This study examines consumers’ online activities according to the categories of goods and services, applying foraging theory, and explore online information structure perceived by consumers, determining the degree of information overload. Consumers are confronted by nearly unlimited amounts of information when they gather information to make purchase decisions in an online environment. Few studies have focused on the behavioral pattern of information acquisition to reduce information overload. The available studies are limited by particular conditions under a normative perspective (e.g., cognitive limitation with item specific information only and overemphasis on the quantity dimension of information structure). An improvement may be a holistic approach that allows freedom of information acquisition, and includes an ecological perspective, which emphasizes an interaction between minds and immediate environments (Todd & Gigerenzer, 2007). In other words, to provide a better explanation of information overload phenomenon, the research includes quantity information as well as quality and environmental information in the information structure. This has been overlooked in an information overload paradigm (for example, the question of whether more or less information is better) (Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, & Todd, 2010). Moreover, Xia and Monroe (2005) argued that the majority of research about information acquisition has overemphasized information searching while overlooking information browsing, although both activities occur concurrently during processes of information acquisition. The foraging theory (Stephen and Kreb, 1986), which originated from behavioral ecology, can help explain a continuum of browsing and searching behavior through utilizing the patch framework (Kim & Hantula, 2016). The patch framework provides a different perspective for information structure in terms of the amount of data as a combination of within-patch (searching) and between-patch (browsing), thereby covering the issue of the browse-search continuum to explain issues of amount for information overload. (e.g., Detlor, Sproule, & Gupta, 2003). The current study applied foraging theory into the online behavior of information acquisition and explored the information structure that consumers establish and consider in their process of information foraging across categories of goods and services (i.e., durables, nondurables, and services). This theoretical integration would proffer some clues for information structure to reduce information overloads through browsing and searching information online. The investigations consist of ordinary activities and purchase-related activities online, frequently purchased items and consideration to make purchase decisions, strategic information foraging patterns, and perceived decisional difficulty.

Brand extensions are a critical strategy for the introduction of new products, which are often prone to failure. The use of an established brand can help promote acceptance of the new product by reducing perceived risk, enhancing efficiencies in terms of distribution and promotion, and reducing overall costs associated with launching the new product. Previous research regarding brand extensions has shown that various factors influence success of brand extensions (e.g., marketing support and retailer acceptance). One of the most important factors driving brand extension success is the fit between a parent brand and its extension. A new marketing construct, emotional attachment to a brand, has recently been introduced to the brand extension literature. However, the role of consumers’ brand attachment, in terms of reactions to a brand extension has largely been ignored by researchers. The lack of research on brand extensions and brand attachment is somewhat surprising, given the considerable body of research findings that show consumers who are emotionally tied to a brand respond differently to that brand due to increased attachment. Building on this body of work, we propose that consumers who are emotionally attached to a brand will be less impacted by the degree of fit between the parent brand and its extension. In this research, we show that emotional attachment with a brand is an important factor underlying consumers’ responses to a brand extension. In particular, we explore the moderating role of brand attachment on consumers’ responses to extensions that vary in terms of fit with the parent brand. We also explore the process underlying observed effects. These issues are examined with an experiment regarding extensions for a real-world brand. Further, mediated moderation analyses indicate that the moderating effect of brand attachment is mediated by brand image fit, but not by product category fit. Implications of our findings for managers and researchers are also are provided.

