• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2004

This study examined in detail the Japanese system of redressing consumers' losses and the overall consumer administrative system and compared them with the Korean counterpart to seek for a direction of reforming the systems. Several policy suggestions could be made as follows to activate the systems and improve the performances of the consumer administration in both Japan and Korea. First, in Japan, consumer center must be efficiently operated while private consumer groups, firms, consumer agencies and other organizations must actively join to actively redress consumers' losses and implement other consumer policies. Second, in Korea, regional consumer policies are weak so that they must learn Japanese well-developed regional consumer administration system by examining their current development, strengths, and weaknesses. Third, working conditions must be urgently improved, increasing the number of consumer counselors who are involved in consumer policies as well as to guarantee minimum level of their payment. On the other hand, the trend of hiring married and old employees being responsible for implementing consumer policies in Japan must be improved. Fourth, divisions of works in consumer policies among consumer groups as well as their specialization in Korea are necessary. Finally, as counseling of consumers through internet were not available in Japan, that type of counseling must introduce and become more popular in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.161-175
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• 2004

This study investigated and compared the tasks peformed by Consumer Agencies in Korea and Japan. It also investigated the variables influencing evaluation scores on consumer tasks. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, Japanese counselors were predominantly older, married females in contrast to the predominance of relatively young, single, male, Korean consumer counselors. In Korea, most consumer tasks were performed by Consumer Agencies in Seoul while internet counseling was popular. In addition, 13 counselors belong to Korean Consumer Agencies while 80 worked in the Korea Consumer Protection Board. In Japan, consumer tasks were peformed by Consumer Centers located broadly across the nation but no internet counseling was provided, while the average number of consumer counselors per Consumer Center was 8. The average number of consumer counseling sessions per day was greater in Korea than in Japan while the average monthly income was higher in Japan than in Korea. Second, evaluation of the tasks performed by Consumer Agencies revealed that the Korean Consumer Agencies scored higher performance than their Japanese counterparts. Third, the degree of job satisfaction significantly influenced evaluation scores in both consumer counseling tasks and provision of consumer information in Korea. In Korea, among the tasks concerning consumer education, job-training education was a significant variable while the number of Korean counselors in Consumer Agencies positively influenced scores on activities concerning consumer movement and alliance with other agencies. However, the degree of job satisfaction among counselors positively and significantly influenced evaluation scores in tasks concerning consumer counseling, provision of consumers'information, and consumer education. On the other hand, the number of counselors in Japanese Consumer Centers influenced the evaluation scores on tasks concerning consumer policy, consumer survey, and consumer campaign.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.39-49
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• 1995

The purpose of this study is to understand the characteristics of intergenerational consumption-oriented attitude and consumer role performance. Major findings are as follows; 1) There is significant difference between the consumption-oriented attitudes of respective generations. The means of New generation are higher than the other generations especially in amusemental consumption-oriented attitude and tenacious consumption-oriented attitude. Baby-boomer generation is more interested in consumption than any other generation and has a rational consumption-oriented attitude. The older generation is passive to consumption and their consumption-oriented attitudes are those of amusement. 2) There is also the significant gap between the consumer role performance of generations. The means of new generation and older generation are higher in consumer role performances than other generations and are especially doing better in the roles of estimator and manager. 3) consumption-oriented attitudes illustrate the variation of consumer role performance and the stronger the rational or tenacious consumption-oriented attitude, the higher the consumer role performance and the higher the rational or tenacious consumption-oriented attitude, and the lower the passive consumption-oriented attitude, the higher the consumer performance. In purchaser and manager role, the more positive the consumption and the higher the rational consumption-oriented attitudes, the better the consumer role performance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.474-482
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• 2016

This paper presents an empirical analysis on the relationship between consumer sentiment and macro-economic indices by consumer's characteristics such as age, income and employment type. According to the empirical analysis based on the Consumer Sentiment Index(CSI) of the Bank of Korea and other macro-economic indices, the following study findings are presented. First, individual consumer sentiment depends not only on GDP growth, but also on other macro-economic conditions such as wage, employment, consumer and asset price, and debt burden. Second, the degree of importance of the macro-economic indices on determining individual consumer sentiment varies strongly according to consumers' characteristics. These findings reveal that the gap between consumer sentiment and GDP growth can largely be explained by considering the other macro-economic indices and consumer's characteristics.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.197-216
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• 2007

The Purpose of this research is to perform survey on employees of Non-Government Consumer Organization and interview with ADR personnel from Korean Consumer Protection Board to have thorough grasp of problems among consumer ADR. Also come up with plan that will activate Non-Government Consumer organization ADR. Result of this research states following remarks as solution First, consumers from Seoul and Gyeonggi area is the only people who use ADR in Non-Government Consumer organization, so other local governments need to concentrate on consumers from rural area to take advantage of the service. Second, low activity of ADR and legal procedure support compare to other services provide from Non-Government Consumer organization. Third, statistic shows that employees from Non-Government Consumer organization recognize importance of consumer's ADR and government's support as well as enforcement of law. Forth, the preparation of Consumer ADR in Non-Government Consumer organization, selecting committee is the most important procedures are reinforce human resource, improvement of organization structure. Fifty, order to establish Consumer ADR in Non-Government Consumer organization, recruit professional manpower is the priority and financial support is also important. All these result would help improve the activity of ADR in Non-Government Consumer organization, which will lead the organization to be more professionalize, globalize and able to segment the market. Further more, Non-Government Consumer organization would develop better ways to take itself to another level to provide better service. Also, create an institution that will help consumer's dispute and legal procedure. It will prevent future victims and protect consumer's right.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1197-1209
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• 2007

