• Journal of Family Relations
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.135-156
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aim to determine adolescent meal time, which provides the important context of parent-child sharing time. We divided mealtime into family meal and alone meal, and analyzed the time/space context of each meal time as well as the social determinations. Method: We employed adolescents age 10-18 who live with married patents and attends school at the present (n=5,128) from the original data of Korean Time Use Survey. Results: More adolescent were engaged in family meal rather than eating alone in daily bases. However, the trend show difference by day of week and academic grade; family meal are more prevalent in weekends rather than weekdays. As adolescent reaches high school age, the proportion of eating alone beats the proportion of family meal time. Most of the meal occur at home. Having meal outside was relatively scares, especially on weekdays. Tobit and logistic analysis reveal that, on weekday meal, less school hours, more time spent at the private academy, having family leisure event, and long mother's housework hours were positively associated with family meal time. In weekend model, father's education gradient was associated with family meal time, showing higher the father's education level, there were higher chance of having weekend family meal. As for the eating alone, relevant factors were similar with family meal but the directions were the opposite; having family leisure were negatively associated with alone meal, both weekdays and weekend. Long academy hours, meal preparing and leisure alone were positively associated eating alone. Overall, weekday meal time was strongly linked with adolescent daily schedules and time use, while for weekends meal, in both family meal and alone meal, the influence of parent factors were discovered. Conclusion: The results indicates that alone meal and the family meal are not exclusively related but seem to be complementary. Families tend to enjoy family meal yet, there are some necessary situation that adolescent need to be on their own. Increase in ready-made food industries, growing independence of children by age seem partly allow adolescent children to eat alone. Careful attentions may require for monitoring weekends meal situation and the family factor of adolescent in future studies.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.59-68
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• 2010

Systematic risk management is necessary in grand scaled urban construction because of the existence of complicated and various risk factors. Problems of obstructions, adjacent structures, safety, environment, traffic and geotechnical properties need to be solved because urban construction is progressed in limited space not as general earthwork. Therefore the establishment of special risk management system is necessary to manage not only geotechnical properties but also social and cultural uncertainties. This research presents the technique analysis by the current state of risk management technique. Risk factors were noticed and the importance of each factor was estimated through survey. The systemically categorized database was established. Risk extraction module, matrix and score module were developed based on the database. Expected construction budget and time distribution can be computed by Monte Carlo analysis of probabilities and influences. Construction budgets and time distributions of before and after response can be compared and analyzed 80 the risks are manageable for entire whole construction time. This system will be the foundation of standardization and integration. Procurement, efficiency improvement, effective time and resource management are available through integrated management technique development and application. Conclusively decrease in cost and time is expected by systemization of project management.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.18-37
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• 2024

This study examines migrant workers' occupational health and safety issues through a case study of the UK construction industry, focusing on structural vulnerabilities. Migrant workers are at the bottom of the hierarchically fragmented labour market, performing outsourced hazardous work. Structural vulnerability focuses on the social structures that create hierarchies and increase risk in the workplace, rather than on individual responsibility or 'cultural' differences of migrant workers. The study considers the structural factors that perpetuate the migrantisation of risk in the UK construction industry, focusing on the structural necessity of low-wage migrant labour, precarious employment and the legal status of migrant workers, and discusses how these three factors interact to increase migrant workers' vulnerability to health and safety. The migrantisation of risk is not only a matter of occupational health and safety or universal workers' compensation, but also of the intertwining of labour migration policies with employment structures that rely on low-wage, low-skilled labour. This calls for proactive measures to address structural risks that go beyond passive declaratory policies that do not exclude migrant workers from education, training or legal systems.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.39-56
