• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.152-159
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of transaction characteristics on transaction cost and choice intention by applying transaction cost theory to experiential product. Experience-specificity, transaction uncertainty, and personal uncertainty are proposed to reflect the characteristics of experiential products, and the effects of these variables on transaction costs and transaction costs are assumed to have an influence on the choice intention. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, experience-specificity(site, physical equipment, knowledge skill, temporal), transactional uncertainty(product-, process-), personal uncertainty (preference-, and situation-) have a significant positive effect on transaction cost. Second, transaction costs (search, comparison, examination, negotiation, payment, delivery) have a significant negative effect on the choice intention of the experiential product. The results of this study show that the increase of transaction costs can reduce the choice of experiential products and the strategic consideration of experience specificity, transaction uncertainty and individual uncertainty are required to reduce transaction costs. In addition, experiential products lacked access from a transactional and cost-based point of view, and this study contributes theoretically by compensating for the lack.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.41-52
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• 2015

Purpose - Given globalization, the new niche market of medical tourism is likely to experience sustainable growth for various reasons, such as aging populations and a shift in the medical consumerism paradigm toward prevention. Importantly, understanding medical customers' behavior is necessary to benefit from a competitive advantage in this industry. The existing research primarily accessed the key factors of medical quality and costs to explain health customers' behavior but is limited in terms of enabling an understanding of the decision process. This limitation exists because, given the intangibility and greater associated risks in the highly professional industry of international medical tourism, most customers lack the knowledge and experience needed to evaluate the central factors-such as the medical competence of health care countries-before purchases. Therefore, they actively search for useful information through various distributions to reduce uncertainty and to make better choices. Interestingly, most of these information channels are associated with word-of-mouth (WOM). However, no evidence is found in the literature to estimate the effect of WOM in the medical tourism field. Thus, this study focuses on WOM to explore its interaction with key medical characteristic factors and the attractiveness of destinations referred to by sources. This study also affects customers' evaluations and, in turn, influences their intention to seek health care services abroad. Research design, data, and methodology - The literature review addressed an interesting research model for estimating the relations among WOM, medical characteristics, attractiveness, and customers' choice intention regarding international health care. In the key economic regions in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, and Guangdong, 2,500 survey questionnaires were distributed to potential customers of different ages, education, and income levels. A resulting 1,717 (68.68 percent of the original 2,500) usable surveys were obtained for analysis. Moderated regression analysis was used to determine the effects of WOM in the decision process regarding international health care destinations. Results - The results indicate that WOM is a good moderator of the relationships between the factors evaluated by sources and customers. More importantly, the WOM effects reflect the factors of tie strength, credibility, and vividness. The results also reveal that, given the moderating role of WOM, the intention of potential Chinese customers to seek the referred health care country varies according to the medical characteristics of medical competency and reputation as evaluated by customers. In contrast, the travel attractiveness of the attractions, facilities, accessibility, and social environment are critical determinants of destination choice intention. Conclusions - The moderating role of WOM has been confirmed through the international healthcare destination selection process. Medical tourism managers should user WOM as an effective marketing tool for industry development. Specially, marketers should consider the effects of WOM determinants, such as tie strength, credibility, and vividness, to develop an effective strategy. Furthermore, this study estimates the factors that affect customers' selection of medical tourism destinations. Health care managers or policy makers should consider a broad variety of variables that may attract more Chinese customers to international health care.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1274-1285
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate influences of perceived price dimensions and store attributes on store choice behavior. Three major retail formats, department store, discount store, and internet shopping mall in retail industry were compared with respect to store attributes and intention to purchase fashion products. Data were obtained from 427 consumers aged 25-49 years old. The results were as follows. (1) Multidimensional aspects of the price construct were identified: price-quality schema, prestige sensitivity, price mavenism, value consciousness, price consciousness, and sales proneness. (2) Store attributes included product assortment, quality per price (Q/P), service, and symbolic image in general. However, store attribute factors of three retail formats consisted of slightly different items. Department stores presented the highest level of mean scores on product quality, customer service, and symbolic images, while internet mall exhibited highest on product variety, information comparison, and quality per price. (3) Respondents presented high level of intention to purchase fashion products at internet mall, department store, and discount store in that order. (4) Purchase intention at department store was predicted by Q/P, service, symbolic image, prestige sensitivity, product assortment, clothing consumption, and age in order. Purchase intention at discount store was influenced by assortment & Q/P, symbolic image, clothing consumption, and sales proneness, whereas internet mall was predicted by product assortment, Q/P, service, price mavenism, and price-quality schema.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.117-125
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• 2017

