• Information Systems Review
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.183-207
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• 2009

In general, the introduction of information technology to domestic small and middle size firms is depending on the governmental supporting policy. However, even under this situation there is also a case that the building up of information technology is initiated by the management of small and middle size firms. An accumulated know-how for information technology and powerful leadership in such firms are considered as success factors. This study attempts to analyze a case for 'THEFACESHOP', in which MIS is successfully built. To achieve corporate goals, the CEO of THEFACESHOP based on the extensive knowledge of information technology drove to build up information system. Also, the board of directors supported him, and employees committed to their organization. Through the strong leadership of the CEO, the information system of THEFACESHOP became sufficient and efficient. And it led the organization and the information system to be competitive. In particular, the systematic approach of THEF ACESHOP reinforcing its competitiveness can be summarized as follows: First, it tried to construct basic information systems as like ERP etc. to increase work-efficiency. Second, it completed CRM related systems for analysis to maximize its customer orientation and marketing effect. Third, the last step can be stated as the building up of operation related CRM systems to improve the responsiveness of target marketing activities and the profitability of its agencies. Such endeavors of THEFACESHOP contributed to increase productivity and performance of the organization. As a result, THEFACESHOP has had its own 'Natural Story' and price competitiveness. For that reason THEFACESHOP became the best of brand-shop cosmetic firms. This success based on the strong leadership and the systematic investment on the information system.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 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 Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.63-82
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• 2016

Individuals gather information online to resolve problems in their daily lives and make various decisions about the purchase of products or services. With the revolutionary development of information technology, Web 2.0 has allowed more people to easily generate and use online reviews such that the volume of information is rapidly increasing, and the usefulness and significance of analyzing the unstructured data have also increased. This paper presents an analysis on the lexical features of expert product reviews to determine their influence on consumers' purchasing decisions. The focus was on how unstructured data can be organized and used in diverse contexts through text mining. In addition, diverse lexical features of expert reviews of contents provided by a third-party review site were extracted and defined. Expert reviews are defined as evaluations by people who have expert knowledge about specific products or services in newspapers or magazines; this type of review is also called a critic review. Consumers who purchased products before the widespread use of the Internet were able to access expert reviews through newspapers or magazines; thus, they were not able to access many of them. Recently, however, major media also now provide online services so that people can more easily and affordably access expert reviews compared to the past. The reason why diverse reviews from experts in several fields are important is that there is an information asymmetry where some information is not shared among consumers and sellers. The information asymmetry can be resolved with information provided by third parties with expertise to consumers. Then, consumers can read expert reviews and make purchasing decisions by considering the abundant information on products or services. Therefore, expert reviews play an important role in consumers' purchasing decisions and the performance of companies across diverse industries. If the influence of qualitative data such as reviews or assessment after the purchase of products can be separately identified from the quantitative data resources, such as the actual quality of products or price, it is possible to identify which aspects of product reviews hamper or promote product sales. Previous studies have focused on the characteristics of the experts themselves, such as the expertise and credibility of sources regarding expert reviews; however, these studies did not suggest the influence of the linguistic features of experts' product reviews on consumers' overall evaluation. However, this study focused on experts' recommendations and evaluations to reveal the lexical features of expert reviews and whether such features influence consumers' overall evaluations and purchasing decisions. Real expert product reviews were analyzed based on the suggested methodology, and five lexical features of expert reviews were ultimately determined. Specifically, the "review depth" (i.e., degree of detail of the expert's product analysis), and "lack of assurance" (i.e., degree of confidence that the expert has in the evaluation) have statistically significant effects on consumers' product evaluations. In contrast, the "positive polarity" (i.e., the degree of positivity of an expert's evaluations) has an insignificant effect, while the "negative polarity" (i.e., the degree of negativity of an expert's evaluations) has a significant negative effect on consumers' product evaluations. Finally, the "social orientation" (i.e., the degree of how many social expressions experts include in their reviews) does not have a significant effect on consumers' product evaluations. In summary, the lexical properties of the product reviews were defined according to each relevant factor. Then, the influence of each linguistic factor of expert reviews on the consumers' final evaluations was tested. In addition, a test was performed on whether each linguistic factor influencing consumers' product evaluations differs depending on the lexical features. The results of these analyses should provide guidelines on how individuals process massive volumes of unstructured data depending on lexical features in various contexts and how companies can use this mechanism from their perspective. This paper provides several theoretical and practical contributions, such as the proposal of a new methodology and its application to real data.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.37 no.11
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• pp.1443-1451
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• 2008

