• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.1-31
• /
• 2008

Trust is central to human relationships, at all times and places. The importance of trust is fundamental in all areas of human life, not only in the area of business administration. 2,500 years ago in China, Confucius taught that the foundation of politics was the trust of the people, more important even than military strength or the supply of food. Shakespeare's play, "Much Ado about Nothing' is about trust and deception. These days, trust and transparency in a commercial organization's business culture form the basis of the 'social capital' by which that organization increases its productivity. A successful company raises productivity by the accumulation of social capital, derived from a trust relationship between business partners, and between the company and consumers. Trust is the crucial factor. At the national level, building trust determines a nation's competitiveness. For a company, long term trust relationships with customers are essential for its survival in a business environment of rapid change. Such relationships, based on trust, are important assets to ensure a company's competitive advantage, and need to be organic to that company's business culture. Because of this importance, trust relationships have been studied in diverse areas within business administration, and especially within marketing, where they form the basis of a successful relationship between producer and consumer. However, what has been lacking is a unified definition of trust. Research has been conducted on the basis of various definitions and models. The majority of researchers have not considered the multidimensional character of the concept of trust until now. Approaches based on a one dimensional model have undermined the value of research results. Furthermore, researchers have only considered trust and trustworthiness as a single component. The majority of research has explored the consequences of perceived trust for outcomes such as loyalty or cooperation, but has neglected the effects of trustworthiness upon the mechanisms of consumer trust. This study focuses on the dimension of trust from such a perspective. It seeks to verify the effect of trust on customer intentions by breaking it down into three separate components: 1) the salesperson, 2) the product/service, and 3) the company. The purposes of this paper are as follows: Firstly, we review the multidimensional nature of trust objects: the salesperson, the product/service, and the company. Secondly, we analyze the relationship between multidimensional trust and trustworthiness. Thirdly, we analyze the connection between trust and repeat purchase intentions for the maintenance of long term relationships. For these purposes the author has developed several hypotheses as follows: H1-1: The competence of a salesperson is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the salesperson. H1-2: The benevolence of a salesperson is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the salesperson. H2-1: The competence of product/service is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the product/service. H2-2: The benevolence of product/service is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the product/service. H3-1: The reputation of a company is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the company. H3-2: The physical environment of a company is positively associated with the trust given by the consumer to the company. H4-1: Trust in a salesperson is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. H4-2: Trust in a product/service is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. H4-3: Trust in a company is positively associated with repeat purchase intentions. The data was compiled from 366 questionnaires. 500 questionnaires were collected, but some of the data was considered unsuitable and inappropriate. The subjects of the survey were male and female customers purchasing products at department stores in Seoul, Daegu and Gyeongbuk. It was carried out between Oct. 25 and 29, 2007. The data was analyzed by frequency analysis using SPSS 12.0 and structural equation modeling using LISREL 8.7. The result of the overall model analysis is as follows: Chi-Square=445.497, d.f.=185, p-value=0.0, GFI=.901, RMSEA=.0617, NNFI=.986, NFI=.981, CFI=.989, AGFI=.864, RMR=.0872. The results of the overall model analysis were coherent. It was found that trust is a multi-dimensional construct, that each of the dimensions of trust are meaningful influences on customer's repurchase intention. Trust in a company may be the most relevant, while trust in a product/service and a salesperson may be less relevant to repurchase intentions. The effective factors in determining trust in a salesperson and a company's product/service were found to be competence and benevolence. Factors in determining trust in a company were its reputation and physical environment, and the relationship of each effective trust factor has been verified in this research. As a result, it was found that competence and benevolence have a meaningful influence on trust in a salesperson and in product/service. It was also found that a company's reputation influences the overall trust in the company significantly but a company's physical environment does not have much effect.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.53-84
• /
• 2013

