• Human Ecology Research
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.27-44
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• 2017

In our society, consumers and enterprises work in cooperation for the continuous development and growth of society as well as construct effective and ethical measures. One of the representative examples are customercentered management activities in corporations, social responsibility activities, and sustainable ethical consumption that show consideration for the consumer's environment. The ethical consumption behavior of consumers becomes a virtuous circle that influences other consumer's ethical decision making by creating an ethical consumption culture. Furthermore, the cost and effort to solve non-ethical consumption problems can be solved. This research aims at aspiring the perception of consumer's ethical consumption and finding measures to increase ethical behavior. This paper further investigated the consumer's ethical consumption behavior, personality traits, perception of consumption society, and ethical judgements. For the research, a structured survey was conducted on 300 university students in Seoul. SPSS ver. 21.0 and AMOS ver. 18.0 programs were used for statistical data analysis. The results indicated differences in variables that influence consumer's ethical consumption behavior (fair trade, boycotts, and environmentally friendly products). In particular, it was evident that ethical judgements (such as the agent, personality traits, and perception consumption society) have different direct and non-direct influences on ethical consumption behavior. Strengthening the management of factors that influence measures that increase university student's ethical consumption behavior in direct and non-direct ways, providing education and improving information are believed effective in increasing ethical consumption behavior.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.58-72
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• 2022

Fishery products play an important role in Korean food culture, and awareness of the safety of fishery products is increasing in the seafood market. Against this backdrop, Japan has announced a plan to release radioactive water to the sea from 2023. In the case of Korea, it is adjacent to the area to be discharged, so there are concerns about securing the safety of marine products. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the change in perception and impact of marine product consumers due to the discharge of contaminated water and to study appropriate countermeasures when discharging contaminated water from nuclear power plants. In this study, the current status of radioactive contaminated water discharge in Japan was summarized, and a survey was conducted on the change in the consumption perception of marine products according to the discharge of contaminated water to analyze the factors affecting the consumption change of domestic consumers. According to the survey, 85.3% of the respondents said that it will affect the purchase of domestic marine products if Japan starts discharging contaminated water from nuclear power plants. Moreover, 85.5% of the respondents said it will affect the purchase of imported marine products.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.209-223
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• 2020

This study examined consumers' perceived anxiety regarding how safe the clothing and lifestyle products are as well as influencing factors. Data was collected using a self-ministered online survey of 1,126 adult consumers. The results of this study showed that consumer anxiety about chemicals and hygiene product safety had a greater impact on the anxiety perception of general safety than clothing and beauty products. It was confirmed that the reliability of information source (government agency, mass media, expert group, and internet community/blog) varies depending on the level of consumers' overall safety anxiety. The study also found the effect of consumers' subjective perception of health on safety anxiety about clothing and lifestyle products. Further, the moderating effect of age in the research model was confirmed. This result can be a useful guide to marketing communication for developing consumer safety-related policies to reduce consumer anxiety. The information will also help consumers make informed decisions that lead to safe and sustainable consumption.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.362-377
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• 2017

This study examined the relationship between country-of-brand-origin perception and brand equity elements among Korean and Chinese male consumers. It also examined if there were differences between the two national consumers in the effect of country-of-brand-origin on brand evaluation. We analyzed survey responses from 414 Korean men and 393 Chinese men in their 20s-30s. Country-of-brand-origin perception was found positively related to brand awareness and brand image for both Korean and Chinese men in each group that selected domestic or foreign country-of-brand-origin. The results revealed a positive relationship between brand attitude and brand awareness as well as brand image for the two national consumers in each country-of-brand-origin selection group. The results indicated differences in the influence of brand image on brand attitude between these two male consumers in the group that selected the domestic country-of-brand-origin. The results also support the hypothesis on differences in the effect of country-of-brand-origin as well as brand evaluation between male consumers in the group that selected foreign country-of-brand-origin. This study has significant implications for fashion marketers, particularly when building brand equity by revealing country-of-brand-origin.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.53-67
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• 2009

