Current research aims to investigate how marketing students’ case format preferences relate to their managerial experience. Results of a full-profile conjoint experiment reveal specific differences in case format preferences between the two groups: pre-experience and executive students. This poses meaningful implications for case format differentiation practices in marketing classes.

In 2004 University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt in Germany decided to deveolp a part time MBA programme in addition to its longtime successful part time Bachelor programme in International Business Administration. At that time many business schools in germany started new MBA programmes and it was a challenge to find an appropriate positioning for the new programme. One of the goals was to sell the programme not only on the national but also on the international market. The programme has been launched in 2006 and relaunched in 2012. In the presentation the process of developing, positioning and selling the new programme national and international will be described. There will be a focus on developing a mission, the curriculum, cultural differences of potential international students and their demands to an MBA programme. Also internal and external challenges of managing such a new programme will be discussed.

Recently, Consumer Generated Media (CGM) such as SNS has been as popular as mass media in Japan. On the one hand mass media contact gets less, but on the other hand, the whole media contact and internet media contact gets more. Besides, trends generated by consumers’ interaction by CGM have also occurred actually. So, for companies, it is crucial how they approach consumers directly. Additionally, Companies are also anxious to grasp the trends generated by consumers’ interaction. I thought feasibility of companies’ efficient resource allocation depends on whether companies can grasp insight generated by interaction. From the mentioned above, in the past, I set the theme into the following topic: “Features of consumers compensating consumers’ insight and predicting which product can be well-seller”. I named consumers with such features “Antennaors”, and verified their information processing by covariance structure analysis. From the result of verification, as their common feature, I found that the “Antennaors” transmit information which they search actively after they manage – understanding, comprehending, and appreciating – information. Actually, there are NO studies classifying consumers with ability to predict what item can be well-seller so far. Thus, this “Antennaors” inquiry was considered to be a full of suggestion that it can focus on how one predict well-sellers and process information. But, this study only suggested how ONE consumer process and transmit information. In other words, it can’t make a reference how OTHER consumers contact with the information. In view of diversification of consumers’ information processing, and difficulty to grasp information processing only with one-way decision making models (e.g. Howard-Sheth Model), I need to refer to not only one’s transmitting but other’s touching information. Considering timing of adoption, “Antennaors” are similar to “Innovative Consumers”. And the inquiry of them is organized as studies about features of “Innovators”, “Opinion Leaders”, “Influencers”, and so on. But on the other hand, the existent study of imitator is very few. And furthermore, main topics of most studies of imitator are prediction of market scale or sales such as “Bass Diffusion Model (Bass [1969])”. Bass’s Model presents simulation of diffusions of new products (especially durables), and formulates the installed base fraction as the sum of two effects: “Innovation” and “Imitation”. According to Bass, “Innovation” effects mean external influence or advertising effect, and “Imitation” effects mean internal influence or WOM effect. In short, it is sometimes said that Imitators’ interactions are uncontrollable for companies. I thought if features of imitators companies can approach directly are discovered, companies can grasp the flow of information more easily, and allocate resources more efficiently than ever. Thus, I attempt to grasp features of them by verifying mass media’s effect on imitators with regression analysis. And moreover, this knowledge can contribute to research about relationship among companies, “Antennaors”, and imitators in view of information.

In 2005, Asia Pacific had the largest percentage of recreational shoppers in the world, while at the same time, Indonesia achieved the highest percentage for recreational shopping in Asia Pacific. (AC Nielsen, 2006). Shopping malls in Indonesia are growing rapidly and have currently increased in size, theme and location, and in the number of different types of shops. Given the rapid growth of malls, mall managers and retailers face the challenge to develop new strategies to survive in this highly competitive market. To gain greater insight into the relationship between shoppers and retailers, our aim is to explore shoppers’ behavior during their visit to the mall, specifically with respect to the type of shops visited. We will identify different shopping patterns and their characteristics based on 171 unobtrusive observations of shoppers using hierarchical clustering analysis. The results indicate that four shopping styles can be identified: fashion shoppers, basic shoppers, social shoppers, and entertainment seekers. Our results enhance an understanding of shopping styles. Mall managers and retailers could use this knowledge to decide the appropriate retail mix in the mall.