Introduction The concept of forgiveness has been in the centre of research within the psychology domain for a number of years (e.g., Burnette, McCullough, Van Tongeren, & Davis, 2012; Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010; Mauger, Perry, Freeman, & Grove, 1992). It is surprising, however, that despite the relevance of forgiveness in marketing, the concept has failed to attract much attention and research in this area remains scarce. Few studies have looked into the importance of forgiveness in the context of marketing transgressions (Aaker, Fournier, & Brasel, 2004; Chung & Beverland, 2006; Mattila, 2001; Tax, Brown, & Chandrashekaran, 1998) and have largely focused on the services sector (e.g., Gudlaugsson & Eysteinsson, 2013; Zourrig, Chebat, & Toffoli, 2009). This study takes a broader perspective and addresses forgiveness at the brand level. Looking into consumer brand forgiveness is critical in that consumers often tend to evaluate and build relationships at the brand level rather than the firm level (Fournier, 1998). This research adopts a multi-method, multi-stage approach to conceptualise and operationalise brand forgiveness. Literature Review Forgiveness in the psychology literature has been defined as ‘the willful giving up of resentment in the face of another’s (or others’) considerable injustice and responding with beneficence to the offender even though that offender has no right to the forgiver’s moral goodness’ (Baskin & Enright, 2004, p. 80). Most of the literature on interpersonal forgiveness supports a multi-dimensional structure, consisting of affective, cognitive and behavioural components (e.g., McCullough, Worthington Jr, & Rachal, 1997). Interestingly, forgiveness in psychology has been seen as a relationship-constructive mechanism, similar to accommodation (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991) and willingness to sacrifice (Van Lange et al., 1997). It can also be understood as a psychological factor that is associated with restored relational closeness following an interpersonal transgression, in that it leads to the inhibition of avoidant behaviors and the facilitation of conciliatory behaviors (McCullough et al., 1997), as well as cooperation (Komorita, Hilty, & Parks, 1991) following interpersonal offenses. Despite the fact that most of the literature examines forgiveness following a specific offense, the concept has also a dispositional character, which very few studies addressed (e.g., Berry, Worthington, Parrott, O’Connor, & Wade, 2001).Forgiveness in the marketing domain has mostly been investigated in the context of services failures (e.g., Tsarenko & Tojib, 2011; Zourrig et al., 2009). Most of the research in this area relates to the concept of consumer forgiveness, which is defined as ‘consumers’ willingness to give up retaliation, alienation, and other destructive behaviours, and to respond in constructive ways after an organisational violation of trust and the related recovery efforts’ (Xie & Peng, 2009, p. 578). This definition highlights the behavioural component of forgiveness and fails to capture the cognitive and emotional aspects encapsulated in the concept (McCullough et al., 1997). In addition, the focus on ‘organizational violation’ is highly problematic as consumers often tend to evaluate and build relationships at the brand level rather than the firm level (Fournier, 1994). Transgressions addressed in the existing literature include moderately fit brand extensions (Fedorikhin, Park, & Thomson, 2008), negative PR (Xie & Peng, 2009) and delayed product launches (Herm, 2013). When conceptualising consumer forgiveness, Chung and Beverland (2006) suggested that the process of forgiveness provides a foundation for relationship restoration, which ultimately results in rebuilding trust (Chung & Beverland, 2006; Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007). Methodology Consistent with Churchill’s paradigm (1979) for scale development, qualitative data was first collected using 16 in-depth interviews with British consumers to better understand the concept of brand forgiveness and to identify pertinent dimensions. The interviews lasted on average 40 minutes. Based on the literature and the interviews an initial pool of items tapping consumer brand forgiveness was created. A questionnaire was subsequently developed that included the aforementioned item pool as well as demographic and nomological network variables. Data was collected in the UK using an online consumer panel. 603 fully completed questionnaires were returned. In line with scaling procedures (Chrurchill 1979) we divided the sample into two sub-samples: calibration (n=302) and validation (n=301). Results and Discussion The qualitative data supported the three-dimensional structure of consumer-brand forgiveness, which is consistent with the conceptualisation of interpersonal forgiveness (McCullough et al., 1997). For example issues regarding disappointment for the brand’s wrongdoing, impact on evaluations as well as intentions to switch to another brand emerged from the interviews. In line with our findings and extant research in this area, we define consumer brand forgiveness as the consumer’s cognitive, affective and behavioural response to a brand’s (perceived) wrongdoing. The quantitative data was used to confirm the dimensionality of the construct and develop a scale that measures consumer brand forgiveness. CFA was performed on the calibration sample and through an iterative process an acceptable fit was obtained; χ2 (24)= 70.495; GFI= .95; CFI= .98, TLI= .97, RMSEA= .08. Internal consistency and composite reliabilities were also within acceptable levels; α= .79, CR= .83 (cognitive), α= .85, CR= .86 (affective) and α= .96, CR= .96 (behavioural).CFA was then performed on the validation sample and acceptable fit was once again obtained; χ2 (24)= 70.800; GFI= .95; CFI= .98, TLI= .96, RMSEA= .08. All internal consistency and composite reliabilities were above .70; α= .82, CR= .82 (cognitive), α= .82, CR= .82 (affective) and α= .94, CR= .94 (behavioural). Convergent and discriminant validities were established using Fornell and Larcker’s criteria (1981). Table 1 provides a summary of the CFA results. The next step involved criterion-related validity tests, where two variables were drawn from relevant literature from both the psychology and the marketing literature, including brand love and relationship satisfaction. Regression analysis shows that brand forgiveness results in brand love (β= .32, p< .01) as well as relationship satisfaction (β= .69, p< .01). This confirms existing literature that forgiveness can lead to positive emotions (Takaku, 2001) and satisfaction with the relationship (McCullough et al., 1998). Conclusion and Implications for Theory and Practice Despite extensive research on interpersonal forgiveness, there is very little scholarly enquiry into forgiveness in the marketing domain. This is an important area for marketers to understand since forgiveness is likely to result into stronger relationships whilst the lack of it is may have detrimental effects on customer retention and advocacy. This study contributes in this area by providing an enriched conceptualisation of consumer brand forgiveness in the context of a brand’s wrongdoing and by developing a psychometrically sound scale that measures the levels of consumers’ brand forgiveness. Following a multi-stage methodology, our results establish a three-dimensional structure of consumer brand forgiveness, encompassing cognitive, affective and behavioural elements. The study also provides some initial insights into the consequences of forgiveness. Positive outcomes, such as brand love and relationship satisfaction are important outcomes of brand forgiveness. Following from these results, some important managerial implications could be identified. For example, managers could benefit significantly from reinforcing forgiveness, as this could lead to stronger ties with the brand and increased levels of satisfaction. A brand’s wrongdoing that subsequently results in affective, cognitive and behavioural forgiveness on the part of the consumer will benefit the brand. Managers should therefore not only focus their recovery strategies on behavioural forgiveness but also target strategies to ensure affective and cognitive forgiveness. Managers who are successful in building strong relationships with their customers might be more able to promote consumer brand forgiveness and therefore enjoy the positive benefits of the process. Therefore, CRM programs could be very useful in strengthening the relationships with customers and therefore have a greater likelihood of forgiveness should a wrongdoing occurs.

