• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2011

Food service is the major part of franchise business in Korea, accounting for 69.9% of the brands in the market. As the food service industry becomes mature, many franchisees have struggled to survive in the market. In general, consumers have higher levels of expectation toward service quality of franchised outlets compared that of (non-franchised) independent ones. They also tend to believe that franchisees deliver standardized service at the uniform food price, regardless of their locations. Such beliefs seem to be important reasons that consumers prefer franchised outlets to independent ones. Nevertheless, few studies examined the impact of qualify features of franchisees on customer satisfaction so far. To this end, this study examined the characteristics of various quality features of franchisees in the food service industry, regarding their relationship with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The quality perception of heavy-users was also compared with that of light-users in order to find insights for developing differentiated marketing strategy for the two segments. Customer satisfaction has been understood as a one-dimensional construct while there are recent studies that insist two-dimensional nature of the construct. In this regard, Kano et al. (1984) suggested to categorize quality features of a product or service into five types, based on their relation to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction: Must-be quality, Attractive quality, One-dimensional quality, Indifferent quality, and Reverse quality. According to the Kano model, customers are more dissatisfied when Must-be quality(M) are not fulfilled, but their satisfaction does not arise above neutral no matter how fully the quality fulfilled. In comparison, customers are more satisfied with a full provision of Attactive quality(A) but manage to accept its dysfunction. One-dimensional quality(O) results in satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled. For Indifferent quality(I), its presence or absence influences neither customer satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Lastly, Reverse quality(R) refers to the features whose high degree of achievement results in customer dissatisfaction rather than satisfaction. Meanwhile, the basic guidelines of the Kano model have a limitation in that the quality type of each feature is simply determined by calculating the mode statistics. In order to overcome such limitation, the relative importance of each feature on customer satisfaction (Better value; b) and dissatisfaction (Worse value; w) were calculated following the formulas below (Timko, 1993). The Better value indicates how much customer satisfaction is increased by providing the quality feature in question. In contrast, the Worse value indicates how much customer dissatisfaction is decreased by providing the quality feature. Better = (A + O)/(A+O+M+I) Worse = (O+M)/(A+O+M+I)(-1) An on-line survey was performed in order to understand the nature of quality features of franchisees in the food service industry by applying the Kano Model. A total of twenty quality features (refer to the Table 2) were identified as the result of literature review in franchise business and a pre-test with fifty college students in Seoul. The potential respondents of our main survey was limited to the customers who have visited more than two restaurants/stores of the same franchise brand. Survey invitation e-mails were sent out to the panels of a market research company and a total of 257 responses were used for analysis. Following the guidelines of Kano model, each of the twenty quality features was classified into one of the five types based on customers' responses to a set of questions: "(1) how do you feel if the following quality feature is fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit," and "(2) how do you feel if the following quality feature is not fulfilled in the franchise restaurant that you visit." The analyses revealed that customers' dissatisfaction with franchisees is commonly associated with the poor level of cleanliness of the store (w=-0.872), kindness of the staffs(w=-0.890), conveniences such as parking lot and restroom(w=-0.669), and expertise of the staffs(w=-0.492). Such quality features were categorized as Must-be quality in this study. While standardization or uniformity across franchisees has been emphasized in franchise business, this study found that consumers are interested only in uniformity of price across franchisees(w=-0.608), but not interested in standardizations of menu items, interior designs, customer service procedures, and food tastes. Customers appeared to be more satisfied when the franchise brand has promotional events such as giveaways(b=0.767), good accessibility(b=0.699), customer loyalty programs(b=0.659), award winning history(b=0.641), and outlets in the overseas market(b=0.506). The results are summarized in a matrix form in Table 1. Better(b) and Worse(w) index indicate relative importance of each quality feature on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Meanwhile, there were differences in perceiving the quality features between light users and heavy users of any specific franchise brand in the food service industry. Expertise of the staffs was labeled as Must-be quality for heavy users but Indifferent quality for light users. Light users seemed indifferent to overseas expansion of the brand and offering new menu items on a regular basis, while heavy users appeared to perceive them as Attractive quality. Such difference may come from their different levels of involvement when they eat out. The results are shown in Table 2. The findings of this study help practitioners understand the quality features they need to focus on to strengthen the competitive power in the food service market. Above all, removing the factors that cause customer dissatisfaction seems to be the most critical for franchisees. To retain loyal customers of the franchise brand, it is also recommended for franchisor to invest resources in the development of new menu items as well as training programs for the staffs. Lastly, if resources allow, promotional events, loyalty programs, overseas expansion, award-winning history can be considered as tools for attracting more customers to the business.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2011