For the last decades, service quality has been studied as one of the most important tools for a service company to compete with the other companies. Based on these past researches, it has been agreed that the service quality is a basic and powerful tool to create the competitive advantage. Due to similar reason, many service marketing practitioners have been also focused on the service quality to retain the existing consumers and collect the new consumers. However, service quality is subjectively perceived by individual consumers. Consumer evaluation of service quality can be different from each other. Especially consumers with one life-style may evaluate the service quality differently from the consumers with the other life-styles. Therefore we need to know whether there are differences in service quality perception on the categories of life-style. Life-style refers to a distinctive mode of living in its aggregate and broadest sense. It embodies the patterns that were developed and emerged from the dynamics of living in a society. Since the concept of life-style and its relationship to marketing was introduced in 1963 by William Lazer, methods of measuring the life-style and their application have been developed. Life-style has been usually used to segment the marketplace because it offers marketers a unique and important view of the market. When Life-style is combined with clustering methods, life-style segmentation can generate identifiable whole persons rather than isolated fragment. Life-style segmentation begins with people instead of products and classifies them into different life-style types, each characterized by a unique style of living based on a wide range of activities, interests, and opinions(Plummer, 1974). In this study we applies the life-style segmentation based on the AIO(Activities, Interests, and Opinions) to the consumers of the large discount stores. In Korea, the large discount store market has entered into maturity stage so that the market differentiation strategy is becoming a more critical issue to the marketing practitioners. One of the most important tools to differentiate from the competitors in large discount store market is continuously to provide service of better quality than competitors. This study tries to find answers about the following questions: 1) How can we categorize the consumer life-styles in the large discount store? 2) What are the characteristics of the categorized groups? 3) Are there any differences in service quality perception among the consumers with different life-styles 4) Are there any differences in consumer behavior among them in the large discount store? For the purpose, we collected survey data from consumers and analyzed the data with the SPSS package where we had $X^2$-test, factor analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, and cluster analysis. The survey was made during one month in the April of 2008. Among the collected 306 copies of questionnaires, 281 copies were chosen as the effective samples for empirical analysis except 25 copies with wrong responses. To identify the life-style patterns, we used the measures employed by Kim and Kwon(1999), where 44 items on a seven-point scale were used to measure factors of the life-style patterns. The Principal Component Method was used for factor extraction, and the VARIMAX orthogonal factor rotation was employed. The 7 items showing low factor loading were eliminated. The results of the factor analysis suggested that nine factors of the life-style patterns were identified as follows: 1) the equality-of-sexes and pursuit-of-independence tendency 2) self-management tendency 3) sociable tendency 4) self-display tendency 5) degree of a dilettante life 6) pursuit-of-information tendency 7) bargain hunter tendency 8) TV preference tendency 9) pursuit-of-leisure tendency. Next, after the K-means cluster analysis was performed with nine factors of the life-style patterns, the life-styles of the respondents were classified into four groups which are named as the 'progressive practicality-oriented group', 'positive success-oriented group', 'sociable ostentation-oriented group', 'stable conservation-oriented group'. The analysis results for usage behavior between the market segments showed statistically significant differences in the frequency of usage, duration time in the store, consumer satisfaction, and loyalty. Also, we tried to investigate whether the large discount store consumers differently perceive the quality of service based upon the types of life-style. To measure the service quality of large discount store, we adapted several measurement models measuring the service quality such as SERVPERF, BCP, R-SERVPERF, R-BCP. MANOVA and One-Way ANOVA were performed to confirm the difference in service quality perception based on the market segments. The results have also shown significant differences between life-style types in service quality perception. These findings show that the large discount store marketers should consider consumer life-style as one of the most important market segments for marketing and understand the difference in service quality perception between life-style types. Our findings give important implications to marketers of large discount stores as well as life-style researchers. First, this study showed there were significant differences in consumer's service quality perception and usage behavior between the types of life-style. It provides evidence that the life-style approach can be a important basis in segmenting the large discount store market and will make consumers perceive the service quality high. Second, most previous researches on service quality have been in aggregate level. However, our results imply that the future research on service quality have to focus on segment level.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.191-198
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• 2015

The domestic housing paradigm has changed from quantitative growth to qualitative growth, and demands for pleasant living environment and meeting basic living conditions have increased due to increased living standards of the people. In a related move, the Ministry of land, Infrastructure and Transport introduced "long-life housing construction standards" in the Article 21 paragraph 6 of the Housing Act through a revision of the Housing Act in December 2014, devised detailed criteria and enforced the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, titled "long-life housing construction certification standards" which require long-life housing certification in construction of apartment houses that accommodate more than 1,000 households. In this regard, A survey of consumers was conducted to collect opinions about consumers' perception and requirements regarding long-life housing, and thus to promote long-life housing and improve certification system criteria. The general public who wish to purchase housing were selected as the subjects for the present study, and the survey was conducted at the site of apartment house PR hall in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do as of January 2015. The result of this study is an opinion survey of long-life housing consumers. For future work, additional research is needed to establish legal standards and devise support systems, along with technology development for long-life housing.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.77-87
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• 2015

