• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.185-203
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• 2009

Yuhan Kimberly, a joint-venture company of Korean Yuhan Company and American Kimberly-Clark, opened a premium diaper market in Korea by launching Pull-Ups which was pants-typed diapers in 1993. Pull-Ups was imported as finished goods from Kimberly-Clark. However, in spite of its huge market share in United States, it failed to land down in Korean market because of wrong positioning strategy which did not consider domestic customers' tastes. In 1996, Yuhan-Kimberly brought out a pants-typed diaper, Huggies-Toddler, to Korean market again. This paved the way for the combination of Kimberly-Clark's production power and Yuhan-Kimberly's marketing power and led to launch new product superior to Pull-Ups. However, this product was unsuccessful in the market because of wrong positioning which did not catch domestic customer's life styles such as cultural, environmental and habitual differences in toilet training, the cost increase coming from IMF crisis in Korea, weak trust within the company, weak trust within the company, and too much higher price than regular diapers. In 2005, Yuhan-Kimberly redeveloped new pants market business strategy. It was organically combined with winning product development plan, winning communication strategy and the market structure change through the pants market creation. Customer's habit, usage and attitude were studied with total 55 times market investigations. Also, all processes from planning to designing were executed in the customer's view by investigating product research, positioning research and advertisement research. Yuhan-Kimberly repositioned new product as a wearing diaper not as a toilet training diaper and launched Huggies Magic Panty as a premium product which had 25% higher price than previous Huggies. Huggies Magic Panty was recognized as a great hit product in domestic diaper market and the sales recorded 37.6 bill won in 2006, 57.2 bill won in 2007, and 90 bill won in 2008 since launching in 2005. The reason of Huggies Magic Panty's success was the repositioning strategy deduced from the precise check of customer's usage habit. It was the winning strategy of Huggies that were market investigation in order to survive in domestic baby goods market where a lot of companies struggled intensively, the exact positioning based on its market investigation and aggressive 360 degree communication strategy to give customers impressions efficiently.

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

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

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.245-276
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• 2008

Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

• Journal of Applied Tourism Food and Beverage Management and Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.45-69
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• 2002

This study is designed to examine feasibility and limitation of outsourcing in cooking Western food in a hotel, to interpret importance of outsourcing(eg. outside order, outside procurement, outside supply) in a broad sense in order to reinforce the core capacity in the cooking department, and to know whether the cooking human power is efficiently used and how much the chefs recognize outsourcing of food materials. As many companies conduct restructuring to cut down its size, the reduction of human power led the Western food cooking in the hotel to lower core capacities, lower quality, and lower efficiency. In addition, the sagging morale of chefs undermined creativity. To change from the traditional kitchen to an economic kitchen needs to look into importance of outsourcing, cognitive attitude of chefs, relation with outside suppliers. Here suggests performance of positive changes in the structure The study examined feasibility and limitation of outsourcing in the hotel kitchen as well as chefs' cognitive attitude toward outsourcing of food materials to reinforce core capabilities of the hotel kitchen. 1. Companies of outsourcing are selected according to variability of price conditions, flexibility of contract conditions, popularity of the outsourcing company, and reputation of the outsourcing company. 2. The importance of outsourcing in the Western food cooking is divided into 4 factors such as standard of selecting outsourcing companies, policies of cooking manu, quality of cooking, and quantity of cooking. 3. The most feasible section in outsourcing of food materials is a process of kneading flour for bread, which shows that many Western-food chefs expect to put higher possibility of outsourcing on the kneading. In other words, when it comes to confectionery and bakery, there are many outside expert processing companies supplying high quality products. In the order of outsourcing feasibility, sauce is followed by processed vegetable, garnish of main dish, and soup. The least feasible section in outsourcing of food materials is appetize. Appetize includes a concept of a improvised dish and needs speed. Due to its color, freshness, and sensibility of taste, the appetize plays a key role in the Western food cooking. 4. When outsourcing is taken in place, the highest risk is to lower the inner cooking skills. Therefore chefs in charge of the Western food sequently recognize both internal problems including storage of cooking skills, unstability of layoffs, and loss of cooperation between departments, and external problems including inferior goods, difficulty of differentiating manu, delay of delivery, and expiration date. It shows that most of the Western food chefs consider risks of the internal problems at first. 5. A effective outsourcing needs appropriate selection of outsourcing companies, maintenance of credibility, active communication, check and management of hygiene. However regardless of their position or career, chefs in charge of the Western food have the same cognitive attitude toward selecting successful outsourcing companies after the outsourcing system is enforced. The core of cooking, or a final stage in the full process of so-called artistic cooking, should be treated with insourcing. Reduction of several cooking processes resulted in shortened cooking time, increased efficiency, faster cooking, cutting the waiting-lines, and finally more room for customers. The outsourcing system can reduce or eliminate the following processes in cooking: buying various food materials, checking, storing, preparing, and processing. Especially in the Western food cooking department of a hotel, the outsourcing system should be enforced to make an economic kitchen and to efficiently manage it. Wow it's time to change from the traditional kitchen to an economic kitchen in the hotel cooking department. For that, the cooking department should become a small but strong organization by outsourcing except its core work.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.289-298
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• 2009

