• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.1093-1104
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• 2002

In this study, the diffusion phenomenon of casual Hanbok which started in the mid 1990s and has been widely spread ever since with innovative features in design, materials, etc., was reviewed. Through the interviews of 45 People who have worn casual Hanbok the advantages and disadvantages of casual Hanbok related to its innovative characteristics were recorded and analyzed. Through the questionnaires distributed to 482 adults living in Seoul, Busan, and Darjeon, the factors related to the adoption of casual Hanbok were examined. The following are the results from the empirical study. First the adoption of contemporary casual Hanbok is due to the consumers′ positive response to the excellence of casual Hanbok′s various innovative characteristics. What the consumers perceived as innovative characteristics of casual Hanbok in the survey results validated the findings of the depth interview, identifying seven subcategories of the innovative characteristics of casual Hanbok; aesthetics, positive training effect on body and mind, difficulty in we, practicality, psychological attachment for "Our Clothes", economic efficiency, and symbolic compatibility. And consumers who think highly of such spiritual and identity values as national consciousness, nature affiliation, and community consciousness, had high evaluation to casual Hanbok However, consumers′ prejudice against Hanbok that Hanbok is for old people, uncomfortable, and not suitable to modern life, tuned out to have a negative influence on the adoption. From these results, it can be concluded that casual Hanbok of the late 1990s is a fashion with innovative characteristics, different from the one in the l980s worn by the demonstrators of popular movements and democratic movements, and it emerged as a new symbol with the characteristics of cultural movement like community consciousness and nature affiliation.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.73-87
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• 2019

Purpose - This research aims to investigate the effects that the selection of oriental medicine cosmetics and brand asset attributes have on consumers' economic, emotional and social values in order to shed light on the forms and characteristics of consumption within the globally developing oriental medicine cosmetics market, and in the end positively verify how such perceived values affect purchase intention. In addition, it proposes research outcomes by comparing the differences between national and cultural consumer purchase behavior based on the comparisons of consumer groups in South Korea and China, the major markets for oriental medicine cosmetics. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on advanced research a total of 9 hypotheses were designed and questionnaires consisting of 16 questions to identify six major variables were conducted. Research was carried out centered on Seoul, South Korea, and its surrounding metropolitan area as well as Beijing and Shanghai, China, and a total of 577 sets of significant data were collected. A comparison analysis was then conducted on the data from 285 Koreans and 292 Chinese. A regression analysis and path analysis were also carried out based on a structural equation model to suggest results. Results - Research results show brand value assets had a more crucial impact on consumers' perceived value than consumer selection of oriental medicine cosmetics, while emotional value had a bigger effect on purchase intension than social or economic values. For Chinese consumers in particular, social, economic and emotional values affected purchase intention, while emotional value was the most crucial factor for Korean consumers. Conclusions - With oriental medicine cosmetics, brand characteristics and images that helped express emotional desire proved to be more effective in marketing than the performance aspect of cosmetics, including their functions and ingredients. In the end, products that highlight individual desire and emotion should be introduced instead of those that emphasize price, functions and social characteristics in order to expand the global market of oriental medicine cosmetics.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.29-40
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• 2021

Purpose: In this study, with the transaction amount of foreign direct Purchase and foreign direct sales increasing, South Korea is in a situation where foreign direct sales are focused on China. We looked at the impact of consumer innovation and site characteristics on repurchase ability among the characteristics of overseas direct purchase consumers as a way to make direct overseas sales to various overseas countries. Research design, data and methodology: Consumer innovativeness consists of four variables: functional, hedonistic, social, and cognitive, and the site characteristics consisted of four variables: product price, product assortment, convenience, and service. The study was conducted on consumers with foreign direct purchase experience, and was finally used in 252 additional analyses. Results: The main findings of this study were first, that the impact on the degree of re-purchase among consumer innovativeness of foreign direct purchase consumers had a significant impact in the order of cognitive innovativeness, hedonistic innovativeness, and functional innovativeness. Social innovativeness did not affect the degree of re-purchase. Second, site characteristics have been found to have a significant impact on the degree of re-purchase in order of product assortment, commodity price, and service. Convenience did not affect the degree of re-purchase. Conclusions Taken together these results can be called the biggest characteristic of the cognitive innovativeness of the consumer's inclination to use the overseas direct purchase, the price or quick response of the goods sold on the site is a factor that affects the re-purchase, above all it is important to have a variety of products. We will present this element as a way to make direct sales abroad to various countries. In addition, foreign direct purchase is a lot of transactions in China, the United States, EU, but the share of China is high in foreign direct sales, and the U.S. and EU have a very low performance, it is important to consider the reasons why they prefer Korean products in China to study the social and cultural characteristics of U.S. and European consumers in the future, and to support and active marketing that companies and sellers can increase sales.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.273-299
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• 2024

