• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.59-69
• /
• 2010

Green or an environmental consciousness has been a major issue for businesses and government offices, as well as consumers, worldwide. In response to this movement, the Korean government announced, in the early 2000s, the era of "Green Growth" as a way to encourage green-related business activities. The Korean fashion industry, in various levels of involvement, presents diverse eco-friendly products as a part of the green movement. These apparel products include organic products and recycled clothing. For these companies to be successful, they need information about who are the consumers who consider green issues (e.g., environmental sustainability) as part of their personal values when making a decision for product purchase, use, and disposal. These consumers can be considered as eco-sumers. Previous studies have examined consumers' purchase intention for or with eco-friendly products. In addition, studies have examined influential factors used to identify the eco-sumers or green consumers. However, limited attention was paid to eco-sumers' disposal or recycling behavior of clothes in comparison with their green product purchases. Clothing disposal behaviors are ways that consumer can get rid of unused clothing and in clue temporarily lending the item or permanently eliminating the item by "handing down" (e.g., giving it to a younger sibling), donating, exchanging, selling, or simply throwing it away. Accordingly, examining purchasing behaviors of eco-friendly fashion items in conjunction with clothing disposal behaviors should improve understanding of a consumer's clothing consumption behavior from the environmental perspective. The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide descriptive information about Korean eco-sumers who have ecologically-favorable lifestyles and behaviors when buying and disposing of clothes. The objectives of this study are to (a) categorize Koreans on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors; (b) investigate the differences in demographics, lifestyles, and clothing consumption values among segments; and (c) compare the purchase intention of eco-friendly fashion items and influential factors among segments. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. The questionnaire included 10 items of clothing disposal behavior, 22 items of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) characteristics, and 19 items of consumption values, measured by five-point Likert-type scales. In addition, the purchase intention of two eco-friendly fashion items and 11 attributes of each item were measured by seven-point Likert type scales. Two polyester fleece pullovers, made from fabric created from recycled bottles with the PET identification code, were selected from one Korean brand and one US imported brand among outdoor sportswear brands. A brief description of each product with a color picture was provided in the survey. Demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, marital status, education level, income, occupation) were also included. The data were collected through a professional web survey agency during May 2009. A total of 600 final usable questionnaires were analyzed. The age of respondents ranged from 20 to 49 years old with a mean age of 34 years. Fifty percent of the respondents were males and about 58% were married, and 62% reported having earned university degrees. Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to identify the underlying dimensions of the clothing disposal behavior scale, and three factors were generated (i.e., reselling behavior, donating behavior, non-recycling behavior). To categorize the respondents on the basis of clothing disposal behaviors, k-mean cluster analysis was used, and three segments were obtained. These consumer segments were labeled as 'Resale Group', 'Donation Group', and 'Non-Recycling Group.' The classification results indicated approximately 98 percent of the original cases were correctly classified. With respect to demographic characteristics among the three segments, significant differences were found in gender, marital status, occupation, and age. LOHAS characteristics were reduced into the following five factors: self-satisfaction, family orientation, health concern, environmental concern, and voluntary service. Significant differences were found in the LOHAS factors among the three clusters. Resale Group and Donation Group showed a similar predisposition to LOHAS issues while the Non-Recycling Group presented the lowest mean scores on the LOHAS factors compared to the other segments. The Resale and Donation Groups described themselves as enjoying or being satisfied with their lives and spending spare-time with family. In addition, these two groups cared about health and organic foods, and tried to conserve energy and resources. Principal components factor analysis generated clothing consumption values into the following three factors: personal values, social value, and practical value. The ANOVA test with the factors showed differences primarily between the Resale Group and the other two groups. The Resale Group was more concerned about personal value and social value than the other segments. In contrast, the Non-Recycling Group presented the higher level of social value than did Donation Group. In a comparison of the intention to purchase eco-friendly products, the Resale Group showed the highest mean score on intent to purchase Product A. On the other hand, the Donation Group presented the highest intention to purchase for Product B among segments. In addition, the mean scores indicated that the Korean product (Product B) was more preferable for purchase than the U.S. product (Product A). Stepwise regression analysis was used to identify the influence of product attributes on the purchase intention of eco product. With respect to Product A, design, price and contribution to environmental preservation were significant to predict purchase intention for the Resale Group, while price and compatibility with my image factors were significant for the Donation Group. For the Non-Recycling Group, design, price compatibility with the factors of my image, participation to eco campaign, and contribution to