With rapid development of ICT (Information and Communications Technology), new services by the convergence of mobile network and application technology began to appear. Today, smart phone with new ICT convergence network capabilities is exceedingly popular and very useful as a new tool for the development of business opportunities. Previous studies based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) suggested critical factors, which should be considered for acquiring new customers and maintaining existing users in smart phone market. However, they had a limitation to focus on technology acceptance, not value based approach. Prior studies on customer's adoption of electronic utilities like smart phone product showed that the antecedents such as the perceived benefit and the perceived sacrifice could explain the causality between what is perceived and what is acquired over diverse contexts. So, this research conceptualizes perceived value as a trade-off between perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice, and we need to research the perceived value to grasp user's continuous intention to use of smart phone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structured relationship between benefit (quality, usefulness, playfulness) and sacrifice (technicality, cost, security risk) of smart phone users, perceived value, and continuous intention to use. In addition, this study intends to analyze the differences between two subgroups of smart phone users by the degree of personal innovativeness. Personal innovativeness could help us to understand the moderating effect between how perceptions are formed and continuous intention to use smart phone. This study conducted survey through e-mail, direct mail, and interview with smart phone users. Empirical analysis based on 330 respondents was conducted in order to test the hypotheses. First, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived usefulness among three factors of perceived benefit has the highest positive impact on perceived value, and then followed by perceived playfulness and perceived quality. Second, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived cost among three factors of perceived sacrifice has significantly negative impact on perceived value, however, technicality and security risk have no significant impact on perceived value. Also, the result of hypotheses testing showed that perceived value has significant direct impact on continuous intention to use of smart phone. In this regard, marketing managers of smart phone company should pay more attention to improve task efficiency and performance of smart phone, including rate systems of smart phone. Additionally, to test the moderating effect of personal innovativeness, this research conducted multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users. In a group with high level of innovativeness, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived playfulness was the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result of the group with high level of innovativeness explains that innovators and early adopters are able to cope with higher level of cost and risk, and they expect to develop more positive intentions toward higher performance through the use of an innovation. Also, hedonic behavior in the case of the group with low level of innovativeness aims to provide self-fulfilling value to the users, in contrast to utilitarian perspective, which aims to provide instrumental value to the users. However, with regard to perceived sacrifice, both groups in general showed negative impact on perceived value. Also, the group with high level of innovativeness had less overall negative impact on perceived value compared to the group with low level of innovativeness across all factors. In both group with high level of innovativeness and with low level of innovativeness, perceived cost has the highest negative influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, the analysis for a group with high level of innovativeness showed that perceived technicality was the positive factor to influence perceived value than others. However, the analysis for a group with low level of innovativeness showed that perceived security risk was the second high negative factor to influence perceived value than others. Unlike previous studies, this study focuses on influencing factors on continuous intention to use of smart phone, rather than considering initial purchase and adoption of smart phone. First, perceived value, which was used to identify user's adoption behavior, has a mediating effect among perceived benefit, perceived sacrifice, and continuous intention to use smart phone. Second, perceived usefulness has the highest positive influence on perceived value, while perceived cost has significant negative influence on perceived value. Third, perceived value, like prior studies, has high level of positive influence on continuous intention to use smart phone. Fourth, in multi-group analysis by the degree of personal innovativeness of smart phone users, perceived usefulness, in a group with high level of innovativeness, has the highest positive influence on perceived value than other factors. Instead, perceived playfulness, in a group with low level of innovativeness, has the highest positive factor to influence perceived value than others. This result shows that early adopters intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their job useful, instead market followers intend to adopt smart phone as a tool to make their time enjoyable. In terms of marketing strategy for smart phone company, marketing managers should pay more attention to identify their customers' lifetime value by the phase of smart phone adoption, as well as to understand their behavior intention to accept the risk and uncertainty positively. The academic contribution of this study primarily is to employ the VAM (Value-based Adoption Model) as a conceptual foundation, compared to TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) used widely by previous studies. VAM is useful for understanding continuous intention to use smart phone in comparison with TAM as a new IT utility by individual adoption. Perceived value dominantly influences continuous intention to use smart phone. The results of this study justify our research model adoption on each antecedent of perceived value as a benefit and a sacrifice component. While TAM could be widely used in user acceptance of new technology, it has a limitation to explain the new IT adoption like smart phone, because of customer behavior intention to choose the value of the object. In terms of theoretical approach, this study provides