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- P-ISSN1738-3110
- E-ISSN2093-7717
- SCOPUS, ESCI
ISSN : 1738-3110
Vol.9 No.3
Abstract
One of the new roles of modern retail stores is to supply consumers with a memorable experience. In Korea, enhancing a store's environment so that customers remember a unique shopping experience is recognized as a sound strategy for strengthening the store's competitiveness. Motivated by this incentive, awareness of the experience-store concept is starting to increase in various categories of the retail industry. However, many experience stores, except in a few cases, have yet to derive a significant profit, explaining why Korean consumers are somewhat unfamiliar with, yet fascinated by, the experience stores that now exist in the country. Consumer satisfaction directly, and indirectly, affects a company's future profit and potential financial gain; customer satisfaction also affects loyalty. Therefore, knowing the significant factors that increase satisfaction and loyalty is essential for any company, in any field, to be able to effectively differentiate itself from the competition. Intrigued by increased competition opportunities, most Korean companies have adopted experience-store marketing strategies. When establishing the most effective processes for increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage of a new concept, companies should consider certain factors that influence consumers' ability to accept new concepts and ideas. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a theory that models how people accept new concepts. TAM proposes the following two factors that influence a person's decisions about how, and when, he or she will use a new product: "perceived usefulness" and "perceived ease of use." Much of the existing research has suggested that a person's character also affects the process for accepting new ideas. Such personal character attributes as individual preferences, self-confidence, and a person's values, traits, and/or skills affect the process for willingly consenting to try something new. It will be meaningful to establish how the TAM theory's components, as well as personal character, affect individuals accepting the experience-store concept. To that end, as it pertains to an experience store, the first goal of the study is to examine the influence of innovative factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) on satisfaction and loyalty. The second objective is to define the moderate effect of consumers' personal characteristics on the model. The proposed model was tested on 149 respondents who were engaged in leisure sports activities and bought sports outdoor garments and equipment. According to the study's findings, the satisfaction and loyalty of an experience store can be explained by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, with the study's results demonstrating the stronger of the two factors being "perceived ease of use." The study failed to explain the effects of a person's character on the model. In conclusion, when the companies that operate the experience stores execute their marketing and promotion strategies, they should stress the stores' "ease of use" product components. Additionally, it can be extrapolated from the study data that since the experience-store idea is still relatively unfamiliar to Korean consumers, most customers are not yet able to evaluate, nor take a position regarding, their respective attitudes toward experience stores.
Abstract
This study examined the effects educational service elements have on the satisfaction of educational service; it also analyzed how such satisfaction influenced educational institutions' registration renewal and word-of-mouth communications about the schools. The key factors of educational services included the following four components: physical environment, education programs, instructors, and tuition fee. An investigation into how the factors of educational services in private educational institutions may affect consumer satisfaction was an additional goal of this study. Based on the cause-and-effect analysis of the above constructs, the degree of influence that each of the attributes and the component factors have on consumers' educational service selection, as well as the consumers' satisfaction, were explored. An empirical analysis was conducted on students who were taking classes in cram schools; the analysis was also conducted on the students' parents. The results indicated that the hypotheses regarding the elements of educational service, educational program, and the instructor factor were supported. Furthermore, a hypothesis concerning the effects educational service satisfaction has on re-registration and word of mouth was supported, as well. Upon aggregating the above study results, it was concluded that when determining the effects of satisfaction on educational service, the educational program, and the instructor factor played a crucial role, while physical surroundings and tuition did not. When addressing the influence of the educational services factors on educational services satisfaction, education programs and instructors had a positive effect, whereas physical environment and tuition fee had no statistically significant impact. According to the influence of educational services satisfaction on registration renewal and word-of-mouth effects, educational services satisfaction was found to be a positive influential factor for both. In addition, it was found that satisfaction of educational service had a positive effect on renewing enrollment and forming word-of-mouth recommendations. Although the research seems simple, some theoretical implications can be drawn, as follows: First, one interpretation of the findings that the programs' and instructors' factors had a positive effect on educational services satisfaction but the physical environment and tuition fee factors did not have a significant effect suggests that the greatest influence factors in educational services are educational programs and instructors. Second, increased educational services satisfaction may result in consumer behavior changing, resulting in more registration renewals and more favorable word-of-mouth comments. Third, increased educational services satisfaction may result in enhancing consumer responses, resulting in more registration renewals and more favorable word-of-mouth opinions. Further research directions should include developing an integrated model that will allow for variation over time, before and after purchases, in relation to consumers' choices of educational services.