The purpose of this research is to disentangle the complex causal patterns of factors for explaining venture capital activity. Based on data from 62 countries, this study analyzes net and combinatory effects of three major sets of antecedent conditions of venture capital activity. Findings inform managers and policy makers.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how a luxury brand may be affected by the variables associated to a new market entry as the Chinese and how those new market variables are integrated in the process of rebranding in the new geographical context. In doing so, the paper will review the existing literature in the field and following three derived propositions through a qualitative approach, it will analyse the successful brand strategy of three Italian luxury brands. The luxury brands considered in our investigation are three international ones with a specific consolidated brand heritage and with a multisectorial positioning. The methodological approach chosen in the analysis is the case-study method (Yin, 1984) with the specific purpose of focusing on a particular phenomenon instead of generalising (Schramm, 1971). Following the case-study methodology, this paper will explore and analyse the specific luxury brand building and rebranding process adopted by three Italian luxury brands to enter the new market and specifically through the digitalisation of the brand. The abstract will report a summary of one case as a reference sample. The empirical research will evidence the positive impact of digitalisation for successful luxury branding and rebranding in entry market strategy and justify its adoption in the exclusive luxury sector by the socio-cultural context-related factors of the new market. It will provide specific orientations and recommendations as well as best practices for luxury corporations on the specificities of branding and digitalisation of luxury in China. The research will show a successful model path for luxury branding when entering the Chinese market and the key impact of the “luxury digitalisation” strategy - usually associated to high accessibility - with respect to a traditional “luxury retailing” strategy - associated to the exclusivity of the luxury sector. Introduction The increasing interest in luxury brands in the fast growing economies of Asia, with particular attention towards China, has supported the growth of the luxury market in the last years. China, the global second largest economy, with the global largest consumer market, has reached a role of an undisguisable strategic leader in the luxury market. Far from theexponential double digit growth rates characterizing China’s growth in the past decades - as high as 14.2% in 2007 – at the moment it is entering a different phase of growth. A recent trend is tending to see China as the source of a multiplicity of diversified aspects impacting the global luxury market scenario – despite the fact that luxury industry market situation is not simply China related. The ongoing Chinese growth in the last decade has been associated with a decrease in European and US markets. In addition to this, further issues have negatively affected the market grow more related to Chinese market specificity. Chinese exponential luxury market growth has negatively influenced the exclusivity aura associated to luxury goods and consequently disrupting non-Chinese luxury customers and Chinese top spenders luxury brands orientation. In relation to the economic crisis in consolidated markets, international luxury brands have focused their interest towards fast growing economies. As a result, global brands have focused their attention on attracting fast growing economies with a specific growth in affluent consumers interested in foreign brands and in an augmentation in global consumption (Le Monkhouse et al., 2012). As a consequence, China has attracted much attention by significantly contributing to balance the sales decline in consolidated economies that in 2013 accounted for 28% of the €212 billion global luxury consumption (Schiliro, 2013). In the new luxury oriented Chinese context, local shoppers have started to become brand aware of what they were in the past and with a specific focus on luxury fashion brands (Bruce & Kratz, 2007). However, it would be too limited to simply consider that the volumes of the market and focus on luxury brands is resulting only from consumer intentions to purchase luxury brands. A multiplicity of factors and in particular context related factors affecting shoppers luxury brand perception and luxury goods purchasing experience must be considered and as a consequence those context related factors that may affect the branding process itself. China's culture is different from Western cultures (Henriksen, 2009), and thus, Chinese luxury consumption may not follow the trends of the Western world. The Chinese perceive luxury brand value in terms of China's unique cultural background and as a consequence of the Chinese economic development, the Chinese luxury lifestyle is gradually evolving and beginning to show its own distinct characteristics. Although prior research related to luxury examines different cultures and markets such as the US, Indian, European, the Chinese luxury context and its impact on luxury brand when entering this market have not been examined sufficiently. Literature review Luxury Brands, Rebranding and the Chinese Context Literature teaches us that “luxury” is used to denote the main category of highly prestigious brands (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). In the same way, luxury brands are related to wealth, exclusivity and power and are related to the fulfilment of nonessential desires (Brun et al., 2008 and Dubois and Gilles, 1994). “Luxury brands” comprises highly quality, expensive and nonessential goods and services that are symbols of rarity, exclusivity, prestige, and authenticity in for their consumers and they can provide highlevels of symbolic and emotional value (Tynan, McKechnie, & Chhuon, 2009). Vigneron and Johnson (2004) and later Wiedman et al. (2007) defined the concept of luxury as the physical and psychological values provided by prestige of luxury brands and consequently highlighting the symbolic and conceptual dimension associated to luxury. However, it was evidenced how the dimension is strongly associated to the cultural values and to the social environment by considering luxury goods representatives of individual and social identity (Vickers & Renand, 2003). These elements of exclusivity, prestige, rarity as well as individual and social identity are the key values distinguishing luxury from nonluxury brands (Tynan et al., 2009). In the same perspective, Kapferer (1997, p. 334) highlighted the importance of those luxury brand values in evidencing that brand memory and brand values should not be abandoned when the brand is revised suggesting that rebranding is an incremental process in contrast to a radical change. The Digitalisation of Luxury Brands and the Chinese Market In the western countries, the elder people mainly compose luxury customers, while luxury consumers become younger (about