An analysis was carried out for this study to figure out if there exists any differences in the model consumers accept for commercialized MP3-playing clothing and bio-signal sensing clothing. To analyze the differences of the structural variables of the products types, t-test was conducted with SPSS 15.0 package and multi-group analysis with AMOS 5.0 to find out the differences of each path goes with product types in structural equation model. In analytical results of effective sample of 557 copies of questionnaire, consumers' were highly aware of MP3-playing clothing in perceived ease of use, while they were aware relatively high of bio-signal sensing clothing in perceived usefulness, attitudes, consumer acceptance. The perceived value which was input to find out consumers awareness about sale price of commercialized products, was proven to do very important moderating role in forming consumers' attitudes and acceptance intention. Besides, consumers showed a difference in path in accepting model goes with product types. In bio-signal sensing clothing case, 'the perceived usefulness$\rightarrow$attitudes' path which was backed up in MP3-playing clothing was rejected, and 'perceived value$\rightarrow$attitudes' path appeared relatively high with moderating role of perceived value higher than MP3-playing clothing. Considering the results above, as the smart clothing is in the initiative commercialization stage while consumers were in the inquiry stage into awareness or information necessary in the course of purchase decision-making, and so an effective commercialization strategy seems to be necessary.

• Archives of design research
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• v.13
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• pp.45-53
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• 1996

After the callapse of the 80's bubble economy. consumers tend to consider the fundamental values of a product such as price, usage, and quality more significantly than ever before. Due to this change in attitude. the most important factor in a consumer's decision for choosing a product becomes the quality of a product that safisfies consumer's practical values whith convincing features and logical differentiations devoted to fundamental values. Under the circumstances. Factor Oriented Process and Multi-Sequential Process are proposede not just as merely defining concept through study of consumers' needs. but as methods of gaining competitive edge and eatablishing corporate identity in market, competition by bringing out consumers' various wants and needs to lead them to a specific product. Factor Oriented Process emphasizes the analysis of factors within the process itself, especially the synthesis of factors which would bring about new solutions as its special feature and acts as a logical element for further design development. Thus, the synthesis process consists of re-organizing analyzed factors, andduring this process, analyzing correlation between the restrictions of factors would lead to discovery of 'dominant factors'. Afterward, design basis may be formed with design concepts proposed by several concept codes made up of one dominant factor and other associate factors. Multi-Sequential Process is an extensive approach to discover differentiated design proposals through careful examination of dominant factors within the product, and furthermor, to discount 'anterior factor' (directional factors that decide design directions based on multi-value criteria) for self-determined decision of design directions.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.15-36
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• 1996