Abstract
Owing to the rapid growth of hypermarket/discount store formats since 1996, Korean retailing has suddenly attracted the significant attention from researchers. Before the emergence of large scale retailers such as E-Mart, Lotte Mart and Tesco Korea, there were the two retail formats who led the Korean retailing in the modern retailing history: department store and supermarket formats. Nevertheless, there has been little literature concerned about the two retail formats as a case study, while some authors have paid their attention to hypermarket/discount store formats. In addition, when mentioning the development process of retailing history, it is less likely that authors have made an effort to illustrate supermarket retailing history. In order to regard supermarket retailing as part of the Korean retailing, it is interesting to look at a representative supermarket retailer, Haitai, who was one of the subsidiaries of Haitai chaebol. Based on supermarket retailing, the company which was established as a joint venture in 1974 led a supermarket retailing in the Korean modernised retailing history. Before analysing whether Haitai failed or not, the definition of failure should be illustrated. With regard to the term, failure, in the academic world, authors have interchangeably used the following terms: failure, divestment, closure, organisational restructuring, and exit. To collect research data as a case study, the author adopted an in-depth interview method. The research is based on research interviews with 13 ex-staff who left after Haitai went bankruptcy, from store management department to merchandise department. By investigating Haitai's experiences through field interviews, the research found that Haitai restructured organisational decision-making process at the early stage when companies started to modernise organisational charts, benchmarking sophisticated retailing knowledge through the strategic alliance with a Japanese retailer. In respect of buying system, the company established firmly buying functions by adopting central buying system, and further, outstandingly allocated considerable marketing resources to the development of retailer brands with the dedicated team of retailer brand development. In the grocery retailing, abandoning a 'no-frill' packaging concept, the introduction of retailer brand packaging equal to, or better than national brand packaging design, encouraged other retailers to change their retailer brand development strategies. In product sourcing ways, Haitai organised for the first time the overseas sourcing team with the aim of improving the profit margins of foreign products and providing exotic products for customers, followed by other retailers. Regarding distribution system, the company introduced the innovative idea which delivered products ordered by stores directly to each store withboth its own vehicles and its own warehouse in which could deal with dry foods, chilly foods, frozen food, and non-foods, and even, process produce. In addition, Haitai developed many promotional methods to attract more customers like 'the guarantee of the lowest price', and expanded its own business to US in 1996, although withdrew, because of bankruptcy in 1997. Together with POS introduction in 1994, Haitai made a significant contribution to the development of the Korean retailing, influencing other retailers in many aspects. As a case study, the study has provided a number of lessons from Haitai's experiences for academicians and practitioners, suggesting that its history should be involved in the Korean modernised retailing.