under 40 years old) in China. The increasing number of middle-level class has been the main force of online luxury consuming. The consumption concept of younger customers are huge different from that of traditional customers. Solomon (2009) expressed that customers’ behavior is a dynamic concept because they are influenced by the outer factors and inner elements (Solomon, 2009). A survey from McKinsey & Company indicates that there are almost 90% of Chinese Internet users living in tier1, tier2 and tier 3 cities have enrolled in a social-media site and Chinese people can be regarded as the world’s most active social-media population, around 91% of respondents telling they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, followed by 70% in South Korea, 67% in the United States and 30% in Japan (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). The Chinese social and cultural context is increasingly becoming “digitally savvy” and Chinese citizens are more likely to gain information from Internet when they would make shopping decisions. First Proposition Indirect orientation for the first proposition comes from Vickers and Renard (2003) conceptual development that evidences that the conceptual dimension of luxury is strongly influenced by cultural elements and by the social context. Consequently it derives that the digitalisation of luxury as a part of the social and cultural variables of contemporary Chinese consumers’ market will be conceptualised in the rebranding process for luxury brands when entering the Chinese market. Second Proposition Specific support for our second proposition comes from Kapferer (1997) theory highlighting that successful luxury rebranding has to keep least certain core brand elements to have a proper transition from the existing luxury brand to the revised luxury brand in the new Chinese market. The digitalisation process for rebranding will evidence the core elements kept as a part of the brand heritage and identity.In the re-branding process new market segments may be touched or even new markets (Kapferer, 1997). Successful luxury rebranding may require meeting the needs of new market segments. As a consequence, in our third proposition it is assumed that new attributes to the brand may be required to satisfy the new market and in particular the Chinese digitally savvy” segment. These principles of rebranding applied to our Chinese luxury context refers to the existing literature relating to re-create the brand vision to entry the new Chinese market. Research questions and methodology This research aims to analyse the impact of cultural and social variables of a new market, the Chinese one, in the redefinition of a luxury brand and in particular: - the evolution towards a new digital orientation as a response to the needs of the new customer segments - the specific socio-cultural characteristics of the new Chinese market customer segments In order to provide specific responses from the field, the empirical research methodology is based on the case analysis method (Yin, 1984). The luxury brands cases considered in the research have been kept anonymous in order to keep the confidentiality of the data collected and consequently referred as A, B and C. It has been based on interviews carried out in China and in Europe with the management of the luxury brand, with a sample of its customer segments and also on the published data of the corporation. The Case of an Italian Luxury Brand in China The A case: Rebranding through Digitalisation for Successful Entry in the Chinese Market Out of the three cases, A is an Italian global luxury brand with an established brand image and heritage internationally. Its positioning as authentic luxury brand worldwide specifically focus its image on exclusivity, originality and innovative design. China, which was entered lately with respect to the other geographical markets in their global strategy, has now become clearly the main focus. Its entry strategy has been oriented towards a progressive reinforcement of relations between brand and market, in particular in relation to the digitalisation of the market and its consumption mode. The brand started opening the main flagship store in the Mainland China capital Beijing and following with the fashion centre Shanghai at the beginning of 2006. After a few years of gradual expansion and monitoring of the market evolution, the brand can nowadays count on a consolidated flagship store network adding value to the brand awareness. Counting on the younger Chinese luxury market segments, the brand had a remarkable immediate growth in the market as a result of its brand core values and image as well as of its own digitalisation of the brand development strategy. The growth and consolidated positioning allowed the brand to start a brand expansion strategy by introducing the cosmetics line in department stores after clothing and apparel and perfumes. Conclusion A luxury brand focused on a specific rebranding as entry strategy for the Chinese market through the integration between the socio-cultural variables associated to the local context and the core components of the brand. A transferred the brand to the Chinesemarket by maintaining its own young style and image, specifically suitable for the young Chinese luxury market. In the initial phase of the Chinese market entry, A focused on reinforcing the brand image and awareness in the local socio-cultural context by developing their retail and distribution in particular by having key premium locations, fundamental to communicate the brand identity and core values. However, the retailing network was not perceived as sufficient to create “a social buzz” in the Chinese young socio-cultural context that is specifically influenced by digital media in this geographical environment. The analysis of the brand and its entry strategy in China have clearly shown that they entry and kept expanding in China from first to third tier cities and to different targeted segments by developing an intelligent digitalisation of the brand. Starting from developing a Chinese version of the brand name, A brand modified its brand name as a main strategy to giving meaning to the brand in the Chinese socio-cultural context, as well as emphasizing the heritage of the brand and creating a strong position in the mind of the Chinese consumer and creating a strong advantage in the digital search positioning. Furthermore, in analysing the market socio-cultural digital trends and the decreasing reach of conventional media and the increasing one of the digital ones, A decided to focalise on a diversified use of digital media in their entry strategy - through online video advertising and the growing digital out of home as well as local search engine as Baidu or local social networks, BAIDU Sina.com Wechat Youku and in particular online influencers and BBS, Bullet Board Systems – by clearly choosing to rebrand through the digitalisation of their luxury brand in compliance with the socio-cultural variables and trends of the market. The sample case will be reported and the model path for branding and rebranding in the Chinese context will be presented.

