• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.106-129
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• 2001

In order to improve the agricultural products distribution, many devices have been suggested. Recently, direct marketing channel of agricultural product is one of the best solution for the problems of agricultural product distribution. The largest farmers cooperative association in Korea, Agricultural Cooperative(AC) have tried to promote direct marketing channel of agricultural product. Especially, the Agricultural product outlet store owned by Agricultural Cooperative(AC) is developed as an attractive alternative. Agricultural product outlet store owned by AC classify two types; small ＆ medium sized supermarket style and large discount store style. In this study, direct marketing through the agricultural product outlet store owned by AC was examined because it leads direct agricultural distribution and shares over 70% of direct agricultural distribution in Korea. Though a survey about consumer perception ＆ evaluation on establishing agricultural product outlet store owned by AC in Busan, the success factor of the store were identified. The results indicate that price, kindness of sales people, quality of products are main factor of the agricultural products outlet store. Theorefore Agricultural Cooperative should develop the retailing ＆ marketing strategies focusing these findings.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.379-393
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• 2011

This study compared the college students' dietary behavior for processed foods, who will be the main consumers in the future and looked for the measures to understand and establish the right food labeling system by surveying the level of understanding and utilization of food labeling. The data was analysed by SPSS win 17.0 program, and the results are as follows. For the standard of selecting processed foods, the group with high nutrition knowledge considered the reliability of foods as important and the group with low nutrition knowledge considered the products introduced in TV commercial as important. When purchasing processed foods, the group with high nutrition knowledge considered nutrition, taste, price, appearance(shape), and the consumable period more than the group with low nutrition knowledge. For trans fat, the group with high nutrition knowledge learned more about it than the group with low nutrition knowledge. The ratio of confirming food nutrition label was higher in the group with high nutrition knowledge. Regarding the level of confirming individual food labels, the highest level was for milk and dairy products. And there was significant difference for the processed products of meat, cookies, bread and noodles. It was found that the level of confirmation was higher in the group with high nutrition knowledge. And the most important indication for individual food product was the consumable period. To preserve the purchased foods, the group with high nutrition knowledge preserve the foods in line with the description written on the food cover sheet, and this group used to return or exchange the products when they found them spoiled or purchased by mistake. The group with high nutrition knowledge knew more about the nutrition indication than the group with low nutrition knowledge. The necessity of nutrition indication for processed foods and the need of education and PR(Public Relation) were acknowledged higher in the group with high nutrition knowledge. For the effect of nutrition indication, it showed that the group with high nutrition knowledge thought it would improve the quality and the group with low nutrition knowledge thought it would be helpful when comparing the product with others. The group with high nutrition knowledge showed higher understanding level about nutrition indication than the group with low nutrition knowledge.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.654-667
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• 2005

To survey the different view points about food service programs among parents and teachers, 2 types of questionnaires, which consisted of attitude, perception, satisfaction and demand of the food service program in child education centers, were used. The data was collected from 2450 parents and 450 teachers who attended a child education center in 16 provinces, nationwide. SPSS was used for descriptive analysis and ANOVA test and $X^2-test$. The frinding results were as follows. 1. The average serving size of meal (lunch) were 80 meals per day and 167 meals per day at large institutions. Mean cost of snacks was 14,709 won per month and mean costs of lunch were 29,319 won per month. The mean price was not significantly different according to the scale of institution. The numbers of servings of lunch, morning snack and afternoon snack were 5, 3.4 and 3.5 times per week each. $56.4\%$ of the institutions served meals to children in classrooms, but the national/public institutions, which were attending elementary school, served meals in a dining place in the elementary school. 2. Teacher controlled serving portion size of snacks $(79.6\%)$ and lunch $(88.8\%)\;and\;30.1\%$ of teacher did not allow leaving lunch food. The ratio of knowing about preserved meals of the teacher who worked at a small institution was significantly higher than the teacher who worked at large institutions (p<0.01). 3. Between parents and teachers, several different view points about school lunch programs were detected. Most parents and teachers wanted that the school lunch to be fully cooked and served at the child education institution itself, but $12.2\%$ of parents and $14.4\%$ of teachers wanted a catering service. The teachers group preferred 'lunch box from home' and 'home partially prepared lunch' as an ideal meal serving type than the parent groups (p<0.01). And there were significantly different view points about price factors in school meals, teachers group highly answered that operating expenses must be added in meal prices. 4. The teacher groups' priorities of education activities during meal time were a significantly lower score than parents group in overall education activities. Teacher and parent groups pointed out that individual sanitation activities were most important of the education activities during meal time, but promoting good eating habits was the lowest score in both groups. 5. 'Improving taste and food quality' was most urgent in food service at child education centers, but there were significantly different view points between parent groups $(64.5\%)$ and teacher groups $(43.8\%)\;(p<0.05)$. They answered at a lower percent in 'employee qualified person' and 'cost control' point to improve food service, but there were also different opinions between the two groups (p<0.01). 6. As to the matter of the advantages and disadvantages of catering services, two group answered that the advantages of a catering service were 'convenience' and 'to solve facilities and labor problems', disadvantages were 'lower in food freshness' and 'sanitation problems'. There were also several different view pionts in catering services, the parents groups were more anxious about food sanitation than teachers. This study found several different view points about school food services among parents and teachers. To improve food services at child education institutions, there is a need to adjust the differences between the two groups through interactive communication channels and education and to employ dietitians as taking charge of adjusting roles between the two groups.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.310-322
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• 2019

