As information technology advanced, customers’ service consumption process heavily shifted to the online environment, particularly social media and mobile. A new topic, customer engagement, has emerged along with the fast advancement of social media. Customer engagement refers to a type of customer behavior that is beyond purchase such as spreading word-of-mouth, providing recommendations to family and friends, interacting with fellow customers, and writing online reviews (Bijmolt et al., 2010; Verhoef, Reinartz, & Krafft, 2010). This study introduces the Flow theory, which is especially important to understand consumers’ online experiences, with the intention to shed light on how to better engage consumers in the hospitality industry (Bilgihan, Okumus, Nusair, & Bujisic, 2014; Hoffman & Novak, 2009). The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of flow and further investigate its influence on positive attitude and continuance intention among restaurant social media users. This study specifically examines restaurant customers who use social media through their smart phones in searching information and sharing experiences with others. A self-administered questionnaire was developed and a Structure equational modeling (SEM) was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Study results support the hypotheses, indicating the importance of creating flow to increase customer engagement. Academically, this study contributes to the limited body of literature on flow experience and customer engagement in the hospitality context. Additionally, it provides practical insights for hospitality marketers on how to gain competitive advantages by strategically managing customer engagement on social media marketing through flow.

This research examines the impact of closing versus opening eyes on consumers’ decision making as to whether the decision context is driven by utilitarian versus hedonic motivation. The findings from three studies show that consumers processing advertising messages with their eyes closed are likely to use high-level, abstract processing, and thus more positively evaluate the utilitarian products (vs. the hedonic products). On the contrary, consumers with their eyes open are likely to use low-level, concrete processing, and thus more positively evaluate the hedonic products (vs. the utilitarian products). Implications for consumers and marketers are discussed.

This study attempts to investigate consumers’ perceptual process of influencer advertising and its impact on brand attitude formation on social media. Perceived congruence between the influencer and the product and sponsorship disclosure are manipulated as key independent variables. In so doing, this study examines whether consumers can infer two types of motives (affective vs. calculative) from different levels of perceived congruence (high vs. low) and sponsorship disclosure (present vs. absent). The impact of multiple motive inference on brand attitude is also examined in this study. The result indicates that perceived congruence of influencer and posting has a significant effect on the affective motive inference. When the posting is perceived to be relevant to and expected from the influencer, the participants infer the affective motive of the influencer. However, the participants do not infer calculative motives from the incongruent posting of the influencer. As native advertising can obfuscate the boundary between editorial and commercial contents (Conill, 2016), perceived congruence is significant to successfully cover the posting as a natural posting by influencer and induce affective motive inference. In addition, the disclosure of sponsorship did not reveal any effect on the calculative and the affective motive inferences. Even though the disclosure of sponsorship can make viewers recognize an advertising intent (Boerman, Willemsen, & Van Der Aa, 2017), the message did not induce motives inference behind it. It is significant to investigate whether there are intervening variables that moderate the linkage between sponsorship disclosure and motive inference processing. Furthermore, affective motive inference impacted the attitude for the brand whereas calculative motive inference exerted no significant effect. These findings suggest that when the product promoted in influencer advertising is congruent with the influencer, consumers form positive attitude toward the brand through affective inference processing. To successfully implement influencer advertising, marketers should design a content congruent with the influencer’s original postings and encourage audience to engage in affective motive processing.

People face various situations that they have to decide whether to buy or not, before uncertainty is resolved. Under the uncertain conditions, it is most crucial part for consumers that they should consider the expected valuation derived from purchasing tickets or services. Thus, it is important to contemplate buyer uncertainty about future valuation. Xie and Shugan presented the relationship between spot price and advance price in a situation that involves uncertainty. Their findings provide the explicit advance pricing strategies that can create profit improvements (Xie & Shugan, 2001). Their findings lay a foundation of this problem, because buyers are almost always not sure about their future valuations for most services (Xie & Shugan, 2001). In addition to these findings, the researchers found that profits under option pricing strategy outperform those from advance pricing strategy (Preethika Sainam, 2010). They introduce the concept of consumer options and analytically prove that consumer options can make more profits and also can protect consumers from the pitfall derived from unwanted outcomes (Preethika Sainam, 2010). In this paper, we want to consider this problem under more complex and real circumstances. We include one more pricing strategy, discounted advance pricing, which is often called early bird pricing. Furthermore, we divide consumers in two types, risk-neutral consumers and risk-averse consumers. We present a simple analytical model in what conditions each pricing strategies can out-perform others based on consumer types and capacity types.