Marketers commence to use types of brand alliance strategies including co-branding. Many previous studies focused on the strategic performance of the co-branded credit card or loyalty programs. The introduction of the department store co-branded credit card successfully increases revenues and expands the market shares for both the banking industry and the department store industry in Taiwan. In view of the importance of co-branding strategy to extend market share for both the banking industry and the retailing industry in Taiwan, it is worthy to have a better understanding of whether or not consumer’s affective loyalty to the bank and/or consumer’s affective loyalty to the department store will influence his/her attitude toward the department store co-branded credit card, which in turn influence his/her intention to continue to use or apply for the co-branding credit card. This study aims to ascertain what factors determine consumer’s intention to continue to use and/or to apply for the department store co-branded credit card. This study collected data on the Internet Website from December 8, 2013 to January 30, 2014. A total of 444 valid data were used in this study. The two-stage procedure of structural equation model (SEM) analysis was conducted to examine the hypothetical causal relationship in the proposed theoretical model. The results indicate that for those who had applied for the department store co-branded credit card, consumer’s affective loyalty to the bank and consumer’s affective loyalty to the department store indeed exert positive impacts on his/her attitude toward department store co-branded credit card, which in turn influence his/her intention to continue to use the co-branded credit card. In addition, for those who did not have the department store co-branded credit card, consumer’s affective loyalty to the department store can induce his/her attitude toward department store co-branded credit card, which in turn influences his/her intention to apply for co-branding credit card. The implications and suggestions for both the banking industry and the retailing industry are also provided in this study.

Empirical studies provide evidence that many consumers prefer a flat-rate, even though their billing rate would be lower on a pay-per-use tariff. When it comes to tariff choices, some consumers thus seem to be subject to a cognitive error, a so-called “flat-rate bias”. Based on survey data, we analyse causes and strategies to enhance the occurrence and intensity of flat-rate biases within 2 studies. The results of study 1 (n=104) point out to five important drivers of flat-rate biases, namely the taximeter, insurance, overestimation, convenience and smart-shopping effect. Within study 2 (n=416), we subsequently evaluate the effectiveness of advertisements using the identified causes for a flat-rate bias as setting levers to increase consumers' tariff-specific willingness-to-pay. Our findings show that the most effective way to enhance the return on flat-rate bias would be to enhance communication of the fact that consumers can protect themselves from fluctuations in the billing amount through a flat rate (insurance effect) and that consumers must not worry about costs when using a flat rate (taximeter effect).

Co-production is defined as customer participation in production activities that generate a result to be consumed (Etgar, 2008). Previous research has shown the positive effects of co-production, such as satisfaction, perceived control, and perceived quality (Chan, Yim, & Lam, 2010; Golder, Mitra, & Moorman, 2012; Hunt, Oneto, & Varca, 2012). However, knowledge about the potential negative consequences from co-production is scarce. Despite the importance of the role of causal locus in the generation of unsatisfactory results, to date, this subject has not been properly studied. Considering that co-production is increasingly common in contemporary consumption contexts, this paper aims to broaden knowledge about unsatisfactory results from co-production. Based on two experimental studies, we analyze the role of the causal locus of failures on customer regret and disappointment, taking into consideration the self-serving bias. The results show that a consumption situation with an unsatisfactory regret tends to be higher when the consumer takes the blame than when the causal locus is attributed to the company. When the causal locus is uncertain, regret is higher than disappointment and higher than the regret experienced when the company or the service employee is blamed. Because regret is associated with internal causal attribution, these results contradict the self-serving bias literature, which affirms that people are more likely to make external than internal attributions for failures (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004; Weiner, 2010). The internal failure attribution converges with the idea that consumer participation in production implies more responsibility over the result (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert, & Zeithaml, 1997; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004).When the causal locus is attributed to the company or to the service employee, disappointment towards the company tends to be higher than in the other conditions and higher than regret. Study 2 tested whether consumers who co-produce would take responsibility for a failure and blame themselves in situations where the causal locus was undetermined. The results once again contradicted the self-serving bias literature in a scenario with co-production. Consumers who co-produced experienced more regret and less disappointment towards the company, and they blamed themselves more intensely than the consumers who did not co-produce. Therefore, the consumers who co-produce take more responsibility for dissatisfying results and, consequently, regret their actions to a higher degree than those consumers who do not co-produce. These results show that even when co-production fails to generate a satisfying result for the consumer, it may be positive for the company because it provides a context in which both the consumer and the company may be responsible for the failure. When the company is blamed, consumers experience less regret and more disappointment towards the company than when the consumer is the one to blame. But when the consumer is blamed or the causal locus is uncertain, situations that are both possible in a co-production context, then consumers experience more regret and less disappointment towards the company.