environmental preservation were significant. Price appropriateness was significant for each of the three clusters. With respect to Product B, design, price and compatibility with my image factors were important, but different attributes were associated significantly with purchase intention for each of the three groups. The influence of LOHAS characteristics and clothing consumption values on intention to purchase Products A and B were also examined. The LOHAS factor of health concern and the personal value factor were significant in the relationships with the purchase intention; however, the explanatory powers were low in the three segments. Findings showed that each group as classified by clothing disposal behaviors showed differences in the attributes of a product, personal values, and the LOHAS characteristics that influenced their purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Findings would enable organizations to understand eco-friendly behavior and to design appropriate strategic decisions to appeal eco-sumers.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.115-139
• /
• 2008

Since financial crisis of IMF resulted in intensive competitiveness and adverse management environment, many hotel industries have responded it with restructuring. Since this restructuring is accompanied by reduction of employees, hence comes the recognition of justice in the procedure of restructuring. When the surviving employees in the restructuring process recognize unfairness in the procedure and practical operations, organization effectiveness can not be maintained due to losing trust of their employers. In this paper I will examine the relationship between validity of restructuring and compensatory programs for layoffs and surviving employees' trust of the employers. Also I will find out the relationship between remaining employees' trust of the employers and their job satisfaction and organization commitment. Through this relationship, we can prepare an alternative to reduce negative effect of restructuring. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows: H1: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H2: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H3: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H4: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H5: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H6: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H7: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H8: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. For the purposes of this study, employees working in luxury hotels located in Seoul were targeted. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to those who consented with the investigation after explaining the purpose of the survey. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 450 questionnaire were returned to the researcher for analysis. 430 of the returned questionnaires were used for analysis. As for the education for this survey, 250 junior college graduates or under (58.1%), 143 college graduates (33.3%) and 37 graduate school graduates (8.6%). As for the marital status, 315 persons (73.3%) are single and 115 are married (26.7%). As for the monthly income, 49 people (11.48%) are less than 2 million won, 148 (34.4%) are between 2 million and less than 2.5 million won, 153 (35.6%) are between 2.5 million to less than 3 million won, 80 (18.6%) are more than 3 million won. As for the workplace, 293 people (68.1%) work for the F&B department, 73 (17.0%) for rooms department, 41 (9.5%) for operation/ marketing department, 23 (5.3%) for account/ general affair department. As for the period of employment, 85 people (19.8%) are less than 5 years, 150 (34.9%) are between 6 to 9 years, 143 (33.3%) are between 10 to 14 years. and 52 (3.%) are more than 15 years. An exploratory factor analysis was used to survey validity and reliability of calculating tool on perceived values. This study used correlation between individual items and whole items and Cronbach's alpha value of multiple-item scale which is usually used to assess scale and reliability. Reliability of conceptual sub-dimension was assessed by basing on repeated procedure of correlation between individual items and whole items and factor loading. 1. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and trust This research showed that procedural and distributive justice of restructuring affects trust positively. The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and trust is 0.719(t=10.135, p=0.000), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher trust. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and trust is 0.160(t=3.291, p=0.001), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher trust. Hence H1 and H2 are accepted. 2. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and job satisfaction The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.179(t=2.202, p=0.028), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher job satisfaction. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.074(t=1.620, p=0.105), and thereby distributive justice of restructuring has no relationship with job satisfaction. Hence H3 is accepted, but H4 is removed. 3. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.188(t=2.466, p=0.014), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher organization commitment. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.118(t=2.720, p=0.007), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher organization commitment. Hence H5 and H6 are accepted. 4. Verification of correlation between trust and job satisfaction The path coefficient between trust and job satisfaction is 0.610(t=6.736, p=0.000), and thereby the correlation has a meaningful result. Since the higher trust of the employer results in higher job satisfaction, H7 is accepted. 