Abstract
Since the Korean retail industry was made accessible to the big conglomerates and foreign retail companies, local traditional markets have faced serious problems. To sustain the local traditional markets' survival, the Korean government established various remedial policies for addressing, and many scholars published articles to suggest how to find solutions to, the problem. Unfortunately, the results have not been satisfactory. The purpose of this study is to find another way to help the Korean traditional retail market, from the view point of the Green Growth Policy, an initiative designed to address environmentally balanced economic growth in Korea. In order to survive and to maintain sustainable growth, it is incumbent upon retailers in the traditional market to understand the concept of the Green Growth Policy. A survey was conducted as a means of testing the degree of awareness of the Green Growth Policy, as well as determining the relationship between the degree of awareness and the degree of organizational commitment by the retailers in the local traditional markets. Interestingly, we were able to detect some of the features (e.g., they were distinguished by the elderly and the young, as well as low level of education and high level of education) in the traditional market retailers' demographic characteristics. We utilized the analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical method to simultaneously compare the differences in retailers' demographic characteristics; the results were as follows: Overall, the results showed that the awareness of the Green Growth Policy, the degree of trust in the government's policy, levels of self-efficacy, and levels of organizational commitment were higher with the older traditional market retailers than the younger traditional market retailers. Specifically, the degree of trust in government policies (F=9.964,p < .05), levels of self-efficacy (F=5.532,p < .05), and levels of organizational commitment (F=5.697,p < .05) were statistically significant. Moreover, in the portion of the study that addressed the difference between education levels, all the variables were averaged in the higher education category of the traditional market retailers. Specifically, awareness levels of the Green Growth Policy (F=8.564,p < .005) and levels of self-efficacy (F=6.754,p < .005) were statistically significant. These results revealed that the traditional market retailers' demographic characteristics should be considered important factors in order to realize their policy. The results of the study showed the following: 1) The degree of awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy was statistically significant as it related to traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. 2) The degree of trust of the government's policy was significantly moderated between the awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy and the traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. This result demonstrates that the traditional market retailers' awareness of the government's Green Growth Policy will show more organizational commitment with higher levels of trust of the government's policy. 3) It also revealed that traditional market retailers' self-efficacy was fully mediated between the awareness of the Green Growth Policy of the government and traditional market retailers' organizational commitment. The results suggest that the government should show an interest in showing traditional market retailers how to enhance their traditional markets. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.
Abstract
This paper presents exploratory research on consumer awareness and attitudesabout organic food, for which consumer demand continues to increase the paper also assesses consumers' organic food distribution channel preferences. By conducting a literature review, a case study has been carried out in order to glean customer behavior, market condition and typesof distribution channels, and development of specialty stores for organic foods. The early research indicates that consumer awareness and customer attitudes toward organic food are mostly positive however, organic food's high price, as well as a lack of organic food stores, cause a negative effect on consumers' purchase intention. Secondly, the U.S. organic food retail channel consists of such mainstream supermarket/grocery stores and leading natural and organic food supermarket chains as Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Sunflower Farmers Market. For the current retail distribution of organic food in Korea, off-line stores are composed of direct management stores and franchise chains. Most of the organic food retail distribution operates through the Internet shopping mall, and are commonly located at retail distribution centers as multi-channel, shop-in-shop stores. Moreover, unlike in the U.S., association and consumers' cooperatives (Co-Ops), and such other member-direct retail stores as Hansallim, iCOOP, Nature Dream,and online shopping malls, are all active in Korea. Thirdly, as a result of an analysis of the present state of the organic food retail channel, as well as building a case for organic food specialty stores, the distinctive featuresand rapid growth of such unique organic food stores as Whole Foods Market, or Trader Joe's successful downsizing strategies, as well as Sunflower Farmers Market low-price approach, show steady industry growth. Moreover, as a result of a case studyof such domestic representative organic food specialty stores as "Olga" and "Chorokmaeul," a similar management style to the United States' "Whole Foods Market" and "Trader Joe's," respectively, can be seen. Similar to the U.S. market, Korean organic food markets should also implement active retail distribution opportunities, allowing consumers to select from various diverse and differentiated choices. In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to prepare such measures as sustaining reasonable prices, securing various suppliers for unique products,and improving consumer trust through advertisement strategies that are suitable for each company's branding processes.