Social media was originally based on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and is described as “user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Although initially used for communication among internet users for privacy, it has become one of the most powerful online networking tools, and in the last few years has been widely practiced in the real world to enhance relationships between businesses and customers. Virtual tourist communities are not a new concept; they have been used for more than 10 years by tourists to exchange opinions and experiences of certain travel destinations. In tourism, internet based social communities have greatly expanded recently as a result of Web 2.0 technologies’ development. Tourists use the Internet to obtain information on trips, and share experiences related to their trip before, during and after their vacation (Parra-Lopez et al., 2011). Therefore, behaviors such as sharing photos and videos, writing travel experiences in blogs and microblogs, ranking travel destinations and posting opinions on social forums (for example, TripAdvisor) are becoming generalized (Chung & Buhalis, 2008) into what has been called Travel 2.0 (Adam, et al., 2007). The purpose and importance of this study is to explore how tourists perceive the value of social media as practiced in the tourism industry. We also investigate travel agencies’ social media marketing activities, and how tourists’ perceived value of social media affects their intention to use social media for organizing their vacation. Conceptual foundations Perceived value of using social media in tourism Perceived value is treated as a major element in a number of tourism research papers (for example, Parasuraman & Grewal, 2000; Sweeny & Soutar, 2001; Jin et al. 2015). As Parra-Lopez et al. (2011, pp.641) said, “the identification of the types of customer value perceived by travelers using social media for trip planning purposes is very essential, because it can provide significant guidelines on how to design the information sources, the structure and the functionality of social media in order to enhance their web traffic, usage and competiveness”. Realizing the essential role of social media in the tourist industry, and clarifying how to measure the perceived value of using social media is required. Because perceived value is defined as ‘cognitive-affective evaluation’ in this study, we employ both cognitive and affective variables to measure the perceived value of using social mediato organize vacations. This study applies four dimensions – ‘functional’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’ and ‘trust’ from Parra-Lopez et al.’s (2011) study - to measure the value that travelers perceive from using social media to organize their vacations. Because both cognitive and affective value are used to evaluate a product or service during the purchasing process (Bajs, 2015), it seems reasonable to assume that ‘function’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’, and ‘trust’ are regarded as essential when measuring the perceived value of using social media to organize vacations. Such propositions and findings provide valuable insights that enable us to introduce our Hypothesis 1. H1: ‘Functional’, ‘Social’, ‘Altruism’ and ‘Trust’ are the dominant dimensions in the perceived value of using social media in organizing vacations. The inter-relationship of attitudes towards social media marketing activities and the perceived value and intention of using social media to organize vacations Social media is seen as one of the most powerful communication tools, and social media marketing (referred to henceforth as ‘SMM’) is used by business companies to build and maintain relationships with their customers in various fields (Kim & Ko, 2012). In previous studies, such as Kim and Ko (2012) as well as Teo and Tan (2002), it has been claimed that customers’ attitudes towards SMM activities affect brand equity. This conclusion is also supported by Chan and Guillet’s (2011) study, which shows the important role of SMM in the hospitality industry. Nowadays, most travel agencies in Japan have created their social communities aiming to enhance their relationship with customers and promote their travel products. Aker and Topcu (2011) suggest that attitude greatly affects people’s purchase intention and behavior. Moreover, the wide acceptance of SMM also means that a positive attitude towards SMM affects the perceived value of social media. It has been clarified that perceived value is positive when the benefits are greater than the sacrifices (Zeithaml, 1988). As more and more tourists rely on social media to enhance their vacations, this suggests that the perceived benefit of social media is greater than the sacrifice, and therefore its perceived value positively affects the behavior intention of tourists who use social media to organize vacations. This academic background leads us to Hypothesis 2. H2: Both direct effect (i.e. attitude towards SMM activities→Intention) and indirect effect (i.e. attitude towards SMM activities→ Perceived value→Intention) will provide a good explanation of tourists’ intention of using social media to organize vacations. Methodology Proposed conceptual model Based on the theoretical background, this study proposes a conceptual model (see Figure 1) to show the inter-relationship of ‘attitudes towards SMM activities’, ‘perceived value’ and ‘behavior intention’. Figure 1: Conceptual Model Measurement This study involves items which have been used in past research. All items were developed based on the 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ (see Table 1).Data collection The empirical data for this study was collected by an online survey conducted by one of the biggest research companies in Japan from March 13th to March 16th, 2015. A screening test was conducted to select suitable respondents with experience of using social media to organize their vacation and had accessed or used travel agencies’ social media, such as Facebook, Blog, and Twitter. Finally, due to the limited research budget, 622 valid samples were collected to be used in analysing the conceptual model. Data analysis results As all items presented in this study are cited from past research, we employed second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) directly to explore the dominant dimensions of the perceived value of using social media to organize vacations (H1), and covariance structure analysis to investigate the inter-relationship among attitudes towards SMM activities, perceived value and behavior intention (H2). The results of data analysis are shown below (see Figure 2&3). Conclusions and managerial implications Based on the results reported in the present study, ‘functional’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’ and ‘trust’ are shown as dominant dimensions of perceived value in social media literature, thus supporting hypothesis 1. However, these four dimensions play different roles in perceived value. Compared with other dimensions, ‘altruism’ appears to be more essential. This result can be explained by the usage of social media. Tourists tend to share their experiences, opinions, photos and videos about certain travel destinations in what is called ‘altruism dimensions’. These tourists’ behavior is not for the benefit of others but for self-satisfaction (Baym, 2010) and is believed to be the most important incentive for using social media. Concerning the inter-relationship of attitudes towards SMM, perceived value and the intention of using social media to organize a vacation, contrary to our hypothesis, tourists’ attitudes towards SMM activities conducted by travel agencies do not seem to affect their behavior intention of using social media to organize their vacation (.05). The perceived value of social media seems to play a significant mediating role between attitudes towards SMM and behavior intention. In other words, the indirect influence (.585) through perceived value is greater than the direct influence (.05) of attitudes toward SMM on behavior intention. This result implies that travel agency managers should know how to increase the perceived value of social media, instead of only attempting to enhance SMM activities. Limitations Social media’s commodification in Japan is still a new concept, and for Japanese tourists, the practice of social media in the tourist industry is relatively novel. In other words, social media’s commodification has not been developed enough in Japan. Thus, the results gained from the empirical study should be compared in the countries where social media is more developed.