One of the major reasons for fierce competition among firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Due to such changes in the marketing environment, differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important in the race to gain a competitive advantage. Price discount is one of the popular promotion strategies that most retailers use, especially to increase sales, but offering a price discount does not always lead to the expected result. If marketers apply an identical price-promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in products and consumer preferences, the discounted price itself may make people skeptical about the quality of the product. Moreover, the changes in perceived value may appear differently depending on factors such as consumer involvement. This implies that variables such as the level of consumer involvement, brand loyalty, and external reference prices, in reality, would have different effects on how consumers perceive the value of price discounts. The variables that affect consumers' perceived values and buying decisions are diverse and complicated. Several studies have examined the effects of such variables as external reference price, selling price, and brand on consumers' perceived value of products. Results have not shown consistent patterns. Therefore, we must note that the factors affecting consumers' value perceptions and buying behaviors are diverse and that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what that variable is. This study focused on the level of consumer involvement as a salient variable that supposedly affects the perceived value of a product, willingness to buy, and search intentions. We tried to examine whether a price discount affects the perceived value-such as perceived acquisition value and perceived transaction value-in different ways depending on the level of consumer involvement. In addition, we proposed managerial implications that marketers need to consider as a whole, for instance, product attributes, brand loyalty, and involvement and then established a differentiated pricing strategy, case by case, in order to effectively enhance consumers' perceived values. As a result, we found that perceived transaction value positively affects perceived acquisition value and when discounting the price of a high-involvement product enhances the consumer's willingness to buy, but perceived acquisition value does not affect the search intentions significantly. In the case of discounting prices of low-involvement products, on the other hand, the perceived transaction value has a positive effect on the willingness to buy, but the negative effect of perceived acquisition value on the search intentions was not significant. We suppose that people doubt a product's quality because of a declined perceived quality derived from a price discount. Even though the price discount enhanced the transaction value, people eventually increased their level of searching for additional product information. From the results of this study, we suggest that marketers ought to establish an appropriate value-enhancing strategy based on the understanding of which perceived value consumers rely on more when they conduct purchasing behavior because consumers perceive the degree of importance of acquisition value or transaction value differently, depending on their level of involvement.

• The Journal of Small Business Innovation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to obtain the implications for establishing a marketing strategy for retailers by analyzing whether the consumer's preference for products (food) is influenced by on-line, off-line, and omni-channel preferences. The research model consisted of the effects of consumers' food selection characteristics on business preference and omni channel preference. The results of analysis based on 477 questionnaires are summarized as follows. First, food purchasing characteristics that utilize the seven characteristics of (1) freshness of food, (2) taste, (3) quality and safety, (4) tasting, (5) food function and information, (6) country of origin, and (7) brand loyalty, has various effects on types of business preference, omni-channel preference. The adopted hypotheses were selected in order of brand loyalty (5 times), freshness (3 times), tasting (3 times), and origin (1 time). The selective attributes on foods are: (1) what kind of brand, (2) how good the freshness is, (3) tasting. (4) The country of origin is to be compressed. Actually consumers seem to utilize only the core selective factors that are appropriate to the characteristics of the distribution channel rather than all of them in the shopping of the food, and there is three characteristics on Convenience Store and only one or two factors in the other types of business. Second, in the analysis of the omni-channel preference analysis, food selection characteristics has been shown to have a limited effect, which is attributed to the fact that the consumer has not yet understood the concept of omni channel. Third, the results of this study suggest that there is a need to reflect the selection characteristics of foods that have diverse influences by business type in the marketing strategies. Because consumers make reasonable consumption to use both on-line and off-line simultaneously, consumers who use Omni Channel focus on quality and safety of food, identify products through tasting, pursue brands that can trust anywhere. Customers who pursue rationality will have a high preference for using Omni Channel. Product choice characteristic has significant effect on omni-channel preference. For a few years, omni-channel strategy of retailers meets with a difficulty. This study make a first attempt to study omni-channel preference changing retailing paradigm.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.26
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• pp.131-156
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• 2012