How the events of service experiences stimulus consumers’ emotional elicitation and post-experience has become an important issue in marketing. Appraisal theory is the one that has been discussed from many scholars about this significant phenomenon since a long time; nevertheless, existing studies of appraisal theory have neglected expectedness and novelty appraisals on consumers, emotional elicitation and post-experience behavior in service experiences. This research aims to examine the influences of three appraisals-goal congruence, expectedness and novelty on consumers’ emotional elicitation and their satisfaction, WOM intentions and likelihood of generating WOM under service experience scenarios. This study contains two studies: study one examines main effects of goal congruence and expectedness on emotions and post-experience; study two tests the main effects of goal congruence and novelty on emotions. Experimental design is adopted in examining appraisals on emotions. Circumplex Model of Affect is adopted as the examination of emotions. The research hypotheses are tested using MANOVA as well as Regression analyses with experimental data from 320 university students in Taiwan. The research is the first in the literature on Appraisal Theory of emotional elicitation that both expectedness and novelty has main effects on emotional elicitation as well as consumer post-experience behavior. The higher expectedness one event is, the more positive emotions will be; vice versa. Also, the more novelty one event is, the more positive emotions will be; vice versa. Positive emotions have positive impact on consumer post-experience behavior; vice versa. Main effect of goal congruence on emotions shows significant in study one whereas in study two it shows no significant influence. The research is one of the few which investigate expectedness and novelty appraisals in appraisal theory that will cause emotional elicitation as well as consumer post-experience behavior.

Social media users today have become active producers of information but how sharing brand-related information affects the attitude of other users is an important and unexplored path. Narayan et al. (2011) mentioned that User’s attitude towards the brand is shaped not just by the attributes of the products but also the preferences of other consumers, such as peers. Zhu et al. (2012), through their study concluded, user’s opinions significantly sway other user’s own choices or are likely to reverse their attitudes. Dawson et al. (1990) have supported that delivering experiences that are pleasurable and relevant will linger in the memory and influence the user’s attitudes and purchase intentions. Although previous studies researched the attitude of the users towards social media advertising, the effect of social media advertising on the user’s attitude towards the brand is yet to be examined. By applying the Uses & Gratification theory, stimulus-Organism-Response theory and the Theory of Reasoned Action, this study aims at evaluating the effects of information sharing, peer pressure, entertainment and emotional connection in a social media setting on the user’s attitude toward a brand present in social media thereby influencing their purchase intentions from the brand. An online survey was developed using items adopted from previous study and administered to college students, who are regular users of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Of 271 valid responses, 21% were males and 79% were females. Multiple regression analyses results supported all hypotheses. The results are consistent with the previous research, confirming user’s choice of media is influenced by their information seeking, entertainment and status needs (Tan, 198). Marketing via social media may offer content that have specific relevance or may offer entertainment for users (Chi, 2011) and may result in the establishment of an emotional connection with the brand. The more frequently brands interact with the users/fans/followers, the stronger will be the emotional connection which will affect the user’s purchase intentions from the brand. MaKenzie, Lutz & Belch (1986) in their study supported that the marketing patterns can influence the attitude of the users towards the brands which in turn affects the purchase intentions from the brand. The findings of this study confirmed that social media is a very important marketing tool. The marketers needs to ensure that they a) have a presence and social media, b) devise effective online marketing strategies and c) employ dedicated social media staff to continually interact, entertain and engage the users.

This research was conducted to undertake the impact of advertisements on multiple social media platforms on consumer responses. The study also researches internet and social media consumption habits of consumers of different demographics. The results largely suggest that positive consumer responses in form of better brand engagement, loyalty and recall are associated with organizations that indulge in promoting their products and services on multiple social media.

