• Title/Summary/Keyword: life purpose

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Study on the Relationships Among Perceived Shopping Values, Brand Equity, and Store Loyalty of Korean and Chinese Consumers: A Case of Large Discount Store (한국과 중국 소비자의 쇼핑 경험가치 지각과 브랜드자산 및 점포충성도의 관계에 관한 비교 연구: 대형 할인점을 중심으로)

  • Hwang, Soonho;Oh, Jongchul;Yoon, Sungjoon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.209-237
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    • 2012
  • 1. Research Purpose Consumers rely on various clues to evaluate their decision to patronize a retail store, and store brand is one of them (Dodds 1991; Grewal et al. 1998). As consumers find ever increasing variety of contact points connecting them to specific store, the value of experiential shopping as a means of increasing store's brand equity warrants greater attention from scholars of retail management. Retail shopping values are credited for creating not only cognitive experiences like brand knowledge but also emotional experiences such as shopping pleasure and pride (Schmitt 1999). This may be because today's consumers place emphasis on emotional values associated with shopping pleasure, lifestyle brought to life, brand relationship, and store atmosphere more than utilitarian values such as product quality and price. Many previous literature found this to be true (Ahn and Lee 2011; Mathwick et al. 2001). This brings forth important research issues and questions regarding the roles of shopping experiential values and brand equity with regard to consumer's retail patronage choice. However, despite this importance, research on this area remains quite inadequate (Hwang 2010). For this reason, this study aims to verify the relationships among experiential shopping values, retail store brand equity and tries to link that with customer loyalty by surveying large-scale discount store shoppers in Korea and China. 2. Research Contents In order to carry out the research objective, this study conducted comprehensive literature survey on previous literature by discussing major findings and implications with regard to shopping values and retail brand equity and store loyalty. For data collection, researcher employed survey-based research method where data were collected in two major cities of Korea (Seoul) and China (Bejing) and sampling frame was based on patrons of large discount stores in both countries. Specific research questions raised in this study are as follows; RQ1: How do Korean and Chinese consumers differently perceive of shopping values regarding shopping at large-sclae discount stores? RQ2: Are there differences in consumers' emotional consumption propensities? RQ3: Do Korean and Chinese consumers display different perceptions of brand equity towards large-scale discount stores? RQ4: Are there differences in relationships between shopping values and brand equity for Korean and Chinese consumers? For statistical analysis, SPSS17.0, AMOS17.0 and SmartPLS were employed. 3. Research Results The data collected through face-to-face survey conducted in Seoul and Bejing revealed appropriate data validity and reliability as a result of exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis and reliability tests, andh SEM model yielding satisfactory model fitness. The result of the study may be summarized by three main points. First, as a result of testing differences in consumption dispositions, Chinese consumers showed higher scores in aesthetic and symbolic dispositions, whereas Korean consumers scored higher in hedonic disposition. Second, testing on perceptions toward brand equity of large discount stores showed that Korean consumers exhibited more positive perceptions of brand awareness and brand image than Chinese counterparts. Third, the result of exploratory factor analysis on the experiential shopping values revealed different factors for each country. On Korean side, consumer interest value, aesthetic value, and hedonic value were prominent, whereas on Chinese side, hedonic value, aesthetic value, consumer interest value, and service excellence value were found salient. 4. Research Implications While many previous studies on inter-country differences in retailing area mainly focused on cultural dispositions or orientations to explain the differences, this study sets itself apart by specifically targeting individual consumer's shopping values from an experiential viewpoint. The study result provides important theoretical as well as practical implications for large-scale discount store, especially the impotance of fully exploring the linkage between shopping values and brand equity, which has significant influence on loyalty. Therefore, the specific implications deriving from the result shed some important insights upon the consumption values based on shopping experiences and brand equity. The differences found in store shoppers between the two countries may also provide useful insights for Korean and Chinese retailers who plan to expand their operations globally. Related strategic implications derived from this study is the importance of localizing retail strategy which is based on the differences found in experiential shopping values between the two country groups. Especially the finding that Chinese consumers value consumer interest and service excellence, whereas Koreans place importance on hedonic or aesthetic values indicates the need to differentiate the consumer's psychographical profiles when it comes to expanding retail operations globally. Particularly important will be to pursue price-orienated strategy in China in consideration of the high emphasis on consumer interests and service excellence, but to emphasize the symbolic aspects of brand equity in Korea by maximizing the brand equity associated with aesthetic values and hedonic orientations. 5. Recommendations This study focused on generic retail branded discount stores in both countries, thus making it difficult to tease out store-specific strategies based on specific retail brands. Future studies may benefit fro employing actual brand names in survey questionnaire to verify relationship between shopping values and brand-based store strategy. As with other studies of this nature, this study needs to strengthen the result's generalizability by selecting respondents from a wider spectrum of respondents.