Purpose - This study aims to investigate the current state of distribution terminology usage by retailers and consumers nationwide, and to suggest a practical improvement plan for its standardization. The Korean distribution industry is closely related to consumers' daily lives. However, in reality, there exists a gap among producers, distributors, and consumers in terms of the definition, understanding, and perception of the terminology. Therefore, standardizing this terminology is essential for more smooth communication. This paper suggests the necessity of committing overall research and survey activities to the actual conditions of using Korean distribution terminology by organizations and their respective management situations, and further, the necessity of probing the problem and its measures in line with the objective and mission of the "Fundamental Law of the Korean Language." Research design, data, and methodology - This study's scope is limited to wholesale and retail including some information systems. First, the study covers most written material including lexicons and glossary of distribution terminology, university textbooks and teaching material for national certificate of qualification, and related laws and ordinances. Second, the survey covers retailers' management situations by store format. The retailers used as the sample for the survey include department stores, discount stores, SSM, and convenience stores. Altogether, 20 specialists were interviewed in their respective sectors or retail formats. Finally, the project team surveyed a sample of 1,300 consumers nationwide on 50 distribution terms mainly used by consumers, including those about awareness, understanding, usage, and attitude. Results - In total, 1,249 terms are drawn through literature research including distribution terminology used in the related literature, glossary and lexicons, distribution terminology in textbooks, and legal terminology. A classified table comprises four large categories including general distribution, distribution marketing, distribution information, and merchandise. The results of the three-step research including literature survey, field survey of retailers, and consumer survey were advised to be screened by academia (retail associations, faculty etc.), retailers (major retail management by store format), retail specialists and consultants, consumers, and Korean linguists. In total, 1,300 questionnaires for 50 terms of the distribution terminology closely associated with consumers were distributed to subjects nationwide. Conclusions - The desired and expected results from this study are summarized from three perspectives as follows: First, from retailers' perspective, a new concept, or coinage of new terms of the distribution industry stems from advanced countries such as America and Europe. However, the original meaning and definition are diluted and distorted with changes in the language users' situations and context. This study provides basic guidelines for standardization of distribution terms used among various retail formats in most daily life situations that consumers encounter. Second, from the nation's perspective, this study suggests optimal choices of distribution terminology in the context of laws and ordinances regarding concerned Ministries. Last, from the consumers' perspective, this paper enables consumers to understand and use distribution terms properly in their daily life.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.15-25
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• 1993

This article studied on price dispersion of food market in Kwangju. Both item and market basket price dispersion were surveyed, and this price dispersion was compared with the perceptive price dispersion. This survey was conducted from April. 8.1992 to 22. On findings, price dispersion is very big in item and market basket. Most Consumers' perception was inaccurate and typically underestimated. This findings suggest that consumers are victims of contributors to informally imperfect markets.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.81-93
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• 2015

Purpose - "Showrooming" refers to the phenomenon where a shopper visits a store to see and compare products but makes the purchase online at a lower price. Surveys on showrooming activities at home and abroad indicate that a significant number of consumers pursue showrooming activities. The advent of "showroomers," who engage in buying activities, hovering both on and offline, while selectively choosing sales channels to suit their needs, is powerful enough to erode the borders between channels and bring about seismic changes in the distribution industry. However, surprisingly, there has been no in-depth discussion on showrooming. This study seeks to theoretically investigate what impact personal characteristics have on showrooming preferences and attitudes in a multi-channel environment. Specifically, assumptions have been made that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping not only have a direct impact on showrooming attitudes but also indirectly affect it through the means of contact motivation. Research design, data, and methodology - To test the hypotheses, this study conducted a survey of male and female shoppers, ages 20 through 40s, who live in metropolitan areas, and have actively showroomed fashion items in the last six months. A clothing item usually purchased after a careful decision-making process was chosen as the target product of the study. The survey was conducted between October and November 2014, using a professional survey service provider. A total of 200 surveys were collected, of which 198 were used for analysis. Conceptual model Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Amos 18.0 were employed for data analysis and model verification. In addition, following the confirmatory factor analysis and measurement model analysis, the theoretical model that corresponds to the research model was analyzed. Results - Analysis results show that price perception, perceived performance risk, and trust in online shopping have a statistically significant and positive (+) impact on showrooming attitudes. In addition, in terms of the indirect influence of price perception and perceived performance risk on showrooming attitudes through means of contact motivation, price perception had a statistically significant and positive impact on means of contact motivation, whereas perceived performance risk did not have a statistically significant impact on it, with the relevant hypothesis rejected. Conclusions - These analysis results imply that the ultimate goal of consumers is to maximize their shopping benefits by selectively and strategically taking advantage of different channels in a complementary manner. This study presents many implications for distributors to encourage a deep understanding of showrooming consumers who have complicated consumption behaviors and to build channel integration strategies. This study has limitations in theoretical and practical implications. Therefore, subsequent studies need to focus on verifying that showrooming activities are based on reasonable and planned decisions by applying the theory of reasoned or planned behavior. In addition, the scope of the study should expand to include web showrooming, where consumers conduct product research online and purchase offline.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.139-146
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• 2006

Objectives: Bio-equivalence(BE) test is important not only to ensure the quality of generic drugs, but also to promote drug substitution under the separation of prescribing and dispensing practice(SPD). This study was intended to investigate the perception of consumers, doctors, and pharmacists on the confidence of bio-equivalence(BE) assured drugs. Methods: Nation-wide telephone interview survey was conducted for 1,018 consumers, 800 doctors, and 806 pharmacists from September to October in 2003. Descriptive analysis and ${\chi}^2$ analysis were conducted. Results: Even though people showed higher confidence level for the Bioequivalent drugs compared with Bio-inequivalent drugs, the confidence was generally low. Among those asked about the therapeutic substitutability of original drugs by BE versions, 95.78% of pharmacists responded "positive", while only 39.33% of consumers and 31.13% of doctors said so. The elderly, the less educated, who takes chronic disease medicine, pays high cost of prescription drugs, and are in the low income responded less aware of that. Also most consumers got information such as effect of drugs from either media or doctors. Conclusions: In order for people to believe that BE drugs and original drugs are equivalent, we need to strengthen health education, and to clarify any misunderstanding. It is also necessary for the national policy to provide accurate information about drugs to the public.