The advance of digital contents industry shifts the focus of consumptions; from analogue to digital ones. It gives significant impact on individual life as well as overall society and culture, and it leads to the increased consumption of digital contents. Nevertheless, current digital contents industry fails to secure the sufficient consumer protection systems including relevant rules and laws which regulate the distribution, use, and other transaction activities of digital contents and the efforts, on the part of contents providers, to provide information to consumers and to protect them. Digital contents, by its nature, is different from the existing products so that its nature is likely to cause unique consumer problems totally different from the offline transactions and the electrical transactions of existing products. This study, therefore, aims to identify the possible problems which may be incurred by consumers in their use of digital contents, specify the types of consumer damages, and provide the underlying materials to improve the systems related to digital contents and take legally complementary measures for consumer protection. To identify the types of consumer damages, this study analyzed the results from consumer counselling cases, experts opinion survey, and FGI. For consumer damage cases, this study analyzed the consumer complaints received by open consumer counselling sites of the Korea Consumer Agency and Seoul Electronic Commerce Center. For experts opinion survey, it conducted questionnaire survey of the group of experts from digital contents manufacturers or providers, and those who treated consumer damages directly. For FGI analysis, it organized a panel of students and employees who had used digital contents to understand the types of consumer damages. The results of this study can be summed up as follows. Based on the results from consumer counselling cases, experts opinion survey, and FGI analysis, the consumer damages related to digital contents can be classified, in their nature, into economic or financial damages (25 cases), emotional or psychological ones (15 cases), time-related ones (7 cases), physical ones (4 cases), and privacy-related ones (i.e. leakage of personal data)(3 cases). More specifying the types of damages, damages can be subdivided into contract-, charge-, maintenance-, use-, individual-related ones and other ones. Among them, both contract- and charge-related damages appeared only in the economic or financial damages, whereas user-specific individual damages appeared only in physical and emotional or psychological ones. On the other hand, maintenance- and use-related damages and other ones were observed in both categories of economical or financial damages and time-related ones. Use- and privacy-related damages, in particular, caused emotional or psychological damages.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.209-219
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• 2009

This study identifies the key determinants and technology innovation adoption type of participation in multimedia UCC services. This research examines how the major factors of perceived usability, self-expression, fun & entertainment, arousal, information sharing, other's positive reputation and interface easiness contribute to participation in multimedia UCC services. A sample survey of internet users was conducted, responses were collected from 629 respondents and consumer streaming data were analyzed. Some of the practical implications of the results are follows. This research have categorized that the types of technology adoption for the participation of UCC were innovator consumer, early adaptor consumer, early majority consumer, and late majority consumer. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that perceived usability, interface easiness, fun & entertainment, self-expression, arousal, other's positive reputation and type of technology adoption posited a significant effect in multimedia UCC Services.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.79-92
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of interactivity on consumer-internet brand relationship and consumer's repurchase intention in internet shopping mall. The survey research was limited to the respondents over 20 years old living in Seoul and other metropolitan areas who had purchased fashion products in internet shopping mall. Questionnaire was collected from February 1, 2012 to February 12, 2012 and 562 useful data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis, pearson's correlation analysis using Amos 19. The results of this study were as follows: First, each interactivity dimension had a Significantly positive effect on consumer-internet brand relationship. Also it showed stronger effect on 'trust' than on 'affective commitment'. Second, People-people interactivity showed stronger effect on each consumer-internet brand relationship dimension compared with contents-people interactivity. It suggested that internet shopping mall marketer should respond quickly to consumer's need and provide the strategic method to make consumers communicate each other. Third, only 'trust' dimension of consumer-internet brand relationship positively affected consumer's repurchase intention. while 'affective commitment' dimension did not affect consumer's repurchase intention.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.113-134
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• 2005

The study was first part of the research on development of consumer education program as social education program. The purpose of this study was to review social consumer education programs conducted by various organizations and to examine the consulting statistics from Korea Consumer Protection Board and Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations. In Consumer Protection Board, consumer education was operated mainly for both college students majored in consumer studies and public-sector workers. Outgoing education was provided mainly to the persons in industries and housewives. Other consumer organizations conducted consumer education using government funds. The organizations considered 'purchasing' and 'consumerism' most frequently as the topics for the education. 'Credit' and 'insurance' were another main concerns at the education. The consulting statistics showed that 'mobile communication', 'laundry service', 'health foods', and 'educational materials for foreign language' took the largest portion of the consumer consulting. Some implications were made for developing consumer education program as social education.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.95-116
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• 1988

this study has dual purposes; one is to develope a new theoretical framework in consumer behavior area by applying the human ecological approach, and the other is to test the theory empirically area by applying the human ecological approach, and the other is to test the theory empirically by examining prepurchasing behavior of housing. Research methods adopted in this study are library search and survey research with self-administered questionnaires. The statistical methods used in the survey research are factor analysis, chi square test, and multivariate analysis with crosstablulations. According to the human ecological approach, ecological environments are important sources of consumer needs which , in turn, are satisfied by purchasing behavior in the market. Within this theoretical framework, consumers con improve the quality to life by perceving clearly what their needs are thereby making the most possible efficient purchasing decision making. The major findings of the empirical research on the basis of the theoretical framework are as follows; 1) Housing needs significantly vary with different ecological environment. 2) consumer information search behavior does not differ significantly by housing needs. 3) Housing needs turn out to be an intervening variable between ecological environments and consumer information search behavior. the results of this study show that the human ecological approach is useful in consumer behavior studies. The empirical result that consumer needs are not significantly satisfied by consumer behavior suggests a now direction in consumer education.