5. Verification of correlation between trust and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.446(t=5.547 p=0.000), and thereby the higher trust of the employer results in higher organization commitment. Hence H8 is accepted. This research aimed to help the employers of hotel industries by analyzing the effects of validity of restructuring on employees' trust, job satisfaction and organization commitment. The research found that employer's validity of restructuring has significant affects on the degree of employee's trust with a manager, thereby reducing the negative effects of restructuring and enhancing organization commitment and job satisfaction. The principal purpose of this research is to confirm the correlation between employees' perceived validity of restructuring and their trust with a manager. Also whether this correlation results in competitive edge of the company is also investigated. It is also pointed out that employees had to participated the procedure of restructuring, sharing the philosophy and reason of restructuring. This participation and furthermore compensatory methods can reduce employees' anxiety of organization operations. Variable of trust appeared to have impact on intermediation effect between perceived variable of validity and job satisfaction, organization commitment, so that increase of trust with a manager plays an crucial role in increasing organization effectiveness. Since this research did not cover whole hotel industries which underwent restructuring, it showed a limit. Unlike previous studies which dealt with validity and trust of superior bosses, this research focussed on employers. Also the organization citizenship which is not considered in this study will be dealt with in the future study.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.24 no.3 s.35
• /
• pp.363-372
• /
• 1991

We used the health screening data of some rural and urban residents to examine the cross-sectional association between leukocyte count and hypertension. The 206 male and 203 female rural residents were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method in Kyungsan-Kun area of Kyungbuk province in 1985 and 600 urban residents were selected by the same sampling method as the rural residents in Daegu city of the same province in 1986 compatible with age-sex distribution of Daegu city of 1985 census, but of whom 384 actually responded. The rest of 600 were replaced by age and sex with those who were members of the medical insurance plan visiting the health management department of the university hospital to get the biannual preventive medical checkups. Excluded in the analysis were those having hypertensive history, diseases and extreme outlying values of the screening tests, leaving 373 rural and 571 urban residents. Leukocyte count was measured with ELT-8 Laser shadow method and the unit $cells/mm^3$, Blood pressures were determined with an aneroid sphygmomanometer with pre-standardized method and hypertensives were defined as those showing systolic blood pressure more than 140mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure more than 90mmHg. Total residents pooled (N=944) showed a significant difference between hypertensives and normotensives ($6965.93{\pm}1997.01\;vs\;6490.61{\pm}1941.32,\;P=0.00$) and in rural residents was noted the similar significant difference (P=0.03). None of significant differences were noted in any stratum stratified by residency and sex. Compared to the lowest quintile of WBC, 2/5 quintile showed odds ratio 0.99 (95% Confidence interval, Ci 0.62-1.59), 3/5 quintile 1.41 (95% CI 0.90-2.21), 4/5 quintile 1.76 (95% CI. 1.14-2.72), and highest quintile 1.80 (1.15-2.82) in the total residents. Likelihood ratio test for linear trend for it indicated a significant trend ($X^2_{trend}=5.53,\;df=1,\;P<0.05$). There were no other significant odds ratios compared to the lowest quintile of WBC in strata stratified by residency and sex. The odds ratios in total residents which had showed significant odds ratios became nonsignificant and of reduced magnitude after controlling age, frequency of smoking and drinking with multiple logistic. regression. In each stratum, it changed magnitudes of odds ratios slightly and unstably. None of the trend tests showed any significant trend. These results suggest that the Friedman et al's finding of association between leukocyte count and hypertension may be due to an statistical type I error resulting from the data dredging in an exploratory study, in which more than 800 variables were screened as possible predictors of hypertension.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.63-104
• /
• 2011

The study examines the relationships among employee's goal orientation, IT personnel competency, personal effectiveness. The goal orientation includes learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Personal effectiveness consists of personal work satisfaction and personal work performance. In general, IT personnel competency refers to IT expert's skills, expertise, and knowledge required to perform IT activities in organizations. However, due to the advent of the internet and the generalization of IT, IT personnel competency turns out to be an important competency of technological experts as well as employees in organizations. While the competency of IT itself is important, the appropriate harmony between IT personnel's business capability and technological capability enhances the value of human resources and thus provides organizations with sustainable competitive advantages. The rapid pace of organization change places increased pressure on employees to continually update their skills and adapt their behavior to new organizational realities. This challenge raises a number of important questions concerning organizational behavior? Why do some employees display remarkable flexibility in their behavioral responses to changes in the organization, whereas others firmly resist change or experience great stress when faced with the need to alter behavior? Why do some employees continually strive to improve themselves over their life span, whereas others are content to forge through life using the same basic knowledge and skills? Why do some employees throw themselves enthusiastically into challenging tasks, whereas others avoid challenging tasks? The goal orientation proposed by organizational psychology provides at least a partial answer to these questions. Goal orientations refer to stable personally characteristics fostered by "self-theories" about the nature and development of attributes (such as intelligence, personality, abilities, and skills) people have. Self-theories are one's beliefs and goal orientations