This is a qualitative research study in which three families focused on scientific culture and conducted the process of forming a family fandom using ethnography. The ultimate goal of science education is the "cultivation of scientifically literate persons.", The researcher examines families who regularly participate in informal science educational programs, such as those offered by the National Marine Biodiversity Institute of Korea, to understand the cultural ans sociological significance of these activities as part of their daily routines. This study analyzes and summarizes the experiences of three families in different home environments as to the completion of the family fandom through the process of self-sustaining cultural practice formation through family education activities, and science activities. This study found that the process tword completion is more meaningful than the completion itself, in the context of science, culture, family and fandom. The findings of this study are as follows: 1) The process of forming a family fandom began with the individual purpose of each family member. 2) The process of fandom formation was created in an organic relationship through the interaction between parents and children, and the self-sustaining cultural practice strengthened the bond and expanded the consensus on scientific culture. 3) Parents and children together share scientific culture, and unique culture in the form of sharing in their own cultural life as becoming scientifically literate people. The self-sustaining cultural practice of selecting and enjoying these scientific activities is not simple consumption of popular culture, but the role of parents as cultural designers. This has conducted experiential consumption as "refined (or sophisticated) cultural consumers," and family leisure activities as meaning production of family members so it has social and cultural implications that can be developed into a scientific culture.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.145-164
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• 2023

The proliferation of online reviews on dining experiences has significantly affected consumers' choices of restaurants, especially overseas. Food quality, service, ambiance, and price have been identified as specific attributes for the choice of a restaurant in prior studies. In addition to these four representative attributes, cultural factors, which may also significantly impact the choice of a restaurant for tourists, in particular, have not received much attention in previous studies. This study employs the text mining technique to analyze over 10,000 online reviews of 76 Korean restaurants posted by Chinese tourists on dianping.com to explore the influence of cultural factors on the consumer's choice of restaurants in the overseas travel context. The findings reveal that "Hallyu (Korean Wave)" influences Chinese tourists' dining experiences in Korea and their satisfaction. Moreover, Korean food-related words, such as cold noodle, bibimbap, rice cake, pig trotters, and kimchi stew, appeared across all the review topics. Our findings contribute to the existing tourism and hospitality literature by identifying the critical role of cultural factors on consumers', especially tourists', satisfaction with the choice of a restaurant using text mining. The findings also provide practical guidance to restaurant owners in Korea to attract more Chinese tourists.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.141-155
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to offer basic data to adolescents' cosmetic culture by investigating and analysing the choices made by female students who have been becoming principle consumers of cosmetics these days. Firstly, social and cultural backgrounds and concepts of N generation, and then characteristics and influencing powers of female students were reviewed. And this study also included questionnaire surveys of 500 female students in middle and high schools located in Seoul. Data were processed using a SPSS$^+$ program and analyzed by using frequency, percentage and the $X^2$-test. The major findings run as follows: Female students have the effects of spreading their words quickly and abilities of making a decision what to buy. And they accept consuming behaviors itself as a part of cultural lives. Therefore, industries have acknowledged them as new principal consumers with a powerful influence in the market. They also play an important role in active consumer as emotional generation who has distinct personalities and prefer fashion trends, changes and innovations. They show conformities with their peer groups and they also want to identify themselves with characters or stars. The cosmetic behaviors of female students relating to demographic characteristics showed a significant relation to grades, majors, school groups and places of residence. Female students have a lot of interest and knowledge about cosmetics. And they use various cosmetic products. This study demonstrated the age for using make-up for the first time has been becoming younger more and more. Recently, female adolescents tend to use face powder, lip gloss, mascara and eye shadow. It is assumed that cosmetic purchases of female students can be considered as an impulsive aspects. However, before purchases, the proportion of students having any particular cosmetic brand in mind previously has been increasing. They take into consideration skin safety, the quality of product and color, when purchasing cosmetic products.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.107-121
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to offer basic data to adolescents' cosmetic culture by investigating and analysing the choices made by female students who have been becoming principle consumers of cosmetics these days. Firstly, social and cultural backgrounds and concepts of N generation, and then characteristics and influencing powers of female students were reviewed. And this study also included questionnaire surveys of 500 female students in middle and high schools located in Seoul. Data were processed using a SPSS$^+$ program and analyzed by using frequency, percentage and the $X^2$-test. The major findings run as follows: Female students have the effects of spreading their words quickly and abilities of making a decision what to buy. And they accept consuming behaviors itself as a part of cultural lives. Therefore, industries have acknowledged them as new principal consumers with a powerful influence in the market. They also play an important role in active consumer as emotional generation who has distinct personalities and prefer fashion trends, changes and innovations. They show conformities with their peer groups and they also want to identify themselves with characters or stars. The cosmetic behaviors of female students relating to demographic characteristics showed a significant relation to grades, majors, school groups and places of residence. Female students have a lot of interest and knowledge about cosmetics. And they use various cosmetic products. This study demonstrated the age for using make-up for the first time has been becoming younger more and more. Recently, female adolescents tend to use face powder, lip gloss, mascara and eye shadow. It is assumed that cosmetic purchases of female students can be considered as an impulsive aspects. However, before purchases, the proportion of students having any particular cosmetic brand in mind previously has been increasing. They take into consideration skin safety, the quality of product and color, when purchasing cosmetic products.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.117-126
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• 2014