theoretical contribution to the development, design, and marketing of smart phone. The practical contribution of this study is to suggest useful decision alternatives concerned to marketing strategy formulation for acquiring and retaining long-term customers related to smart phone business. Since potential customers are interested in both benefit and sacrifice when evaluating the value of smart phone, marketing managers in smart phone company has to put more effort into creating customer's value of low sacrifice and high benefit so that customers will continuously have higher adoption on smart phone. Especially, this study shows that innovators and early adopters with high level of innovativeness have higher adoption than market followers with low level of innovativeness, in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived cost. To formulate marketing strategy for smart phone diffusion, marketing managers have to pay more attention to identify not only their customers' benefit and sacrifice components but also their customers' lifetime value to adopt smart phone.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.211-226
• /
• 2023

As we transition into the post-COVID era, economic activities that were stagnant are regaining momentum. In particular, there is a growing trend of technology entrepreneurship driven by the opportunities of digital transformation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. However, entrepreneurship education content is struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. This study aims to emphasize the importance of entrepreneurship mentoring as a crucial component of entrepreneurship education content that requires adaptation and advancement due to the increasing demand for technology entrepreneurship. This study redefines startup mentoring, which is differentiated from general mentoring, at the present time when the demand for startups, which increases with the declining employment rate, increases, and the development of quality startup education contents and securing professional startup mentors are required. According to the start-up stage, it is divided into preliminary entrepreneurs and early entrepreneurs, and the effect of entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy among start-up mentoring functions on entrepreneurial will and mentoring satisfaction is improved by empirically researching the effects of start-up mentoring functions in the case of initial entrepreneurs as a moderating effect. To confirm the importance of entrepreneurship mentoring effect for. To this end, among the mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were set as independent variables, and entrepreneurial will and mentoring satisfaction were set as dependent variables. The research model was designed and hypotheses were established. In addition, empirical analysis was conducted by conducting a questionnaire survey on trainees who received entrepreneurship mentoring education at ICCE Startup School and Opus Startup School. To summarize the results of the empirical analysis, first, among the entrepreneurship mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were analyzed to have a significant positive (+) effect on entrepreneurial will. Second, among the entrepreneurship mentoring functions, entrepreneurship knowledge and self-efficacy were analyzed to have a significant positive (+) effect on mentoring satisfaction. Third, it was analyzed that entrepreneurship had no significant moderating effect on entrepreneurial knowledge and entrepreneurial will. Fourth, it was analyzed that entrepreneurship had no significant moderating effect on mentoring satisfaction. Fifth, it was found that entrepreneurship had a significant moderating effect between self-efficacy and will to start a business. As a result of the research analysis, the first implication is that the mentoring function in start-up education is analyzed to produce meaningful results for both the initial entrepreneurs and the prospective entrepreneurs in the will to start a business and satisfaction. . Second, it was analyzed that there was no significant relationship between whether a business was started and the mentoring function and effect. However, it was analyzed that the will to start a business through improvement of self-efficacy through mentoring was significantly related to whether or not to start a business. turned out to be helpful. Many start-up education programs currently conducted in Korea educate both early-stage entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs at the same time for reasons such as convenience. However, through the results of this study, even in small-scale entrepreneurship mentoring, it is suggested that customized mentoring through detailed classification such as whether the mentee has started a business can be a method for successful entrepreneurship and high satisfaction of the mentee.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.13-40
• /
• 1972

Much has teed changed in the field of hospital administration in the It wake of the rapid development of sciences, techniques ana systematic hospital management. However, we still have a long way to go in organization, in the quality of hospital employees and hospital equipment and facilities, and in financial support in order to achieve proper hospital management. The above factors greatly effect the ability of hospitals to fulfill their obligation in patient care and nursing services. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal methods of standardization and quality nursing so as to improve present nursing services through investigations and analyses of various problems concerning nursing administration. This study has been undertaken during the six month period from October 1971 to March 1972. The 41 comprehensive hospitals have been selected iron amongst the 139 in the whole country. These have been categorized according-to the specific purposes of their establishment, such as 7 university hospitals, 18 national or public hospitals, 12 religious hospitals and 4 enterprise ones. The following conclusions have been acquired thus far from information obtained through interviews with nursing directors who are in charge of the nursing administration in each hospital, and further investigations concerning the purposes of establishment, the organization, personnel arrangements, working conditions, practices of service, and budgets of the nursing service department. 