Abstract
This study is important in its focus to find key clues in the marketing strategy, consumer behavior, and communication processes that define the infantile obesity market. The study, the first of its kind, surveyed a target audience, purchasing group, and housewives in their quest to determine purchasing decisions and effective branding strategy planning for the infantile obesity market. Another key component of the study was to focus on the key direct and/or indirect distribution channels for the subject market. Recently, obesity has emerged as a major social concern; some studies show that the onslaught of an adverse eating culture in Korea emanates from the prevalence of fast-food dining establishments. Obesity among children leads to adult obesity, especially if the young people's parents are overweight; notably, if either one or both of the parents are obese, the percentage of young people eventually being obese is approximately 80 to 85 percent. Because obesity is the cause of many major health concerns later in life, the struggle for a healthy life is considerably adversely affected by parents' consumer behavior. Infantile obesity, resulting in adult obesity, is also an important national economic and social issue. The sizable direct and indirect economic costs, as well as the tremendous social costs of obesity, cannot be overstated. Effective food branding and advertising centered on food preferences and dietary behaviors, especially to children, creates an effective marketing effort that, ultimately, leads to positive results. Thus, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the treatment of childhood obesity in Korea, through the activation of a brand and retail market, can effectively solve social and economic problems that result from infantile and childhood obesity. In this study, obesity markets and distribution channels in the purchase decision-making factors determining factor based on it effective inspection and branding strategies and brand marketing communications strategy proposed measures contribute to the obesity drug market and further enable the childhood obesity problem is intended to assist in solving.
Abstract
There is a growing concerns for startups and management issues in the small business sector. In the Korean unique condition, female-owned small business seemed to play a crucial role in stimulating domestic demands and replacements for workforce reductions in the time of reduced birth rates and export-driven economy. Despite importance of female-owned small businesses, domestic statistics about female small businesses are not well recognized and defined. To design the current entrepreneurship training programs for female entrepreneurs more female-friendly, we need to improve overall environments surrounding training systems. We can classify the environmental improvement for women-friendly entrepreneurship training into three types as follows: First, it is needed to conduct regular surveys on difficulties female entrepreneurs may have. To develop a program for women-friendly entrepreneurship training, extensive and thorough survey is required for entrepreneurship training goals. To design women-friendly entrepreneurship training for women entrepreneurs henceforth, preliminary surveys should be carried out to detect problems within the course of the program and women's expectation regarding entrepreneurship training. Second environmental improvement is to overcome the lack of information on entrepreneurship training for women. Difficulties that women entrepreneurs experience are different from their counterparts, male. Last is about overcoming the lack of follow-up management after opening a business. To surmount the issue, we need to organize a management improvement consulting systems focused on female entrepreneurs. Establishing networks connecting female businesses should be the most urgent measure. With this regard, if follow-up services for female entrepreneurs are provided for at least three years from the time a business is opened, it may produce even more desirable results.
Abstract
This study presents an effective and distinctive marketing strategy through the implementation of the aesthetic art marketing communication technique of storytelling. The reason applying art to marketing is effective is that it gives "class" and aesthetic beauty to the brand's image, which will lead to an increase in revenue and loyalty of consumers. The story stands in for the brand's subject of "desire." Luxury brand customers not only consume high-quality products, require the utmost in service, and value of the brand, they also appreciate the story the brand is telling. The story, combined with art, is called art marketing communication; it makes the brand more unique through its enhanced visual elements. The study discusses art collaboration, art exhibition, a transforming architecture project, art advertisement, a flagship store, and a human resource training center. Based on the "desire," I adopted the element and principle of storytelling. By visualizing the brand with a symbol, the company is able to relate to consumers' sentimentality. Through storytelling art marketing communication, and the strategy using relevance of brand and artist's popularity, the research shows efficient art marketing influences to the brand's image. The results of the research indicate that by using adequate art marketing communication that best reflects the identity and story of the luxury brand, it produces great results; the research also demonstrated, in various ways, that art marketing will succeed. The case showed the following outcomes. First, consumers have a tendency to choose a brand that is associated with an empathizing story. World renowned brands see through the market's "desires" for unique stories, and they also provide the ability to amuse consumers. The story in a product will become an important competitive element in future markets. Second, the art marketing communication applying a story rendered a brand with distinction. The most effective art marketing communications are art collaboration, art exhibition, locomotive architecture project, and others that are adopted as various means. Third, the brand's products were considered as an art piece, which led to not only strengthening the loyalty of consumers but also an increase in sales. In addition, the company could sustain a premium price for the goods sold. By adapting art to a brand's tradition, an innovative and creative new product provides consumer satisfaction, and producing goods in limited editions creates enthusiastic collectors. Fourth, this study suggests an abridged report, implication, limitation of the study, and directions for further research. Referring to the case for the adaptation of luxury brands, efficient art marketing strategies considering Korean company brand and efficiently study preceding Korean company brand art marketing strategy could be proposed.