This study examines how preference clarity and customer participation levels affect evaluation of fit toward customized services and also analyzes the effects of cultural difference between Korea and China that may cause variance in the evaluation of fit in the course of interaction with the prior two factors, preference clarity and customer participation level. It conducted a $2{\times}2{\times}2$ between-subjects factorial design adopting preference clarity, customer participation level, and difference of culture. The subjects were composed of 200 Korean and 200 Chinese. According to the analysis results, it is revealed that Korean consumers highly perceived fit toward customized services when their preference is clear and participation level is high, and they evaluate fit more favorably as participation level increased, while Chinese consumers' evaluation for fit deteriorated as participation level increased. The result shows that fit evaluation became more positive through participation when preference clarity is high in Koreans but not in Chinese.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.204-215
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• 2011

This study was attempted to be a help in estimating changes of men's fashion in sociocultural environment by examining the diversified trends of domestic men's fashion through literature review, fashion collection analysis and questionnaire in various aspects. For data collection in this study, questionnaires were used, and these were corrected and supplemented after preliminary survey for male consumers from September 2009 to March 2010. Among total 460 copies, 431 copies were used in final analysis. First, among typical factors of changes in image of men's fashion, change of sexual role was shown as the most important factor. Contrary to men of the past, modern men are actively taking care of their appearance with changes of social values, which indicates that viewpoints on men have become flexible, such that the image of beauty does not apply just to women. Second, analysis on factors of image changes in men's fashion by age revealed that high mean values were obtained in factors of change of sexual role and trend with difference between groups, and factors of expression of individuality were highly rated without remarkable difference, and aesthetic factors were poorly rated without significance. Third, analysis on preference for formative characteristics of the Metro Sexual showed that feminine materials were negatively rated, and analysis on wearing experience revealed that several items become popular, indicating that wearing experiences are increasing in various areas. This study suggests a new viewpoint of cultural sexual consciousness of the youth that is continuously changing, and is meaningful in understanding emotional and rational lifestyle and cultural style of Metro Sexual, a recent phenomenon of men's fashion.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.172-176
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• 2020

Recently, it has been reported that the positive emotional responses from previously consumed food could be transferred to the new food, affecting the acceptance of the food. This study was conducted to develop emotional lexicons for evaluating consumers' emotional responses to the food. Focus group interviews were conducted using 15 Koreans and 23 Chinese consumers to elicit emotional terms for Korean food HMR products. Using 23 Chinese participants who did not participate in the previous interview, emotional terms were screened through discussions in an interview setting. An online survey among 50 Koreans and 50 Chinese was carried out to evaluate and verify the valence and arousal potential of the selected terms. Elicited emotional terms in these two countries had similar valence and arousal potentials. However, cross-cultural differences were also found, mostly in arousal potential. Therefore, interpretation should be done carefully when comparing emotional responses between Korean and Chinese subjects.