One of the basic strategic decisions a retailer must make involves the determination of the assortment to offer. Product assortment planning (PAP) involves important decisions related to the determination of variety (i.e., number of categories), depth (i.e., number of stock-keeping units within a category) and service level (i.e., amount of merchandise inventory within a category) in a retailer’s product portfolio (Mantrala et al., 2009; Hübner & Kuhn, 2012). By making optimal PAP decisions, retailers hope to satisfy customers’ needs by providing the right service in the right store at the right time (Nogales & Suarez, 2005). Despite the importance of PAP, several limitations and gaps can be found in existing literature. First, existing research tends to examine analytical solutions that deal almost exclusively with questions of depth, whilst it completely fails to address issues related to variety and service levels (see for example, Mantrala et al., 2009). Second, current literature focuses on a single category of products or services and fails to examine the interplay among various categories that are offered by a retailer. Third, although in reality a retailer might have a different assortment at each store format, the academic literature has focused on determining a single assortment for a retailer, which could be viewed as either a common assortment to be carried at all stores or the solution to the PAP problem for a single store (Kök et al., 2006). Finally, Private Labels (PLs) have been widely neglected in existing PAP literature, despite the fact that retailers consider PLs as a powerful competitive tool (Nogales & Suarez, 2005). This paper corrects for omissions of existing PAP research by introducing a new innovative method, namely Differential Evolution (DE). More specifically, the proposed mechanism facilitates simultaneously, strategic PAP decisions, related to the determination of a) optimal variety of PL categories in a retail grocery store, b) optimal service level of PL merchandise within each category, and hence, c) optimal balance between PLs and National Brands (NBs) in a retailer’s product portfolio. The interrelated issue of assortment adaptation across different store formats is also considered. Differential Evolution (DE) is an evolutionary, population-based algorithm, for global optimization over continuous spaces. It was first introduced by Storn and Price (1997), and has been extensively applied to a wide domain of optimization problems due to its ability to efficiently handle non-differentiable, nonlinear and multimodal cost functions. DE is based on the Darwinian theory of Evolution (Engelbrecht, 2007). In a world with limited resources and stable populations, each individual competes with others for survival. The individuals with the best characteristics will more probably survive and reproduce. Those desirable characteristics (a) are passed on to their offspring, (b) are inherited by the subsequent generations, and (c) over time will become dominant among the population. During the production process of a child organism, random events may cause random changes to its characteristics. If these altered characteristics benefit the organism, then the likelihood of survival for the organism is increased. In accordance to this, DE works with a group (population) of candidate solutions to the problem (individuals). The algorithm searches for the global optimum through an iterative process. In each algorithm’s iteration the individuals produce offspring through crossover, and some individual’s characteristics are randomly altered through mutation. The strongest (fittest) individuals of the new population survive to the next generation. Our proposed mechanism is implemented to empirical data that have been collected for the purposes of a large-scale telephone survey research examining consumer buying behaviour in the grocery market of a European metropolitan area. A highly structured questionnaire was developed and data were collected from a random sample of 1,928 supermarket customers. The telephone survey was conducted by the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) facilities of a local university. In total, we examined consumer preferences for a set of twelve product categories that are usually available in a typical supermarket. We implement our DE algorithm to find optimal solutions (i.e., PL service level per category) in the entire dataset and for three store-formats separately (i.e., large supermarkets, discount supermarkets, small local supermarkets). The derived optimal solution for the entire dataset suggests that retailers should mainly focus their efforts on providing extensive PL service levels in product categories such as disposable paper products and packaged foods, and also maintain a decent PL presence in categories such as bakery, laundry, household cleaning products, tea-coffee, and non-alcoholic beverages. On the other hand, the introduction of PLs in categories such as frozen foods, personal hygiene products and clothing products would not be advisable. Regarding the adaptation of PL service levels across store formats, interesting conclusions can be drawn. For example, managers of large mainstream supermarket chains must offer extensive PL service levels in categories such as disposable paper products and packaged foods, whilst they should maintain a decent PL presence in categories such as laundry and dairy products. In line with our expectations, discount retailers are expected to provide broader varieties of PLs, because in addition to the PL categories offered by mainstream supermarkets, discounters must also provide extensive PL service levels in household cleaning products. It is suggested that discounters not only must offer broader varieties of PLs, but also more extensive service levels within those varieties. Finally, the derived optimal PL service levels in most product categories of local supermarket chains are extremely low. This finding indicates that local grocery stores should concentrate their efforts in providing a narrow variety of PLs, by focusing on few categories, such as packaged food and laundry products. In the light of the entire discussion, we suggest that evolutionary analysis can reveal exciting opportunities not merely for new research, but for novel, revolutionary views of market behavior.