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A Study on the Visions of Zechariah in the Old Testament from a Perspective of Analytical Psychology (구약성서 '스가랴'서의 환상에 대한 분석심리학적 연구)

  • Sang Ick Han
    • Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.1-45
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    • 2014
  • Mystic experience such as seeing an vision could be explained as experiencing elusive and mysterious unique existence in religious way. In depth psychology, which is based on unconsciousness like analytical psychology, this could be explained as a something that gives a meaning of life and purpose through discovering health and healing. The importance of primodial experience in depth psychology is that it can possibly discover the base of present acts. In Christian theology, symbolic mystery and truth of religious experience that appear in Christian tradition have interest on human situation. These two fields' approach methods are different, but both show common interest on unique experience which can be said properly as raw experience. Various visions appear in many parts of the Bible. Among many visions, the book of Zechariah, one of the 12 Prophets, describes rich and diverse 8 visions through chapter 1 to chapter 8. However, due to the Genre of revelation, it lacks historicity, and because of vagueness and symbolic meanings, its visions are hard to understand and interpret. Theologically, visions of Zechariah show communality of Israelites by reconstructing kingdom of Judah and church in a way of historical circumstances. Though, these visions could deliver the meaning of an ethnical aspect as reporting continuous conversation between the God and humans. Furthermore, it could mean a personal aspect of the Prophet Zechariah as reaching for a opportunity of new change. Moreover, those who read these visions could try to interpret the meanings of various images which represent meeting mysterious existences. Therefore, the Author would concentrate on the fact that 8 visions in the book of Zechariah, which has not been received much attention to neither Christians nor non-believers, develop in chiastic structure (stylistic contrast), so that tries to interpret the first, second, seventh, and the eighth visions in analytic psychology way. In visions of Zechariah, excepting the 4th vision which probably was inserted later, rest of 7 visions each shows the stage of the hours of darkness. 1st to 3rd visions represent evening, 5th vision represents deep in the night, and 6th to 8th visions represent dawn to morning. Moreover, since structure of visions arranged in chiastic way, horse appears in 1st and 8th vision, measuring rope and measure tools are used as main motif in 2nd and 7th vision. However, same motifs could have different symbolic meanings and roles as visions are formed in different situations and conditions. In the first vision, angels who ride horses look around the world and report it is calm and peaceful. Concerning the political situation back in the day, the world being calm and peaceful in the beginning of evening means that it is not ready to change to a whole new world. Psychologically, if there is no readiness to adopt new world, it means being hopeless. It is sending you a message to get out of those kinds of situation. Moreover, appearance of four angels who rode red, brown, and white horses to a myrtus tree in the valley means that it is time for individuation and it is right and good timing for changing. In second vision, you will be able to see that Israelites had long years being caught in the shadows by foreign country, and long years succumbed by the strength of four horns, which shows the progress of renewing strength and being oneness with oneself from overwhelmed situation by paternity. In seventh vision, meaning of two women bringing the godness of the sky, who were locked up in a rice basket, back to the temple in Babylon is going towards in a level of Self-actualization by separating one's ego captured excessively by matherhood and putting back to a place where it was before. In eighth vision, chariots pulled by horses are scattered far and wide, and horses which went to north had rest in the land of North. After horses and chariots are seen between two mountains of bronze with the image of Self and anima/animus. These images can be explained as the changing progress are almost completed and the God and human, in other words Self and ego are being united and is now time for rest. All of 8 visions contains the conversation between angel and Zechariah who willing to know the meaning of visions. Zechariah asks the angel actively about the meaning of visions because of his wish for Israelites to return home and rebuild church. Conversation among the God, Zechariah, who asks questions until he knows everything, an Angel, who gives answer to given questions, is conversation between ego and anima/animus. Eventually, it is a conversation between Self and ego.