This study aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media marketing as a tool in communicating a “populist” (Scott, 2015) luxury fashion brand’s good intentions toward ordinary people; it also seeks to identify whether luxury fashion brands frequently perceived as exclusive and “envied” could become approachable and “admired” brands, simply by expressing “warm” intentions on their social media sites. Ultimately, we aim to investigate whether positive relational outcomes can be derived from the brand repositioning process, from envy to admiration. This study builds on the brands as intentional agents framework (Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone, 2012), which categorizes brands in terms of their “intentions” and “ability”: “able/ill-intentioned” luxury brands are categorized as “envied brands,” while “able/well-intentioned” brands elicit the general public’s admiration. Our pre-test results confirmed that consumers can sense a brand’s good intentions and ability via its social media site. We then conducted an online selfreported survey among 488 US women aged 18–49 years who were following or “liking” at least one luxury fashion brand’s official social media site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that intentions have a negative impact on consumer envy, and that they have a positive impact on consumer admiration. Ability was found to have a positive impact on consumer admiration of the brands, while it has a negative impact on consumer envy. Although we confirmed negative directions, consumer envy of the brands had nonsignificant impacts on both emotional brand attachment and brand forgiveness. However, consumer admiration of the brands had a positive impact on both kinds of brand responses. In conclusion, while most luxury fashion brands have stuck to exclusivity, the findings of this study imply that by continually showing good intentions towards ordinary people, luxury fashion brands could reposition themselves as admired brands, which would in turn enhance emotional brand attachment. In this way, these brands could cultivate affectionate and passionate consumer–brand relationships making consumers feel more connected to them. In doing so, luxury fashion brands can acquire through social media powerful consumer allies (Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011), who are willing to forgive their failures.

Do Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities really influence firm value, and if so, what is the mechanism that is at work? In this study, we especially focused on publicizing CSR (PCSR) and tried to examine the effect of PCSR on firm value. We merged the data from different archival sources and obtained balanced panel data consisting of 385 firmyear observation across 77 firms for 5 years. The data contained several variables such as Publicizing CSR, WOM, Tobin's q, Advertising intensity, Contribution to sales ratio, ROE, Sales increase, Asset, GDP, and other financial indicators. This study provides several implications for marketing theory and practice. First, it simultaneously reveals the preceding and following factors of word of mouth. Second, our evidence suggests that marketing managers could obtain benefits if they concentrate not only on finding good CSR activities but also on publicizing them well, and that PCSR could be a great help for companies that want to improve the public awareness and interest. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between publicizing CSR (PCSR) and firm value, and the mechanism by which the influence is conveyed. Our findings are as below. First, the higher the PCSR, the greater the firm value even though the ratio of contribution to sales is added. Because the contribution is known as a representative proxy for corporate socially responsible investment, this result implies that PCSR is significant even though the effect of CSR itself is controlled. Second, WOM mediates the relationship between PCSR and firm value. This suggests that publicizing CSR could attract people's attention and then contribute positively to firm value. Finally, this study found that the effects of PCSR on firm value are mediated through positive WOM in the context of controlling negative WOM. This result implies that PCSR increases the amount of positive WOM, rather than negative WOM, which helps improve corporate value.

Customer management based on Customer lifetime value has emerged as the most effective way of doing business due to the ability to foster profitable CRM (Verhoef & Lemon, 2013; Villanueva & Hanssens, 2007). Although there has been much conceptual evidence of the positive link between customer equity and firm’s performance(Blattberg, Malthouse, and Neslin 2009), comparison of relationships between two competing firms based on customer equity and firm profitability is limited. Therefore, this research examines the role of customer equity on the firm profitability by comparing the company type such as leader and follower in customer equity setting. The result shows that the effect of newly acquired Customer equity of the second tier company is stronger than that of the top tier company while the effect of retained customer equity of the top company is stronger than that of the second tier company. Overall, the results provide strategic implications for firms to use a different customer equity strategy in a competitive market structure.