The literature on co-creation of stakeholder and brand identities draws from (and reflects) a focus on cultures with dominant independent selves. However, this type of co-creation in a global context requires understanding of how cultural differences can simultaneously shape identity development and co-construction, from both a brand and a multiple stakeholder point of view. Processes involved in such a reciprocal co-creation of identity, as well as outcomes, are likely to differ across cultures, especially in the way brands, consumers, and, by extension, other stakeholders use one another in their respective identity construction processes. This study offers a first-of-its-kind conceptual framework, together with a set of propositions, that unpacks how cultural differences might affect such reciprocal co-creation processes. Drawing from this framework, the study advances both the cross-cultural and the co-creation literature by (1) offering several overlooked theoretical, managerial, and methodological implications and (2) highlighting important but currently under-developed avenues that future research could apply to more complex, multiple brand–stakeholder relationships.

The country-of-origin (COO) concept has obtained considerable attention by marketing researchers and managers since its introduction by Schooler in 1965. The relevance of this construct has been underlined by various studies indicating that a product’s COO serves as a signal for product quality, thus driving consumers’ product evaluations (Han & Terpstra, 1988), and consequently coloring their decision-making processes (Herz & Diamantopoulos, 2013). However, “despite a large body of research, country-of-origin effects are still poorly understood” (Verlegh & Steenkamp 1999, p. 521). This view is reiterated by Jaffe and Nebenzahl (2006) and Knight and Calantone (2001) who argue that academicians have so far not been able to provide an integrative theoretical framework capable of explaining the country-of-origin concept and the effects it has on behavioral intentions. The lacking consensus on a formalized and theory-based framework has resulted in various and often inconsistent views on the conceptualization of the COO concept (Laroche, Papadopoulos, Heslop & Mourali, 2005; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). More specifically, several researchers view COO as a cognitive mental construct, consisting of associations, attributes and beliefs which consumers link to a particular manufacturing country (e.g. Gürhan-Canli & Maheswaran, 2000). However, other researchers propose to include not only cognitive but also affective components in the COO concept (e.g. Häubl, 1996). Further, studies also differ on the question whether COO should be viewed as a host of various beliefs (e.g. Martin & Eroglu, 1993) or rather as an overall evaluative attitudinal construct (e.g. Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993). To complicate things further, existing studies also only loosely define whether COO should be conceptualized as a mental construct or rather as an effect that stems from a mental construct (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). As a consequence, this conceptual ambiguity within the COO literature has yielded different operationalization for the measurement of the COO construct. As a consequence, and perhaps not surprisingly, the empirical work on COO has often resulted in conflicting findings (e.g. Pappu, Queste & Cooksey, 2006), limiting the advancement of the whole research area and making it harder for managers to apply it. Existing research (Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell & Assaf, 2013) has addressed the conceptual ambiguity of COO by providing a framework for the macro-structure, explaining how different units of analysis relate to each other. However, researchers’ 1) fk.marktg@cbs.dkIntroduction The country-of-origin (COO) concept has obtained considerable attention by marketing researchers and managers since its introduction by Schooler in 1965. The relevance of this construct has been underlined by various studies indicating that a product’s COO serves as a signal for product quality, thus driving consumers’ product evaluations (Han & Terpstra, 1988), and consequently coloring their decision-making processes (Herz & Diamantopoulos, 2013). However, “despite a large body of research, country-of-origin effects are still poorly understood” (Verlegh & Steenkamp 1999, p. 521). This view is reiterated by Jaffe and Nebenzahl (2006) and Knight and Calantone (2001) who argue that academicians have so far not been able to provide an integrative theoretical framework capable of explaining the country-of-origin concept and the effects it has on behavioral intentions. The lacking consensus on a formalized and theory-based framework has resulted in various and often inconsistent views on the conceptualization of the COO concept (Laroche, Papadopoulos, Heslop & Mourali, 2005; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). More specifically, several researchers view COO as a cognitive mental construct, consisting of associations, attributes and beliefs which consumers link to a particular manufacturing country (e.g. Gürhan-Canli & Maheswaran, 2000). However, other researchers propose to include not only cognitive but also affective components in the COO concept (e.g. Häubl, 1996). Further, studies also differ on the question whether COO should be viewed as a host of various beliefs (e.g. Martin & Eroglu, 1993) or rather as an overall evaluative attitudinal construct (e.g. Kotler, Haider & Rein, 1993). To complicate things further, existing studies also only loosely define whether COO should be conceptualized as a mental construct or rather as an effect that stems from a mental construct (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). As a consequence, this conceptual ambiguity within the COO literature has yielded different operationalization for the measurement of the COO construct. As a consequence, and perhaps not surprisingly, the empirical work on COO has often resulted in conflicting findings (e.g. Pappu, Queste & Cooksey, 2006), limiting the advancement of the whole research area and making it harder for managers to apply it. Existing research (Josiassen, Lukas, Whitwell & Assaf, 2013) has addressed the conceptual ambiguity of COO by providing a framework for the macro-structure, explaining how different units of analysis relate to each other. However, researchers’Information about a COO is not only hold at the aggregated level, as reflected by CI, but may also be manifested through various, potentially unrelated beliefs, that individuals link with a particular country-of-origin. Attitude researchers widely agree on the notionInformation about a COO is not only hold at the aggregated level, as reflected by CI, but may also be manifested through various, potentially unrelated beliefs, that individuals link with a particular country-of-origin. Attitude researchers widely agree on the notionIn conclusion, we propose that the myriad of conceptual views on the COO concept can be theoretically integrated in a formalized model (Figure 1). Thus, instead of viewing the different conceptualizations on COO as conflicting, we show that they are indeed complementary, and can be understood by applying seminal psychology literature. The model also provides conceptual structure to the interactions between the three35 components, as well as enhancing our understanding how mental representations form behavioural intentions (Ajzen, 2001; Eagly et al., 1994).

