• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.155-175
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• 2010

Most of the service industries including finance and telecommunications have become matured and saturated. The competitions have become severe while the differences among brands become smaller. Therefore maintaining good relationships with customers has been critical for the service providers. In case of credit card and debit card, the similar patterns are shown. It is important for them to maintain good relationships with customers, and therefore, they have used marketing program which provides customized services to customers and utilizes the membership programs. Not only do they build and maintain good relationships, but also highlight their brands from the emotional aspects. For example, KB Card or Hyundai Card uses well-known designers' works for their credit card design. As well, they differentiate the designs of credit cards to stress on their brand personalities. BC Card introduced the credit card with perfume that a customer would like. Even though the credit card is small and not shown to public easily, it becomes more important for those companies to touch the customers' feelings with the brand personalities and their images. This is partly because of changes in consumers' lifestyles. Y-generations becomes highly likely to express themselves in many different ways and more emotional than X-generations. For the Y-generations, therefore, even credit cards in the wallet should be personalized and well-designed. In line with it, credit cards with good design can be seen as an example of brand identity, where different design for each customer can be used to recognize the membership groups that customers want to belong. On the other hand, these credit card companies offer the special treatment benefits for those customers who are heavy users for the cards. For example, those customers who love sports will receive some special discounts when they use their credit cards for sports related products. Therefore this study attempted to explore the relationships between relational benefits, brand identification and loyalty. It has been well known that relational benefits and brand identification lead to loyalty independently from many other studies, but there has been few study to review all the three variables all together in a research model. Furthermore, as reviewed above, in the card industry, many companies attempt to associate the brand image with their products to fit their customers' lifestyles while relational benefits are still playing an important role for their business. Therefore in our research model, relational benefits, brand identification, and loyalty are all included. We focus on the mediating effect of brand identification. From the relational benefits perspective, only special treatment benefit and confidence benefit are included. Social benefit is not applicable for this credit card industry because not many cases of face-to-face interaction can be found. From the brand identification perspective, personal brand identity and social brand identity are reviewed and included in the model. Overall, the research model emphasizes that the relationships between relational benefits and loyalty will be mediated by the effect of brand identification. The effects of relational benefits which are confidence benefit and special treatment benefits on loyalty will be realized when they fit to the personal brand identity and social brand identity. In the research model, therefore, the relationships between confidence benefit and social brand identity, and between confidence benefit and personal identity are hypothesized while the effects of special treatment benefit on social brand identity and personal brand identity are hypothesized. Loyalty, then, is hypothesized to have positive relationships with personal brand identity and social brand identity. In addition, confidence benefit among the relational benefits is expected to have a direct, positive relationship with loyalty because confidence benefit has been recognized as a critical factor for good relationships and satisfaction. Data were collected from college students who have been using either credit cards or debit cards. College students were regarded good subjects because they are in Y-generation cohorts and have tendency to express themselves more. Total sample size was two hundred three at the beginning, but after deleting those data with many missing values, one hundred ninety-seven data points were remained and used for the model testing. Measurement items were brought from the previous literatures and modified for this research. To test the reliability, using SPSS 14, chronbach's α was examined and all the values were from .874 to .928 exceeding over .7. Using AMOS 7.0, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the measurement model. The measurement model was found good fit with χ²(67)=188.388 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=.821, CFI=.941, RMSEA=.096. Using AMOS 7.0, structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. Overall, the research model fit were χ²(68)=188.670 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=,824 CFI=.942, RMSEA=.095 indicating good fit. In details, all the paths hypothesized in the research model were found significant except for the path from social brand identity to loyalty. Personal brand identity leads to loyalty while both confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive relationships with personal and social identities. As well, confidence benefit has a direct positive effect on loyalty. The results indicates the followings. First, personal brand identity plays an important role for credit/debit card usage. Therefore even for the products which are not shown to public easy, design and emotional aspect can be important to fit the customers' lifestyles. Second, confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive effects on personal brand identity. Therefore it will be needed for marketers to associate the special treatment and trust and confidence benefits with personal image, personality and personal identity. Third, this study found again the importance of confidence and trust. However interestingly enough, social brand identity was not found to be significantly related to loyalty. It can be explained that the main sample of this study consists of college students. Those strategies to facilitate social brand identity are focused on high social status groups while college students have not been established their status yet.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-44