The service quality and image are a central factor in understanding tourists destination choice. Existing literature suggests that sport event and destination image could interact to influence tourism behaviours. The purpose of this study w as to identify the factors influencing local image and re-visit intention in the 68th Chungcheongnam-do Provincial Sport Event held in Yesan city. The results of the study are as follows; First, as a result of factor analysis on the satisfaction with the sports event composed of 17 items, three factors were categorized, which were 'event management', 'event facility' and 'supporting facilities'. Second, satisfaction with local event had a positive effect on local image. Especially, satisfaction with event management had greater effect on local image than event facilities and supporting facilities. Third, as satisfaction with local event had positive effect on re-visitation intention, satisfaction with sports event had positive effect on the success of the sport event itself and re-visitation intention for the region. Fourth, as local image had a positive effect on re-visitation intention, strategic approaches to linking factors of tourism are required to attract visitors in addition to sports events.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.57-76
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of characteristics of hospital choice and hospital service quality on service value, customer satisfaction and hospital revisiting intent and a survey involving patients and their caregivers who used the hospital before was conducted for empirical analysis. Thus, the theory and factors concerning the characteristics of hospital choice, hospital service quality, service value, customer satisfaction and hospital revisiting intent and relevant preceding research were explored after examining the preceding research, the research model was developed accordingly. A total of 459 collected questionnaires were analyze after carrying out the survey on a national scale. The findings of this study have significance since it identified the motivation that affect the choice of hospital and provide information. Also, this study could be utilized as reference data for hospitals to survive in the fierce competition, as it carried out factual survey on considerations when making choice of hospital. Furthermore, due to the low expectation of patients and caregivers for hospital administration, the study indicated that it's linked to a significantly low chance of customer satisfaction and provide the cause. This study was differentiated with other research on hospital choice since it selected security as a factor of hospital choice, though it's not discussed in the preceding research and moreover, conducted the empirical analysis. And the results of empirical analysis revealed that customers felt that service value was improved when the information security was strengthened. In other words, the strengthening of hospital information security could be hospital choice motivation, which means this study provided practical implication.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.117-125
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• 2016

Purpose - As consumers' needs for purchasing fresh and safe food have been bigger in Korea, their interest in local food is also growing recently. So, the number of local food stores has been increased from 3 in 2012 to 103 in 2015. Local food stores should operate a business responding consumers' needs in order that local food stores are not to be a one-time fad. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of consumers who use a local food store and provide helpful implications to design a strategy for sustainable growth of local food store. Research design, data, and methodology - In this study, Probit model was used for empirical analysis in order to examine the effect of purchase choice attributes of agricultural products, consumer's satisfaction, and their demographic factors upon the intention to use a local food store. After estimating coefficients of the probit model, marginal effects were calculated as a standard normal, and cumulative distribution is differentiated with respect to explanatory variables. To collect the data, questionnaire survey was carried out with the consumers using the local food store (Youngjin Nonghyup near to Jeonju city located in Jeollabuk-do). Result - The data analysis found that the more consumers are satisfied with local food store, the higher intention they have to use the local food store. In addition, it was known that the factors related to quality of agricultural products and shopping convenience among the purchase choice attributes have a considerable impact on the purchase intention of a local food store. In demographic factors, income was turned out to be an important factor affecting purchase intention of local food. Such a result supports the hypothesis that high income consumers are likely to purchase local food, which is based on the inference that consumers who have a high income tend to pursue wellbeing life. Futhermore, information delivery, through a reputable media source among general factors, was known to play an important role in forming an intention to purchase local food. According to the analysis of marginal effects, probability of purchase intention of a local food store is increased by 11.4%, if a monthly average income of a household is above 4.5 million Won(Korean currency). If purchasing satisfaction with local food stores is high, the probability of purchase intention would be increased by 24.1%. Likewise, such a probability goes up by 8.7%, 5.8%, respectively as an increasing one unit of quality of agricultural products and shopping convenience of local food stores, respectively. Conclusion - For attaining sustainable growth in a local food store, it is considered necessarily to establish a proper store operation system to meet consumers' needs, especially for quality and shopping convenience of local food. Moreover, as it was found that appropriate communication through media source has a positive effect on the intention to use local food store, PR activity seems to be necessary to expand the consumers' demands for local foods.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.143-151
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• 2022