In this paper, OTT (Over-The-Top) refers to voice, video and data services that arrive from a third party service provider (SP) and doesn’t require any business or technology affiliations with the network operator (Southwell 2011). Traditional telephone companies (telcos) are under big threat from OTT messaging applications which have been splitting flow of text message and voice from the former. Even though, mobile operators still enjoy some asymmetric advantages by controlling the basic telecommunications infrastructure, monitoring the network usage and distinguishing between different OTT actors (Bertin et al. 2011). From a market structure perspective, mobile telecoms industry with the entrance of OTT messaging applications is analogous to the traditional dual-channel structure. On one hand, mobile operators “sell” communication services such as SMS and voice directly to subscribers; on the other hand, they “wholesale” the network infrastructure to OTT SPs on which OTT applications distribute text, picture, video and voice for end users. Extant research has extensively examined the channel selection, channel competition and coordination in traditional sectors (Cai 2010; Cattani et al. 2006; Chiang et al. 2003; Dumrongsir et al. 2008). However, the explanation of dual channel might not be well applicable to the mobile operator and OTT issue considering some new features in the industry. 1) comparing with traditional product distribution, the mobile operators are selling “the right to use the network”, thus they could both charge the “access” and “usage” fee. 2) unlike the traditional retailing channel where consumers make payments to retailer, consumers using OTT would pay network usage fee (data fee) to the mobile operator. 3) traditional retailors earn their profits by selling products with a higher price than the wholesale price. However, OTT services aim to develop their own business after accumulation of sufficient quantities of users, such as revenues form ads, traffic guidance and so on. This paper is conducted to analyze the pricing strategy of mobile operators facing the challenge of OTT. For simplicity, we assume a monopoly market, namely one mobile operator provide network infrastructure for one OTT messaging service provider who provides communication service for consumers. Based on dynamic game theory, we show that: firstly, under non-cooperative strategy, a mobile operator should charge OTT a positive network access fee which is positively correlated to OTT platform’s future commercial value and direct communication service price, and negatively correlated to indirect communication service; secondly, under cooperative strategy, a mobile operator and OTT could create a more joint profit than that under non-cooperative strategy. The platform access fee that the joint venture charges end users is negatively correlated with OTT platform future commercial value; thirdly, despite the choice of cooperative or non-cooperative strategy, the price of direct communication products has a negative correlation with OTT platform future commercial value and a positive correlation with the platform quality; while the price of indirect communication products is positively correlated with platform future commercial value and is negatively correlated with OTT platform quality. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the managerial implications for mobile operators and OTT SPs. With regard to policy makers, we suggest that a convenient cooperation environment should be provided, because both mobile operator and OTT SP would obtain a high profit under cooperative condition than that under non-cooperative condition and at the same time consumers could also enjoy a better welfare. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71172011 and 71272160) and NCET-12-0772.

Youth in war ravaged regions often face with scant access to capital generally supplied by traditional banking institutions, which in turn restricts their entrepreneurial activities. Microcredit provides loan access to those excluded from formal financial services. Also, it is widely made available to rural communities in several Asian countries. Hence the main aim of this study is to determine factors influencing youth’s purchase intentions of microcredit in the post-war era, thus implying that findings of this study may be possibly useful to promote microcredit among youth in war affected regions. The Theory of Planned Behaviour has been generally applied to predict purchase intentions, nevertheless we modified this theory to derive hypotheses for this study. The study sample comprised 2500 youth selected from the war affected areas of Sri Lanka. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were employed for data analysis. The results showed that Positive Affect enhanced Purchase Intentions, whereas Perceived Deterrents and Default Risk Perceptions significantly reduced them. Also, Positive Affect reduced Default Risk Perceptions of microcredit, whilst Perceived Deterrents of microcredit increased them. Drawing from these findings, we then recommended how microcredit can be marketed to youth in war affected regions. Keywords: Microcredit, War Affected Youth, Purchase Intentions, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Default Risk Perceptions.

