Statistics Korea data shows that the cumulative number of Chinese people residing in Korea keeps increasing each year, and together with Chinese newcomers, they are expected to have a significant influence on the Korean economy. Along with the expansi...
Statistics Korea data shows that the cumulative number of Chinese people residing in Korea keeps increasing each year, and together with Chinese newcomers, they are expected to have a significant influence on the Korean economy. Along with the expansion of the Korean wave, many conglomerates have already established Chinese-oriented marketing strategies for their sales increases, and are also launching a variety of services and goods targeting Chinese people in all industrial fields(KOCHI, 2012). Therefore, the number of studies on the importance of cross-cultural communication is continuously increasing.
To foreign people residing in Korea, Korean culture is the unfamiliar culture which comes as a new living environment(Hyunjoo Kim et al., 1997), so it is common for foreign people to undergo an adaptation period and to suffer from language barriers in the beginning (Soobeom Lee, 2009). Therefore, to find out proper solutions for a variety of problems caused by multiple culture and globalization-induced social changes, it is necessary to understand and take an interest in the cultural differences of foreign people residing in Korea.
Normally, customers are significantly influenced by demographic variables and cultural factors in purchasing goods and services, and customers' cultural attributes can be considered as one of the largest influential factors, which is also considered as a social attribute that has an extensive influence on customer behavior (Solomon, 2009). Therefore, to fully understand Chinese customers, it is necessary to analyze the consumption tendencies of Chinese customers through their consumption culture, their senses of value, and the lifestyles of Chinese markets. In China, economic advancement and change in the consumption environment lead to a unique consumption value and a consumption culture unique to Chinese society, which consist of a mixture of both a traditional and a new sense of value (Jooyang, 2011). As such, the cultural values of consumption are changing in China, and the infusion of change is very meaningful to Korea's economy.
Recent globalization and multicultural trends generate a variety of customers including Chinese people in the beauty industry, and a number of studies on the newly generated customers are being conducted. However, it is not easy to collect research data regarding customer behaviors in hair salon services which investigate cultural dimensions.
This study analyzes the behaviors of Korean and Chinese customers in hair salons and provides basic data for the establishment of strategies for beauty services in domestic hair salons which are required to prepare for the continuous increase of Chinese customers in domestic hair salons. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to compare and analyze the cultural differences between Korea and China and to extract factors affecting the customer satisfaction indexes of services in hair salons by Korean and Chinese people, thereby estimating the middle and long-term trend of hair salon customer behaviors. As a result, cultural access to the behaviors of Chinese customers in hair salons is essential to the comparative study between Korean and Chinese people, which leads to a difficulty of a proper counteraction in beauty services in accordance with long-term prospects.
Therefore, this study aims to understand the cultural attributes of hair salon customers by applying Hofstede's cultural dimensions (e.g. power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation) and customer orientation to Korean and Chinese people who visit Korean hair salons, and to estimate and verify the cause-and-effect relationship and interrelation between usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index.
Research data was collected by distributing structured questionnaires to 718 Korean and Chinese customers of hair salons in Seoul, Gyeonggi-province and Chungcheong province from June 2 through July 28, 2013, and the collected data from a total of 715 questionnaires (3 questionnaires were not properly replied) were analyzed using SPSS 19.0
In order to verify the reliability of the measurement tool, Cronbach's Alpha value was computed, and factors were analyzed to ensure the validity of the measurement tool.
A regression analysis was carried out to verify the influence of each cultural dimension, the usage status, and factors affecting customer choice of hair salons on customer satisfaction index, and a T-test and one-way ANOVA were carried out to understand the demographic attribute-dependent differences in cultural dimensions, usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index. A Duncan test was carried out as a post-hoc test for meaningful distribution analyses.
The revised and polished power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation items of the cultural dimensions by Hofstede (1980, 1988 and 1991) were used as the cultural dimension items, and a customer orientation item was also used to measure the value of customer orientation from the viewpoint of customers. Factors affecting customer choice of hair salons, internal factors affecting customer choice that may have a direct or indirect influence on customers' emotion and external factors affecting customer choice that may have an influence on economic aspect were extracted.
All low-level dimensions of cross-nation cultural dimensions earned an average of three points or higher out of five, and Chinese people gave higher points in all meaningful dimensions. Particularly, Chinese people gave higher points, at an average of four points, in the customer orientation item. This is considered to show Chinese people's dissatisfaction and expectation of beauty services offered in Korean hair salons.
As such, even though Korean and Chinese people exhibit some differences in terms of cultural dimensions, those differences are not significant. This shows that Chinese people residing in Korean have similar cultural dimensions to Korean people, and it can be expected that many aspects of demographic analyses have a meaningful influence on the usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index of hair salons. This is considered to result from the rapid understanding and acceptance of Korean culture by Chinese people or the ambiguity of the cultural dimensions caused by the rapidly changing globalization of modern society.
Regarding demographic attribute-dependent usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index, meaningful results were given by highly educated (graduate school or higher) unmarried women. This shows the following facts: women visit hair salons more often and put more effort into choosing hair salons, and highly educated people have a higher interest in hair management and consider a larger number of factors in choosing hair salons which makes them highly satisfied with the hair salons they select. Unmarried people gave higher scores in terms of the factors affecting customer choice item and in the cultural dimension item. This is considered to be because unmarried people are more individualistic and highly resistant to uncertain information.
Chinese people who can obtain advice from their friends and who have lived in Korea for one to less than three years produced meaningful results when the usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index are related with communication. This indicates that Chinese people who are not fluent in Korean and who have lived in Korea for a short period of time can easily obtain advice from their acquaintances, and thus continuous marketing advertising toward Korean people is also very helpful in marketing strategies toward Chinese people.
The above-described results show that Chinese people residing in Korea have similar tendencies to Korean people in terms of cultural dimensions, and the fact that other demographic attribute-dependent variables produced many meaningful results, stresses the importance of demographic attribute-dependent marketing strategies. However, since higher points are given in the individualism item and the customer orientation item, more attention and careful consideration should be given to Chinese customers, which will lead to an improvement in the customer satisfaction index. In addition, since the usage status and the factors affecting customer choice have an influence on the customer satisfaction index as medium factors, it is very important to understand the tendencies in terms of the usage status and the factors affecting customer choice, and to establish appropriate marketing strategies.
In summary, this study confirms that the provision of careful consideration and services to diversifying customers as well as advertising is required in hair salon marketing strategies, and distinctive marketing strategies need to be established.
As described above, this study on the cultural dimension-dependent differences between Korean and Chinese people in the usage status, factors affecting customer choice, and customer satisfaction index of Korean hair salons can be used as useful basic data for global studies on beauty services in hair salons. However, this study collected data from a limited range of respondents in terms of age and area, and thus additional studies are required to overcome this limitation. Also, studies on foreign people with other nationalities are also considered as valuable subsequent studies.
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