This study was designed to deepen our understanding of contemporary luxury experience based on a systematic literature review. Based on the theoretical review, this study attempted to propose and elaborate two contrasting propositions (i.e., ephemeral vs. perpetuating values) reflecting the evolving luxury market. One key trend is that consumers pursue the value of hedonism providing immediate escapism and satisfaction in luxury consumption. The on-demand mindset of consumers looking for instant desire and gratification can be exemplified by the ‘See-Now, Buy-Now’ trend in the luxury market (Weinswig, 2017). While traditional luxury consumers pursued conspicuous value, consumers of new luxury pursue more self-centric and immersive experience. In line with this perspective, Yeoman (2011) noticed the trend of renting luxury products through online services. Another notable trend is that consumers seek inspirational resources in luxury consumption. For example, numerous luxury brands are showing various art exhibitions, and have their own art foundations, which Kapferer (2014) interpreted as the emergence of luxury brands exploiting artistic aura like art institutions. In addition, luxury brands have extended their products and services to encompass a whole set of lifestyle offerings when seeing the example of flagship store of Fendi, Palazzo Fendi (Waga, 2016). This review used a systematic approach for searching and assessing the existing scholarly evidence base to interpret two emerging trends in the luxury market. The further use of proposed framework and propositions in empirical research would help revealing how consumers subjectively perceive the contemporary luxury experience discussed in this study.

Social media have been proved as a tool for social branding, but not as a tool for return on investment (ROI) generation. The ultimate goal of any business activities is to generate ROI; therefore, businesses should know what social media practices actually increase their ROI. Researchers in the computer science and engineering areas have attempted to create a systematic model/statistical method to quantify data collected from social media to generate meaningful consumer and market trends and ROI (Zeng, Chen, Lusch, & Li. 2010). This process is called Social Media Intelligence (SMI) or Social Media Analytics (SMA). Researchers have not been yet successful in developing an effective analytical system for social media data to generate ROI. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore which social media practices would affect ROI based on SMA process with key techniques used to analyze the indicators in social media (i.e., Key Performance Indicators; KPIs) that show the effectiveness of a company in achieving its business objectives. This study is an exploratory research to determine the nature of a problem in the SMI, to gain further insight, and to show opportunities in the subject area. The result shows that using crawling, topic modeling and social network analysis techniques, businesses could collect and monitor right KPIs depending on their social media goals (e.g., number of followers for awareness, number of link clicks for engagement, number of lead magnets for conversion). After then, using the techniques to analyze the KPIs (e.g., opinion mining, sentiment analysis, etc. for the understand stage), businesses would be able to identify/predict consumer demands and market trends. Based on this prediction, businesses need to visualize the result to customers by executing right marketing strategies (e.g., effective viral marketing, personalized Call-To-Action, customized product/service, direct relationship establishment, frequent communication, establish long relationship, etc.). This study could contribute to the field by presenting the effective KPIs and techniques organized based on the SMA stages and social media goals and could provide the industry a right tool and a direction for their social media promotional practices.

To lead a movie to success, managers must understand why consumers buy tickets. Some go to the movies due to trailers or movie posters, others watch movies triggered by their friends’ recommendation. Using Bass (1969)’s terms, we may categorize the former type of consumers into innovators who are influenced by external factors such as advertisements and media reports. We may label the latter type as imitators who are affected by internal factors such as word-of-mouth (WOM). Consumers in the digital era, regardless of their motivation types, easily obtain information related to movies through webpages or social networking services. Therefore, marketers should focus on how online information influence the diffusion of products. Additionally, each country has a unique cultural background, thereby resulting in different consumer behavior. Based on the prior arguments, we expect that the US movie market would show higher innovation effect and lower imitation effect compared to the Korean movie market. Opposite to the hypothesis, there are no significant differences in the innovation effect between the two markets. However, as expected, the imitation effect of US is significantly lower than that of Korea. In both markets, the advertising level and the publicizing level do not show any significant effect on the innovation effect. However, the two variables have significant and positive effect on the market potential. As predicted, the gender and the age heterogeneity of WOM are revealed to affect the imitation effect in the hypothesized direction. Product availability, measured with the number of screens, has a positive relationship with the innovation effect in the US market and with the market potential in both markets. Lastly, seasonality shows a positive association with the imitation effect in the US market and with the market potential in the Korean market. The current research tries to explore key differences in the diffusion patterns of movies between the US and Korean markets by applying Bass diffusion model. Further, this study aims to discover the factors that bring about the innovation and the imitation effects in both markets. By employing data available online, the current study could provide practical implications on how to manage information delivered through online channels.