An Interpretation of the Folktale 'the Servant Who Ruined the Master's House' from the Perspective of Analytical Psychology: Centering on the Trickster Archetype (민담 '주인집을 망하게 한 하인'의 분석심리학적 이해: 트릭스터 원형을 중심으로)

  • Myoungsun Roh
    • Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.184-254
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    • 2022
  • Through this thesis, the psychological meaning of the Korean folktale 'the servant who ruined the master's house' was examined. The opposition between the master and the servant is a universal matter of the human psychology. It can be seen as a conflict between the hardened existing collective consciousness and the new consciousness to compensate for and renew it. From different angles, it has become the opposition between man's spiritual and instinctive aspects, between the conscious and the unconscious, or between the ego and the shadow. In the folktale, the master tries several times to get rid of the youngest servant, but the servant uses tricks and wits to steal food, a horse, the youngest sister, and all money from the master, and finally, take his life. It ends with the marriage of the youngest sister and the servant. Enantiodromia, in which the master dies, and the servant becomes the new master, can be seen that the old collective consciousness is destroyed, and the new consciousness that has risen from the collective unconscious takes the dominant position. In an individual's psychological situation, it can be seen that the existing attitude of the ego is dissolved and transformed into a new attitude. In the middle of the story, the servant marries the youngest sister by exploiting naive people to rewrite the back letter written by the master to kill him. This aspect can be understood negatively in the moral concept of collective consciousness, but it can also be seen as a process of integrating mental elements that have been ignored in the collective consciousness of the Joseon Dynasty, symbolized by a woman, a honey seller, and a hungry Buddhist monk. The new consciousness, represented by the servant, has the characteristics of a trickster that is not bound by the existing frame, so it can encompass the psychological elements that have been ignored in the collective consciousness. Such element may represent compensation or an alternative to the collective consciousness in the late Joseon Dynasty. The master puts the servant in a leather bag and hangs it on a tree to kill the servant. However, the servant deceives a blind man; he opened his eyes while hanged. Instead of the servant, the blind man dies, and the servant is freed. As the problem of the conflict between master and servant is finally entrusted to the whole spirit (Self) symbolized by a tree, the blind man gets removed. It can be understood as an intention of the Self to distinguish and purify the elements of recklessness, stupidity, and greed included in the trickster. Through these processes, the servant, which symbolizes a new change in collective consciousness or a new attitude of ego, solves the existing problems and takes the place of the master. While listening to the cunning servant's performance, the audience feels a sense of joy and liberation. At the same time, in the part where the blind man and the master's family die instead and the servant becomes the master, they experience feelings of fear and concern about the danger and uncontrollability of the servant. The tricksters appearing in foreign analogies are also thoroughly selfish and make innocent beings deceive or die in order to satisfy their desires and escape from danger. Efforts to punish or reform these tricksters are futile and they run away. Therefore, this folktale can also be seen as having a purpose and meaning to let us know that this archetypal shadow is very dangerous and that consciousness cannot control or assimilate it, but only awe and contemplate it. Trickster is an irrational manifestation of revivifying natural energy that rises from the unconscious as a compensation for hardened existing structure and order. The phenomenon may be destructive and immoral from the standpoint of the existing collective mind, but it should be seen as a function of the collective unconscious, a more fundamental psychic function that cannot be morally defined. The servant, a figure of the trickster archetype, is a being that brings transformation and has the duality and contradiction of destructiveness and creativity. The endings of this folktale's analogies are diverse, reflecting the diversified response of the audience's mind due to the ambivalence of the trickster, and also suggesting various responses toward the problem of the trickster from the unconscious. It also shows that the trickster is a problem of inconclusive and controversial contradictions that cannot be controlled with a conscious rational attitude, and that we can only seriously contemplate the trickster archetype within us.