• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.115-127
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is, first, to identify consumption behavior regarding well-being foods of the present and the future; and second, to discover well-being food-related information consumers require and information sources they use most frequently during the purchase of well-being foods in order to enhance reasonable decision-making and satisfaction during the selection of well-being foods. This study conducted research on university students using questionnaires from March 10 to March 20, 2007, and a total of 323 copies are employed for the final analysis. The key findings include the following. 1. University students answered that they would commit to active well-being food-buying consumer behavior more in the future than the present. 2. They requested information about quality and price from the information concerning well-being foods the most. Also, consumers most wanted to obtain well-being-related information on the Internet. 3. Regarding the needs for well-being food-related information, the more highly they thought of well-being foods, the more they acquired existing well-being-related information. Furthermore, the more they would be active in well-being food consumption behavior in the future, the higher their needs for information were.

• 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 Poultry Science
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.219-228
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• 2018

This study was conducted twice to investigate egg purchase behavior and perception on animal welfare of Korean consumers. This study included women, who were the main decision makers and caretakers in the household, and men with one-person household. This survey was conducted with by the Computer Assisted Web Interview and Gang Survey methods. On the key considerations factor, the highest response rate was considered to be 'price', and the response rate of considering 'packing date' increased in the second survey. At a reasonable price based on 10 eggs, the response rate was the highest at 53.8% and 42.9% in both the first and second surveys and the appropriate price averages were 2,482 won and 2,132 won, respectively. The highest rate of purchase of egg consumers from 'Large Mart' followed by 'Medium sized supermarket' and 'Chain supermarket'. As for the awareness about animal welfare, the recognition ratio (73.5%) was higher in the result of the second survey than the first. The cognitive period of animal welfare was 59.0% before the insecticide egg crisis and 41.0% thereafter. Regarding whether or not they have ever seen an animal welfare certification mark and an animal welfare animal farm certification mark, 59.6% of respondents said that they saw it for the first time and 37.6% answered that they knew the animal welfare certification mark. On the animal welfare system, the 'free-range' response rate was the highest at 85.8%. The 'free-range' fit response decreased by 34.2%p, while the 'barn' and 'European type' fit response increased by 13.2%p and 24.1%p, respectively. The number of 'I have never seen' and 'I have ever eaten' responses to the recognition and eating experience of animal welfare certified eggs decreased while the number of those who answered 'Have ever seen' and 'Have eaten' increased. The answer of purchasing animal welfare certified eggs at department stores, organic farming cooperatives, and internet shopping malls was higher than that of buying conventional eggs. Of the total respondents, 92.0% were willing to purchase an animal welfare egg before the price was offered, but after offering the prices of animal welfare eggs, the intention to purchase was 62.7%, which was about 30%p lower than before. The reason for purchasing an animal welfare certified egg was the highest score of 71.0% for 'I think it is likely to be high in food safety', and 38.1% for 'I think the price is high' for lack of intention to purchase. In the sensory evaluation of animal welfare eggs, egg color and skin texture of conventional eggs were significantly higher than those of certified welfare eggs (P<0.05), and boiled eggs showed that egg whites of animal welfare certified eggs were more (P<0.05). As a result, the results of this study will contribute to the activation of the animal welfare certification system for laying hens by providing basic data on consumer awareness to animal welfare certified farmers.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.5
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• pp.119-168
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• 1978

This is a survey of the reserved book system in the pilot universities in Korea. We have surveyed only 22 university libraries among 29 pilot schools as of 1977, because of the differences in the library users, library organization, library facilities, and library materials between universities and colleges. In 1972, the Korean Ministry of Education developed a reformation plan for their higher education based on the teaching method of curriculum-oriented faculty instead of that of the faculty-oriented curriculum. The former puts emphasis on the cultivation of a student's thinking, creativity, and judgement through self-teaching to do a given assignment. The reserved book system in a college or university library is one of the most important methods necessary to accomplish the above educational aim. The survey used a questionnaire with 50 question on 28 items concerning the various aspects of the reserved book system in 22 pilot universities. the survey result discovered many problems needing correction. The following list describes the measures needed to correct the problems found in the pilot universities. 1. The management of a centralized reserved book system is much more effective and economical than the decentralized reserved book system when a university is located on the same campus. 2. In the university library, an independent reserved book department requires to gain the desired educational aims as compared with the reserved book room controlled by any other department in the library. 3. The reserved book system should not be adopted by all the departments at once but enlarged gradually, for it needs the understanding and support of faculty members and the university itself. 4. As competence is essential to the effective operation of the reserved book room, the university library should not place an unqualified person in charge of the reserved book department. 5. The librarian in charge of the reserved book department is required to do more professional works such as analysis of users, collection and analysis of syllabuses, maintenance of faculty member cooperation, establishment of measures to acquire unavailable materials, and drawing up an effective management plan. However, he is spending most of his time in clerical works, that is, non-professional works. 6. Three to five titles of each reserved book are considered reasonable and required materials should be shelved in proportion to the number of students, that is, one copy per eight or ten students if the materials are allowed to lend for two hours at a time. For the supplementary materials, the library needs to place two or three copies per subject. 7. Professors must select reserved books with care so that they can be used year after year. 8. Few universities are asking professors the number of class students and the date when the reserved material will no longer be needed on reserve. 9. The library should gather all the lists of reserved books from every professor at least three to five months before the courses open, because it takes a long time to obtain foreign materials. 10. It is desirable that the reserved book department should collect the lists and prepare the materials with promptness and consistency. 11. Instead of block buying, it is desirable to purchase reserved books at the time the library gets the reserved book list from the professors. The library should also inform faculty members whether it obtained each reserved book or not before the course open. 12. The library should make a copy of materials if a professor requires to reserve an out-of-print book or partial contents of a book, journal, and thesis. 13. An independent budger for reserved books from the budget for general materials is desired. 14. The shelf arrangement of reserved books by courses or professors under the same department is much more preferable than a classified arrangement. 15. While most of the universities adopted the open shelves system for all the reserved books, it is more effective and economical to take a compromise system, that is, closed shelves for requires materials and open shelves for supplementary materials. 18. Circulation of reserved books needs a different system between required materials and supplementary materials: two or three hours and/or overnight loan for the former and two and/or three days loan for the latter. 17. A reserved book room should be open a long time after class so that students can have sufficient time to use the room. 18. The library must take daily and monthly statistic as well as statistics on every aspect of the reserved book system in order that the library ma decide on policy and management of the reserved book room in collaboration with the university. Furthermore, regular reports on the use of the reserved book room should be made to the president and the executive council by the library to acquire their understanding and cooperation for the reserved book system. 19. Cooperation of faculty members is indispensable to the effective management of the reserved book department and it is desirable to make a committee which will fix various decisions about the system. Whenever the director of the library make his decision, he must consult with his staff in order to involve them earnestly in the operation of the system.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.