Purpose: This study examined the food purchases from e-commerce and its relation to eating behaviors or habits in adult women in Incheon and Gyeonggi. Methods: A total of 410 subjects participated in the questionnaire survey. Food purchases in e-commerce and food habits were compared according to age, marital status, and food purchase status in e-commerce of the subjects. Results: Approximately 88% of the subjects had experience of buying foods by e-commerce; more than 40% of the subjects spent less than 100,000 Won buying foods by e-commerce in the past 6 months. The major purchases were coffee and tea, instant food and frozen food, and water and beverages. The reasons for buying foods in e-commerce were cheaper price, convenience of delivery, and variety of food choices. The main factors considered for purchasing foods in e-commerce were price and quality followed by rapid and accurate delivery, and food label and information. Approximately 70% of the subjects were very satisfied or satisfied with their food purchase in e-commerce, and 96% answered that they were willing to buy food in e-commerce again. The perception on the advantages of food purchases in e-commerce was 3.6 points out of 5 and significantly lower in the over 50s and married group. The subjects with experience and high cost of food purchase in e-commerce showed significantly low scores of dietary behaviors and eating habits, which is undesirable. Conclusion: A high percentage of people purchased foods by e-commerce, and they showed undesirable eating habits, especially when the cost of purchasing foods by e-commerce is high. These results showed that purchasing foods in e-commerce may be related to consumers' food habits. Therefore, continuous attention and nutrition guidance for e-commerce consumers are needed.