1. The nursing administration along with its activities in this country has been uncritical1y adopted from that of the developed countries. It is necessary for us to re-establish a new medical and nursing system which is adequate for our social environments through continuous study and research. 2. The survey shows that the 7 university hospitals were chiefly concerned with education, medical care and research; the 18 national or public hospitals with medical care, public health and charity work; the 2 religious hospitals with medical care, charity and missionary works; and the 4 enterprise hospitals with public health, medical care and charity works. In general, the main purposes of the hospitals were those of charity organizations in the pursuit of medical care, education and public benefits. 3. The survey shows that in general hospital facilities rate 64 per cent and medical care 60 per-cent against a 100 per cent optimum basis in accordance with the medical treatment law and approved criteria for training hospitals. In these respects, university hospitals have achieved the highest standards, followed by religious ones, enterprise ones, and national or public ones in that order. 4. The ages of nursing directors range from 30 to 50. The level of education achieved by most of the directors is that of graduation from a nursing technical high school and a three year nursing junior college; a very few have graduated from college or have taken graduate courses. 5. As for the career tenure of nurses in the hospitals: one-third of the nurses, or 38 per cent, have worked less than one year; those in the category of one year to two represent 24 pet cent. This means that a total of 62 per cent of the career nurses have been practicing their profession for less than two years. Career nurses with over 5 years experience number only 16 per cent: therefore the efficiency of nursing services has been rated very low. 6. As for the standard of education of the nurses: 62 per cent of them have taken a three year course of nursing in junior colleges, and 22 per cent in nursing technical high schools. College graduate nurses come up to only 15 per cent; and those with graduate course only 0.4 per cent. This indicates that most of the nurses are front nursing technical high schools and three year nursing junior colleges. Accordingly, it is advisable that nursing services be divided according to their functions, such as professional, technical nurses and nurse's aides. 7. The survey also shows that the purpose of nursing service administration in the hospitals has been regulated in writing in 74 per cent of the hospitals and not regulated in writing in 26 per cent of the hospitals. The general purposes of nursing are as follows: patient care, assistance in medical care and education. The main purpose of these nursing services is to establish proper operational and personnel management which focus on in-service education. 8. The nursing service departments belong to the medical departments in almost 60 per cent of the hospitals. Even though the nursing service department is formally separated, about 24 per cent of the hospitals regard it as a functional unit in the medical department. Only 5 per cent of the hospitals keep the department as a separate one. To the contrary, approximately 12 per cent of the hospitals have not established a nursing service department at all but surbodinate it to the other department. In this respect, it is required that a new hospital organization be made to acknowledge the independent function of the nursing department. In 76 per cent of the hospitals they have advisory committees under the nursing department, such as a dormitory self·regulating committee, an in-service education committee and a nursing procedure and policy committee. 9. Personnel arrangement and working conditions of nurses 1) The ratio of nurses to patients is as follows: In university hospitals, 1 to 2.9 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 4.0 for out-patients; in religious hospitals, 1 to 2.3 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 5.4 for out-patients. Grouped together this indicates that one nurse covers 2.2 hospitalized patients and 4.3 out-patients on a daily basis. The current medical treatment law stipulates that one nurse should care for 2.5 hospitalized patients or 30.0 out-patients. Therefore the statistics indicate that nursing services are being peformed with an insufficient number of nurses to cover out-patients. The current law concerns the minimum number of nurses and disregards the required number of nurses for operation rooms, recovery rooms, delivery rooms, new-born baby rooms, central supply rooms and emergency rooms. Accordingly, tile medical treatment law has been requested to be amended. 2) The ratio of doctors to nurses: In university hospitals, the ratio is 1 to 1.1; in national of public hospitals, 1 to 0.8; in religious hospitals 1 to 0.5; and in private hospitals 1 to 0.7. The average ratio is 1 to 0.8; generally the ideal ratio is 3 to 1. Since the number of doctors working in hospitals has been recently increasing, the nursing services have consequently teen overloaded, sacrificing the services to the patients. 3) The ratio of nurses to clerical staff is 1 to 0.4. However, the ideal ratio is 5 to 1, that is, 1 to 0.2. This means that clerical personnel far outnumber the nursing staff. 4) The ratio of nurses to nurse's-aides; The average 2.5 to 1 indicates that most of the nursing service are delegated to nurse's-aides owing to the shortage of registered nurses. This is the main cause of the deterioration in the quality of nursing services. It is a real problem in the guest for better nursing services that certain hospitals employ a disproportionate number of nurse's-aides in order to meet financial requirements. 