The goal of this master plan is to utilize the historical and cultural landscape resources of Deokjin park, with a thousand years of history, to improve the park’s value, promote the creative development of the historical and cultural landscape, increase the number of tourists, and tourists’ experience elating to traditional culture in the northern district of Jeonju, Korea. To establish master plan, this study analyzed the location, natural environment, and human environment of Deokjin park. The target of this study was limited to the area surrounding Deokjinji within Deokjin park. In order to reflect visitors’ opinions, a survey was conducted relating to the tourism resources around Deokjinji. “Masterpiece of the world! Deokjin park” was selected as a vision statement for the park. The theme of the master plan for the area surrounding Deokjinji is “Pure love that has bloomed for a millennium in Deokjinji,” with the motifs of millennial history and lotus flowers. The development strategy includes thematizing the love of Deokjinji over a thousand years, strengthening the connections with nearby resources, and specializing in the nightscape and nighttime activities. This study suggested the following as facilities for year-round tourism: a traditional dike to reinforce the historic nature of Deokjinji; a performing ferryboat that connects Deokjinji with Jeonju Pansori (traditional dramatic songs); a water lily greenhouse and a botanical garden of sweet-flags/lotuses, thereby using lotuses, as the representative resource of Deokjinji. In particular, the dike around Deokjinji has been designed as the millennial love dike trail, taking into account the historic nature and structural significance based on its thousand-year history and its unique curved shape.

The previous social welfare system medical treatment, economy, society, etc, failed to guarantee “quality of life,” in various respects. In such a situation, green areas can be devised as an alternative means of directly improving the quality of life. Furthermore, natural resources and ecosystem services are essential elements of environmental welfare that have the purpose of supporting health and quality of life. However, despite the importance of such green space, it is often unavailable and there is a great disparity in its distribution among different regions in urbanized areas where residents are intensively dispersed. Therefore, the present study suggests a plan for reducing the regional imbalances in the green environment by using distributive equality and visual access as indexes, and Dalseo-gu, Daegu Metropolitan City as the subject; the research results are deemed to be sufficient for carrying out the important role of providing the basic data necessary for establishing future environmental welfare policy. An examination of the analysis results are as follows. First, Gamsam-dong was revealed to need additional green areas; out of the 167 spaces that were regarded as possible for green biotope construction, 48 spaces appeared possible for additional green biotope construction. However, only 10 spaces were assessed as having the potential for actual green biotope construction, excluding the spaces affected by local green environments. Moreover, given a concern with green equality, a final two were deducted as additional green spaces. The present study is significant in that it accomplishes visual accessibility analysis in terms of visual quality, including the effects of aesthetic enjoyment along with distributive equality from green biotopes; the relevant subfactors include green area supply and demand when constructing additional green biotopes to realize a city with improved environmental welfare. However, the present study is limited in terms of failing to consider the green biotope of local administrative districts affecting the target area of the study because it analyzes equality and disconnected green areas for selecting additional green biotope spaces using Dalseo-gu Daegu as its subject.

Efficient and sustainable sea transport is a key aspect to ensure cost competitive ship operation. The constant need to increase economic feasibility, energy efficiency and safety while complying with emission regulations motivates further developments and improvements in voyage optimization and weather routing systems. These systems optimize a voyage based on meteorological and oceanographic information taking into account ship characteristics and routing information. The quality of the provided route not only depends on the quality of this data, but also on the modeling of the optimization problem and the algorithm chosen to solve it. Due to the wide range of mathematical approaches and consequently challenges in decision making, this paper aims to give a comprehensive and comparative overview of the existing state-of-the-art methods by a thorough literature review and elaboration of different modeling approaches, optimization algorithms, and their application in weather routing systems. The research shows that approaches range from modeling the weather routing problem as a constrained graph problem, a constrained nonlinear optimization problem or as combination of both. Based on the formulation of the ship weather routing optimization problem different methods are used to solve it ranging from Dijkstra’s algorithm, dynamic programing and optimal control methods to isochrone methods or iterative approaches for solving nonlinear optimization problems. However, it can be concluded that the determination whether an approach is suitable, produces sufficient results and may be recommended, strongly depends on the specific requirements concerning optimization objectives, control variables and constraints as well as the implementation.

The full application and benefits of e-Navigation, as a whole, cannot yet fully be known. Technological developments will continuously change the course of national and international initiatives in the field, and lead the pace of the evolution. However, how countries govern and support the development of e-Navigation is very much within the realm of control. National-level e-navigation governance structures that are capable of harnessing innovation and supporting the needs of mariners will help ensure that the only limits to the evolution of e-navigation are technological. The aim of this paper is to describe a model for National-level e-Navigation structures, and to offer the Canadian model as an example for potential replication in other countries. The scope of the paper is limited, providing an account of the steps to implement the e-Navigation model in the Canadian context. The methodology is similarly humble, outlining the framework of the Canadian e-Navigation Concept of Operations, and current e-Navigation priorities. It is the basis for this model that is the keystone to the paper. The Canadian model was developed in a way that ideas, innovation and needs in Canada are not wholly determined by the government, but rather, the government aims to act as a facilitator and guide in bringing together disparate needs and ideas under a harmonized approach. The conclusion proposed is that on-going work with key partners and stakeholders can be used as the primary mechanism to identify e-Navigation related innovation and needs, and to prioritize next steps. Moving forward in Canada, implementation of new e-navigation services will continue to be stakeholder driven, and used to drive improvements to Canada’s marine navigation system.

This paper presents how Digital Knowledge Ecosystem such as “Govi Nena” (translates as agriculture intelligence) can be used to provide a more effective and practical solution to eliminate the inefficiencies in agricultural markets and achieve higher productivity and price stability. In order to establish the framework to analyze the system, this paper uses a set of hypothetical scenarios faced by value chain actors based on a review of the literature, established knowledge and recent developing country experiences. The scenario analysis reveals that “Govi Nena” enables farmers to make effective production decisions, deepens the level of value chain integration, and enhances the level of welfare for the society as a whole.