In this research, we explore the role of interpersonal personalization in brand offerings in engendering the representations of ‘which dimension’ of brand personality (Aaker, 1997) and the subsequent effect on consumer attitude toward and connection with the brand (Fournier, 1998). Experiment 1 reveals that interpersonal personalization is different from customization with unique benefit in developing sincerity in brand personality. It demonstrates the positive effect of personalization on brand attitude through formulation of a sincere brand. Experiment 2 provides empirical evidence that personalization encouraging consumer’s involvement in the product design process allows consumer’s greater engagement with and investment towards the brand, which then manifests favorable brand attitude. The findings of this research offer insights on how brands can take advantage of personalization practice in their product or service offerings to engage consumers, and subsequently develop a close relationship with them. This research makes an important contribution to the brand personality literature through identifying a specific marketing approach (i.e., interpersonal personalization) as an effective strategy in developing a specific type of brand personality (i.e., sincerity). In sum, this research offers new view on how to manage close relationship with consumers, which is a significant practical implication for marketing managers.

Recently, flipped learning has become prevalent as a new education model in higher education. Flipped learning (FL) refers to switching and restructuring classwork and homework content, i.e., instructional multimedia concepts at home and enrichment and reinforcement in class. Flipped or inverted classes focus on activities and participation during the class time of students, who should previously watch the video materials. However, FL is different from just watching videos before classes. Video clips are not supplementary class material or even all the lectures. FL is an innovative way to change passive learners to active learners as they lead the classes and utilize teachers for guidance. The purpose of the study is to investigate how technology-driven FL works for marketing courses at the college level. In class, students are supposed to do projects as a member of a group and they also lead the class with what they have learned from video clips they watched before coming to class. FL offers student centered learning, where students can control the learning pace and can get benefits from peer learning in marketing courses.

The purpose of this study was to examine the immediate effect of neck stabilization exercise and Swiss ball exercise on the recovery from the fatigue of neck muscles induced. The turtleneck posture was set artificially by using Smartphone with healthy adults. Repetitively measured ANOVA was executed to examine the changes in the muscle fatigue of sternocleidomastoid, upper trapezius, and splenius capitis among three-time intervals (at the time of general resting, work and after intervention) in the three intervention groups (neck stabilization exercise group, Swiss ball exercise group, and ordinary rest group). There were no significant differences in the changes of fatigue of sternocleidomastoid muscle among all three intervention groups at the time of general resting, work and after intervention (p>.05). Although there was no significant difference in the changes in the fatigue of upper trapezius and splenius capitis muscles between the intervention groups at the time of general resting and work (p>.05), there was the significant difference between the three intervention groups at the time of work and after intervention (p>.05). This study suggest that Swiss ball exercise is more effective in reducing the muscular fatigue of the neck and shoulder at a turtleneck posture than neck stabilization exercise.

This study aimed to determine the effect of McKenzie lumbar support on pulmonary function in Stroke patients. Twenty subjects (n=20) were divided into two groups: a McKenzie lumbar support group (MLS group=10), a control group (n=10). Pulmonary function was performed to assess its effectiveness. A spirometer was used to measure the forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), peak expiratory flow (PEF). The intervention was conducted for four weeks. In the MLS group, FEV1, FVC, and PEF were increased after McKenzie lumbar support. (p<0.05), while no significant differences in the variables were found in the control group (p>0.05). There were no significant differences in variables between the MLS group and the control group (p>0.05). Our findings suggest that applying Mckenzie lumbar support may be an alternative maneuver to improve pulmonary function in stroke patients.

This study was conducted to examine the effects of the application of familycentered training over the 12-week period by the pediatric physiotherapist on functional balance and activities of daily living in children with cerebral palsy. Among the 26 children with cerebral palsy as the subjects were allocated to the experimental and control group. Both groups were subjected to neurodevelopmental treatment by the pediatric physiotherapist. The experimental group, participated in family-centered training program 3 times a week over a period of 12 weeks for the total of 36 sessions, functional balance and activities of daily living were verified through intergroup comparison. There was no significant difference between the outcomes prior to training and after 6 weeks of training, (p>.05) Pediatric Berg's Balance Scale(PBS) and Functional Independence Measure for children(Wee-FIM) increased significantly from those measures after 6 weeks to those after 12 weeks of training (p<.05). Therefore, these results suggest that on family-centered training on children with cerebral palsy has beneficial effects on functional movements and physical activities.