As the Global Age has arrived, the domain of festivals has expanded to fulfill the role of being not only a tourist attraction but of being a factor that determines the image and identity of cities, and the factor of enhancing the brand value of a particular city is being focused upon. The city of Bucheon, which aims to be a culture oriented city, is attempting to utilize the Bucheon International Comics Festival as a cultural asset for the revitalization of the city. This study has as its purpose the development of an evaluation index model on the brand value of the Bucheon International Comics Festival and research being conducted based on the developed evaluation index model on the awareness level of the citizens of Bucheon of the festival. In regards to this, the theoretical background was examined and the index model was developed based on precedent research. Based on this, a survey of 1,000 citizens of Bucheon was conducted in this study. This study conducted a survey targeting 500 persons, dividing them into 2 groups according to whether they participated in the festival. The survey of this study established 9 evaluation categories for the International Comics Festival evaluation index model which consists of demographic research and participation motivation, value of comics, festival brand awareness and association image, perceived product quality and loyalty for the festival, internationality of the festival and urban activation. Each survey question is composed of 5 points scale measurement. As a result of the survey, 'for an education of children' was the highest for the participation motivation, and 'not knowing of the festival information' was the highest for the reason of not having participated. The industrial value was evaluated as the highest among the value of comics by the both two groups, and it was studied that there was perception gap for the festival according to whether they participated in the festival for each survey question. It was revealed that the level of awareness of the Bucheon International Comics Festival was "normal," the "city revitalization" index and the "value of comics" index were relatively high and the "international character of the festival" index was the lowest. Furthermore, it was shown that there were differences in the awareness of the established categories of the developed evaluation index model based on whether or not there was participation in the festival. This study comprehensively organizes these analytical results and derives implications which can be used as data for the criteria of the development of future strategy for the Bucheon International Comics Festival.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.105-113
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of the hotel using experience on customers' purchase and behavior intention. For this study, a total of 306 questionnaires among collected data for customers who hotel using experience at five star hotels located in Seoul from April 1, 2015 to April 30, 2015 was to ensure a valid sample. As a result of the experiments which conducted by factor analysis and regression analysis, it shows 1% level positive significant effects in purchase and continual purchase intention of "emotional experiencer", "physical experience factor", "continuous experience factor", and "superior experience factor", but it is 10% level significant effects in continual purchase intention positively effected continual purchase intention of "physical experience factor". Also, it shows 1% level positive significant effects on hotel customers' intention of reused, intention of suggestion, intention of recommendation of "emotional experiencer", "physical experience factor", "continuous experience factor", and "superior experience factor". From the study, it is expected to build hotel-customer relationship and brand level of awareness for activating customers' loyalty.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.129-159
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• 2022

This study generated primary data for supporting the place branding as a part of the library advertising and marketing strategies to increase public library visits. The literature review enabled the use of the place branding concepts to discover the relationships among the constituent parts, factors, expected outcomes, and loyalty, then to develop the research model and the hypothesis, which were verified using the Structural Equation Model. There were 34 research hypotheses, of which 21 were adopted. The place image factors such as library reliability, library reciprocity, and library safety were found to be significant. This study derived social contribution value as new place value and place image factors as the potential brand image of public libraries. It helped select the place image factors that best fit the local library's core values (i.e., place value). This study is meaningful because it is a fundamental study to introduce place branding in public libraries as an advertising and marketing strategy. And it is expected that public libraries will grow into high-quality brands with high awareness, loyalty, and secure leadership in the local community.

• Proceedings of the Korean Association for Survey Research Conference
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• 2005.12a
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• pp.187-220
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to analyze supporters' community formation motives/ Process/consumption experiences and community characteristics. For this purpose, this study collected the data using ethnographic interview. participant observation, documents and media reports. The results of this study show that supporters communities' formation and diffusion process were influenced by individual characteristics(e.g., personality, hobby and etc.), community characteristics(e.g.,team performance, star player, facilities and etc.) and external factors(ex: media movement etc.) and supporters have experienced various emotions such as intimacy. cohesion, pride and so on through various activities at on-line and off-line site. Community characteristics were classified into we-ness, rituals/traditions, moral responsibility. We found that we-ness influenced emotional dimensions such as joy, pleasure, fun and excitement. rituals and traditions made members feel passion. hope. love and vitality. and moral responsibility provided satisfaction. enthusiasm anxiety. regret and so on. Also, emotional attachment and brand loyalty were increased by these experiential aspects of community consumption.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.39-49
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• 2013

