• 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.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.426-432
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• 2005

The health of feet is connected with individual's health and affects a man's activity. Shoes need to be designed to protect feet and to absorb the impact of land. Thus, design, comfort and economical efficiency are important factors of shoes. Consumers can choose suitable shoes for their feet in off-line shopping. However, in on-line shopping, because they can not wear shoes, compare to the off-line shopping, there are many problems in internet shopping. First, consumers can get limited information of shoes because they must search information of purchase without other's help. Second, because consumers can not get important information such as design, size and a comfort of wearing, they can not make a careful decision. Above these, the solution of user-oriented internet shopping is development of new type of prototype which is accessible to user and to offer visual information through 3D-virtual reality. The purpose of this study is to develpoment of shoes easy-order prototype so to reduce of internet shopping risk and offer to shopping convenience. Contents of the new prototype are as follows; 1. Consumers can print out a foot shaped plane figure and compare it to their foot. If the size of printed sheet is not proper, consumers can choose another size. Through this step, they can get their own size. 2. In 3D-virtual reality, consumers can get a various visual information. So they feel wearing comfort indirectly. It is expected that the result of this study would be an important case study to develop of shoes' easy-order prototype for a disabled person.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.5 s.164
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• pp.765-776
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• 2007

Customer expectations and requirements for products play an important role in product planning for companies and decision making process for the consumer. These expectations are expressed by product qualities that consumers consider important when they purchase. Therefore, to identify quality elements that reflect consumer requirements would be a useful guide for companies. The purposes of this study are to find out quality factors of apparel product, to identify apparel product quality elements using Kano's theory, to find attributes of product which improvement are required. Women over 20 years-old from metropolitan areas in South Korea participated in the study and a quota sampling method was used. A questionnaire was arranged with four separate subject sections, importance of quality, Kano's questionnaires, and demographics. Data from 525 questionnaires were used for the statistical analysis. The results were as follows: Six dimensions of product quality(i.e., usefulness, performance, aesthetic, symbol, individuality and appearance) were identified. According to Kano's quality elements, performance was categorized into must-be quality which could lead to product dissatisfaction. Usefulness and appearance were categorized into one-dimensional quality which lead to both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Aesthetic, symbol, and individuality was categorized into attractive quality which could lead to satisfaction. Findings of this study provide both industry and academic researchers with a guide to increase customer satisfaction in the product development process.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.6047-6052
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• 2013

A cosmetic manufacturing process requires a mold that is inevitable for mass production. Cosmetic containers are one of major factors affecting the customer's purchase decision. In addition, the manufacturing cost in cosmetic container comprises a large portion of the entire product cost. Therefore, a mold satisfying the economical feasibility, aesthetics and functionality is necessary. Among the cosmetic containers, square shape containers have a tendency of having a short shot defect product. The square shaped cosmetic containers are mostly produced as a side gate shape on the two-plate molds. On the other hand, there are two disadvantages, such as gate trace and post processing requirement. The overlap-gateproposed in this study has the characteristics of intaglio gate cutting and no need for post processing. The delivery system of the overlap gate was simulated and compared with the side gate via Moldflow. The improvement in flow, frozen rate, density, and Air trap was confirmed. Based on the simulation results, the mold and performed injection molding was fabricated. In this study, the possibility of the mass production of high aesthetic and functionality cosmetic containers was verified.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.761-768
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• 2009

This study evaluated on the recognition and satisfaction for functional bakery products by consumers living in Seoul, Overall, 82.0% answered of the respondents reported that they had 'yes' which was 4.5 times as much as those who answered 'no' tried functional bakery products. Purchasing mostly depended on 'myself' (69.0%), and other methods of acquiring information as well as 'bakery' (10.8%), 'neighbour' (8.5%), 'media' (7.9%), and the 'internet' (3.7%). The preferred functional ingredients were 'sweet potato' with (22.9%), and 'rye and oat' (13.8%), 'green tea' (13.5%), 'pumpkin' (11.4%), and 'chestnut' (7.3%) were other preferred ingredients. The reasons for this preference were that they were 'healthy' by (47.1%) and had a 'good taste' by (36.6%). Evaluation of the recognition of functional bakery products revealed that, 'nutrition' had the highest scale of recognition of (3.80 out of 5), and followed by 'healthy' with (3.69 out of 5). Conversely, 'proper price' received a below average score of 2.97, indicating dissatisfaction. Moreover, the overall average satisfaction with functional bakery products was 3.37, and with the taste, nutrition, and quality receiving a highly satisfactory score of 3.52, and price receiving an unsatisfactory score of 3.00. The factors most important to improve functional bakery products were, 'variety' (37.6%) was most important, followed by 'increased nutrition' (21.2%) and 'lower price' needed to be improved as well. The factor that had the greatest influence on the decision to purchase functional bakery products was 'material' with (3.737) followed by 'name value' with (3.56).