5) As for the working conditions, most of hospitals employ a three-shift day with 8 hours of duty each. However, certain hospitals still use two shifts a day. 6) As for the working environment, most of the hospitals lack welfare and hygienic facilities. 7) The salary basis is the highest in the private university hospitals, with enterprise hospitals next and religious hospitals and national or public ones lowest. 8) Method of employment is made through paper screening, and further that the appointment of nurses is conditional upon the favorable opinion of the nursing directors. 9) The unemployment ratio for one year in 1971 averaged 29 per cent. The reasons for unemployment indicate that the highest is because of marriage up to 40 per cent, and next is because of overseas employment. This high unemployment ratio further causes the deterioration of efficiency in nursing services and supplementary activities. The hospital authorities concerned should take this matter into a jeep consideration in order to reduce unemployment. 10) The importance of in-service education is well recognized and established. 1% has been noted that on the-job nurses. training has been most active, with nursing directors taking charge of the orientation programs of newly employed nurses. However, it is most necessary that a comprehensive study be made of instructors, contents and methods of education with a separate section for in-service education. 10. Nursing services'activities 1) Division of services and job descriptions are urgently required. 81 per rent of the hospitals keep written regulations of services in accordance with nursing service manuals. 19 per cent of the hospitals do not keep written regulations. Most of hospitals delegate to the nursing directors or certain supervisors the power of stipulating service regulations. In 21 per cent of the total hospitals they have policy committees, standardization committees and advisory committees to proceed with the stipulation of regulations. 2) Approximately 81 per cent of the hospitals have service channels in which directors, supervisors, head nurses and staff nurses perform their appropriate services according to the service plans and make up the service reports. In approximately 19 per cent of the hospitals the staff perform their nursing services without utilizing the above channels. 3) In the performance of nursing services, a ward manual is considered the most important one to be utilized in about 32 percent of hospitals. 25 per cent of hospitals indicate they use a kardex; 17 per cent use ward-rounding, and others take advantage of work sheets or coordination with other departments through conferences. 4) In about 78 per cent of hospitals they have records which indicate the status of personnel, and in 22 per cent they have not. 5) It has been advised that morale among nurses may be increased, ensuring more efficient services, by their being able to exchange opinions and views with each other. 6) The satisfactory performance of nursing services rely on the following factors to the degree indicated: approximately 32 per cent to the systematic nursing activities and services; 27 per cent to the head nurses ability for nursing diagnosis; 22 per cent to an effective supervisory system; 16 per cent to the hospital facilities and proper supply, and 3 per cent to effective in·service education. This means that nurses, supervisors, head nurses and directors play the most important roles in the performance of nursing services. 11. About 87 per cent of the hospitals do not have separate budgets for their nursing departments, and only 13 per cent of the hospitals have separate budgets. It is recommended that the planning and execution of the nursing administration be delegated to the pertinent administrators in order to bring about improved proved performances and activities in nursing services.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.77-93
• /
• 2011

Since 2000, the employment rate of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has dwindled while the creation of new jobs and the emergence of healthy SMEs have been stagnant. The fundamental reason for these symptoms is that the economic structure is disadvantageous to SMEs. In particular, the greater gap between SMEs and large enterprises has resulted in polarization, and the resulting imbalance has become the largest obstacle to improving SMEs' competitiveness. For example, the total productivity has continued to drop, and the average productivity of SMEs is now merely 30% of that of large enterprises, and the average wage of SMEs' employees is only 53% of that of large enterprises. Along with polarization, rapid industrialization has also caused anti-enterprise consensus, the collapse of the middle class, hostility towards establishments, and other aftereffects. The general consensus is that unless these problems are solved, South Korea will not become an advanced country. Especially, South Korea is now facing issues that need urgent measures, such as the decline of its economic growth, the worsening distribution of profits, and the increased external volatility. Recognizing such negative trends, the MB administration proposed a win-win growth policy and recently introduced a new national value called "ecosystemic development." As the terms in such policy agenda are similar, however, the conceptual differences among such terms must first be fully understood. Therefore, in this study, the concepts of win-win growth policy and ecosystemic development, and the need for them, were surveyed, and their differences from and similarities with other policy concepts like win-win cooperation and symbiotic development were examined. Based on the results of the survey and examination, the study introduced a South Korean model of win-win growth, targeting the promotion of a sound