedonic versus utilitarian, promotion versus prevention goals improve customer loyalty for services as well. Under the budget and time constraints, designers and managers are often compelling to choose among various attributes. If there is no budget or time constraints, perhaps the best solution is to maximize both hedonic and utilitarian dimension of benefits. However, they have to make trad-off process between various attributes. For the designers and managers have to keep in mind that without hedonic benefit satisfaction of the product it may hard to lead the customers to the customer loyalty.