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.75-84
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• 2006

The internet has the capabilities of supporting and facilitating several forms of consumer interaction including one-to-one, one to many, or many-to-many interactions. Especially, previous studies revealed that the Online Word-of-Mouth communication is widely used as a source of customer's information seeking and purchase decision making. Even with this importance of the Online Word-of-Mouth communication on internet, few research has systematically addressed the issue. This study investigates the effect of interpersonal communication on consumers' information search activities and develops a model that depicts the key antecedents and mediating variables of interpersonal communication in internet shopping environment. The results are as follows: First, choice uncertainty, perceived risk, and knowledge uncertainty play an important role for perceived usefulness. Second, perceived usefulness has directly affected interactive communication of consumers' communication style. Thus, it is essential for internet companies to find ways to encourage their customers to engage in word-of-mouth communication.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2013

This study was conducted to look into consulting areas that can secure loyalty customers by clarifying relations between perceived quality factors, brand image and customer loyalty in terms of a multi-function printer. To accomplish the study purpose, this study carried out a validation analysis, a reliability analysis and a structural equation model analysis by setting up a study model and a hypothesis based on precedent studies and collecting data from purchase decision-makers. The findings of the study are summarized as follows. First, effects of perceived quality components of a multi-function printer on brand image were product quality, sales man's service and service quality in order of majority. Second, brand image of a multi-function printer has a positive impact on customer loyalty. This study is meaningful as it expanded the scope of study related to a multi-function printer up to the administrative field. This study is expected to help industries, who have similar business structure of a multi-function printer, establish a business strategy and support practical work and administrative consulting.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.131-139
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• 2003

The products of the quality certificated fisheries which are protected from environmental pollution, decomposition are hygienically safe and convenient for food. However, consumers have not yet understood the recognition of the system of quality certfication so far because of lack of demand on the quality certification fisheries. Above all, to put the system of the quality QC in place sucessfully, to understand the variation of consumer's inclination efficiently, the empirical study must be carried out by both consumer's take part in the market of the quality certificated fisheries products and how much the amount of consumption is in this market. The purpose of this study, under the preconditions where these have limited fisheries items in consumer's inclination survey, is to analyze the demand of QC though the Double Hurdle Model. Explanatory variables included were household characteristics such as housewives' age and education, her job, household income as well as their health perceptions and food purchase behaviors. Survey from 530 household was collected in Pusan City in 2003, of 502 were actually used for empirical analysis. The Double-hurdle framework proved to a better representation of the factors influencing the separate decision participation and consumption levels. According to the results of this study, whether or not, participating In the market of quality certicipating in the market of qualify certificated fisheries products is affected by how much experience and confidence these have got. housewives' having a job or not. Furthermore, the amount of consumption is mostly affected income. This value is attributed to the safety of QC fisheries products in comparison with regular fisheries. Findings suggest that the consumers put substantially high monetary value on safe food, such as high quality fisheries products. Therefore, first of all, legal and institutional systems should be clearly and strictly identified for the QC products.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 2021

Purpose: How to build the positive emotion of customer is very important, because it affects the positive attitude. Brand evidence has a significant impact on consumer behavior in terms of reinforcing consumers' perception of food service companies and differentiating them from competing brands. Thus, this study examines the effect of brand evidence on emotion (positive emotion and negative emotion), and attitude in restaurant industry. Research design, data, and methodology: This study examines the structural relationship among brand evidence, emotion, and attitude. Brand evidence divide into three sub-dimensions such as physical evidence, core service, and employee service. In order to test the purposes of this study, research model and hypotheses were developed. The questionnaire items were modified and used according to the content of this study based on previous studies. All constructs were measured by multiple items tested and developed in the previous research. The data were collected from 439 restaurant users from Seoul area were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.0 program. A total of 460 questionnaires were distributed and a survey was conducted for 4 weeks, and a total of 439 were used for analysis, excluding non-response data and 21 unusable response data among the collected questionnaires. Frequency analysis was conducted to identify the general characteristics of the survey subjects. To measure the reliability and validity of the measurement tools, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. Structural model analysis was conducted to verify the research model. Result: The findings demonstrate that physical evidence, core service, employee service had positive effects on positive emotion. And core service and employee service had negative effects on negative emotion while physical evidence did not have. Also, positive emotion had positive effect on attitude and negative emotion had negative effect on attitude. Conclusions: The findings of this study provide guidelines on how to enhance competitiveness in restaurant industry through understanding brand evidence's effects on raising perceived consumer's emotion and attitude. Therefore, food service companies should establish a marketing strategy that can stimulate positive emotions through brand evidence, which is all factors related to service brands that influence consumers' evaluation of service products and purchase decision-making process.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.27-35
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• 2016

Purpose - The primary objective of this study is to investigate the impact of employee characteristics on employees' preference towards corporate pension products. This study can provide a guidance for maximization of benefits for employees and their affiliated corporation. Employee characteristics include average length of labour, wage system of annual salary, age, types of interest rates and size of corporation. Existing research generally concentrate on vitalizations of corporate pension product raising an imperfection, improvements, tax benefit analysis and legal consideration. Thus, this study intensively analyses the effect of employee attributes on firms' decision for corporate pension products, such as DB(defined benefit) and DC(defined contribution) type. Research design, data, and methodology - The data were collected using self-administrated questionnaire survey on corporate pension products from CEOs or HR directors 250 foreign-invested companies', purchasing pension plans in practice with domestic financial trustees (insurance companies, banks and security companies). Hypotheses testing was conducted using Logistic Regression analysis with SPSS/PC+ 21.0. Results - The findings of the study are as follows. Employees with the long length of labour are more likely to have DB plan; more likely to prefer DC plan with the dividend distribution product regarding the types of interest rate. SMEs(less than 100 employees) are more likely to select DC plan whereas high fluctuation in wage with annual salary has no impacts. In addition, the ages has no significant effect on the preference. Conclusions - This study has examined with the empirical testing that employees' variable attributes and qualities are one of the vital factors for corporation pension plan selection. Currently, majority employees are highly likely to join DB plan and Defined interest types. Corporation with less than 10 employees prefer IRP scheme while most of corporation are intended to join DC plan. In a very near future, corporation more than 300 employees will be required to purchase mandatory plan under national regulation. For maximization of employees' contentment to corporation pension insurance and for complementing the flaws of existing plans, the future studies shall also research in a perspective of employee benefit.