The purpose of this study was to analyze physiological reactions and visual preferences for lawn and flowerbed preferred by mental patients, and green space which is highly related with healing effects. Subjects were 25 mild cases of schizophrenia, who on the recommendation of their doctor, resided in psychiatric hospitals located in Jeollabuk-do, Korea. The survey was carried out in August 2010. The subjects were shown computer graphic simulations by a beam projector, and then brain wave and preferences were measured. In regards to physiological responses, the separate arrangement of tree cluster promoted a sense of stability and vitality, simultaneously. In the aspect of visual preferences, just one mass was preferred. The natural landscape planting pattern was visually preferred. There was a difference in preferences for the planting proportion of evergreen and deciduous trees in the leaf-fall and leaf-color seasons, but when both of them are taken into consideration, it is advisable that 75% of trees planted be occupied by evergreens to encourage emotional stability. The higher the ratio of tree to a lawn, the higher the visual preference. The ratio of 1:1 or 1:0.5 between a lawn and trees is advisable if the physiological effect is considered, but creating a lawn alone should be avoided. With regard to color preferences for the flower bed, orange was visually preferred. Pink was desirable to create a sense of emotional stability, and red to physiologically revitalize the subjects.

In this work, recent progress on graphene/metal oxide composites as advanced materials for HgCl2 and CO2 capture was investigated. Density Functional Theory calculations were used to understand the effects of temperature on the adsorption ability of HgCl2 and water vapor on CO2 adsorption on CaO (001) with reinforced carbon-based nanostructures using B3LYP functional. Understanding the mechanism by which mercury and CO2 adsorb on graphene/CaO (g-CaO) is crucial to the design and fabrication of effective capture technologies. The results obtained from the optimized geometries and frequencies of the proposed cluster site structures predicted that with respect to molecular binding the system possesses unusually large HgCl2 (0.1- 0.4 HgCl2 g/g sorbent) and CO2 (0.2-0.6 CO2 g/g sorbent) uptake capacities. The HgCl2 and CO2 were found to be stable on the surface as a result of the topology and a strong interaction with the g-CaO system; these results strongly suggest the potential of CaO-doped carbon materials for HgCl2 and CO2 capture applications, the functional gives reliable answers compared to available experimental data.

The key features of maritime accidents are the change of their attributes by new risks from time to time. To prevent maritime accidents in Korea, the impacts by new risks on domestic safety environments should be identified or predicted. The purpose of this paper is to find the hazard factors by new risks on maritime safety in Korea. The meaning of new risks is the elements of accident hazard which is compiled from new or rare or unprecedented events in the worldwide maritime transportations. The problems of new risks are the lacks of optimum countermeasures to mitigate accident risks. Using the questionnaires with 152 event scenarios classified by 20 accident causes, the hazard identification and risk analysis of new risks was performed based on the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) by IMO. A total of 22 Influence Diagrams, which is to depict the transit flows between accident causes to consequences, is used in the construction of 152 event scenarios. A total of 20 accidents causes is the same contents as the causation factors represented in Statistical Year Book for Maritime Accidents of Korean Maritime Safety Tribunals. After defining the evaluation equations to the response results of questionnaires by 46 experts, the work for risk analysis is carried out. As results from the analysis of 152 scenarios, it is known that the root cause to affect on maritime safety in Korea is the pressure of business competition and it led to the lacks of well experienced crews, the overload of vessel operations and crew's fatigue. In addition, as results from the analysis of 20 accident causes, the three accident causes are to be candidate as main issues in Korea such as the inadequate preparedness of departure, the neglecting of watch keeping in bridge and the inadequate management of ship operations. All of the results are thought to be as basic hazard factors to safety impediments. It is thus found that the optimum Risk Control Options to remove the hazard factors and to mitigate consequences required are the following two factors: business competition and crewing problems.

In order to address climate change, the international community established a regulatory framework in addition to adaptation and mitigation strategies being at its core, and adopted “common, but differentiated responsibility” as the fundamental principle behind the international climate change regime. However, the climate change regime has reached an impasse in recent years. This paper suggests that “common and symmetrical responsibility” should become the central organizing principle of the future climate regime in order to resolve disagreements among countries and encourage the initiative by the international community. This paper not only provides an analysis of the “bridging mechanism for adaptation and mitigation,” based primarily on the allocation of quantified emissions, limitation and reduction commitments and the sharing of multilateral climate funds, but also discusses the “cut-or-fund” scheme and “cut-and-fund” scheme in in developed and developing States, respectively under this mechanism.

In this study, the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of low-salt Myungran jeotkal (Alaskan pollock roe) were evaluated after fermentation at 4℃ and 20℃ with or without the addition of deep sea water, salt from deep sea water, and vegetable-origin lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus fermentum JS, LBF). When fermented at 20℃, the addition of LBF to Myungran jeotkal resulted in a slow increase in lactic acid content, followed by an abrupt increase after five days of fermentation. However, when fermented at 4℃, the lactic acid content did not change significantly. Further, when Myungran jeotkal fermented at 4℃, the pH decreased as lactic acid production increased. The salinity of Myungran jeotkal fermented at 4℃ and 20℃ was 7% and was not affected by fermentation period. When fermented at 20℃, volatile basic nitrogen and amino nitrogen contents increased with increasing duration of fermentation. Further, volatile acid content decreased, however, the content of amino nitrogen increased after 11 days of fermentation with LBF and no salt effects were observed. When fermented at 20℃ for 13 days, preference (sensory evaluation) was the highest in all experimental groups after 9 days of fermentation, and then decreased as the fermentation period increased. The free amino acid content was highest (1,648.8 mg/100 g) in Myungran jeotkal when sun-dried salt and LBF were added, 2.3 times higher than in the control.