The purpose of this study is to consider what influence creative content industry imports in emerging countries have on the formation of images of the country of origin. Japanese animation and games, as well as Korean pop music and movies are highly welcomed in many countries (Douglas 2002), especially in the emerging countries of Asia. Seeing such global successes, the Japanese government has adopted the "Cool Japan" policies promoting Japanese creative industry products, ranging from comics, fashion, music, animation and games to characters. Creative industry products, such as Hollywood movies, are also popular in many countries (Craig et al. 2005). Globalization of creative industry products has been a popular topic for many scholars in different disciplines, including cultural anthropology (e.g., Allison, 2006), sociology (e.g., Dowd and Janssen 2011), cultural studies (e.g., Lash and Lury, 2007), and cultural policy (e.g., Crane, Kawashima, and Kawasaki, 2002). However, although global marketing has been an important theme in the discipline for years (e.g., Zou and Cavusgil 2002), the globalization of creative industries has not received enough attention from marketing scholars with a few exceptions (e.g., Matsui, 2009). The reason marketing scholars have not had much interest in creative industries is that the synergy with other manufacturing or service industries has been unknown. Due to the same reason, “Cool Japan” and “Korean Boom” are not directly designed to promote emerging countries' manufactured goods/services. Has there been empirical improvement in the brand image of Japanese or Korean automobiles and digital devices in countries where Japanese animation or Korean pop music is pervasive? We used data from Hakuhodo Global Habit 2013 to verify this hypothesis. It is a series of consumer surveys conducted by Hakuhodo Inc., the second largest advertising agency in Japan. It is one of the largest global consumer survey databases conducted yearly in Japan, and includes consumer surveys from 36 major cities worldwide. In each city, approximately 800 participants are randomly selected and asked about 900 questions regarding their product purchases and preferences, product ownership, daily activity, media usage, hobbies, value systems, and demographic profile. Respondents are in the upper or middle-class segments of each country. Due to its large sample size and stable survey procedures, we consider Hakuhodo Global Habit 2013 reliable enough for academic statistical analyses. From the database, the consumers' preference ratio for four types of creative content including animation, manga, music, television dramas, and movies of foreign origins were used in ascertaining the degree to which creative industry products were received in thirteen emerging countries’ cities: Jakarta, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, Delhi/Mumbai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Yangon, Ho-chi-minh city, Manila, Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou, and Moscow. The originating countries are Japan and Korea. Respondents were chosen using stratified sampling by gender and age. They were asked to choose countries from which they preferred content (multiple answers allowed). They were also asked about Japan and Korea, and whether or not there was an image of either as a production area for any of 14 types of manufactured goods and services (consumer electronics, digital devices, automobiles, fashion, luxury goods, furniture, animation, tourism, sports, movies, music, food products, medical products, and cosmetics) (multiple responses). For both Japan and Korea, we analysed partial correlations between the degree of reception of four types of creative content in 13 cities and the image of the production area for 14 types of products. Also, we analysed simple correlations among the degrees to which four types of creative content were received. The following three findings were revealed from the results. The overall trends were the same for both Japan and Korea. Finding 1: Reception of animation and manga does not contribute to an improvement in the image of other manufactured products or services. A positive correlation with the reception of animation and manga was found only for the image of the production area for animation, and the correlation was, for the most part, negative concerning the image of the area in the production of the other 13 types of manufactured goods or services. Finding 2: Reception of movies, music, and television dramas contributes to improvement in the image of other manufactured products or services. The other three types of creative content correlate positively with the image of the production area for a variety of manufactured goods and services. In particular, movies had a positive correlation with images for automobiles, furniture, medical products and other types in both Japan and Korea. With regard to television dramas and music, content produced in Japan had a higher positive correlation with the images of other manufactured goods and services than that produced in Korea. Finding 3: Reception of the four types of creative content correlate highly with each other. Consumers receiving Japanese animation were significantly more prone to also receive other Japanese creative content. The same trend was also seen in the results for Korea. The following conclusions were obtained from these findings. The export of Korean movies, television dramas and pop music, which is creative content of the so-called “Korean boom,” is inferred to contribute to branding of Korean digital devices and automobiles. However, we inferred that simply exporting Japanese animation, does not contribute to the branding of Japanese manufactured goods or services. This divergence is inferred to be in the essence of the difference in the current marketing efficiency between the “Cool Japan” strategy and “Korean boom.” On the other hand, we expect that exporting Japanese animation has the influence of increasing reception of Japanese movies, television dramas and pop music, and, moreover, the receipt of Japanese movies, television dramas, and pop music can be expected to contribute to the branding of Japanese manufactured goods and services. In other words, we concluded that exports of Japanese animation indirectly have a favourable effect on marketing activities for Japanese manufactured goods and services. In practice, because of copyright issues, Japanese movies, television dramas and pop music are not able to be as actively exported as Korean movies, television dramas and pop music are. Nevertheless, the influence of Japanese movies, television dramas, and pop music per se is considered to be the same as for those produced in Korea. We inferred that to be the case because the reception of Japanese animation and manga (including pirated versions) underpins such influence. This study used a large amount of quantitative data, and empirically verified the significance in marketing “Cool Japan” and the “Korean boom.” The initial hypothesis was supportive of movies, television dramas and music, but negative for animation. However, it was suggested that although the “Korean Boom” and “Cool Japan” appear to be similar strategies, they have major structural differences.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of social media in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) based on a theoretical foundation. Social media was firstly used as a new communication tool by internet users, and is being commercialized as a powerful tool to build and maintain long-term relationships between customers and businesses. This study focuses on service sectors and aims to clarify how social media helps companies innovate traditional CRM. Social CRM is seen as one of these service innovations and is highlighted in this paper.

