Ji-Hern Kim

South Korean universities have been facing student shortages to sustain their growth due to its severe population decline. The Korean government has since introduced policies to attract more international students to the country. The present study examined the prestige-seeking tendencies of international students in Korea and their influence on students’ satisfaction levels. The five dimensions of prestige-seeking behavior were adopted to help explain students’ satisfaction levels. Research samples were current and former international students in Korea. The findings reveal the quality of the education did not contribute directly to the students’ overall satisfaction level. Instead, it was hedonic elements that affected satisfaction. Moreover, status, snob, and bandwagon effects contributed significantly to the quality and hedonic motives.

The purpose of this study is to provide a way of pursuing a balanced profitability between franchisors and franchisees leading to the sustainability in franchising. Based on a belief that the formation of brand-centric relationship is vital for the success of franchising system, we constructed a model that examines the relationships between marketing decisions, brand equity, and the financial performances of franchisors and franchisees. We used actual data of the Korean franchise chains, including measures of channel intensity and advertising and promotional activities as franchise marketing decisions as well as the profitability of franchisors and franchisees for the analysis. The results of analysis show that while advertising and promotion expenditure has a positive impact on the performances of both franchisors and franchisees, the number of stores does not influence them in the same way. This indicates that their interests may conflict. This study suggests that marketing decisions can be utilized as a means of achieving balanced profitability that would benefit the sustainability in franchising between franchisors and franchisees.

This research conducts an experiment with 413 samples to show that four self-congruity dimensions have positive effects on the evaluation of newspaper brands as inconspicuous products. Unlike past research on self-congruity with conspicuous products, this research uses an inconspicuous product as an experimental stimulus. Then it reveals that nonsocial-type self-congruity dimensions (i.e., actual and ideal self-congruity) have an impact on brand evaluation as much as social-type self-congruity dimensions (i.e., social and ideal social self-congruity) even when interdependent self-construal is dominant. Furthermore, the relative importance of nonsocial-type self-congruity dimensions (vs. social- type self-congruity dimensions) is more clearly revealed when the response mode of brand evaluation is brand attitude than purchase intention.

In this study we examined the effects of promoted product and shopping motivation on consumers’ choice between utilitarian and hedonic non-monetary promotions using two experiments, and compared the two perspectives (i.e. benefit congruency versus justification) in terms of the power of explanation regarding the results. The two perspectives were found to be complementary rather than contrasting. Consistent with justification-based theory, relative preference for a utilitarian promotion increased when the promoted product was hedonic (as opposed to utilitarian), showing that the utilitarian promotion mitigates guilt and thus simplifies justification of choice. Shopping motivation moderated the effect of the promoted product on promotion choice, supporting the benefit congruency framework. Specifically, the relative preference for a hedonic promotion in utilitarian consumption decreased when the shopping motivation was utilitarian (as opposed to hedonic).

This research conducts an extensive review study on the extant research on self‐congruity, and presents some recommendations and propositions for future research. It describes the differences between two constructs (i.e., self‐congruity and brand personality) regarding the symbolic benefits of a brand. It also suggests an integrative model to encompass important cognitive and motivational factors to moderate the relationship between self‐congruity and brand evaluation. Although there should be meaningful moderators of self‐congruity effects that are not addressed in the model, this research can be a starting point for future research in order to develop a better research model for analyzing self‐congruity effects.