Objectives: This study investigates dropout intention and the structural relationship between the dental hygienist role and satisfaction with the study major perceived by dental hygiene students. Methods: A survey was conducted on 269 dental hygiene students. The survey items covered general characteristics, department choice motivation, the desirability of dental hygienist career, practice clinical experience, perception of dental hygienist role, satisfaction with study major, and dropout intention. Independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U test, multiple linear regression analysis, and structural equation modeling were used for statistical analysis. Results: The dropout intention level of dental hygiene students was 2.4 out of 5.0. Satisfaction with study major partially mediates perception of dental hygienist role and dropout intention (direct effect=0.182, p=0.024, indirect effect=-0.437, p=0.010). Perception of dental hygienist role (β=-0.255, p=0.010) and satisfaction with study major (β=-0.661, p=0.010) showed a negative relationship with dropout intention. The factor most affecting dropout intention was satisfaction with study major. Dropout intention was high when selecting a major based on external motivations (β=-0.448, p<0.001). Conclusions: Perception of dental hygienist role and satisfaction with study major directly or indirectly affect dropout intention. Therefore, improving satisfaction with study major and improving the perception of dental hygienists will help reduce dropout intention.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Community Living Science Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.102-103
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• 2011

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.333-344
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• 2015

This study aimed to identify the effects of health-related menu choice attributes on customer behavioral intentions at well-being restaurants and analyze the moderating effects of food involvement and trust, which can influence customer preference and their intentions to visit well-being restaurants. This study designed a survey, and 351 respondents who have eaten at well-being restaurants completed the questionnaire. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted to identify underlying dimensions related to health-related menu choice attributes, food involvement, and customer behavioral intentions toward well-being restaurants. The three factors regarding health-related menu choice attributes and the three factors related to food involvement were identified. In order to test the relationships between health-related menu choice attributes and behavioral intentions as well as to investigate the moderating effects of food involvement and trust, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. Results indicated that the three factors of health-related menu choice attributes were significantly and positively related to behavioral intentions. Among food involvement factors, dining environment and cooking were significantly related to behavioral intentions toward well-being restaurants. Trust had a significant influence on behavioral intentions. Results showed that food involvement and trust could moderate the effects of health-related menu choice attributes on behavioral intentions toward well-being restaurants.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.513-526
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• 2013

In an effort to protect consumers' rights to information and to promote their freedom of choice, the South Korean government has been enforcing a policy called the cosmetics full ingredients list system since 2008, which requires cosmetics manufacturers to list all of the ingredients used in their products. This policy aims to assist consumers in identifying the causes of possible side effects of cosmetic products. This study uses consumers' demographic information addition to their cosmetics purchase and usage characteristics to learn about consumers' attitudes and utilization intentions and the influence of information from the cosmetics full ingredients list. This study was conducted through a questionnaire based survey administered to women above the age of 20 years across South Korea who use cosmetic products. The questionnaire was distributed to 300 members on the panel of M Brain, an online research institute. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) The level of knowledge on cosmetics' ingredients positively affected the consumers' attitude and utilization intention of information on the cosmetics full ingredients list. (2) The higher the utilization intention for information, the more often consumers checked the packaging of goods. This implies that habitual behavior, such as checking information, leads to increasing intention to utilize of new information. (3) The brand, as a decision-making factor, negatively affected consumers' attitudes regarding information.