This study examined the causal relations among brand personality, brand identification, and brand equity of Korean SPA brands that target Chinese consumers. Data were collected from 600 Chinese consumers residing in Beijing and Shanghai from August 15th to August 30th of 2015 by using convenience sampling; 561 of the questionnaires were used in the statistical analyses. Structural equation models were employed using AMOS 22.0. The results were as follows. First, the factors of Korean SPA brand personality, such as sophistication, competence, tenacity, and interest, exerted significant influences on the brand identification, while honesty had no significant influence on brand identification. Second, brand identification had significant influence on brand awareness, brand image, and brand loyalty. Third, brand awareness showed significant influence on brand image and brand loyalty. Fourth, brand image had significant influence on brand loyalty. These results indicated that brand equity can be strengthened by enhancing brand identification with the proper brand personality. This demonstrates that if Chinese consumers can associate Korean SPA brands with a sophisticated, attractive image, brand identification may be improved and brand equity may be strengthened in the long run, providing basic data for establishing efficient marketing strategies for Korean SPA brands in the Chinese market.

This study aimed to investigate the influence of consumers' innovativeness, perceived benefits of home shopping mobile apps, and satisfaction with telephone orders on switching to and satisfaction with such apps (for those who have used these apps). This study also investigated the influence of the aforementioned factors on the intention to switch to home shopping mobile apps (for those who have not used these apps). Data were collected from 546 customers ranging in age from 18 to 59 with experience purchasing fashion goods from home shopping networks, and 502 of the questionnaires were used in the statistical analyses. Structure equation models were employed using AMOS 23.0. The results were as follows: for consumers experienced with home shopping mobile apps, their innovativeness and perceived benefits of such apps (convenience, usefulness) influenced their switching behavior. Additionally, consumers' innovativeness and perceived benefits of these apps (usefulness, accessibility, interactiveness) affected their satisfaction with the apps. For those not experienced with home shopping mobile apps, consumers' innovativeness and perceived benefits of the apps (interactiveness, security, enjoyment) influenced their intention to switch to these apps. These results indicate that different strategies should be developed for home shopping consumers experienced and inexperienced with these apps for the improvement of app satisfaction.

The English dative alternation, which involves an alternation between the double object construction (DC) and the adpositional construction (AC), has been known to be one of the most problematic areas for L2 learners. This paper investigates the factors influencing the Korean English as a foreign language learners’ choices between the two constructions. The Korean section of the TOEFL11 corpus was used and sentences with dative constructions were extracted from the corpus. Nine factors were then encoded and analyzed with a generalized linear mixed-effect model. From the analysis, the following facts were observed: (1) Korean EFL learners’ choice between the DC and the AC was influenced by five factors: animacy of theme, definiteness of theme, pronominality of recipient, length difference between theme and recipient, and individual verbs; (2) despite some similarities in choice of alternation between Korean EFL learners and ENL speakers, the two groups also exhibited differences, and (3) these differences originated from the different effects of these factors.

Concern about water quality and pollution was heightened as contaminants flowed into the Namhan River downstream of the Chungju Dam. Thus, this study calculated the Real-Time Water Quality Index (RTWQI) using monthly average water quality monitoring data for major tributaries that require water quality control, which were obtained between 2010 and 2019. To review the applicability of the RTWQI for water quality assessment in the major tributaries of the Namhan River, it was compared with the living environment standard river. The calculated RTWQI result indicated that Bokhacheon, with 59 points, was in the “fair” grade, and this stream was identified as a tributary that preferentially requires water quality improvement as it showed a decreasing (-) tendency of RTWQI. A comparison between RTWQI and the living environment standard of T-P showed that the categories of “completely coincident” and “different by one grade” accounted for 45% of the total, and the water quality of major tributaries was assessed as low. Therefore, the RTWQI, which applies comprehensive water quality parameters and has higher reliability than assessing a single water quality parameter, was determined to be efficient for water quality assessment of the major tributaries of the Namhan River.