This study was performed to develop menu satisfaction index in Business & Industry (B&I) food service and to survey customer's menu satisfaction using the index. The menu satisfaction index included 16 items with Likert 5 point. Cronbach's alpha to assess the internal reliability of the developed scales was 0.8917, which indicated highly reliable. Construct validity was assessed by principal components analysis and then four factors explaining 65.964% of the total variance were found. Among the 15 items of menu satisfaction, the average scores of all items were above 3.0 out of 5. As a result of analysis on menu satisfaction factors, 'propriety of food temperature' (3.52 out of 5) was the highest consideration followed by 'sufficiency of format' (3.46), 'excellence in food' (3.35) and 'well-being orientation' (3.31). It could be said that customer's perception on the menu quality was very positive. Four factors were correlated with overall menu satisfaction positively. Especially, 'excellence in food', and 'well-being orientation' and 'sufficiency of format' affected significantly on overall menu satisfaction. It concluded that customers were satisfied with portion size, temperature, price but their needs for taste and health/nutrition-related service would be increased. The menu satisfaction developed in this study should be applied to other B & I food service operation by type.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.139-159
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• 1996

This study comparatively examines a causal model of employee attatchment which focuses on employee's organizational commitment and intent to stay with an organization. This study is based on two separate studies of employee attachment among teachers : the U.S. case of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the South Korean case of the Seoul Educational District (SED). The main purpose of this study is to replicate in Korea the CPS study. A revised model based on the unique characteristics of Korean teachers is also developed and estimated. The Price Mueller model of employee attachment provides the basic theoretical framework for this study. It includes five general classes of variables : 1) employee responses to work variables : job satisfaction, commitment, and intent to stay; 2) psychological stress variables: role ambiguity, role conflict, work overload, and quality of students; 3) social structural variables: autonomy, routinization, distributive justice, and legitimacy; 4) economic structural variables: pay, job security, promotional opportunities, and job opportunities; and 5) work orientation variables : career commitment, normative commitment, work motivation, affectivity, work values, and met expectations. The data was collected through questionnaire survey and a sample of 649 secondary school teachers in Seoul, South Korea, was included in the final analysis. Covariance structure analysis (LISREL) was used to estimate the causal model. The results indicate that the endogenous variables of job satisfaction and commitment play a considerably less important role than in the U.S. model in mediating the effects of the exogenous variables on intent to stay, and the model fails to explain the majority of the variance in intent to stay. In addition, the new variables added to the revised Korean model do not bave significant effects on intent to stay. The structural characteristics of the employment relationship and labor markets associated with Korean teachers forced mobility and closed external markets - are largely accountable for the major differences between the Korean and the U.S. cases. The study suggests that conceptual and empirical work on what produces employee attachment under these structural constraints needs to receive more attention in future studies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.105 no.1
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• pp.149-156
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• 2016

Forest museums can be defined as facilities for the collection, exhibition, and education of the forest or forest related artifacts or data. This study was performed to measure the educational value of Gyeongnam state forest museum's forest and its environment. The tool used was the Contingent Valuation Methods (CVM) which is well known as a value estimation tool of environmental goods. The study for the value estimation is performed from April, 2014 to October of the same year through selection of the subject, decision of proposed price, and orientation of the survey staffs and total of 386 surveys were used in analysis. The value estimation tool used the DBDC logit model and the input parameters were number of visit (time), degree of environmental education (contri), the environment conservation effort of the respondent (execu), the education level of the respondent (edu), and income of the respondent (inc) and trimmed mean (WTPtruncated) was used. The estimated value of flora and environment education per each person per visit is 23,338 won. When applied to the average annual visitors deducted from 2010 to 2014, which is 430,000 per year, the environmental value that Gyeongnam state forest museum is providing to visitors each year is about 10 billion won. The result of this study is significant to propose the value of forest education and environment that the forest museum is offering to the visitors in the current currency. This is an evidence to directly determine the value of the forest museum and therefore proposing an opportunity change the recognition toward the forest and environment education.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.106-117
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• 2017