balance between large enterprises and SMEs and an innovative ecosystem, and finally, proposing future policy tasks. Win-win growth is not an academic term but a policy term. Thus, it is less advisable to give a theoretical definition of it than to understand its concept based on its objective and method as a policy. The core of the MB administration's win-win growth policy is the creation of a partnership between key economic subjects such as large enterprises and SMEs based on each subject's differentiated capacity, and such economic subjects' joint promotion of growth opportunities. Its objective is to contribute to the establishment of an advanced capitalistic system by securing the sustainability of the South Korean economy. Such win-win growth policy includes three core concepts. The first concept, ecosystem, is that win-win growth should be understood from the viewpoint of an industrial ecosystem and should be pursued by overcoming the issues of specific enterprises. An enterprise is not an independent entity but a social entity, meaning it exists in relationship with the society (Drucker, 2011). The second concept, balance, points to the fact that an effort should be made to establish a systemic and social infrastructure for a healthy balance in the industry. The social system and infrastructure should be established in such a way as to create a balance between short- term needs and long-term sustainability, between freedom and responsibility, and between profitability and social obligations. Finally, the third concept is the behavioral change of economic entities. The win-win growth policy is not merely about simple transactional relationships or determining reasonable prices but more about the need for a behavior change on the part of economic entities, without which the objectives of the policy cannot be achieved. Various advanced countries have developed different win-win growth models based on their respective cultures and economic-development stages. Japan, whose culture is characterized by a relatively high level of group-centered trust, has developed a productivity improvement model based on such culture, whereas the U.S., which has a highly developed system of market capitalism, has developed a system that instigates or promotes market-oriented technological innovation. Unlike Japan or the U.S., Europe, a late starter, has not fully developed a trust-based culture or market capitalism and thus often uses a policy-led model based on which the government leads the improvement of productivity and promotes technological innovation. By modeling successful cases from these advanced countries, South Korea can establish its unique win-win growth system. For this, it needs to determine the method and tasks that suit its circumstances by examining the prerequisites for its success as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each advanced country. This paper proposes a South Korean model of win-win growth, whose objective is to upgrade the country's low-trust-level-based industrial structure, in which large enterprises and SMEs depend only on independent survival strategies, to a high-trust-level-based social ecosystem, in which large enterprises and SMEs develop a cooperative relationship as partners. Based on this objective, the model proposes the establishment of a sound balance of systems and infrastructure between large enterprises and SMEs, and to form a crenovative social ecosystem. The South Korean model of win-win growth consists of three axes: utilization of the South Koreans' potential, which creates community-oriented energy; fusion-style improvement of various control and self-regulated systems for establishing a high-trust-level-oriented social infrastructure; and behavioral change on the part of enterprises in terms of putting an end to their unfair business activities and promoting future-oriented cooperative relationships. This system will establish a dynamic industrial ecosystem that will generate creative energy and will thus contribute to the realization of a sustainable economy in the 21st century. The South Korean model of win-win growth should pursue community-based self-regulation, which promotes the power of efficiency and competition that is fundamentally being pursued by capitalism while at the same time seeking the value of society and community. Already existing in Korea's traditional roots, such objectives have become the bases of the Shinbaram culture, characterized by the South Koreans' spontaneity, creativity, and optimism. In the process of a community's gradual improvement of its rules and procedures, the trust among the community members increases, and the "social capital" that guarantees the successful control of shared resources can be established (Ostrom, 2010). This basic ideal can help reduce the gap between large enterprises and SMEs, alleviating the South Koreans' victim mentality in the face of competition and the open-door policy, and creating crenovative corporate competitiveness. The win-win growth policy emerged for the purpose of addressing the polarization and imbalance structure resulting from the evolution of 21st-century capitalism. It simultaneously pursues efficiency and fairness on one hand and economic and community values on the other, and aims to foster efficient interaction between the market and the government. This policy, however, is also evolving. The win-win growth policy can be considered an extension of the win-win cooperation that the past 'Participatory Government' promoted at the enterprise management level to the level of systems and culture. Also, the ecosystemic development agendum that has recently emerged is a further extension that has been presented as a national ideal of "a new development model that promotes the co-advancement of environmental conservation, growth, economic development, social integration, and national and individual development."

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.141-173
• /
• 2007

The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.