This study examined the risk components and risk types perceived in the context of purchasing decisions of paper fashion products. This study also identified the levels of perceived risk by consumers and the differences between age groups in risk perception. First, qualitative data were collected through a focus group interview with 7 Korean females in their 20s to 50s. The interviewees were presented with two types of paper materials (undyed and dyed Jumchi-Hanji) and products (bags and wallets) made with the papers. The interviewees mentioned 11 risk components which were classified into five types of risks: performance (easily torn/lack of durableness, lint/pilling/wear-out, lack of water-resistant, no washability, and deformation and discoloration over time), social-psychological (old and traditional image), aesthetic (lack of design diversity, unsatisfactory appearance due to repair), financial (expensive price, lack of usability in daily life) and time/convenience (difficulty in handling) risks. Based on the results of the interview, a measurement for evaluating the risk perception of paper fashion products was developed. Second, quantitative data were collected from 64 Korean women in their 20s to 50s using the measurement. Respondents who were presented with the paper materials and the products perceived the performance risk more strongly than the social-psychological risk and aesthetic risk. In addition, differences between age groups were found: younger respondents perceived performance risk and social-psychological risk more strongly than older respondents, but older respondents perceived financial risk more than younger respondents. Based on this study, strategies for the risk reduction of paper fashion products were proposed.

The number of hand knitters has increased dramatically in the past few years. Recently, various hand knitted items have been seen in many fashion collections. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the design features of hand knitted items in the collections from Daniela Gregis. This brand was selected because it featured knitted items in its collections every season. An empirical analysis about form, material, color and knitting technique was done for hand knitted items from Daniela Gregis’ collections from 2012 S/S to 2018 S/S. The results can be summarized as follows: In terms of form, garments such as pullovers, cardigans, and shawls used basic components, and accessories such as bags, mufflers, hats, and decorative pieces had various shapes. In the material, there were many items that expressed unique textures by combining various materials such as a mix of fabric and yarn. With regards to color, orange, yellow, and red were mainly used as accent colors, and combinations of two or more colors were prominent in the items. In terms of knitting technique, the methods used in the collections were mostly simple and basic. Among various techniques, plain knitting, garter knitting, and single crochet methods were mainly used. While this study is limited to the characteristics of hand knitted items from a single brand, therefore cannot be generalized for all knit fashion, the study provides basic data that could facilitate the revitalization of the hand knitting industry and expand the application range of hand knitting techniques.

Hair style allows consumers to express their aesthetic sense and individual beauty. However, due to the attributes of hairdressing services and the high expectations of consumers, complaints are increasing rapidly. This study examined the complaint behavior, compensation and hair salon patronage of consumers. Then, a model is presented that explains the complaint behavior for hairstyling, forms of compensation, and hair salon patronage through empirical analysis. This study was conducted by a survey method. A total of 399 questionnaires were used for the analysis. The data were analyzed using SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 23.0 statistical software. The dimension of complaint behavior for hair style included verbal complaints, non-verbal complaints in the salon and private complaints outside the salon. The forms of compensation included re-procedure, psychological, and material compensation. Hair salon patronage was one-dimensional. These results were obtained through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Then the conceptual model was empirically analyzed by covariance structure analysis and obtained in final form through model modification. Verbal complaint behavior positively influenced re-procedure compensation. In addition, non-verbal complaint behavior had positive effects on psychological and material compensation. Hair salon patronage was positively affected by re-procedure and psychological compensation. However, private complaint behavior had a negative effect on hair salon patronage. The direct and indirect effects of the paths among variables were verified by analyzing the mediating effects of different forms of compensations. It is possible to establish differentiated marketing strategies with these findings for consumers with complaint behaviors by considering the forms of compensation.

The world is becoming overwhelmed with widespread diseases as antibiotic resistance increases at an alarming rate. Hence, there is a demanding need for the discovery and development of new antimicrobial drugs. The ocean is gifted with many organisms like phytoplankton, algae, sponges, cnidarians, bryozoans, mollusk, tunicates and echinoderms, which are known to produce a wide variety of bioactive secondary metabolites with pharmacological properties. Many new therapeutic drugs have emerged from marine invertebrates, although the large algal community is yet to be explored. The bioactivity possessing secondary metabolites of marine algae include polyphenols, phlorotannins, alkaloids, halogenated compounds, sulfated polysaccharides, agar, carrageenan, proteoglycans, alginate, laminaran, rhamnan sulfate, galactosylglycerol, and fucoidan. These metabolites have been found to have great antimicrobial activities against many human aliments. Studies show that the algal community represents about 9% of biomedical compounds obtained from the sea. This review looks at the evolution of drugs from the ocean, with a special emphasis on the antimicrobial activities of marine algae.