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• 1969

The important results which have been obtained in the investigation can be recapitulated as follows. 1. As demostrated by the experimental results and analyses concerning their effects in the on-ground type mushroom house, the constructions in relation to the side wall and ceiling of the experimental houses showed a sufficient heat insulation on effect to protect insides of the houses from outside climatic conditions. 2. As the effect on the solar type experimental mushroom house which was constructed in a half basement has been shown by the experimental results and analyses, it has been proved to be effective for making use of solar heat. However there were found two problems to be improved for putting solar houses to practical use in the farm mushroom growing: (1) the construction of the roof and ceiling should be the same as for the on-ground type house, and (2) the solar heat generating system should be reconstructed properly. A trial solar heat generating system is shown in Fig. 40. 3. Among several ventilation systems which have been studied in the experiments, the underground earthen pipe and ceiling ventilation, and vertical side wall and ceiling ventilation systems have been proved to be most effective for natural ventilation. 4. The experimental results have shown that ventilation systems such as the vertical side wall and underground ventilation systems are suitable to put to practical use as natural ventilation systems for farm mushroom houses. These ventilation systems can remarkably improve the temperature of fresh air which is introduced into the house by heat transfers within the ventilation passages, so as to approach to the desired temperature of the house without any cooling or heating operation. For example, if it is assuming that x is the outside temperature and y is the amount of temperature adjustment made by the influence of the ventilation system, the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the following regression lines. Underground iron pipe ventilation system ${\cdots}{\cdots}$ y=0.9x-12.8 Underground earthen pipe ventilation system ${\cdots}{\cdots}$y=0.96x-15.11 Vertical side wall ventilation system${\cdots}{\cdots}$ y=0.94x-17.57 5. The experimental results have shown that the relationships existing between the admitted and expelled air and the $Co_2$ concentration can be described with experimental regression lines or an exponent equation as follows: 1) If it is assumed that x is an air speed cm/sec. and y is an expelled air speed in cm/sec. in a natural ventilation system, since the y is a function of the x, the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the regression lines shown below: 2) If it is assumed that x is an admitted volume of air in $m^3/hr$ and y is an expelled volume of air in $m^3/hr$ in a natural ventilation system, since the y is a function of the x, the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the regression lines shown below. 3) If it is assumed that the expelled air speed in cm/sec and replacement air speed in cm/sec. at the bed surface in a natural ventilation system are shown as x and y, respectively, since the y is a function of the x, the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the following regression line: G.E. (100%)- C.V. (50%) ventilation system${\cdots}$ y=0.54X+0.84 4) If it is assumed that the replacement air speed in cm/sec. at the bed surface is shown as x, and $CO_2$ concentration which is expressed by multiplying 1000 times the actual value of $CO_2$ % is shown as y, in a natural ventilation system, since the y is a function of the x the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the following regression line: G.E. (100%)- C.V. (50%) ventilation system${\cdots}{\cdots}$ y=114.53-6.42x 5) If it is assumed that the expelled volume of air is shown as x and the $CO_2$ concentration which is expressed by multiplying 1000 times the actual of $CO_2$ % is shown as y in a natural ventilation system, since the y is a function of of the x, the relationships that exist between x and y can be expressed by the following exponent equation: G.E. (100%)-C.V. (50%) ventilation system${\cdots}{\cdots}$ $$y=127.18{\times}1.0093^{-X}$$ 6. The experimental results have shown that the ratios of the crass sectional area of the G.E. and C.V. vent to the total cubic capacity of the house, required for providing an adequate amount of air in a natural ventilation system, can be estimated as follows: G.E. (admitting vent of the underground ventilation)${\cdots}{\cdots}$ 0.30-0.5% (controllable) C.V. (expelling vent of the ceiling ventilation)${\cdots}{\cdots}$ 0.8-1.0% (controllable) 7. Among several heating devices which were studied in the experiments, the hot-water boilor which was modified to be fitted both as hot-water toiler and as a pressureless steam-water was found most suitable for farm mushroom growing.