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• 2024

This study addressed housing issues among various social problems of youth. With a focus on residential independence, this study analyzed the factors that lead youth to achieve residential independence. This study drew on nationwide data from the 'Youth Life Survey (2022)' with a sample size of 12,578. Binary logistic regression analysis was employed, with the dependent variable being residential independence. Key factors were as follows. The probability of residential independence was higher for men than women. Residential independence occurred mainly in non-metropolitan areas compared to metropolitan areas. Findings revealed that greater age, income, and assets facilitate achieving residential independence. In addition, public transport and cultural facilities were important for their residential independence, and it was found that the previous experience of residential independence had a positive effect. Policy implications derived from the findings are as follows. It is required to consider the heterogeneity and diversity of youth rather than implementing unitary policies. To ensure continuity and sustainability of self-reliance, long-term support programs are needed rather than temporary support. Moreover, it is required to offer public support comprehensively, instead of youth relying on support from personal networks, including their parents. An inclusive housing policy should be established to support youth for their residential independence in the future.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.12 no.5_spc
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• pp.45-79
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper was to review the results of the subjective well-being(swb) studies performed by Hahn and coworkers in Korean culture. As the correlates of swb, we dealt with demographic/individual difference variables, intrapersonal variables, interpersonal process variables, and Korean cultural variables. We proposed that the components of swb were consisted of quality of life(cognitive swb) and overall happy feelings about one's own life(emotional swb). It was also assumed that a measure of total swb could be calculated by summated mean of cognitive swb and emotional swb measures. The data of the swb studies were analyzed and interpreted according to the above three measures of swb. The results of a nationwide survey(Hahn, 2004) from age of 19 to 75 years ald(n=2,230) showed significant simple correlation coefficients between the following demographic/individual difference variables and swb: Gender difference in swb was found(total swb r=.08, p<.001; life satisfaction r=.10, p<.001; overall emotional swb r=.05, p<.05). Men were happier than women in terms of all three measures of swb. It was also found that women appeared to experience greater positive and negative emotions. Correlation between age and emotional swb(r=.09, p<.001) was significant, but life satisfaction was not significant(r=.04, n.s). Correlations between economic status and swb were also significant(total swb r =.23, p<.001; life satisfaction r=.15 p<.001; overall emotional swb r=.15, p<.001l). Although existence of father was negatively related to emotional swb(r=-.05, p<.05), the existence of mother was not related to any of swb measures. Similarly existence of brothers was related positively to overall emotional swb, but existence of sisters was not. Though existence of son was not related to swb, daughter contributed negatively to swb(total swb -.12, p<.01; life satisfaction -.09, p<.05; emotional swb r=-.12, p<.01). We assumed that family member-in-Iaw also contributed to swb because the extended dose social networks were important in Korean culture. The results showed that the following family member-in-law variables were related to swb: Parents-in-law(total swb r=.11, p<.01; life satisfaction r=.10, p<.01; emotional swb r=.10, p<.01), father-in-law(total swb r=.11, p<.01; life satisfaction r=.11, p<.01; emotional swb r=.06, n.s). The result suggested that especially father-in-law contributed to swb through financial and social support. Correlations between emotional experiences in everyday life and swb were also presented. The range of correlation coefficients between the positive emotion measures and swb were r=.30~.48(p<.001) when the above two measures obtained at same time. But the range decreased to r=.19~32(p<.001) when the swb measure was obtained 9 month later longitudinally. Intercorrelations between positive emotional experience; and life satisfaction were r=.37~58(p<.001) when two measures were obtained at same time. We also examined the effects of the intrapersonal cognitive responses to the most stressful life event upon swb. The results of nationwide survey(n=1,021) showed that self-disclosure(total swb r=.09, p<.010; life satisfaction r=.10, p<.01; emotional swb r=.07, p<.01), rumination(total swb r=-.17, p<.001), thought avoidance(total swb r=.12, p<.001; life satisfaction r=-.08; emotional swb r=-.12, p<.001) and suppression(total swb r=-.13, p<.001; life satisfaction r=-.08, p<.05: emotional swb r=-.13, p<.001) contributed to swb. It was also suggested that mismatch between self-guide and