Recently, urban regeneration is being actively promoted in Korea and among those Jeonju Hanok Village is the major project which is the most consistently promoted. For this, visitors of Jeonju Hanok Village are skyrocketing. However, due to this condition, various problems are occurring, especially about commercialization. In this regard, this study is to suggest management of the Jeonju Hanok Village and new orientation in the policy, by analyzing physical, economic, and social status due to urban regeneration for Jeonju Hanok Village which has lost its identity and been commercialized. For this, the study analyzed changes in land usage and real transaction price, SNS data. Firstly, in the physical analysis, the study realized that there is commercialization going around the main streets of Jeonju Hanok Village. Due to the rapid commercialization, living spaces for locals are replaced to commercial spaces for tourists, and the emigration of locals is caused by economic/environmental damages with the degradation of housing environments. Secondly, in the economic analysis, there was no gap in real transactions among streets in 2010 but has shown a valid gap in 2016. The traffic of tourists is heavy and the real transaction prices of streets that are adjacent to major tourist sights rose the most. Rising real transaction prices are a positive phenomenon in the aspect of the city regeneration but it is concerned that they can be perceived as investment subjects. Thirdly, in the social analysis, tourists are using commercial aspects more than historical or cultural sites, and have lots of interest on those. However, because there are also lots of opinions about the commercialization of Hanok Village, we think the plans which can establish the identity of Hanok Village should be prepared. The study has its meaning on analyzing reality based on the land usage, real transaction, SNS data and suggesting political implications.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.383-393
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• 2017

This study was conducted to analyze the dietary lifestyle of local Chinese consumers and to classify dietary characteristics according to their dietary lifestyle factors and dietary behaviors. This investigation was conducted for 1 month from 1 January 2017 targeting 300 adult males and females living in China using the online survey company surveymonkey. Four factors relating to dietary lifestyle were identified, gourmet factor, healthy factor, convenience factor and economic factor, and these were grouped into 4 clusters according to their dietary lifestyle factor scores. Group 1, the gourmet economy group, showed a high percentage of living alone and a high frequency of eating out, but a relatively low percentage of three regular meals per day. Their dietary lifestyle was sensitive to gourmet factors and economic factors, but less sensitive to health and convenience factors. Group 2, the wide interest group, contained a high percentage of individuals in their 30s, as well as more highly educated individuals and a higher income than other groups. Because their dietary lifestyle scores tended to be higher than those of other groups, they sought a variety of new foods and gourmet meals for enjoyment of dining and life, as well as well-being food materials and foods related to health. Group 3, the health economic group, constituted a family-type consumer group with lower income level than the other groups. Members of this group were seeking health food and natural food in their dietary lifestyle and tended to pursue a high economic profit ratio when purchasing food. Finally, group 4 showed a relatively higher percentage of women over 30 and individuals with a college level or higher education than the other groups. This group was more interested in health and taste than price and convenience, and showed the highest LOHAS orientation among middle aged Chinese women. Moreover, members of this group directly utilized their knowledge regarding nutrition in real life.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.68-79
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• 2009