• 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.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to categorize the gap between coffee shop 'importance' (as perceived by customers before patronizing the coffee shop) and 'satisfaction' (perception of customers after patronizing the coffee shop) as positive or negative and to analyze the effect of these gaps on purchasing behavior. To do this, I used the gap between importance and satisfaction regarding the choice of a coffee shop as the explanatory variable and performed an empirical analysis of the direction and size of the effect of the gap on purchasing behavior (overall satisfaction, willingness-to-revisit) by applying the Ordered Probit Model (OPM). A previous study that used IPA to evaluate the effects of gaps estimated the direction and size of a quadrant but failed to analyze the effect of gaps on customers. In this study, I evaluated the effects of positive and negative gaps on customer satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Using OPM, I quantified the effect of positive and negative gaps on overall customer satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Per-head expenditure, frequency of visits, and coffee-purchasing place had the most positive effects on overall customer satisfaction. Frequency of visits, followed by per-head expenditure and then coffee-purchasing place, had the most positive impact on willingness-to-visit. Thus per-head expenditure and frequency of visits had the greatest positive effects on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. This finding implies that the higher the actual satisfaction (gap) of customers who spend KRW5,000 or more once or more per week at coffee shops is, the higher their overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit are. Despite the fact that economical efficiency had a significant effect on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit, college and university students still use coffee shops and are willing to spend KRW5,000 because they do not only purchase coffee as a product itself, but use the coffee shop for other activities, such as working, meeting friends, or relaxing. College and university students also access the Internet in coffee shops via personal laptops, watch movies, and study; thus, coffee shops should provide their customers with the appropriate facilities and services. The fact that a positive gap for coffee shop brand had a positive effect on willingness-to-revisit implies that the higher the level of customer satisfaction, the greater the willingness-to-revisit. A negative gap for this factor, on the other hand, implies that the lower the level of customer satisfaction, the lower the willingness-to-revisit. Thus, the brand factor has a comparatively greater effect on satisfaction than the other factors evaluated in this study. Given that the domestic coffee culture is becoming more upscale and college/university students are sensitive to this trend, students are attentive to brands. In most upscale coffee shops in Korea, the outer wall is built out of glass that can be opened, the interiors are exotic with an open kitchen. These upscale coffee shops function as landmarks and match the taste of college/university students. Coffee shops in Korea have become a cultural brand. To make customers feel that coffee shops are upscale, good quality establishments and measures to provide better services in terms of brand factor should be instituted. The intensified competition among coffee shop brands in Korea as a result of the booming industry indicates that provision of additional services is needed to differentiate competitors. These customers can also use a scanner free of charge. Another strategy that can be used to boost brands could be to provide and operate a seminar room for seminars and group study. If coffee shops adopt these types of strategies, college/university students would be more likely to consider the expenses they incur worthwhile and, subsequently, they would be more likely to be satisfied with the brands of these coffee shops, with an associated increase in their willingness-to-revisit. Gender and study year had the most negative effects on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Female students were more likely to be satisfied and be willing to return than male students, and third and fourth-year students were more likely to be satisfied and willing-to-return than first or second-year students. Students who drink coffee, read books, and use laptops alone at coffee shops are easily noticeable. High-grade students tend to visit coffee shops alone in order to use their time efficiently for self-development and to find jobs. The economical efficiency factor had the greatest effect on overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit in terms of a positive gap. The higher the actual satisfaction (gap) of students with the price of the coffee, the greater their overall satisfaction and willingness-to-revisit. Economical efficiency with a negative gap had a negative effect on willingness-to-revisit, which implies that a less negative gap will result in a greater willingness-to-revisit. Amid worsening market conditions, coffee shops located around colleges/universities are using strategies, such as a point or membership card, strategic alliances with credit-card companies, development of a set menu or seasonal menu, and free coffee-shot services to increase their competitive edge. Product power also had a negative effect in terms of a negative gap, which indicates that a higher negative gap will result in a lower willingness-to-revisit. Because there are many more customers that enjoy coffee in this decade, as compared to previous decades, the new generation of customers, namely college/university students, want various menu items in addition to coffee, and coffee shops should, therefore, add side menu items, such as waffles, rice cakes, cakes, sandwiches, and salads. For example, Starbucks Korea is making efforts to enhance product power by selling rice cakes flavored in strawberry, wormwood, and pumpkin, and providing coffee or cream free of charge. In summary, coffee shops should focus on increasing their economical efficiency, brand, and product power to enhance the satisfaction of college/university students. Because shops adjacent to colleges or universities enjoy a locational advantage, providing differentiated services in terms of economical efficiency, brand, and product power, is likely to increase customer satisfaction and return visits. Coffee shop brands should, therefore, be innovative and embrace change to meet their customers' desires. Because this study only targeted college/university students in Seoul, comparative studies targeting diverse regions and age groups are required to generalize the findings and recommendations of this study.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.104-123
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• 2019

Various European countries were active rather early on in the formation and research of Korean ceramics, which are considered a representative genre of Korean art. Of these, England is especially noteworthy due to its relatively large volume of extant archival material related to the procurement of Korean ceramics in modern Britain. The material is important in that it contributes to our understanding of the formation and economic worth of these collections. Especially meaningful are the previously unknown documents dating to the period when institutions such as the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum were most actively collecting Korean ceramics. These documents provide insight into the circumstances-process, prices, standards, perceptions, etc.-of procurement for the Korean ceramics now in British collections. The changes in the perception of Korean ceramics and the intention for forming such collections in modern Britain can be divided into three periods. The first, starting from the late 1870s and ending in the late 1880s, is categorized by the collectors' misguided ideal of Korean ceramics in the absence of a true understanding of the subject. During the late 1880s up until 1910, the Korean ceramics entering British collections were mostly ethnographic in nature and examples of implements used in Koreans' daily lives. Lastly, from 1910 to 1940, Korean ceramics were regarded as art objects to be collected, and Goryeo celadons formed the core of many of the British collections being assembled at the time. As for the matter of collecting standards and processes, the matter is examined through the study of three individuals who visited Korea and acquired Korean ceramics in the early 20th century. After 1910, the British started to make trips to the Far East via boat or the Trans-Siberian Express and purchase Korean ceramics during their travels. It has been confirmed that former bureaucrats were able to acquire 'good and old Goryeo ceramics' at reasonable prices from either tomb robbers or through direct visits to regions where such wares were being excavated. In addition, this study also focuses on the previously unfamiliar company Kavanaugh & Co, which made important sales and provided transport of various objects, including Korean ceramics, to its Western clients. The final part of this study examines the standards of appraisal for the Korean ceramics collected in modern Britain. The main criterion the balance between form and price of the piece. In other words, the best pieces were those that were of superior quality but acquired at the cheapest prices. British collectors particularly valued not only the Goryeo celadons favored by the Japanese but also Joseon ceramics for their innovative form, design, and technique. These standards of aesthetic and form were important factors that influenced the formation of diverse Korean ceramic collections in modern Britain.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.245-276
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• 2008

Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.177-207
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• 2012

Today's consumers perceive consumption as a representation of themselves. It is not simply an act that fulfills a consumer's physical and practical needs. Even in terms of life quality, consumers increasingly want to achieve an emotional and sensible experience through consumption. Consumers now make decisions based on their need to express their position in relation to other people, pursue emotional satisfaction, and try to improve the quality of life. Culture-art products that meet such internal and external demands of consumers have made significant improvements in both quantity and quality, because of the social interest and policy support. The recognition of personal and social values of culture and arts has brought about interest in and need for culture-art products. Businesses have agilely embraced such change and actively implemented various marketing strategies utilizing culture and arts. For example, businesses began to sponsor artists who produce culture-art products while building facilities for cultural and art performances or exhibitions. Businesses have also provided performances and exhibitions free-of-charge or at affordable prices. As a result, the supply in the market has started to exceed its demand as is often the case in many of other markets. However, such imbalance has occurred not because of over-supply but because of a lack of demand. Given these circumstances, the government and culture and art related organizations, which had mainly concentrated on the supply side, started to recognize the importance of creating personal and social values in culture and arts. As a result, the government and various organizations are now creating various strategies that include policy measures to achieve their new found goal. Unfortunately however, such efforts are not meeting the expectations. Focusing on above-mentioned circumstances and problems, this study aims to find measures to create demand for culture-art products in the internal conditions of those who consume culture-art products. In other words, given that the demand for culture-art products has not increased despite all external conditions to encourage consumption, this study aims to find the reasons in consumers' value judgment on culture-art products. Though there were recent studies on culture-art products that applied consumer behavior on marketing theories, most of them focused on peripheral aspects such as people's motivation for or satisfaction from watching culture-art events. Hence, there is a need to understand what kind of value consumers perceive from culture-art products and how such value cognition leads to consumption in a comprehensive manner. This study acts as follow-up to a separate study entitled "Qualitative Study about Value Cognition and Benefits of Consumer on Culture-Art Products". The current study aims to extend practical implications that enhance the effectiveness of marketing strategies among the producing and policy agencies in the industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate dimensions of value cognition, benefits and attributes of culture-art products, and identify the effects of consumer value cognition on benefits and attributes. The questionnaire was developed based on the conceptual structure of qualitative research and previous researches. It was composed of value cognition, benefits, attributes of culture-art products and demographic variables. This survey was conducted on-line and off-line among a total of 662 persons ranging from their teens to their 50's who were living in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, various metropolitan cities, and small and medium-sized cities. The data collected was analyzed by factor analysis and path analysis using SPSS WIN 18.0 and AMOS 16.0. This empirical study found that the dimensions of value cognition of culture-art products were categorized into personal goods, aesthetic goods and public property. This shows that the consumers perceive culture-art products as products that are worthy enough to pay the costs not just for personal benefits but also for their social values. Also the formation of value cognition for culture-art products requires special conditions unlike that for physical consumer goods and services, which simply require marketing stimuli. The dimensions of benefits pursued by consuming culture-art products were found to be composed of four types - pursuit of aesthetic benefits, pursuit of actual benefits, pursuit of emotional benefits, and pursuit of conspicuous character. This result implies that people consume culture-art products not just to pursue pleasure from emotional and intelligent satisfaction as well as social relations, but also to seek the needs and benefits embodied at a social level. The dimensions of attributes of culture-art products had seven different factors, - environmental, price, evaluation, people, artwork, composition, and personal relations - which is plentiful. This is because the attributes of culture-art products are very complicated compared to other consumer goods or services. Since culture-art products include not just cultural or artistic works but also all physical, human, environmental, and systemic elements of the products in a comprehensive manner, consumers perceive everything they experience in the process of consuming culture-art products as part of the products. The dimensions of value cognition was found to affect attributes of the products, mostly using pursued benefits as a mediating factors. This result is consistent with the result of qualitative research, and proves that applying the means-end chain theory in the reverse direction is reasonable. The result can be interpreted that consumers' value cognitions for culture-art products turns into actual benefits leading to consumers' decisions. Furthermore, this result reveals that when consumers choose culture-art products, they take into account the attributes of culture-art products depending on the benefits they pursue. These results confirm that despite their conceptual and abstract attributes, culture-art products have values that contribute to actual benefits for individual consumers and society. Hence, value cognition generates benefits to be pursued and this in turn affects the consumers' choices of attributes on products. Based on the conceptual structure of consumers' value cognitions on culture-art products and its dimensions, it is possible to find detailed methods to provide opportunities for education and training to form and reinforce positive value cognition on culture-art products. And through those methods, it will be possible to develop attributes of culture-art products according to the dimensions of pursued benefits, and allow conceptual products become the subject to valuable consumption in real life. These results provide theoretical understanding of consumer behavior in culture marketing and useful information to culture-art producers, companies that use culture and art, and government agencies that use culture-art as a mean to improve the public perception of quality of life. As a follow up on this study, there should be experimental studies that can develop criteria visualizing the demands of consumers who purchase culture-art products and identify their detailed attributes. Studies that compare characteristics of different areas within the culture-art product category and in-depth studies on a specific area or genre will also be needed. In order to develop marketing strategies for culture-art products, studies on the formation and reinforcement of positive value cognition on culture-art products and education for the development of consumer demand as well as on the development and differentiation of attributes of culture-art products depending on types of consumer groups should also follow.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.47-67
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• 2017