regulatory focus contributed negatively to emotional swb. It was also found that social comparison motives and fulfillment of the motives contributed to swb. The results of a survey research(n=363 college students) revealed that the higher the general social comparison motive, the lower the swb(total swb r=-.15, P<.01: life satisfaction r=-.17. p<.01; emotional swb r=-.10, p<.05). It was also found that satisfaction level of self-evalution motive contributed positively to swb(total swb r=-.14. p<.01: life satisfaction r=-.12, p<.05; emotional swb r=.15, p<.001). Both of self-improvement motive(r=.13, p<.05) and satisfaction level of self-improvement motive(r=.12, p<.05) contributed positively to emotional swb, respectively. The above results suggested that swb was depended upon the interaction effect of social comparison motive; and level of fulfillment of the motives. We also reported the significant multiple predictors of swb in a sample of age from 60years to 89years olds. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that the significant multiple predictors of swb were past illness(β=.174, p<.001), economic status(β=.418, p<.001), marital satisfaction(β=.0841, p<.001), satisfaction of offsprins(β=.065, p<.01), expectation level of social support from offsprings(β=-.049, p<.001), and negative emotions(β=-.454. p<.001) among 16 social psychological factors. It was also found that swb was an important multiple predictors of physical health. This finding was replicated in a longitudinal study. Both of positive and negative emotional experiences were significant multiple predictors of physical health one year later. The results of the discriminant analysis showed both of total swb and positive emotional experiences contributed to discriminate the happy and healthy olds from unhappy and unhealthy olds. We paper also examined the effects of the nonnative social behaviors upon swb in Korean culture. The main hypotheses of the study(Hahn, 2006, in press) was that the important nonnative behaviors would influence on swb through both of the mediation processes of adjustment to social relationships and psychological stress. The survey data were collected from 2,129 adults age of 19 to 75, from 7 regional areas in Korea. The results of the study revealed that almost all of correlation coefficients between 15 normative social behaviors and the above three criteria w-ere significant. The fitness test results of the covariance structural equation model showed that all of the fitness indices were satisfactory (GFI=.974, AGFI=.909, NNFI=.922, NFI=.973, CFI=.974. RMR=.049, RMSEA=.073). The results of the analysis revealed that the following five path coeffi6ents from behaviors to social adjustment were significant; behavior tor family and family members(t=5.87, p<.001), courteous behavior(t=4.39, p<.001), faithful behavior (t=2.15. p<.05). collectivistic behavior(t=8.31, p<.001). Seven path coefficients from the normative behaviors to psychological stress were significant; behavior for family and family members (t=-4.63, p<.001), faithful behavior(t=-3.86, p<.001). suppression of emotional expression(t=3.99, p<.001), trustworthy and dependable behavior(t=-2.21, p<.05), collectivistic behavior(t=3.72, p<.001), effortful and diligent behavior(t=2.94, p<.001), husbandry and saving behavior(t=3.40, p<.001). The above results suggested that four normative behaviors among seven behaviors contributed negatively to psychological stress in current Korean society. The results abo confirmed the hypothesized paths from social adjustment (t=10.40, p<.001) to swb and from psychological stress(t=-19.74, p<.001) to swb. The important results of the study were discussed in terms of the Confucian traditions and recent social changes in Korean culture. Finally limitations of this review paper were discussed and the suggestions for the future study were also proposed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.163-175
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to find out how to improve the brand image and loyalty of cafe by recognizing that social culture of middle school cafe, which is an important service quality in cafe establishment, emerges as a main characteristic of new coffee business. First, reliability, confidentness, professionalism, accessibility, and socio - culturality of the service quality of coffee specialty shops improve brand image. Confidence and professionalism play an important role in enhancing brand loyalty, and brand image has a significant effect on brand loyalty. Respectively, Among the service quality, social culture has a strong influence on brand image but it is not a direct influence on brand loyalty. Second, in the relationship between brand loyalty of coffee service quality, brand image shows full mediation effect on reliability, partial mediation effect on confidence, professionalism, accessibility, socialcultural property, and mediation effect on response and empathy. Third, as a result of analyzing the moderating effects of coffee shop types on the relationship between service quality and brand image of coffee specialty shops, reliability, confidentiality, and accessibility are positive factors in the nationwide franchise. On the other hand, in the private $caf{\acute{e}}$, professionalism and socio-culturality are the main factors for