The interplay between hedonic and utilitarian attributes has assumed special significance in recent years; it has been proposed that consumption offerings should be viewed as experiences that stimulate both cognitions and feelings rather than as mere products or services. This research builds on previous work on hedonic versus utilitarian benefits, regulatory focus theory, customer satisfaction to address two question: (1) Is the shopping goal at the point of purchase different from the shopping value? and (2) Is the customer loyalty after the use different from the shopping value and shopping goal? We surveyed 345 peoples those who have bought the electronic-goods within 6 months. This research dealt with the shopping value which is consisted of 2 types, hedonic and utilitarian. Those who pursue the hedonic shopping value may prefer the pleasure of purchasing experience to the product itself. They tend to prefer atmosphere, arousal of the shopping experience. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "hedonic" to refer to their aesthetic, experiential and enjoyment-related value. On the contrary, Those who pursue the utilitarian shopping value may prefer the reasonable buying. It may be more functional. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "utilitarian" to refer to the functional, instrumental, and practical value of consumption offerings. Holbrook(1999) notes that consumer value is an experience that results from the consumption of such benefits. In the context of cell phones for example, the phone's battery life and sound volume are utilitarian benefits, whereas aesthetic appeal from its shape and color are hedonic benefits. Likewise, in the case of a car, fuel economics and safety are utilitarian benefits whereas the sunroof and the luxurious interior are hedonic benefits. The shopping goals are consisted of the promotion focus goal and the prevention focus goal, based on the self-regulatory focus theory. The promotion focus is characterized into focusing ideal self because they are oriented to wishes and vision. The promotion focused individuals are tend to be more risk taking. They are more sensitive to hope and achievement. On the contrary, the prevention focused individuals are characterized into focusing the responsibilities because they are oriented to safety. The prevention focused individuals are tend to be more risk avoiding. We wanted to test the relation among the shopping value, shopping goal and customer loyalty. Customers show the positive or negative feelings comparing with the expectation level which customers have at the point of the purchase. If the result were bigger than the expectation, customers may feel positive feeling such as delight or satisfaction and they would want to share their feelings with other people. And they want to buy those products again in the future time. There is converging evidence that the types of goals consumers expect to be fulfilled by the utilitarian dimension of a product are different from those they seek from the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004). Specifically, whereas consumers expect the fulfillment of product prevention goals on the utilitarian dimension, they expect the fulfillment of promotion goals on the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan, and Majahan 2007; Higgins 1997, 2001) According to the regulatory focus theory, prevention goals are those that ought to be met. Fulfillment of prevention goals in the context of product consumption eliminates or significantly reduces the probability of a painful experience, thus making consumers experience emotions that result from fulfillment of prevention goals such as confidence and securities. On the contrary, fulfillment of promotion goals are those that a person aspires to meet, such as "looking cool" or "being sophisticated." Fulfillment of promotion goals in the context of product consumption significantly increases the probability of a pleasurable experience, thus enabling consumers to experience emotions that result from the fulfillment of promotion goals. The proposed conceptual framework captures that the relationships among hedonic versus utilitarian shopping values and promotion versus prevention shopping goals respectively. An analysis of the consequence of the fulfillment and frustration of utilitarian and hedonic value is theoretically worthwhile. It is also substantively relevant because it helps predict post-consumption behavior such as the promotion versus prevention shopping goals orientation. Because our primary goal is to understand how the post consumption feelings influence the variable customer loyalty: word of mouth (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978). This research result is that the utilitarian shopping value gives the positive influence to both of the promotion and prevention goal. However the influence to the prevention goal is stronger. On the contrary, hedonic shopping value gives influence to the promotion focus goal only. Additionally, both of the promotion and prevention goal show the positive relation with customer loyalty. However, the positive relation with promotion goal and customer loyalty is much stronger. The promotion focus goal gives the influence to the customer loyalty. On the contrary, the prevention focus goal relates at the low level of relation with customer loyalty than that of the promotion goal. It could be explained that it is apt to get framed the compliment of people into 'gain-non gain' situation. As the result, for those who have the promotion focus are motivated to deliver their own feeling to other people eagerly. Conversely the prevention focused individual are more sensitive to the 'loss-non loss' situation. The research result is consistent with pre-existent researches. There is a conceptual parallel between necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits and luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha 2007; Higginns 1997; Kivetz and Simonson 2002b). In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the precedence principle contends luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits higher than necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits. Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha (2007) show that consumers are focused more on the utilitarian benefits than on the hedonic benefits of a product until their minimum expectation of fulfilling prevention goals are met. Furthermore, a utilitarian benefit is a promise of a certain level of functionality by the manufacturer or the retailer. When the promise is not fulfilled, customers blame the retailer and/or the manufacturer. When negative feelings are attributable to an entity, customers feel angry. However in the case of hedonic benefit, the customer, not the manufacturer, determines at the time of purchase whether the product is stylish and attractive. Under such circumstances, customers are more likely to blame themselves than the manufacturer if their friends do not find the product stylish and attractive. Therefore, not meeting minimum utilitarian expectations of functionality generates a much more intense negative feelings, such as anger than a less intense feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfactions. The additional multi group analysis of this research shows the same result. Those who are unsatisfactory customers who have the prevention focused goal shows higher relation with WOM, comparing with satisfactory customers. The research findings in this article could have significant implication for the personal selling fields to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the sales such that they can develop the sales presentation strategy for the customers. For those who are the hedonic customers may be apt to show more interest to the promotion goal. Therefore it may work to strengthen the design, style or new technology of the products to the hedonic customers. On the contrary for the utilitarian customers, it may work to strengthen the price competitiveness. On the basis of the result from our studies, we demonstrated a correspondence among hedonic versus utilitarian and promotion versus prevention goal, WOM. Similarly, we also found evidence of the moderator effects of satisfaction after use, between the prevention goal and WOM. Even though the prevention goal has the low level of relation to WOM, those who are not satisfied show higher relation to WOM. The relation between the prevention goal and WOM is significantly different according to the satisfaction versus unsatisfaction. In addition, improving the promotion emotions of cheerfulness and excitement and the prevention emotion of confidence and security will further improve customer loyalty. A related potential further research could be to examine whether hedonic versus utilitarian, promotion versus prevention goals improve customer loyalty for services as well. Under the budget and time constraints, designers and managers are often compelling to choose among various attributes. If there is no budget or time constraints, perhaps the best solution is to maximize both hedonic and utilitarian dimension of benefits. However, they have to make trad-off process between various attributes. For the designers and managers have to keep in mind that without hedonic benefit satisfaction of the product it may hard to lead the customers to the customer loyalty.