Purpose - This study attempts to examine the underlying dimensions of service quality (tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) for low-cost carriers. It subsequently seeks to determine the effect of the relationships of the dimensions of service quality, airline image, and behavioral intentions on airline services to provide adequate basic information and attributes for developing differentiated and competitive service marketing strategies. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey for this study was conducted on patrons with low-cost carrier boarding experiences in districts near universities and central businesses of Seoul and Busan from 5/10/2012 to 16/10/2012. Out of 346 questionnaires, 20 questionnaires with missing data and insincere answers were excluded for this study. Collected data were processed using SPSS 18.0, and the hypothesis was verified by analyzing the structural equation model with Lisrel 8.54. First, the frequency analysis was conducted to identify universal characteristics. Second, the exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted to identify the accuracy of the variable measurements of the construct. Third, to assess uni-dimensionality and reliability, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. Finally, to verify the adequacy of the research model and research hypothesis, the structural model was employed. Results - The results revealed that the factors, "tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy" were shown to be the most important dimensions of service quality for the airline image of the low-cost carrier which was consistent with previous studies. Therefore, it is fair to suggest that these verified factors are crucial attributes for the brand image of low-cost carriers. Second, as reliability and responsiveness were shown to be the most important factors for behavioral intentions, it is viable to suggest that these two attributes are crucial for the sales value of low-cost carriers. Further, it was found that the brand image of low-cost carriers was closely related to behavioral intentions. Therefore, in order to ensure the competitiveness and loyalty of patrons, the airline image value is a crucial attribute. Conclusions - The result of this study established that service quality is the most important attribute for marketing to ensure competitiveness, and intensive and differentiated service marketing play a crucial role in creating profits for low-cost carrier companies. First, as tangibility is found to be the most crucial factor in ensuring service quality, quality control and maintenance of medium and small carriers must be provided to ensure reliability, as they are the main attributes of low-cost carriers. Second, in order to promote positive behavioral intentions, it is essential to enhance the value of airline image. Third, in order to ensure competitiveness, it is imperative to carry out intensive and differentiated service marketing. Therefore, to promote the image of low-cost carriers and enhance behavioral intentions, the level of service quality must be secured by developing appropriate service improvement programs.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.35-43
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• 2012

Purpose - The current analysis has been done in order to verify the difference between consumer attitudes on the distributor's PB products in terms of practical shopping value and attitudes about the product according to its perceived quality. Research design, data, and methodology - The target respondents of this study were those who have bought PB products at large-scale discount stores within the past six months. We asked homemakers, office workers, and students who live in Seoul or Daejon to respond to a questionnaire by filling out self-evaluations, and collected the completed questionnaires. To test the hypothesis, a t-test was carried out by group for 25 percent of the high and low rankings, including a quarter of the total respondents, to verify attitudes toward products and brands, purchase satisfaction, and re-purchase intention according to the practical shopping value and recognized quality of PB products. A variance analysis was conducted to see if there were differences among groups in terms of practical shopping value and perceived quality. Scheffe's back testing was used to identify differences between groups. Results - The result of the investigation of consumer attitudes according to practical shopping value is as follows. First, it was verified that consumer attitudes about PB products increase as practical shopping value increases. Second, there was no significant. Third, it was verified that repurchase intentions for PB products get higher as the practical shopping value of the consumer increases. The following is the result of the investigation of consumer attitudes according to the perceived quality of PB products. First, it was verified that the product attitude improves as the perceived quality of PB products increases. Second, the research confirmed that the brand attitude improves as the perceived quality of PB products increases. Third, consumer satisfaction is higher when the perceived quality of PB products is high. Fourth, this study verified that repurchase intentions for PB products are higher as the perceived quality of the product increases. Finally, the results of identifying differences between groups for perceived quality and shopping value are as follows. It was identified that there were differences in shopping value according to the characteristics of the groups. However, perceived quality does not change according to the characteristics of groups. Conclusions - These results have practical implications for the marketing strategy of PB products in order to satisfy consumer demands and provide a differentiated service by the distributor. In addition, it is suggested that a communication strategy may be necessary to increase brand loyalty and ensure the continual growth and value creation of PB products as symbolic products for distributors.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.295-306
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• 2010

The company have get the most out of coupon that is very useful to draw on consumer with sensitive the price, low the br loyalty to induct the direct buying intention. The effect of the coupon is a hard fact to an aid of working out successful strategy by the results that many scholar studied for long time. But the results of research was centered upon examining to influence br image company's sales, gains for guessing exchange action of coupon. Antecedent researches of our country is a lot of coupon combination discount card for drawing on revisiting making new consumer. The purpose of the study is to identify how to influence br familiarity br image into intending purchase revisiting by coupon property. In this study, collage man, worker located in Seoul Kyunggi province were sampled by convenience sampling. As a result, Br familiarity br image affect affirmatively intending purchase revisiting by coupon property.