Steel plate faults is one of important factors to affect the quality and price of the steel plates. So far many steelmakers generally have used visual inspection method that could be based on an inspector's intuition or experience. Specifically, the inspector checks the steel plate faults by looking the surface of the steel plates. However, the accuracy of this method is critically low that it can cause errors above 30% in judgment. Therefore, accurate steel plate faults diagnosis system has been continuously required in the industry. In order to meet the needs, this study proposed a new steel plate faults diagnosis system using Simultaneous MTS (S-MTS), which is an advanced Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) algorithm, to classify various surface defects of the steel plates. MTS has generally been used to solve binary classification problems in various fields, but MTS was not used for multiclass classification due to its low accuracy. The reason is that only one mahalanobis space is established in the MTS. In contrast, S-MTS is suitable for multi-class classification. That is, S-MTS establishes individual mahalanobis space for each class. 'Simultaneous' implies comparing mahalanobis distances at the same time. The proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system was developed in four main stages. In the first stage, after various reference groups and related variables are defined, data of the steel plate faults is collected and used to establish the individual mahalanobis space per the reference groups and construct the full measurement scale. In the second stage, the mahalanobis distances of test groups is calculated based on the established mahalanobis spaces of the reference groups. Then, appropriateness of the spaces is verified by examining the separability of the mahalanobis diatances. In the third stage, orthogonal arrays and Signal-to-Noise (SN) ratio of dynamic type are applied for variable optimization. Also, Overall SN ratio gain is derived from the SN ratio and SN ratio gain. If the derived overall SN ratio gain is negative, it means that the variable should be removed. However, the variable with the positive gain may be considered as worth keeping. Finally, in the fourth stage, the measurement scale that is composed of selected useful variables is reconstructed. Next, an experimental test should be implemented to verify the ability of multi-class classification and thus the accuracy of the classification is acquired. If the accuracy is acceptable, this diagnosis system can be used for future applications. Also, this study compared the accuracy of the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system with that of other popular classification algorithms including Decision Tree, Multi Perception Neural Network (MLPNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Tree Bagger Random Forest, Grid Search (GS), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The steel plates faults dataset used in the study is taken from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) machine learning repository. As a result, the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system based on S-MTS shows 90.79% of classification accuracy. The accuracy of the proposed diagnosis system is 6-27% higher than MLPNN, LR, GS, GA and PSO. Based on the fact that the accuracy of commercial systems is only about 75-80%, it means that the proposed system has enough classification performance to be applied in the industry. In addition, the proposed system can reduce the number of measurement sensors that are installed in the fields because of variable optimization process. These results show that the proposed system not only can have a good ability on the steel plate faults diagnosis but also reduce operation and maintenance cost. For our future work, it will be applied in the fields to validate actual effectiveness of the proposed system and plan to improve the accuracy based on the results.