are achievement motivation revealed in seeking goals in accordance with one's beliefs. The goal orientations include learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Specifically, a learning goal orientation refers to a preference to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations, and improving one's competence. A performance approach goal orientation refers to a preference to demonstrate and validate the adequacy of one's competence by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments. A performance avoid goal orientation refers to a preference to avoid the disproving of one's competence and to avoid negative judgements about it, while focusing on performance. And the study also examines the moderating role of work career of employees to investigate the difference in the relationship between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness. The study analyzes the collected data using PASW 18.0 and and PLS(Partial Least Square). The study also uses PLS bootstrapping algorithm (sample size: 500) to test research hypotheses. The result shows that the influences of both a learning goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.301, t = 3.822, P < 0.000) and a performance approach goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.224, t = 2.710, P < 0.01) on IT personnel competency are positively significant, while the influence of a performance avoid goal orientation(${\beta}$ = -0.142, t = 2.398, p < 0.05) on IT personnel competency is negatively significant. The result indicates that employees differ in their psychological and behavioral responses according to the goal orientation of employees. The result also shows that the impact of a IT personnel competency on both personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.395, t = 4.897, P < 0.000) and personal work performance(${\beta}$ = 0.575, t = 12.800, P < 0.000) is positively significant. And the impact of personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.148, t = 2.432, p < 0.05) on personal work performance is positively significant. Finally, the impacts of control variables (gender, age, type of industry, position, work career) on the relationships between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness(personal work satisfaction work performance) are partly significant. In addition, the study uses PLS algorithm to find out a GoF(global criterion of goodness of fit) of the exploratory research model which includes a mediating variable, IT personnel competency. The result of analysis shows that the value of GoF is 0.45 above GoFlarge(0.36). Therefore, the research model turns out be good. In addition, the study performs a Sobel Test to find out the statistical significance of the mediating variable, IT personnel competency, which is already turned out to have the mediating effect in the research model using PLS. The result of a Sobel Test shows that the values of Z are all significant statistically (above 1.96 and below -1.96) and indicates that IT personnel competency plays a mediating role in the research model. At the present day, most employees are universally afraid of organizational changes and resistant to them in organizations in which the acceptance and learning of a new information technology or information system is particularly required. The problem is due' to increasing a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty in improving past practices in accordance with new organizational changes. It is not always possible for employees with positive attitudes to perform their works suitable to organizational goals. Therefore, organizations need to identify what kinds of goal-oriented minds employees have, motivate them to do self-directed learning, and provide them with organizational environment to enhance positive aspects in their works. Thus, the study provides researchers and practitioners with a matter of primary interest in goal orientation and IT personnel competency, of which they have been unaware until very recently. Some academic and practical implications and limitations arisen in the course of the research, and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.31-54
• /
• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.155-174
• /
• 2022

From January 2020 to October 2021, more than 500,000 academic studies related to COVID-19 (Coronavirus-2, a fatal respiratory syndrome) have been published. The rapid increase in the number of papers related to COVID-19 is putting time and technical constraints on healthcare professionals and policy makers to quickly find important research. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method of extracting useful information from text data of extensive literature using LDA and Word2vec algorithm. Papers related to keywords to be searched were extracted from papers related to COVID-19, and detailed topics were identified. The data used the CORD-19 data set on Kaggle, a free academic resource prepared by major research groups and the White House to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, updated weekly. The research methods are divided into two main categories. First, 41,062 articles were collected through data filtering and pre-processing of the abstracts of 47,110 academic papers including full text. For this purpose, the number of publications related to COVID-19 by year was analyzed through exploratory data analysis using a Python program, and the top 10 journals under active research were identified. LDA and Word2vec algorithm were used to derive research topics related to COVID-19, and after analyzing related words, similarity was measured. Second, papers containing 'vaccine' and 'treatment' were extracted from among the topics derived from all papers, and a total of 4,555 papers related to 'vaccine' and 5,971 papers related to 'treatment' were extracted. did For each collected paper, detailed topics were analyzed using LDA and Word2vec algorithms, and a clustering method through PCA dimension reduction was applied to visualize groups of papers with similar themes using the t-SNE algorithm. A noteworthy point from the results of this study is that the topics that were not derived from the topics derived for all papers being researched in relation to COVID-19 (