It is clear that the women's participation in social activity is dramatically increased in civilian field as well as military profession. Because of the characteristics of military nursing service, there are many difficulties. Frequent move, medical insurance, baby care. and the education are typical forms of difficulties for nurse officers in the military. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the perfect execution of nursing service. guarantee the active attitude for research and improve the combat strength by solving those private and economic problems. The method of research was analysis of question survey and the review of related literatures. The subject of research was 300 active nurse officers who work at the Army Hospitals. The survey was conducted 14 days from Oct 15 to Oct 28. The collected data was processed by computer using SPSS(Statistical Package of Social Science). Frequencies and percentages were used to examine the demographic characteristics of subject, and T-test was also used in the case of necessity. The result showed as follows; As the general characteristics of subject group; 28.7 years of average age, 73.6 months of service period, 63.4% of married. In regard of specialty; General 57.7%. Intensive Care 12.7% and Psychiatries 8.8%. The dissatisfactory factors about military welfare system were the difficulties in children education (36.9%). disadvantages on the civil medical insurance system (27.3%), and little chance of self education and development (21.5%). The problems in performing their duties were shown as dwelling instability due to frequent move (67.7%), and bring up children (14.2%). The reasons for resigning their job were shown as the instability of living status (64.2%), bring up children (18.8%) and dissatisfaction to the service (11.2%). The residential status was shown that military offered houses (45.2%), rental houses (29.3%) and own houses(14.64). The average numbers of moving residencies were; 3-4 time(34.6%), less than 2 times(33.1%), and 5-7 times(21.5%). Higher than 94.7% of the subject group spent more than 50.000 Won. In regard of education, they wanted to attend graduate school with their own expense(26.2%), computer science(20%) and Office Job Training(20%). The ways of taking care of children were mother-in-low(49.6%), mother(14.6%), and others(25%). The average expenditure per month for children were 20-30 hundred Won(44.2%), 10-20 hundred Won(25%) and 30-40 hundred Won(22.3%). The places of children care selected were public or occupational care center(56.2%), religious organization(20.8%), and other center managed by social organizations(10.4%). The result of survey for general welfare of nurse officers are as follows; By and large they seem to be satisfied with their job. however. there are some dissatisfactory factors. They are children care facilties, promotion. income. welfare facilities. disadvantage in medical insurance and civil hospitals. house purchase. unfair chances in specialty training. influence on promotion by educational status. and insufficient role for their children and husbands. As conclusion. the recommendations for improving nursing service are as follows; 1. Children care center managed by occupation 2. Dormitory system for children by military personnel 3. Equal opportunities in education according to ability 4. Reasonable moving price according to the distance and scope of family and extra allowance

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.303-315
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• 2020

The development of ICT is spreading various contents to enhance health care and management efficiency through convergence between mobile and healthcare, but it indicates consumer acceptance and imbalance of mobile healthcare, and there is a lack of empirical research on functions and acceptability required according to consumer behavior and characteristics. This study sought to understand whether users were aware of and how to address the risks associated with smartphone use, and to conduct research on the acceptability and function and price of healthcare applications. For the purpose of the study, the data prepared in depth 1:1 survey for those who participated in and attended the 'BIO 2018 in Boston' exhibition was used for the actual analysis. The collected sample data included frequency analysis, technical statistical analysis, speech only correlation, chi square test, one-way analysis, and accuracy test. As a result, the more you realize the wrong attitude, the higher the awareness of risk and willingness to take action to solve problems. Second, it is necessary to increase satisfaction with the functions of healthcare apps, as well as to utilize health care and healthcare apps. Third, focus should be placed on systems or functional implementations centered on user behavior changes. Fourth, it is necessary to develop services that can enhance visual motivation. This study is meaningful in that it identifies a variety of consumer characteristics and provides directions for development of functions, and can be used as a basis for providing efficient healthcare applications in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 1998

This study was attempted to identify emerging consumer trends on dietary and food purchasing behaviors and perception for the convenience foods. Self completed questionnaires were collected from 710 housewives in Seoul and Kyunggi province and analyzed statistically. A questionnaire consisted of 3 parts including demographic backgrounds, dietary and food purchasing behaviors, perception for the convenience foods. Among demographic variables age, occupation and lifestyle were the significant factors affecting consumers' behaviors and perception of dietary lives. Over half of housewives, who are the primary persons responsible for home meal preparation, confessed that they do not enjoy meal planning and preparation any more. An attitude toward in home food preparation was significantly different among age groups, working or non-working women and lifestyles. Most of the respondents go shopping for foods whenever they need to or 2-3 times a week. They also did not plan before going foods shopping and purchase decisions were made in-store. They considered quality of foods more important than price. Consumers were not willing to purchase pre-cut packaged vegetables or pre-cooked foods on the market. However, they showed strong desire and demand for the development of convenience korean foods coupled with high quality.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.2886-2894
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• 2012

This study is intended to research female university students' concern with beauty care, their skin condition, knowledge and treatment comparing the majors with the non-majors in Seoul. This comparative study between them focused on their educational and behavioral differences in beauty care in the same living space, and the results were as follows: The majors' average point on the concern with skin health care was higher than the non-majors(p<.01). There were more combination skin type in the major group, and more dry skin type in the non-major group. Also, there were meaningful differences among the two groups in frequency of double cleansing after makeup, exfoliating, massaging or applying mask packs, using sunscreen(p<.01, p<.001, p<.01, p<.01). Further, intake rates of instant food and moisture were meaningfully different between them(p<.001, p<.05). In addition, the majors more tended to purchase cosmetics efficiently through lots of channels, and showed more active attitude to buy high-price cosmetics with outstanding properties although they have financial burden(p<.001). It was hoped that the results of this study would be used in skin care industry and education area in the future.