Abstract
Most domestic companies, with the exclusion of major firms, are reluctant to implement a supply chain management (SCM) network into their operations. Most small- and medium-sized enterprises are not even aware of SCM. Due to the inherent total-systems efficiency of SCM, it coordinates domestic manufacturers, subcontractors, distributors, and physical distributors and cuts down on cost of inventory control, as well as demand management. Furthermore, a lack of SCM causes a decrease in competitiveness for domestic companies. The reason lies in the fundamentality of SCM, which is the characteristic of information sharing, process innovation throughout SCM, and the vast range of problems the SCM management tool is able to address. This study suggests the contemplation and reformation of the current SCM situation by analyzing the SCM strategic plan, discourses and logical discussions on the topic, and a successful case for adapting SCM; hence, the study plans to productively "process" SCM. First, it is necessary to contemplate the theoretical background of SCM before discussing how to successfully process SCM. I will describe the concept and background of SCM in Chapter 2, with a definition of SCM, types of SCM promotional activities, fields of SCM, necessity of applying SCM, and the effects of SCM. All of the defects in currently processing SCM will be introduced in Chapter 3. Discussion items include the following: the Bullwhip Effect; the breakdown in supply chain and sales networks due to e-business; the issue that even though the key to a successful SCM is cooperation between the production and distribution company, during the process of SCM, the companies, many times, put their profits first, resulting in a possible defect in demands estimation. Furthermore, the problems of processing SCM in a domestic distribution-production company concern Information Technology; for example, the new system introduced to the company is not compatible with the pre-existing document architecture. Second, for effective management, distribution and production companies should cooperate and enhance their partnership in the aspect of the corporation; however, in reality, this seldom occurs. Third, in the aspect of the work process, introducing SCM could provoke corporations during the integration of the distribution-production process. Fourth, to increase the achievement of the SCM strategy process, they need to set up a cross-functional team; however, many times, business partners lack the cooperation and business-information sharing tools necessary to effect the transition to SCM. Chapter 4 will address an SCM strategic plan and a case study of LG Electronics. The purpose of the strategic plan, strategic plans for types of business, adopting SCM in a distribution company, and the global supply chain process of LG Electronics will be introduced. The conclusion of the study is located in Chapter 5, which addresses the issue of the fierce competition that companies currently face in the global market environment and their increased investment in SCM, in order to better cope with short product life cycle and high customer expectations. The SCM management system has evolved through the adaptation of improved information, communication, and transportation technologies; now, it demands the utilization of various strategic resources. The introduction of SCM provides benefits to the management of a network of interconnected businesses by securing customer loyalty with cost and time savings, derived through the consolidation of many distribution systems; additionally, SCM helps enterprises form a wide range of marketing strategies. Thus, we could conclude that not only the distributors but all types of businesses should adopt the systems approach to supply chain strategies. SCM deals with the basic stream of distribution and increases the value of a company by replacing physical distribution with information. By the company obtaining and sharing ready inf