• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to provide the basic data for effective intervention of oral health behaviors strategy and to compare the actual conditions about hypertension and diabetes case management of the elderly at the hall for the aged and the D senior's college. The research method was a questionnaire including hypertension and diabetes case management of the elderly and the subjects were 174 of the elderly(65 age over) at the hall for the aged(100) and the senior's college(74). The results of this study were as follows; 1. Hypertension 1)The incidence of hypertension of elderly at the hall for the aged and the senior's college were 32.2%. 2)83.9% of the hypertension cases were initially diagnosed during hospital examination(p < 0.05). 3)Regular blood pressure checks were performed more than one time monthly on 76.8% of the cases(p < 0.05). 4)Blood pressure control was well controlled on 75%(p < 0.05). 5)85.7% of the elderly at the hall for the aged took hypertension drugs daily and 42.9% of the elderly at the senior's college took no drug alternatively(p < 0.05). 2. Diabetes 1)The incidence of the diabetes of elderly at the hall for the aged and the senior's college were 14.4%. 2)80.0% of the diabetes cases were initially diagnosed during hospital examination(p < 0.05). 3)64.0% of the cases did not have blood sugar measuring instrument(p < 0.05). 4. In the quality of life, the thinking of no difficulty in walking and no anxiety/depression was more presented on the elderly at the senior's college than those at the hall for the aged(p < 0.05). 5. The subjective health condition scores were higher on the elderly at the senior's college than those at the hall for the aged(p < 0.05).

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.39
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• pp.351-378
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• 2006

With the development of media, the methods for the documentation of intangible cultural heritage have been also developed and diversified. As well as the previous analogue ways of documentation, the have been recently applying new multi-media technologies focusing on digital pictures, sound sources, movies, etc. Among the new technologies, the documentation of intangible cultural heritage using the method of 'Motion Capture' has proved itself prominent especially in the fields that require three-dimensional documentation such as dances and performances. Motion Capture refers to the documentation technology which records the signals of the time varing positions derived from the sensors equipped on the surface of an object. It converts the signals from the sensors into digital data which can be plotted as points on the virtual coordinates of the computer and records the movement of the points during a certain period of time, as the object moves. It produces scientific data for the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, by displaying digital data which represents the virtual motion of a holder of an intangible cultural heritage. National Research Institute of Cultural Properties (NRICP) has been working on for the development of new documentation method for the Important Intangible Cultural Heritage designated by Korean government. This is to be done using 'motion capture' equipments which are also widely used for the computer graphics in movie or game industries. This project is designed to apply the motion capture technology for 3 years- from 2005 to 2007 - for 11 performances from 7 traditional dances of which body gestures have considerable values among the Important Intangible Cultural Heritage performances. This is to be supported by lottery funds. In 2005, the first year of the project, accumulated were data of single dances, such as Seungmu (monk's dance), Salpuri(a solo dance for spiritual cleansing dance), Taepyeongmu (dance of peace), which are relatively easy in terms of performing skills. In 2006, group dances, such as Jinju Geommu (Jinju sword dance), Seungjeonmu (dance for victory), Cheoyongmu (dance of Lord Cheoyong), etc., will be documented. In the last year of the project, 2007, education programme for comparative studies, analysis and transmission of intangible cultural heritage and three-dimensional contents for public service will be devised, based on the accumulated data, as well as the documentation of Hakyeonhwadae Habseolmu (crane dance combined with the lotus blossom dance). By describing the processes and results of motion capture documentation of Salpuri dance (Lee Mae-bang), Taepyeongmu (Kang seon-young) and Seungmu (Lee Mae-bang, Lee Ae-ju and Jung Jae-man) conducted in 2005, this report introduces a new approach for the documentation of intangible cultural heritage. During the first year of the project, two questions have been raised. First, how can we capture motions of a holder (dancer) without cutoffs during quite a long performance? After many times of tests, the motion capture system proved itself stable with continuous results. Second, how can we reproduce the accurate motion without the re-targeting process? The project re-created the most accurate motion of the dancer's gestures, applying the new technology to drew out the shape of the dancers's body digital data before the motion capture process for the first time in Korea. The accurate three-dimensional body models for four holders obtained by the body scanning enhanced the accuracy of the motion capture of the dance.