Consumer ethnocentrism (CET) has been widely research in various marketing contexts since the construct was identified by Shimp and Sharma (1987) in their seminal paper. The central tenet of consumer ethnocentrism theory is that consumer ethnocentrism will have a negative effect on foreign product purchase intention and a positive effect on willingness to purchase home country products. So far, the role of satisfaction has not been integrated into the CET model. The satisfaction-repurchase relationship has also received considerable attention in the marketing literature whereby satisfaction is found to have a direct positive effect on repeat purchase. Anecdotal evidence suggests that both satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism will have a joint effect on willingness to repurchase a home country product, especially when foreign competitor products are seen as a threat in the domestic markets. However, it remains unclear how satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism jointly affect purchase intentions. In this research we examine the dynamics of the two constructs. This study considers South Korean consumers’ willingness to repurchase the Samsung Galaxy smartphone and examine the interrelationship among the above variables. The findings of the study suggest that consumer ethnocentrism moderates the satisfaction-repurchase intention relationship or vice versa and satisfaction and consumer ethnocentrism are mutual cooperative suppressors for repurchase intention. This study highlights that the effect of consumer ethnocentrism on repurchase intention will be stronger when consumers are satisfied with the product.

The purpose of this study is to examine the brand image and county of manufacture(COM) effect on brand luxury index, especially when the acquirer brand is afflicted by a low brand image and the acquired brand enjoys a high brand image. There were 248 responses in Taiwan (low image differences were gathered from 119 respondents and high image differences were gathered from 129 respondents). The results indicate that brand image have a positive influence on every dimension of brand luxury, while the better the luxury brand image acquired by one with an inferior image, the more the brand luxury will increase. Regarding the COM effect, the better COM image the acquirer move to, the more the brand luxury will increase. In addition, brand image and COM have interactive effect.

Most Japanese Researchers and Business Practitioners recognize that Japanese department stores are in a period of decline. In spite of this decline, department stores in Japan still represent a six trillion yen market. Although department stores comprise a significant sector of the Japanese economy, there remain few studies dedicated to research on department stores. In contrast to the extant research, the current study relates to consumer behavior as it relates to the decline in department store sales. This focus is poorly represented in the literature. Specifically, the current study addresses two key problems. First, there exists a lack of discussion related to the category under which department stores can be classified. Second (and as alluded to above), there is a lack of unified research on department stores in the fields of commercial science, business administration, and marketing. To redress these shortcomings, the current study seeks to elucidate the factor of internal and external competitive superiority about the business category of Japanese department store. First, however, it is necessary to verify whether consumers recognize differences between department stores and other retail categories. Further, it is necessary to explain the nature of that difference. Using a sample of 246 Japanese respondents with internet research, I explore the degree to which consumers recognize department stores and Shopping Centers. Respondents were generated using service provided by Macromill.inc. The sample for this study consisted of internet users from randomly selected in Hyogo, Osaka, and Kyoto prefectures, in which the competition between department stores and Shopping Centers is keenest. And, this study adhere fundamentally to the scales of store images developed by Sakai (2012). The scales consisted of 28 items were measured on 7-point Likert-type opinion statements ranging from strongly agree (7) to strongly degree (1). I then performed t-test and a confirmatory factor analysis on participants’ responses. Results of this analysis served to identify differences in participants’ recognition of department stores and Shopping Centers. Result of t-test analysis demonstrated that 18 of 24 items are significantly different between them. Results of the factor analysis further demonstrated that department stores are characterized by Reliability of goods and services and Popular. Shopping Centers are also characterized by Reliability of goods and services and Popular, but are also perceived to have Convenient locations or institutions.

Public's perception in regards to consumption and luxury consumption of the rich were explored. As a result, it was discovered that consumption of the rich is a Korean's desire and that when they consume without having to regard money, they identify this with luxury consumption of the rich.