improving the brand image. In the case of the local franchise, similar to the franchise in the country, the improvement of service quality for responsiveness and professionalism is a positive factor Respectively. As a result, nationwide franchise $caf{\acute{e}}s$ have priority in enhancing brand image and brand loyalty through accessibility and assurance of service quality. On the other hand, in case of local franchise $caf{\acute{e}}$, it can be seen that the service quality is enhanced and the brand image and brand loyalty can be further improved through service professionalism and accessibility. On the other hand, regional cafes are more important than national franchises or local franchise cafes, and a strategy to enhance customer loyalty is needed through service strategies emphasizing socio - cultural aspects.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.27-36
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• 2018

This study suggests the necessity of behavior analysis as changes to a park environment to reflect user desires can be implemented only by grasping the needs of park users. Online data (blog) were defined as the basic data of the study. After collecting data by 5 - year units, data mining was used to derive the characteristics of the time series behavior while the significance of the online data was verified through social network analysis. The results of the text mining analysis are as follows. First, primary results included 'walking', 'photography', 'riding bicycles'(inline, kickboard, etc.), and 'eating'. Second, in the early days of the collected data, active physical activity such as exercise was the main factor, but recent passive behavior such as eating, using a mobile phone, games, food and drinking coffee also appeared as a new behavior characteristic in parks. Third, the factors affecting the behavior of park users are the changes of various conditions of society such as internet development and a culture of expressing unique personalities and styles. Fourth, the special behaviors appearing at Olympic Park were derived from educational activities such as cultural activities including watching performances and history lessons. In conclusion, it has been shown that people's lifestyle changes and the behavior of a park are influenced by the changes of the various times rather than the original purpose that was intended during park planning and design. Therefore, it is necessary to create an environment tailored to users by considering the main behaviors and influencing factors of Olympic Park. Text mining used as an analytical method has the merit that past data can be collected. Therefore, it is possible to form analysis from a long-term viewpoint of behavior analysis as well as to measure new behavior and value with derived keywords. In addition, the validity of online data was verified through social network analysis to increase the legitimacy of research results. Research on more comprehensive behavior analysis should be carried out by diversifying the types of data collected later, and various methods for verifying the accuracy and reliability of large-volume data will be needed.

• 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 the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2010

This paper aims to analyze success factors for the construction of Supdari(a traditional wooden bridge to connect small streams temporarily), which is a citizens' initiative project to revitalize local community in Jeonju-River, Jeonju City. Recently Supdari has been restored for the use of belongings in local festivals. But Jeonju-River Supdari was designed and built to unite local citizens and connect river-divided villages. This project shows how investing social capital like Supdari makes the community vitalize through citizen's active participation. As a citizen leading project, there were several critical factors for sucess. At first, there were some noticeable ways to encourage local citizen's participation in online and offline. In the online, the Supdari internet cafe introduced what is a Supdari, how to make it and where we build using various media of UCCs and photos. In the offline, the small scaled model of Supdari was made and exhibited in the entrance of the village and related several seminars were hosted to discuss how to construct Supdari with citizens, local assembly men and public officials together. The Second is the movement to restore traditional and cultural resources for the community recovery triggered the supports from local councils and many civic groups. Civic groups supported ecological and structural expertise to guarantee environment friendly and stable construction. And local councils mediated citizen's and administrative office's opinions. The third is flexible administrative management to help citizen's ideas to be realized. Officials extended setting period of Supdari on the condition with the civic-control safety management.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-177
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• 2011

I. Research Objectives: Most of the previous studies on diffusion have concentrated on efficacy of WOM communication with the use of variables at individual level (Iacobucci 1996; Midgley et al. 1992). However, there is a paucity of studies which investigated network's structural properties as antecedents of WOM from the perspective of consumers' sociocultural propensities. Against this research backbone, this study attempted to link the network's structural properties and consumer' WOM behavior on cross-national basis. The major research objective of this study was to examine the relationship between network properties and WOM by comparing Korean and Chinese consumers. Specific objectives of this research are threefold; firstly, it sought to examine whether network properties (i.e., tie strength, centrality, range) affect WOM (WOM intention and quality of WOM). Secondly, it aimed to explore the moderating effects of cutural orientation (uncertainty avoidance and individuality) on the relationship between network properties and WOM. Thirdly, it substantiates the role of innovativeness as antecedents to both network properties and WOM. II. Research Hypotheses: Based on the above research objectives, the study put forth the following research hypotheses to validate. ${\cdot}$ H 1-1 : The Strength of tie between two counterparts within network will positively influence WOM effectivenes ${\cdot}$ H 1-2 : The network centrality will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 1-3 : The network range will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-1 : The consumer's uncertainty avoidance tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-2 : The consumer's individualism tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 3-1 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence the social network properties ${\cdot}$ H 3-2 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence WOM effectiveness III. Methodology: Through a pilot study and back-translation, two versions of questionnaire were prepared, one in Korean and the other in Chinese. The chinese data were collected from the chinese students enrolled in language schools in Suwon city in Korea, while Korean data were collected from students taking classes in a major university in Seoul. A total of 277 questionnaire were used for analysis of Korean data and 212 for Chinese data. The reason why Chinese students living in Korea rather than in China were selected was based on two factors: one was to neutralize the differences (ie, retail channel availability) that may arise from living in separate countries and the second was to minimize the difference in communication venues such as internet accessibility and cell phone usability. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used for analysis. IV. Results: Prior to hypothesis verification, mean differences between the two countries in terms of major constructs were performed with the following result; As for network properties (tie strength, centrality and range), Koreans showed higher scores in all three constructs. For cultural orientation traits, Koreans scored higher only on uncertainty avoidance trait than Chinese. As a result of verifying the first research objective, confirming the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness, on Korean side, tie strength(Beta=.116; t=1.785) and centrality (Beta=.499; t=6.776) significantly influenced on WOM intention, and similar finding was obtained for Chinese side, with tie strength (Beta=.246; t=3.544) and centrality (Beta=.247; t=3.538) being significant. However, with regard to WOM argument quality, Korean data yielded only centrality (Beta=.82; t=7.600) having a significant impact on WOM, whereas China showed both tie strength(Beat=.142; t=2.052) and centrality(Beta=.348; t=5.031) being influential. To answer for the second research objective addressing the moderating role of cultural orientation, moderated regression anaylsis was performed and the result showed that uncertainty avoidance moderated between network range and WOM intention for both Korea and China, But for Korea, the uncertainty avoidance moderated between tie strength and WOM quality, while for China it moderated between network range and WOM intention. And innovativeness moderated between tie strength and WOM intention for Korea but it moderated between network range and WOM intention for China. As a result of analysing for third research objective, we found that for Korea, innovativeness positively influenced centrality only (Beta=.546; t=10.808), while for China it influenced both tie strength (Beta=.203; t=2.998) and centrality(Beta=.518; t=8.782). But for both countries alike, the innovativeness influenced positively on WOM (WOM intention and WOM quality). V. Implications: The study yields the two practical implications. Firstly, the result suggests that companies targeting multinational customers need to identify segments which are susceptible to the positive WOM and WOM information based on individual traits such as uncertainty avoidance and individualism and based on that, develop marketing communication strategy. Secondly, the companies need to divide the market on Roger's five innovation stages and based on this information, enforce marketing strategy which utilizes social networking tools such as public media and WOM. For instance, innovator and early adopters, if provided with new product information, will be able to capitalize upon the network advantages and thus add informational value to network operations using SNS or corporate blog.